Old Photos of the Week #4

  More photos from around the dinner tables at the DC Comics company retreat at Great Gorge, NJ.

  From the left, Tom Pattison, a longtime veteran of DC's accounting department; editor Alan Gold, who was another of the people brought in from the "real world of publishing" and was the first editor of 'Mazing Man; Mark Alexander, one of the members of our production department; the Marketing department's Robyn McBryde; Barry Marx, who was a member of Joe Orlando's Special Projects department; and editor / writer Len Wein.

  Bruce Bristow was the head of the Marketing department; he and I shared a love of Bojangle's fried chicken (especially their hot sauce) and often lunched at the Bo's just a couple of blocks from the office. Nick Cuti, perhaps best known as the co-creator of E-Man, served as editor for a variety of titles, including the digest-sized reprints series.

DC Comics Production Department - 1986

(standing l-r) John Holiwski, Steve Bove, Muffy Greenough, Bob LeRose, Shelley Eiber, Al Aiola, Helen Vesik, Julia Schick, Albert DeGuzman, Kathy Petruccio, Helen Ramirez, Todd Klein

   Back in the mid-'80s, DC Releases was a newsletter published for staff and freelancers containing news and information about what was happening in the company. When the spotlight fell on the Production Department, I was asked to write about my staff and said article was accompanied by the art above, drawn by artist Ray Alma.
  We had some turnover between the time Ray did the art and I wrote the article. As you'll notice, there are people mentioned in the article below who are not in the picture above, and vice versa.
   The art was done in black and white. The version above was hand-colored by ace production man Bob LeRose and given to me as a gift. And speaking of coloring, that's what I appear to be doing in the drawing, though I don't seem to have anything to use but what is on the brush.

Podcast

  

  I spent a couple of hours on Sunday with the Jason Hunt and his Rogues Gallery cohorts Tim Harvey, Jeff Hackworth, and Kendal Sinn recording a podcast at SciFi4Me.com. We discussed Gotham and The Flash, along with my days as writer / editor of the Daily Planet page and the origin of the Answer Man. It was great fun, but we ended up going so long that Jason has split it into two installments.
  You can check out the first half here.
  And the second half is here.

Old Photos of the Week #3

  Most comics fans are familiar with the writers and artists who produce the books they enjoy. Those who are truly devoted can also rattle off the names of letterers, colorists and editors involved. But there are a lot more people who have worked behind the scenes over the years. From that DC retreat in 1985, here are some of those people...

  From the left: Helen Vesik was a longtime member of my Production Department, doing art and lettering corrections as well as other mechanical work on the pages of the books. Ruthie Thomas was DC's receptionist, greeting every visitor to our offices with her warm smile for a number of years, before she moved to Production and became my administrative assistant. Denise Vozzo-Conaty was a long-time member of the Accounting department, one of "the folks upstairs" at 666 Fifth Avenue. Jeanette Winley was in charge of the film library (which has now become Archiving Services or something like that) and is one of the very few folks who were at the retreat who still work at DC.

  Helen ("Helenita") Ramirez was my administrative assistant in the '80s, Bonnie Miller was a member of the growing Marketing department, and Julia (Schick) Sabbagh was an art director working on promotional items and our just-starting line of reprint editions.

  Kathy Petruccio was the art director for the Special Projects department. Terri Cunningham started in that same department, then moved into the editorial administration department and is still in charge of it. Linda Robak was another member of the Marketing department.

  Muffy Greenough was a member of the production department, doing paste-ups of the letter columns as well as on many of the covers. Shelley Eiber started at DC just a few weeks after I did and has remained with the company ever since; she is now the senior-most member on the staff. Another longtime member of the staff was Midge Bregman, who started in the Production department well before the rest of us arrived. Midge was Sol Harrison's administrative assistant for many years and then filled the same position for Paul Levitz until she retired.

Alex's Weekend Adventure

 While his parents spent a long weekend together in the Poconos, Alex came to visit Gamma and Poppa and special guest visitor Aunt Sammi. Yes, I know I've been "Gappa," but that has somehow morphed into Poppa and or occasionally Poppop.

  It was a very busy four days for the little man. He has been very musical since he started walking and talking, singing songs and dancing. After a recent visit to the Liberty Science Center with his parents, he became fascinated with guitars. Thanks to our friend Angela, who had a child-sized guitar on hand, we were able to give Alex the opportunity to put on a number of concerts. He started by having us sit on the couch in the family room while he stood on the "stage" in the kitchen and then treated us to a medley of his hits, including the ABC song, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," and "Old MacDonald Had a Farm." Later, he launched into a rendition of "Happy Birthday to Mommy," which Sammi recorded and uploaded for Rebecca to see. Alex so enjoyed watching his performance on the computer that he continued to sing throughout the weekend, telling his Aunt to get the camera and "Upload."

  The weekend also included a Saturday visit to the Long Island Children's Museum, where we spent two hours playing with various blocks and puzzles and musical instruments.

  There was plenty of fun at home as well, particularly on the very rainy Sunday. Building with Legos, making a picnic out of Play-Doh, drawing pictures, and reading filled the day.

 

 And there was plenty of time to cuddle with Poppa too.