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| Item found in a long gone used bookstore |
I preordered a copy of the signed, limited edition of Kirby’s sketchbook. So, Kirby signed all the copies of the small press run, and Greg Theakston mailed them out. I never got to meet Kirby in person. I wish I did, but I wasn’t much of a convention goer in those days.
Once I started going to conventions though whenever I bought something at a writer’s or artist’s or editor’s table, I was glad to have them sign a copy for me.
Last fall, along with my youngest son Isaac, I went to a comic book convention for the first time in at least ten years. It was the Rhode Island Comic Con. Oh, I had been going to other smaller, more intimate conventions throughout that time. Since NecronomiCon was revived in 2013, I’ve been to each one. (They’re held every two years.) Since, NecronomiCons take place in Providence these days, the Rhode Island Comic Con took place in familiar environs for me. Well, mostly. NecronomiCons usually center around the Biltmore and the hotel attached to the convention center with other events nearby in the city. I think one year, a room or two in the convention center was used for dealer’s rooms. It never spread out all through the convention center. I got lost in there, and needed Sue Soares help to find where I was going. I missed the 2017 SerlingFest held in Binghamton, NY, Rod Serling’s hometown, but after I discovered them, I went to both the 2018 and 2019 events. They bring back memories of going to Binghamton for The Twilight Zone’s 50th Anniversary in 2009. Plus, on occasion, I’ve passed through Binghamton on trips to and from Utah. There may be some comics at those conventions, but the focus of one is H.P. Lovecraft and weird fiction in general. The other focuses on Rod Serling, one of the best TV screenwriters of all time, who today is best remembered for The Twilight Zone.
Still, it’d been at least ten years since I last went to a comic book convention. Things such as The New York Comic Cons of 2010 and earlier were already massive events compared to what I’ve been going to and enjoying this past decade. Already, the comics themselves had taken a backseat to the movie and TV adaptations. Well, trends had continued in my absence. Comic book conventions seemed to have gotten even bigger. The Rhode Island Comic Con, dwarfed NecronomiCon. And the autograph situation appeared to have changed. The writers and artists still had their tables and signed things you bought at them, or in many cases things they’d worked on that you brought from home or bought elsewhere at the convention. Actors and other celebrities though were in a special, screened off section. It looked like you had to make a reservation to meet each specific person and get something signed by them or even just to take a picture with them. I thought back to years earlier when you could walk around a New York Comic Con or Big Apple Con and see someone like Robert Culp or Cliff Robertson at a table just like the writers and artists. I remember James Doohan, Mr. Scott from Star Trek just standing near a doorway and later out in the hall at one convention. Anyone could have approached him. I stood within a few feet of him, but was too shy to anything other than, “hi.” It’s been a long time, but I think I remember him taking the time to pose for pictures with fans who asked. Anyway, so now there was this considerable and highly organized portion of the convention devoted to paying for autographs and paying to take pictures even when using your own phone or camera. I’d heard about sports figures doing this for years, and maybe it happened at comics conventions in the old days, and I just didn’t notice because it was more informal and less something organized by the convention itself. I just wasn’t interested in going to meet the actors, I was interested in writers and artists and editors. Anyway, there’s nothing wrong with it. I’m not complaining at all. It’s just that it’s quite a contrast to the time someone I greatly admire signed a book for me. He was a writer, a great one if you ask me. He was mainly known for writing and editing comic books, but the book he signed for me wasn’t a comic or even a book about comics. I didn’t buy the book from him, I found it second hand in a used bookstore. I didn’t meet him at a convention. It was in a classroom at NYU. He didn’t charge me for the autograph. In fact, I didn’t even ask for an autograph. It came as an unexpected surprise.
I’ve been reading comics since I was at least six-years-old. There was a Rocky and Bullwinkle comic that kicked around the house for years that I may have first read or at least looked through when I was even younger. I don’t know where that Rocky and Bullwinkle comic is now or what the cover date was, but the first superhero comics my parents bought for me were on the newstands and in the spinner racks when I was six. I’ve been obsessed with comics ever since.
