There was a period, back in the late '90s/early '00s, when I considered the notion of writing comics professionally. I did eventually realize that I'm simply not that good writing fiction, and what I'm interested in saying with my writing can be better expressed without using broad metaphors like superheroes or sci-fi or whatever. But while I was toying with the notion of becoming a pro, I used a few tactics to increase my visibility. One of which was letterhacking.

This was back in the day, of course, when publishers still regularly ran letter columns. Each issue they'd print between four and six letters from fans, and often a short response from the editor. I knew that editors weren't reading my submissions -- I'd actually called and asked for critiques after sending in several -- but I knew they read all the letters. So my goal in submitted letters was to get my name in front the editors, and show that I could at least string together a series of coherent sentences.

To a degree, it worked. I heard second-hand later that my name was in fact recognized around some of the offices, and was once even brought up out of context of letter-writing. Of course, that never panned out to a job as a comic author, but that's partially due to both DC and Marvel discontinuing publishing letters around that time and my realization that I wasn't actually good at fiction.

But that said, I did wind up with a number of letters published over the years. I even had a string of a few months where I was averaging a published letter every other week! I was almost a celebrity at my local comic shop of the time.

Anyway, in being reminded of all this, I thought I'd throw up a quick cover gallery of the issues I know I've been published in. I might be missing a few as I didn't bother keeping track at the time, and I think there's a couple more issues in which I'm referenced on the letters page without actually having my letter published. But, if you're curious, here is in no particular order where you can find a few of my 10+ year old thoughts on various comics...

Taken from a 1977 comic, here's an ad for an air rifle...

OK, let's set aside the "selling guns to kids" issues -- and make no mistake, this ad is targeted to kids; note the "Show Mom and Dad how you can..." lines. After all, this was still the 1970s, and we didn't have the child safety concerns we do today.

But even leaving that aside, who the hell thought advertising that you should fire your guns in the house was a good idea? "Coleman's bringing the fun indoors with the finest air guns and exciting target games!" Setting aside the "you'll shoot your eye out" arguements, wouldn't there be concerns of, say, just missing the target and breaking Mom's good dinnerware? Or a lamp? When, in America's gun-loving history, was firing inside the house considered ever considered safe? How does this make any sense?

Amazing how comics can act as windows to the social mores of days gone by. Even if the campaign was a complete failure, it's fascinating to see that at least someone felt it would be a socially acceptable idea.

On the plus side, I actually have a desk in my forthcoming library to get some writing done. The down side, of course, is that my library still jas a looooong way to go.

I recently finished reading Marion G. Harmon's debut novel from 2011: Wearing the Cape. It's the story of how a young woman, just getting out of high school, gains super powers and teams up with the most powerful group of heroes on the planet and helps thwart a time-travelling madman.

The backstory is that, just a few years ago, there was rash of people who suddenly and inexplicably gained super powers. It was called The Event, and seemingly regular people would spontaneously generate these powers in times of extreme duress. Not everybody -- just enough to quickly call into being a few hundred, maybe a thousand, individuals who could now fly or shoot lasers from their eyes or turn invisible or whatever. Many of them banded together in the model of the Avengers or the Justice League. Others took more personal advantage of their new abilities and became celebrities of various sorts -- ranging from Hollywood actors to politicians. Others were more selfish and turned to crime. The heroes, while they did fight super villains, mostly acted as super-efficient first responders to disasters of varying magnitudes. They not only had a good network established among the different groups, but also with various organizations ranging from the police to the Red Cross.

In the midst of this, Hope Corrigan finds herself caught in an explosion as she was driving along the highway. Before any heroes can show up to start helping, though, she's tossing cars and chunks of asphalt around to dig herself out before going on to rescue others trapped in nearby debris. Her "breakthrough" is naturally noticed, and the premier superhero of them of all, Atlas, escorts her back to his team's headquarters. The story then follows her training as Atlas' sidekick Astra, at times kind of a baptism by fire, culminating in the take-down of a time-traveler who's been popping in and out sporadically throughout the story.

One of the problems I frequently see in starting new superhero universes is that the creators get too wrapped up in explaining the backstory and dragging the main narrative to a grinding halt. Harmon manages to avoid that by building off many of the superhero tropes that already exist. There's never an explanation of "The Event" -- some people just suddenly had super powers. And despite seeing dozens of heroes and villains in the book, we don't learn much of anything about most of them. Because we don't need to. While characters like Rush and Blackstone are necessary to the overall story, their origins are not. We get only as much information as we need to follow the story, and are only provided that information when we need it so there's not any long passages of exposition just to give readers background. It's sprinkled in throughout the book, so there's plenty of texture without making the reader try to digest it all at once.

