With the Eisner book entering the publishing/marketing phase (a significant time consumer, but not a major intellectual challenge for the writer), I’m starting to think seriously about my next large project. Both the Taschen DC History program and the Eisner book partially came to me, so I’ve not yet had the experience of really hawking a new book from scratch. I’ve had one YA fantasy project kicking around for a while (translation: sitting on my desktop with a handful of words attached), and there’s a popular culture book I’d like to do which would require a fair amount of research. And the only idea I’ve pushed away has been a memoir per se–it just feels too early and too final, if you know what I mean by that contradiction.
Suggestions could get posted in the comments section if anyone’s inclined. After four decades as a writer who got assignments, this much of a blank page is a lot more challenging than I’m used to.
A Moment or Two With Murphyhttps://paullevitz.com/wp-content/themes/movedo/images/empty/thumbnail.jpg150150Paul LevitzPaul Levitzhttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3441921179aff1838c01342fc1c9a68ba940f4f1a233065e2f21854c3c715b4a?s=96&d=mm&r=g
In honor of his passing, recalling a small moment that showed the length of Murphy Anderson’s career. We were walking back from lunch, and as we approached 1700 Broadway, Murphy smiled, and told me it had been on the very same site that he had gotten his first assignments from Fiction House, many decades before. Apparently that spot at 53rd and Broadway was magnetic for comic book publishers (not to mention the Beatles, Ed Sullivan, Letterman and Colbert across the street)…
Another nice memory is the last time I saw him. I’d been invited to a 40th anniversary celebration for MS. MAGAZINE, down at City Hall where they were going to receive a proclamation. I called his son, and convinced him to bring Murphy along. Got to watch Gloria Steinem giving Murphy the biggest hug in front of a giant blow-up of Murphy’s famous cover for #1. A nice capstone memory…
Murphy Anderson’s deep voice and sweet Southern charm were as smooth as his beautiful brush line. Dependably excellent at everything he did, he was one of the first people to enter comics loving the medium. Carrying his portfolio to Fiction House in the war years, graduating to a definitive Buck Rogers run in peacetime, and then moving to DC Comics.
At DC he became one of the standard-setters: creating the visuals for CAPT COMET, which some have argued was the first super-hero of the Silver Age; contributing to almost 600 covers over a 40 year span, many as penciller and inker; creating visuals for characters from the Atomic Knights to Zatanna, and virtually every letter in between; helping change the whole field by leading the charge to shift to a smaller original art size in the 60s and better color separations in the 80s; and becoming one of the handful of people who defined the DC “look” for the Silver Age of comics. His powerful Wonder Woman was the image on MS. MAGAZINE #1, making a statement that forever aligned that character with the feminist cause.
Murphy did fewer comics in his years producing PS MAGAZINE, but never lost his love of his field, his eyes twinkling when he talked about Lou Fine’s art, or recalled working with Will Eisner on the Army publication. He looked for any opportunity to be part of the comics world, and each time he was, a part of him was again a kid, biking across the hills of the Carolinas to find the comics he loved.
The family requests donations to the Heroi Initiative in lieu of flowers.
A very small book that you probably couldn’t get hold of, but should: TALES FROM A TINY ROOM by Wayne Ree. Delightful very, very short stories contemplating the peculiarities of the universe. And if the universe was created a god’s bad day, while walking in Bloomsbury Park, it might explain a lot…
WILL EISNER IS COMING…https://paullevitz.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/IMG_0179.jpg12801280Paul LevitzPaul Levitzhttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3441921179aff1838c01342fc1c9a68ba940f4f1a233065e2f21854c3c715b4a?s=96&d=mm&r=g
Part of the fun of doing a historical book is trying to make the pieces of the story fit. Take THE SPIRIT Section itself: there’s never been another original comics section circulated as a newspaper insert that succeeded for that length of time, and probably never for that level of circulation. (I know the challenges first hand, from DC’s attempt to do one.) So why did it happen at all? Finding that the first weekly newspaper supplement, THIS WEEK, debuted in 1935 made the puzzle fit a bit better. Closing my eyes, I can imagine sitting in the Register & Tribune conference room, as people were debating its success, wondering how to get a piece of that action, and in 1939 or 1940, in Superman’s wake, the answer was obvious: costumed heroes. Serendipity led them to Busy Arnold, who led them to Will. It’s a logical theory, anyway.
The book arrives November 10th at your local comic shop, bookstore, or via Amazon or other online outlets. It’s beautiful–check it out, please.
Doctor Fate #5https://paullevitz.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/DF_05.jpg608935Paul LevitzPaul Levitzhttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3441921179aff1838c01342fc1c9a68ba940f4f1a233065e2f21854c3c715b4a?s=96&d=mm&r=g
In case it’s not obvious from the work, I’m greatly enjoying doing the new DOCTOR FATE series. The collaboration with Sonny Liew is a special joy, from his innovative covers (love this month’s ode to Frank King and Chris Ware), hate that he does them completely digitally so I can’t get an original to hang on my wall. With issue #5, Khalid has grown a bit more confident and competent (though it’s still less than a week of real time since he became Fate), but it’s clearly not enough to face off against a god.
