When You Have All Three Volumes of This Series, I Bid You
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When you have all three volumes of this I did my first WORLD’S FINEST com- series, I bid you, in one sitting, to read ic-book story before there was a glint of through Denny’s Batman stories. There the revolution. I did my last when they is an evolution there, a growing in power were finally sick of me and I was foment- and ownership of the work that is ing a revolution of another sort — a revo- unmistakable. Who could have done it lution of and for creator’s rights. Between better? I say no one! the two stories, DC Comics went from a Then there’s the (I would argue) company that had not hired a new writer overlooked Bob Haney. Though they or artist for about 12 years to a company have not gotten the recognition they whose staff was two-thirds new people: deserve, Bob Haney’s stories are classics artists and writers, drawn from all over of good old comic-book drama, and the world, from Spain to the Philippines. dense in plot, incident, and twists. Haney Can you see this evolution in the will never be paid enough in money and stories in these three books? honor in his lifetime for his contributions Well, sort of. If you know what to to the medium, and that’s a shame. look for. Then there are the others: Editor You must remember, when I began Julie Schwartz, cranky and cantankerous, at DC I had already had a history, a life, but shepherd to a massive number of a career. When I went into the art field memorable stories, including about straight out of high school I couldn’t get three Spectre stories I wrote and the work from DC Comics. (DC was the only Superman-Muhammad Ali book that regular comic-book company at the time Denny and I wrote. Julie is, simply, a that did what I considered to be “good” legend. comics.) It was 1959. In 1953 Congress Dick Giordano, inker and friend. A had opened hearings on the causes of legend, yes, but to me a friend and also a partner in our business for several years, until DC made him VP-Executive Editor. Editor Murray Boltinoff: A sensitive and caring man who herded his flock of creatives like a mother. Len Wein and Marv Wolfman. Tsimis and Tsuris. Stirring the pot. The first of the Silver Age writers and revolutionaries, predating even Denny. And the others. And me? Unwilling mother hen to a pack of radical upstarts. All the new young writers and artists who came to DC Comics in the sixties gravitated to my little borrowed room to hide from the editors. I was the scout. The first line of defense. The first to make it through the thrown-up barrier around DC. And maybe that’s what these three books are about. They span the revolution. Perhaps that’s their value..