Although there was an era during which credits identifying writers, artists, letterers, and colorists rarely appeared (I’m pretty sure editors usually got listed somewhere in the books), that era was over when I started reading in the mid/late 1970s. By then, the credits usually appeared on the splash page of each story. At first, I didn’t notice the credits. Then after a while I did. I noticed the prominent “Stan Lee Presents” starburst in all the Marvel Comics of the era even though Stan had stopped writing and editing comics several years earlier. I started noticing names like Roy Thomas, John Buscema, and realized that the same names appeared over and over again on some of my favorite stories. Inside Marvel’s comics there was a text page each month called Bullpen Bulletins with a section called Stan’s Soapbox. Anyhow, the Bulletins page not only promoted Marvel’s comics, it also mentioned some of the people who worked for Marvel, bringing them alive and stirring up an interest in these people behind the comics I loved.
This interest in, this noticing of the credits led to my “rediscovery” of Jack Kirby on Christmas Eve 1986 when my Uncle Ray Reyome gave me a batch of old 1970s comics. It wasn’t meant as a Christmas present. He and my Aunt Sandy had actually gotten me something else for Christmans, but Uncle Ray knew I loved comics and he thought he might as well bring these along for me. Even though they may not have been meant as a Christmas present, I consider that batch of comics one of my favorite Christmas presents ever. Among them was an issue of The Eternals. I was blown away. It was edited, written, and drawn by Jack Kirby. At first, I didn’t like the art style. Then it seized my imagination in an overpowering way as did the ideas behind the story, the pure imagination of it all. I fell in love with art. Then the art style started to seem familiar. Where had I seen it before? I went through my earliest comics, some of which I’d read to rags, and realized that some of my favorite early comics had also been edited, written, and drawn by Jack Kirby. There was Captain America #213 and Devil Dinosaur #3. There were also a few issues of Marvel’s Greatest Comics reprinting stories from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four run. The credits simply listed Lee and Kirby without saying who wrote and who drew. I later learned that Kirby co-plotted and some might argue, co-wrote those stories.
Starting when I was seven or eight, one of my favorite comics was Conan the Barbarian. When King Conan came out, I discovered it with the second issue and started watching for that one too. Still, from time to time, I saw in house ads for something called The Savage Sword of Conan. I never saw it in the spinner racks. Then in the spring of 1982, just before I turned twelve, I spotted it in the magazine racks of a convenience store. It was a magazine sized black and white comic. It was also around that time that I got interested in lifting weights and started buying magazines related to my lifting hobby. I stopped caring about pro wrestling years ago, while I was still a teenager, but this was also the time when I got interested in wrestling for a few years. I started buying wrestling magazines. So, in addition to the comic book spinner racks, I kept an eye on the magazine racks too. So, I noticed a magazine called Comics Scene one day. I bought, and without realizing it at first, discovered that not only did I love reading comics, I loved reading about comics.
Also, around the time I was twelve or thirteen. My mother brought home news that there was now a comic book store called Moondance Comics in the Holyoke Mall. One big appeal were the back issue bins which allowed me to see and read old stories I’d seen referred to, but couldn’t get myself. It allowed me to get long runs of comics featuring my favorite characters or issues that I’d missed years before. There were also independent comics and even direct market only comics from the major publishers, DC and Marvel. I think this was around the time that Charlton stopped publishing. I don’t remember ever seeing any new Charlton titles in Moondance Comics. Anyway, these independent and direct market comics weren’t available in the convenience stores where I’d previously bought most of my comics.