Another problem I've seen repeatedly is that the authors are so focused on their protagonist(s) that they don't pay much attention to the world the characters inhabit. Here again Harmon shines, as he clearly shows a lot of thought into how the sudden appearance of superheroes would impact society on the whole. Without a decades-old history that you might find in the Marvel and DC mythos, how would these people act and interact with police and fire departments and the government and ordinary people? He talks about a "villain rap" subculture where normal people idolize and emulate the superficial elements of some super villains. There's an ongoing concern about people who try to jumpstart their "breakthrough" and accidentally wind up committing suicide. Plus the semi-obligatory fan groups and tabloid reporters and such. Harmon has put a lot of thought into what would happen in today's society if we suddenly saw superheroes start flying over head, and that provides a lot of texture and a sense of realism to the story.

Harmon also put a lot of thought into his story structure too. The narrative is built very well, and despite clocking in at over 300 pages, there's not much in the way of padding. Most everything is there for a reason, and that's to help move the story along. We get plenty of character moments, too, but they service the larger story. Lots of tidbits that are dropped early in the book get picked up on later, some becoming significant plot points. A fair amount of foreshadowing, too, but generally done in an eloquent way that doesn't blatantly reveal where the story is headed.

The one issue I had was with Hope's love interest in the latter half of the book. While it did make sense, and was needed to be introduced to get to the book's conclusion, it felt a little sudden. And with as much conscious work with set-ups as Harmon did with the other story elements, this came off as a bit tacked on. Like he realized he needed it to set up the ending properly, but didn't want to go back and rework earlier portions of the book. It's really only a chapter or two out of forty-five, and they're not written badly, just that it came as a somewhat sudden turn.

Overall, I thought it was an excellent book. Definitely a better superhero story than I've read in printed comics in many years, and a more positive and hopeful (if you'll excuse the pun) superhero yarn than I've seen in any media outlet in many years. There are some really good superhero webcomics out there right now, but for my money, Harmon does a better job nailing all the things that drew me to superheroes in the first place. It might not be a comic book itself, but Harmon has clearly taken his cues from the comics, not the movies, and turned in a better comic (albeit one written entirely in prose) than I've seen Marvel or DC publish in years.

I originally picked up the Kindle version of Wearing the Cape this past summer but only just got around to reading it. I enjoyed it so much, though, that went straight back to Amazon as soon as I finished to pick up the sequels. The paperback retails for $14.99 and the Kindle edition for $7.99.

I was chatting with Ben Towle yesterday, after he'd been reading some EC reprints. He pointed to Ric Estrada's story "Bunker" from Two-Fisted Tales #30 as having the first black hero in comic books. (It can be read online here.) This is what's cited in Estrada's Wikipedia entry. But that story is from late 1952, and that just sounded really late to me.

My thoughts immediately went to Ebony White from The Spirit (1940) and Torchy Brown from Torchy in Heartbeats (1937). Now one could argue that Ebony was a sidekick and not a hero, and that Torchy was a comic strip character. Lothar from Mandrake the Magician kind of straddles the fence, not being quite a hero in his own right, despite being the "Prince of Seven Nations" from the outset, and his comic book appearances prior to 1952 were almost entirely limited to Australian reprints of the strips. EC's most notable work with a black protagonist, "Judgement Day", first got printed in Weird Fantasy #18 (April 1953) and Dell's Lobo didn't debut until 1965.

So maybe "Bunker" was first?

Well, except maybe for the lead characters in Negro Romances which ran for three issues in 1950. And Classics Illustrated #15 which told the story of Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1948.

And if maybe if you ignore the work actual black creators.

Classics Illustrated #1 from 1947 featured a re-telling of The Three Musketeers by the Haitian-descended Frenchman Alexandre Dumas. That same year, Orrin Evans started a (sadly short-lived) venture to create a comic book by black people, for black people, starring black characters. I won't belabor the whole history here (Tom Christopher has a more comprehensive look than would fit here anyway) but I think even a cursory examination would show Ace Harlem and Lion Man as "comic book heroes." Ace could conceivably be considered "more first" since he appears as the lead story in the issue.

"First" isn't as definitive as it sounds, as my notations about Ebony, Torchy and Lothar demonstrate. And I suspect the lack of knowledge about All-Negros Comics (and whatever may have come before that -- I haven't done that much research here!) has more to do with bad PR than deliberate obfuscation. But it should serve as a reminder that the "common" comics history you've likely read that focuses on DC, Timely and EC is not really definitive either. Those histories almost inherently have to be incomplete, and what you thought you knew might also be incomplete as a result!

• You may have seen this already, but Rob Steibel has an excellent analysis of the Lee/Kirby collaboration on Fantastic Four #61. With lots of great pencil scans! Well worth reading!
• Frank Page talks about what it takes to be a cartoonist. More specifically, he talks about the passion it takes to be a cartoonist.
• Ptor over at Sanctum Sanctorum Comix highlights an obscure Doctor Strange board game from 1982 with good quality scans if you'd like to print out your own copy.

In honor of today being Ramona Fradon's birthday, I want to ask, "Where are my Metamorpho reprints?" Oh, sure, we've got that one Showcase volume, but it's in black and white. Black and white! How could anyone look at one of those old Metamorpho stories and think, "Yeah, this would be MUCH better without color"?

Happy birthday, Ramona, even if DC isn't doing your work justice!