Paul Levitz

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.

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.

The exhibit’s up until February 21st.

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…