There were also some things about comics. There was Marvel Age, an in house, promotional title edited by Jim Salicrup. It promoted current and upcoming projects, but also delved into Marvel’s history with a very pro-Marvel spin, of course. Yes, about my rediscovery of Jack Kirby, his name should have been familiar from those articles too, and I think it was, unfortunately, I mainly focused on mentions of Stan Lee and discussions of the story, thinking only of Kirby as an artist, and even then, not really absorbing the full impact of his art. Never fear, that fateful Christmas and my reading of that old Eternals comic was only a few years away.
There was more than just Marvel Age though. There were fanzines or even prozines about comics from small press, independent publishers, often not beholden to any single company’s line. These too didn’t solely focus on current comics. They often delved into the medium’s history discussing stories and characters of the past and the careers of significant creators.
One name I saw in the credits and also in accounts of comics history was Dennis O’Neil a.k.a. Denny O’Neil. He was writing Daredevil when I started buying that series. When I started buying comics as a kid with allowance and newspaper route money (and before that when my parents bought them for me) I got comics from many different publishers, but usually Marvel, DC, and Charlton. Then from some point in 1982-early 1984, I gave up on all comics except Robert E. Howard related ones - so pretty much the Conan, Kull, and Red Sonja comics available at the time. In the spring of 1984, I noticed an issue of Secret Wars. I bought it and was soon back into Marvel’s superheroes again. I became a Marvel zombie refusing to read anything by DC with the exception of Superman #400. I snapped out of it in 1987. Marvel was starting to seem a little stale, and then that batch of comics thing happened again! I bought a batch of comics from Kari and Kimberly Bryant’s brother Mike. Yes, yet another intoxicating Kirby comic swept me away in waves of imaginative power. The thing is, the comic was called Kamandi, and it was published by DC! What! This was awesome. Soon I was buying every issue of Kamandi I could find in the comic book store’s back issue bins. They were pretty cheap as far as back issues go at $1.00 and issue at a time when new comics were generally 75 cents if I remember correctly. There were in house ads for other cool 1970s DC comics, many by Kirby. I, of course began looking for these other DC Kirby projects in the back issue bins. Meanwhile, the in house ads for other cool looking 70s DC comics activated a powerful nostalgia for my DC reading days. That batch of comics also had some independent comics, and a few more DC’s including the first two issues of a series featuring the old pulp and radio character, The Shadow. These were scripted by Denny O’Neil, and I liked them a lot too.
DC nostalgia activated, I moved on from my Marvel Zombie days. I started buying new DC and independent comics too, and just in time if not a little late. The Watchmen was just wrapping up as was Batman:Year Two. Yes, I missed Year One when it was first published, but it’s okay, I got a collected edition. Following Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC seemed to be bubbling with innovation as they revamped many long time characters. The rich history of the characters (as it was redone in a new, streamlined way to fit with a consistent continuity like Marvel) had proved to be a very powerful tool when combined with the creative risks and new approaches DC encouraged at the time. DC remained behind in sales, but for a brief time in the late 80s into the early 90s, if you ask me, they were ahead of Marvel in quality. (And not just because they owned the old Quality Comics characters.)
By this time, Dennis O’Neil had left Marvel and gone back to DC. So, I encountered his name in the credits again as the editor now of DC’s Batman titles. He also wrote a revival of Steve Ditko’s character The Question which DC had acquired from Charlton. Ditko, the co-creator of Spider-man, had become a follower of Ayn Rand, and used The Question as a vehicle to espouse his understanding of Rand’s Objectivism. O’Neil however had much different sensibilities and took his version of The Question in a much different direction.
I learned through in house hype, fanzines, and reprints that O’Neil was the writer who in the early 70s returned Batman to his grim, dark roots after years of fun, but silly stories. (O’Neil’s first issue of Detective Comics is cover dated 1970, but was actually on the stands in late November, 1969.)
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| Classic Denny O'Neil Batman and an Arnold Drake Phantom Stranger/Deadman crossover, side by side, |
In this atmosphere, Denny O’Neil came aboard as a new Batman writer and revamped the character, bringing Batman back to his darker, more serious roots. Thus, we have the Batman we know in today’s comics and movies and cartoons rather than the comedic version familiar to many from the 1966 TV series. Frank Miller’s critically acclaimed 1980s projects The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One, only served to push Batman even further in this direction.
