Thread by @GeoffThorne, Taking a little break from writing this evening. I want to take [...]

Taking a little break from writing this evening. I want to take stock of this in case i forget.

My dad was the person who turned me on to a lot of things that led to me being a writer. Both my parents and my grandparents basically buried me and my brother in books of all sorts>

But my DAD turned me on to science fiction, to my lifelong-love of adventure stories and, germane to this point, to comic books.

The first comics I'm conscious of reading were in this book- THE GREAT COMIC BOOK HEROES, written by Jules Feiffer in 1965. >>

This was the edition I got, hard cover, dust jacket, over-sized. The Spirit is in there. Plastic Man. The original Human Torch. I was hooked right away. I moved on from there to more hardcover comics BOOKS. Prince Valiant was my next love, created by the great Hal Foster.>>

I didn't at this time, even know "real" comic books existed. But I soon found out. These were some of my first, but it was Jack Kirby's KAMANDI that took over my soul.

I started drawing, because of Jack.

16000 days went by and I only loved the damned things more. All the "Ages," SO many artists and writers. Comics were an escape, an inspiration, a panacea for a host of troubles. "Love" really isn't too strong a word.

That love pushed me to drawing and, partly, to writing>>

Although Le Guin, Serling, Zelazny and Roddenberry's crew pushed me to write.

Comics did a great deal to open my mind and keep it open. They helped shape my morality. They literally made me an artist (small A). "Love," again, is not too strong a word.>>

I'm grown. I've done a lot of stuff. A good deal of it was pretty interesting stuff and I'm daily aware of how lucky that makes me. I've lived nearly my entire life in the Arts, surrounded by artists, making art for pleasure and for my living.

"Love" is not too strong a word.>

But, as a kid, as a teen, even well into my adulthood, I never really thought I'd get a chance to contribute to the universes that, like exploding Krypton, shot me into this life I love.

Even after I started making my own comics. >>

Even after I was an actor, even after I sold my first novel, even after I managed to make a second career writing shows, I just never thought I'd get to tell an "official" story about one of the characters that got me started in the MEDIUM where they were born and are still best>

Over the last few months, that changed. I've gotten to write stories involving a few of these characters. Two, in particular, who've been with me my whole life.

People in my "real" career may not credit this. It may seem small potatoes to some of them in light of the titles>>

that sometimes go in front of my name. All right. That's fine.

But this matters to me. It matters more to that 6 year old and the 12 year old and that 17 year old kid from DC who watched Captain 20 after school, Star Trek every evening in reruns and lived >>

in those 4-color stories as much as he did in Real Life. Or more.

In one week, these two stories arrive in stores within a day of each other.

In real life.

If I could I would reach back to that kid and I'd show him it's bumpy sometimes, you almost never get what you want >>

or who you want or when. But sometimes you do.

Thank-you, Stan. Thank-you, Jack. Thank-you, Denny and thank-you, Neal.

You made my life better. Now it's time for some payback. Maybe not to you, directly, but to the same universe that put me on my path.

It's a damned fine one

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