So I acquired another issue for my Comic Reader collection, this one being #69 from 1968. I believe this gives me a complete run from this number all the way to the final issue, 1984’s #219, but I need to double check my collection. You can click on that picture above and get a larger image if you want to read the front page. Anyhoo, I gots it now. Here’s a John Romita head sketch of Daredevil from within:
I’m also in the process of reading this book:
…a collection of Peter David’s various anecdotes about his life and career, several of which I’ve heard before (like how he got the assignment to write Incredible Hulk) and some I hadn’t (like his involvement with two Will Smith movies, one of which never got made, and the other probably shouldn’t have been made). It was published in 2020, so it’s very much among his latter works, and in some cases it pulls no punches about some of the people he’s worked with. In other cases, specifically with a couple of family (or former family) members, he’s intentionally vague about on negative details. I mean, I know the negative details about one of those people, he’s not been shy writing about it in the past, but it feels weird to just imply “bad things happened” then not talk about them. I get it, it’s family stuff, just felt weird to leave it out.
Another odd quirk I noted is when he talks about getting that job to write a Phantom mini for DC. He mentions that he got to meet the Phantom’s creator, Lee Falk, but he’s only referred to as “Falk” and never identified as the creator of the character. You can kind of infer that he was important to the Phantom character by some of the things David writes, but I think there may have been a line or two edited out that left out any explicit identification.
But I’m only about halfway through the book, and I see by the index that the Phantom comes up again later, so maybe I’ll see some clarification then. But so far, it’s been an interesting “behind the scenes” of what was happening in comics in the 1980s/1990s. And, you know, other media. Like Will Smith movies. And yes, the book lives up to its title…Mr. David gets to said ass-grabbing right away.
There was a line in the book talking about comics distribution that alas I can’t track down now, but he’d written something along the lines of “I hope Diamond Comics doesn’t suffer financial failure and then got purchased by Disney.” I don’t know how much attention he was paying to the comics business and Diamond’s collapse when it happened, so close to the end of his life, but I wonder if he thought “did I predict the future? Will Disney buy Diamond?”
That’s a great John Romita Sr. Sketch of Daredevil’s head!
Re: Lee Falk and The Phantom, it seems a pity that Peter David didn’t go into more detail. Without Lee Falk and The Phantom it is unlikely that Batman would have been created–or we would have a vastly different Batman. Falk set the stage for brooding costumed avengers living in creepy caves and fighting crime in their domains.
In 1994, I was at I-Con on Long Island, every year there was a Star Trek media guest. The after hours party was at a hotel, me and a writer buddy got lost, same George and figured, OK, he would know. He had this gigantic cookie. A few minutes in, my friend and I knew we had screwed up, and turning one last corner, George was right there by his hotel room. We explained our dilemma, he invited us into his room, we exchanged stories about other cons, he wanted to share the cookie, then we went to a pretty damn boring party. Still a great memory. That cookie must have cost $5.00 in 1994 dollars.
Since we’re sharing anecdotes, my uncle had a bit part in the 90s Phantom movie. The day they shot his scene, the elderly Falk was there too, watching the proceedings.
“Here’s lookin’ at you!” That has to be a joke, right?
Anyway, I met Peter David at a con. I met Billy Zane at a different con. Uhhh… they were nice? Sorry, nothing anecdote-worthy happened… Billy Sane spoke very positively about the Phantom, and I wish the film had been more successful just so he could have done more of them. I’ve never seen it, though, so I guess that makes me part of the problem.
Well, you know what I wanna know. Does David go into any part of the history of Soulsearchers and Company, given nobody here was able to dig up much about it?
One of my favorite comic book covers is the one where David basically chews out the public for not buying his book, and I’ve since discovered that surly attitude is all over the thing. I’m in Issue 10 right now and there is a panel where, after someone tells a story, another character responds “If that were any stupider, it’d be the plot of a best-selling comic book!” PAD did not hold back.
“two Will Smith movies, one of which never got made, and the other probably shouldn’t have been made).”
Well,that second part doesn’t narrow it down in the LEAST.
“Lee Falk, but he’s only referred to as “Falk” and never identified as the creator of the character.”
I’d like to read a book about PETER Falk. I LOVE COLUMBO!
@Oliver and the rest. Anecdotes can be fun. Sometimes writers and celebrities were at tables haphazardly. I was sitting next to Walter Koenig and thought it was Davey Jones because he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Dumb thing, but at the time a few people agreed with my confusion. It was here in Chicago, not LA.
But you also get to see who is decent to their fans and, yes, some have places to be, but that happens. Meeting Falk must have been cool. I was on a panel in East St. Louis with Frank Gorshin, we both didn’t know why, and the other three panelists never showed up. Frank sure worked that crowd of students, though. And he’d punch me on the shoulder. “Am I right, kid?” I was forty.
I might have asked this before, but does anyone else remember a column Don Rosa ran in the last year or so of The Comic Reader called Comic Book Hall of Fame? He was soliciting nominations from the readership, I recall such notables as Fred Hembeck & Don Thompson contributing lists. I used those nominations as a buy list for years. Would love to see a final tally of the comics people wtote in about, it would be a fascinating snapshot of a moment in fandom.
“Walter Koenig and thought it was Davey Jones”
“Hey, Hey, we’re NOT the Monkees!”