Although O’Neil revolutionized the character and made changes lasting to today, his run not only failed to revive sales, it failed to stem their decline as they continued to plummet. However, the industry as a whole entered a rough stretch in the 1970s with many thoughtful, creative comics by other creators sputtering saleswise and being cancelled. Nonetheless, many of the comics published during this era of struggling sales and commercial uncertainty remain influential to this day, among them O’Neil’s stories which revived a darker, grimmer Batman.
O’Neil also took two other classic DC characters to new creative heights with his socially relevant Green Lantern and Green Arrow stories. These stories were critically acclaimed and award winning. They also include one of the most iconic sequences in comics history. It was drawn by Neal Adams and appeared in the story “No Evil Shall Escape My Sight” from Green Lantern #76 (April 1970). In a great deal of American mass media before that time, African Americans had either been portrayed as degrading stereotypes or ignored altogether, effectively rendered invisible. These two tendencies effectively served as propaganda to make Whites view Blacks as inferior and to accept legal and social norms which treated African-Americans as second class citizens or worse. Even today, we still see the effects of the unconscious bias promoted and reinforced by these portrayals, these attempts to treat Blacks as if they didn’t matter. These portrayals also seemed like attempts to demoralize Blacks and other nonWhites to discourage them from fighting for their own rights.
In the film industry, there had at least been a branch of cinema directed at Black audiences, but for decades, mainstream movies had largely fluctuated between either degrading stereotypes or not showing any Black characters at all. Comics followed the same route. I can hardly claim to have read every single DC story of the 1960s/late 50s, but I’ve read a number. My impression is that in this time period at least through the late 60s, DC opted for the route of usually pretending African-Americans didn’t exist.
This situation began to change in movies and on TV as the Civil Rights movement picked up steam in the
In that story, published fifty years ago, Denny O’Neil touched on a problem that still haunts us today - the treatment of Blacks as if they are less important, as if Black lives matter less than White Lives - or in the case of The Green Lantern to that point - than Orange or Blue lives.
Although the old pattern of either portraying African-Americans in degrading, dehumanizing ways, or ignoring them altogether no longer dominates the media, the bias, sometimes overt and sometimes unconscious, persists.
So, yes, by the mid to late 1980s, I recognized Denny O’Neil’s name,
Comic books aren’t the only thing I read. I read regular books too, nonfiction and fiction of various subjects and genres. In the late 80s-the early 2000s, I often haunted used bookstores hoping to find out of print Robert E. Howard books in particular. Yes, I have some very deep disagreements with Howard, but there are other aspects of his work I love.
It might have been the late 1980s or the early 1990s, but there once was a used book store on Elm Street here in Westfield, not far from the corner with Franklin Street. This is not to be confused with the Annie’s Book Stop that used to be in the complex of shopping centers on Route 20 or my own bookstore on Main Street in the mid to late 90s or even the current day Blue Umbrella Books, also on Main Street.
I was browsing through the SF/Fantasy section of that Elm Street store when a few copies of a book caught my eye. It was written by a certain Dennis O’Neil. Hmmm … I wondered if it was the same Dennis O’Neil who wrote and edited comics. For some reason, I bought two copies of the book. Were there more? I don’t remember now.
