![]() ![]() Marvel Novel Series #9: The Marvel Superheroes (Pocket Books, 1979). Marty’s story, illustrated by Sergio Aragones, was a hit and included some inside gags so inside I’m no longer sure what they were referring to. “Welcome!” is Marty’s hilarious framing sequence for the final issue of Plop!, DC’s hit-and-miss humor comic. Neither the auction nor the Expo ever came off. This eight-page, 5.5” x 8.5” Xeroxed catalogue for the auction that was to pay for the Expo was produced on winter’s eve in the basement office of Paul Levitz, written with maximum snark and much internal hilarity by Steve Gerber, Marty, Paul, me, and likely several other people whose names elude me. In short, a bunch of comics pros got together in the mid-1970s to stage “The Great Comic Book Expo” (“79 hours of comics madness beginning on May 26 (1976) at the Commodore Hotel in Manhattan”). ![]() The Narrative Arts Alliance Benefit Auction Catalogue (1976). Marty’s first published story, “Package Deal” with art by Jose Bea. Here then, MY 13 FAVORITE MARTY PASKO PROJECTS YOU MAY NOT HAVE KNOWN HE WROTE, in alphabetical order:Ĭreepy #51 (Warren, March 1973). So, thinking of you on your birthday, Marty, and offering up a hearty, “Wankel rotary engine!” Read all about them here.Īs for my personal thoughts about Marty, I covered those in my memorial post to him here, last year. He also wrote for live action and animated TV, including a Daytime Emmy Award-winning turn on Batman: The Animated Series. Fate with Walter Simonson in 1st Issue Special and Swamp Thing with Thomas Yeates runs on Wonder Woman, Metal Men, Kobra, the Star Trek newspaper strip, and Gargoyles. Marty’s credits are abundant and well known from his work in comics, beginning with Superman (including as writer of DC Comics Presents and the World’s Greatest Super-Heroes Starring Superman newspaper strip) his revivals of Dr. He was contributing Superman stories to the Schwartz-edited titles after only about a year into his career it took me about six years to go from start to Schwartz. From the very start, Marty’s writing was clean and crisp and distinctive, showing few of the newbie writer’s fumbles and mistakes. While he had only two years on me by the calendar, he was already about a decade ahead of me creatively. He was the Jack Benny to my George Burns (look it up, youngsters!) and it cracked me up that I could crack him up, that I could lay him out on the floor, literally gasping for breath, with as little as a sincere recitation of “Direct dialing” or “Wankel rotary engine.”Īt the beginning of my career, which followed his by about two years, Marty became a sort of creative mentor to me. It didn’t hurt that I had the unfailing ability to make Marty laugh. ![]() When we did finally get together, Marty and I bonded instantly. It was in those letter columns that Julie gave Marty the nickname “Pesky,” but I know for a fact from later talks with Julie that the crusty old editor loved getting intelligent letters from thoughtful fans and he often found Marty’s insights as useful as they were “pesky.” ![]() My guess is we first crossed paths at one of the very early-1970s New York Comic Art Conventions, although I knew his name from the many (many!) letters he had printed in the comics of the day, particularly those edited by Julie Schwartz. I don’t remember the circumstances of our first meeting in my memory, Marty was always in my life, like family. Not to mention hundreds of other heroes of comic books, animation and TV. Now known as Marty Pasko, the child grew to maturity, knowing he possessed talents and abilities far beyond those of mortal fans, to one day pen the adventures of that orphan from the stars, Superman. Shortly after his birth in Montreal, Jean-Claude Rochefort was rocketed across the border to New Jersey where he was adopted by a kindly couple named Pasko who raised him as their own. We interrupt the regularly scheduled series of shameless plugs for my book Direct Comments: Comic Creators In Their Own Words for a tribute to my late friend, Martin Pasko (Aug. Perfect time to re-present this lovely piece by columnist Paul Kupperberg, a longtime friend. UPDATED 8/4/22: The late Martin “Pesky” Pasko was born 68 years ago. Keith Giffen, Paul Kupperberg and Marty Pasko ![]()
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