BIG FAVOR: I’m trying to find out ASAP when Frank Miller first agreed to do RONIN for DC Comics (and when it was announced that he’d be working for them, regardless of whether or not the title RONIN was attached). Probably CBG would have been the first to announce it.

Comics Journal #76 reports that Miller announced in July 1982 that he would no longer be writing Daredevil.

The ultimate question here is: did news that Miller would be doing work for DC come *before or after* the May 1982 announcement of Epic Comics?

If you know, please leave a note here.

Thanks!

UPDATE: Looks like Miller’s announcement was first—Jim Shooter responded to the news of Miller’s departure in a March 1982 press conference, according to TCJ #72.

But if anyone has additional details, from CBG or firsthand knowledge, please let me know!

January, 1973. More on the significance of these covers soon.

Above: from a 1974 Cadence Industries newsletter.

In 1968, Martin Ackerman’s Perfect Film & Chemical Company purchased Marvel Comics from founding publisher Martin Goodman. After Ackerman was ousted from the Perfect FIlm board and new CEO Sheldon Feinberg stepped in, it was decided that a new name was needed, to distance the company from Ackerman’s controversial reign.

This page was published days, if not hours, before Nazi Germany invaded Poland and World War II was set into motion. 

It couldn’t be more unassuming, could it? A fairly primitive drawing of three middle-aged men, sitting at a boardroom, cigarette smoke hovering above ashtrays. They’re slightly curious, leaning in to hear a story, but there’s hardly a sense of mystery. They didn’t even close the curtains all the way.

And thus the Marvel Universe quietly begins…this is the first panel in the first story of Marvel Comics #1, 1939.

Professor Horton’s “difficult problem,” of course, is that the “synthetic man” he’s created bursts into flame upon contact with oxygen. His figure becomes a wall of fire, becomes something like…a human torch.

Stan Lee. 1975. Crazy.

Ad copy by Scott Edelman.

MAUS AT MARVEL:
In 1975, Denis Kitchen and Marvel Comics reprinted a three-page MAUS story by Art Spiegelman, in COMIX BOOK #2. (The story was originally published in 1972’s FUNNY ANIMALS anthology.)

Blade! Painting by Ken Barr.

Jim Belushi as the voice of Howard the Duck, 1980. Photo by Alan Penchansky.

Detail from Strange Tales #168, May 1968. Art by Jim Steranko and Joe Sinnott.

What movie is “He Walked His Last…”?

Audrey Hepburn ♥ Captain America.

Coming October 9 from HarperCollins.
Pre-order here:

http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Marvel-Comics-Sean-Howe/?isbn=9780061992100

Now I know, after typing in every character name, that there’s a limit on tags. Sorry, Glorian fans.

The King at work.

Original caption: “Jim Shooter, Marvel’s editor in chief and ‘designated adult,’ cracks his whip in the Marvel Bullpen.”