One hobby I’ve long been passionate about is writing. I’ve even been paid for a few things I wrote. I’m kind of proud that the first person who ever paid me for writing something was Roy Thomas, one of my favorite writers. Thomas paid me for an article about Julius Schwartz and H.P. Lovecraft that I submitted to Roy’s fanzine Alter Ego, which was founded by Jerry Bails and which Roy later took over. But, I’m not a pro. It’s still a hobby. I’m not persistent enough at submitting what I write. At least, that’s what I tell myself. Robert E. Howard inspired me to write. I couldn’t get enough of his stories. I read and reread everything I could find by him over and over. I tried to write my own Howardian fiction, and I scoured used bookstores for the out of print stuff. Here in Western Massachusetts, the shelves were often barren of his out of print stuff. I soon found myself wanting to write comics too. When I was seventeen, I submitted a story to Marvel, and several months later, I got a nice, handwritten rejection letter from Patricia Redding, an inker and an assistant editor at the time. Redding’s letter offered a lot of compliments, but advised me to concentrate more on character motivation.
So, years later, when TwoMorrow’s started publishing a magazine about comic book and animation writing, I
One problem was that the classes were in New York City on a weekday. They were night classes though. They might have run 6-9 PM or 6:30-9:30 PM. I’d have to go back and see what the exact time was. Either way, I had to take the day of each class off from work, and by the time I got home, it was early the next morning. It would have been ideal to have the day off following each class too, so I could sleep in rather than going to work sleep deprived. I didn’t have enough vacation time for that though. So, I often tried to snatch a little bit of sleep on the bus ride to Springfield, Mass. Then I drove back home to Westfield, Mass. Sometimes I got a little bit more sleep at home before getting back up to go to work. I’m someone who really loves getting his sleep. So, the lack of sleep was rough, but it was worth it. Taking Danny’s class is one of the most fondly remembered experiences of my life. I learned so much! David McNiven was there too. I’m betting he might agree with me. It was great getting detailed feedback from a professional editor. There’s more though. There was one class which may be the single best classroom experience of my life.
Danny brought in several guest speakers, including Axel Alonso, Joey Cavaleri, and Mike Mignola - the writer/artist who created Hellboy. They were all great, but the greatest of all was Denny O’Neil.
It’s not just that O’Neil was a comics legend. It’s not just that I’d been reading comics written or edited by O’Neil for years. It’s not just that I loved comics, wanted to write comic book stories, and now had one of the greatest comic book writers ever teaching me and a small group of fellow students his craft. No! There was more than that! As great as he was at writing comics, O’Neil may have been an even better teacher! Sometimes people who excel at something aren’t good at teaching it to others. Sometimes they understand things intuitively and have trouble telling others how things work. Not so, with O’Neil! He studied and thought about the craft of writing and had an incredible talent for breaking it all down and explaining it to people.
O’Neil and Danny discussed the pros and cons of Robert McKee. Even though I wasn’t interested in screenwriting, the discussion prompted me to seek out McKee’s book, Story, and I learned so much from that book, it particularly got me focusing on story beats and action/reaction.
In writing, I tend to be too wordy. Can’t you tell? Thus, I often put too many words of caption text and dialogue into the comics panels I scripted. So, I asked O’Neil if there was a way to know how many words could fit in a panel. Keep in mind O’Neil’s caveat about rules, a caveat he spelled out in his book, The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics. O’Neil cautioned people that there is “seldom one absolute, inarguable, unimpeachably right way to do anything,” and “the way that works is the right way.” So, a lot of what he advised was meant as guidelines/rules of thumb.
With writing, in strength training, and at both work and school, I’d become someone who too often took advice/rules on how to do things as absolutes, something not to be deviated from. If someone I viewed as an authority taught me not to move the bar before deadlifting, then by golly, I’d absolutely not move the bar during my deadlift set up, no matter how times I’ve seen Eddie Hall, Brian Shaw, or Hafthor Bjornsson roll the bar towards their shins. No! That was wrong even if those three guys are some of the greatest deadlifts ever. (Even as we speak - or actually as I write), Hall and Hafthor are responsible for the two heaviest standard deadlifts ever. Hemingway advocated spare prose, so Clark Ashton Smith wrote the wrong way, right? O’Neil planted a life changing seed with that saying about there seldom being one unimpeachably right way. It didn’t take root right away, but as I gained more life experience, it made it easier to accept that there were different ways to do and succeed at writing, lifting weights, learning, and work. The right way is the way that works, and different people often find different ways that work for them. Ray Bradbury can focus on using the right noun and the right verb rather than tons of adverbs. A Clark Ashton Smith can unleash a flood of adverbs and adjectives. Yes, maybe you have a better chance selling to a modern editor following Hemingway, Bradbury, or Stephen King’s lead, but Smith’s prose accomplished what he intended, and he has fans who love it.