Part of the fun for me is exploring things that are genuine Brooklyn, sadly even including looting in the wake of a blackout or disaster. The good news is that hasn’t happened much in the wake of Sandy, but it’s certainly something I remember from the big blackout of my childhood, most of who’s waking hours I spent on my front porch in East Flatbush, waiting for the power to return.
Have to find a moment to get a good slice of Brooklyn pizza or a chewy Brooklyn bagel into the story!
SCHEDULES IN A BRONZE AGE…https://paullevitz.com/wp-content/themes/movedo/images/empty/thumbnail.jpg150150Paul LevitzPaul Levitzhttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3441921179aff1838c01342fc1c9a68ba940f4f1a233065e2f21854c3c715b4a?s=96&d=mm&r=g
One of my first ‘business’ tasks at DC was helping to create the annual production schedule for 1974 or 1975, after proofreader Gerta Gattel retired. Gerta was a meticulous woman, had been responsible for a variety of schedules the company used. For whatever reason (the fact that I could keep track of such things in my fanzine? spreading the work around?) then-VP Sol Harrison asked me to help.
Impossible as it is to imagine from today’s perspective, when a combination of innovation, chaos, and constantly evolving mini-series make it appear that all comic publishers’ schedules are done in chalk, in those days, it was relatively likely that the year’s schedule could be designed, printed out, and left unchanged for most of the year. Maybe one title or two would get cancelled unexpectedly, and perhaps there’d be one burst of “everything is going monthly” or some other change.
One of the main tasks of the annual schedule was to balance out the special issues, by this period “giants” that would have extra pages filled with reprints, but usually keep the typical amount of original material in the front. The overall plan was to have a specific amount each month, in a pattern which had descended from the older G-numbered 80 Page Giants. Another was to orchestrate the 8x a year titles, a frequency DC used for a couple of decades that would end soon after. These came out every six weeks, reliably, so they basically appeared in two cover date months and then skipped the third.
If you wondered why WEIRD WAR TALES had a Giant in January, 1975, it was probably at least partially my fault.
IN A MUSEUM?https://paullevitz.com/wp-content/themes/movedo/images/empty/thumbnail.jpg150150Paul LevitzPaul Levitzhttps://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3441921179aff1838c01342fc1c9a68ba940f4f1a233065e2f21854c3c715b4a?s=96&d=mm&r=g
Smiling at the sight of a couple of issues of ETCETERA & THE COMIC READER hanging on the wall of the NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY. They’ve mounted an exhibit entitled “Superheroes In Gotham” which I strongly suggest you check out. The history detailed is pretty straight-forward, but the artifacts presented are worth the trip (and I’m not talking about my ‘zines…yet).
Jerry Siegel’s old manual typewriter opens the exhibit, and sent me back into recalling his meticulously detailed lists of the Legion stories he wrote so I could get the credits right when I was doing the reprints. Then there’s a real treasure, two of Steve Ditko’s pages from AMAZING FANTASY #15. The originals are gorgeous, with detail in the line that was long lost in the miserable reproduction methods of the period. Steve’s sharply penned faces are worth the trip in themselves.
Spin around, and there’s one of H.G. Peter’s early color designs for Wonder Woman in a costume that certainly wouldn’t have become iconic, as well as one of his later covers. There’s also a SENSATION cover by Irwin Hasen from the period when it was morphing into a romance comic. Irwin lived near the Historical Society, and would have been smiling at the sight. Probably flirting with any tall pretty woman who came near it, too.
Other goodies include an original George Reeves Superman costume, a Julie Newmar Catwoman outfit, a program from the very first comic con in 1964, and more packed into a few small rooms. And the Batmobile from the ’60s show parked in the Society lobby.
Oh, and one of those ETC/TCR issues? The cover is an ad page of THE SHADOW by Bernie Wrightson that was done as his sample for the series in 1972 but never published other than on my zine. It’s worth a look.
Unsurprisingly, one of the great pleasures of my life. When I went back to my elementary school four decades later, one of the two places I could find unaided was the library. And I can still close my eyes and remember where specific shelves were in My Friend’s Bookstore, Brooklyn’s first used bookstore to carry a deep selection of back issue comics and the source of much of my collection.
Currently finishing two books: Mercedes Lackey’s latest Valdemar novel, CLOSE TO THE HEART, and Nicholas Carr’s THE SHALLOWS. Valdemar seems to me to be a very cleanly constructed medievalist fantasy, with lots of familiar tropes but an interesting progressive ‘reveal’ of the nature of the Companions. This isn’t one of the strongest in the series, without a lot of emotional progress or new dimensions to the fantasy elements. Start earlier on, if you’re inclined to taste.
THE SHALLOWS explores the changes in our brains caused by our use of the new technologies, and it’s very much the brain rather than the ‘mind’ that’s the focus. Carr identifies a number of studies showing how quickly we get ‘rewired’ neuron by neuron in connecting online or to video games, and the shifts in our reading patterns and attention span. There’s also a short, thoughtful chapter on the Flynn Effect, which is the rise in IQs, arguing that humanity isn’t really getting smarter, just more adapted to using certain types of abstract thinking. Thinking about adding it as another text in my “Transmedia & The Future of Publishing” course, and at the very least will be drawing from it for my discussions.
Of course, few books deliver the pleasure I used to get from a good Hugh Lofting Doctor Dolittle tale. Sigh…