O’Neil’s caveat made me realize that sometimes, when I learned how to do something, what I was taught could be a foundation, a general starting point, but at different times and in different situations sometimes rigidly following what I’d been taught wasn’t the best way. Of course, someone once pointed something out about Jack Kerouac breaking all kinds of writing rules. He knew the rules inside and out. Sometimes you really have to know the rules to break them in a way that actually works. Anyway, O’Neil’s saying has become something which frequently helps me in everyday life. People can teach you a way of doing something, and it can be a good starting point, but it doesn’t apply to every circumstance, every situation. Sometimes you have to improvise, innovate, adjust to the circumstances, and find the way that works. You can’t just bang your head against the wall and be defeated because “the rules” don’t work or no longer make sense.
Now back to the question I asked O’Neil. How do you know how many words you can fit into a comics panel? He gave me some advice that helped me with the few small press, independently published comic book stories of mine that made it into print. O’Neil said that in general you can fit about 210 words on a comics page. That’s standard sized lettering, of course, not giant sound effects. So, if you have all evenly sized panels, you can often divide 210 by the number of panels. For a page with a standard six panel grid, that means your limit is 35 words per panel. There are exceptions though that could mean even fewer words per panel. Now, I didn’t worry about the word limit as much in my early drafts of a script, but when I revised, the word limit was one thing I looked at, and I often found myself looking for more economical ways to write the same thing. (Yeah, I guess I’d be well served to do that with things like this post too.)
I knew in advance that Dennis O’Neil was going to be the guest speaker that night, and I just had to know. Was he the same Dennis O’Neil who wrote that old science fiction paperback The Bite of Monsters? So, I went through my disorganized and cluttered bookroom and found a copy to bring that night. After class, O’Neil stayed to talk for a bit and other classmates had brought comics and books for him to sign.
I said that I realized that maybe it was just someone with the same name, but I asked if he was the same Denny O’Neil who wrote this. Then I showed him the book.
Wow! Did he look embarrassed! O’Neil bowed his head a little and brought his arms to the side of his head. Then he looked up and said, “Where did you find that?” He repeated that question a time or two.
O’Neil gently took the book from my hands and looked it over. He said that he hadn’t seen a copy in years and thought (hoped?) they’d all disappeared and been forgotten. During class, hearing him answer questions and receive compliments, I realized that he was very humble and unpretentious when discussing his own work. He was very gracious, but also humble. Yes, he wrote The Bite of Monsters. He asked if I read it yet, and warned me that I’d probably find that it wasn’t very good. He’d written it quickly for some much needed money at the time. He continued to be amazed that I’d found a copy.
I’m not sure now. O’Neil was laughing and smiling. He may have said something to the effect that this was a lesson that the mistakes of your youth will never be forgotten. As embarrassed as he seemed to be, I wonder if he was also amused and flattered that the book was still around and someone still remembered it. Maybe it was a mixture of amusement and embarrassment. I could be wrong, but I had the impression that he no longer had his own copies of the book.
O’Neil looked down at the book again smiling. Before I knew it, he grabbed a pen and started writing on it. He gave it back to me, signed!
To this day, it’s still one of my most treasured signed books.
Sometimes you hear horror stories about people meeting celebrities. Well, I met someone I look up to and discovered that he was a thoughtful, kind, and humble person.
Many thanks to Danny Fingeroth for bringing in Dennis O’Neil as a guest speaker, and allowing me to meet and learn from one of my heroes.
