
Continuing my life-list for comics, a list of the writers, artists, colorists, and editors I worked with on story pages. 1977-78 is HERE. Ground rules: I worked on staff at DC from July 1977 to August 1987, and in that time worked with every staffer and many freelancers in some capacity, and did art and lettering corrections on a host of comics. I can’t count those. Some of the things I did in comics did not usually involve working directly with artists and writers: logo design, house ads, cover lettering and production work of various kinds. Another thing I won’t count are relettering foreign stories, as I did for HEAVY METAL early on. To be added to my comics life-list, I thought I should be part of the creative team making stories, mostly. That means I was the letterer (in most cases), occasionally the writer, and rarely the artist or colorist. Of course this lists only the first time I worked with someone, so anyone from the previous year list will not be here. Entries are tagged as a writer (w), artist or penciller-inker (a), penciller (p), or inker (i). I did not often interact with colorists in pre-digital days, as my work was finished before theirs began, but I’m including them as an important part of the creative team. Editors will only be listed where I did not work with them in any other capacity. I base the date of first work with someone on cover dates of the issues, then alphabetically for ones with the same date, though they may not have been, probably weren’t, lettered in that order, but you have to have some system.
Robert Kanigher (w) G.I. COMBAT #212, Feb.-March 1979
Michael W. Kaluta (a) THE UNEXPECTED #190, March-April 1979 (1 page Doorway to Nightmare intro.)
Martin Pasko (w) THE UNEXPECTED #190, March-April 1979 (I colored his story)
George Evans (a) WEIRD WAR TALES #74, April 1979
Dennis O’Neil (w) DETECTIVE COMICS #483, April-May 1979
Bill Draut (i) GHOSTS #76, May 1979
George Ruppert (p) WEIRD WAR TALES #75, May 1979
Dan Adkins (i) WEIRD WAR TALES #75, May 1979
J.M. DeMatteis (w) WEIRD WAR TALES #76, June 1979
Gale Heimbach (p) WEIRD WAR TALES #76, June 1979
Murray Boltinoff (w) G.I. COMBAT #214, June-July 1979
Dick Ayers (p) MEN OF WAR #19, Aug. 1979
Michael Uslan (w) WEIRD WAR TALES #78, Aug. 1979
Curt Swan (p) ACTION COMICS #499, Sept. 1979
Don Heck (p) SUPERMAN FAMILY #197, Sept.-Oct. 1979
Dick Dillin (p) DC COMICS PRESENTS #14, Oct. 1979
Ric Estrada (a) WEIRD WAR TALES #80, Oct. 1979
Joe Orlando (a) TIME WARP #1, Oct.-Nov. 1979 logo design from his sketch
Mike W. Barr (w) TIME WARP #1, Oct.-Nov. 1979
Tom Sutton (a) TIME WARP #1, Oct.-Nov. 1979
Marshall Rogers (a) HOUSE OF MYSTERY #274, Nov. 1979
One thing I’ve discovered as I check these credits in the Grand Comics Database is that I worked with some of these writers without knowing it, as they used pen names, usually on short stories for the war or mystery titles.
I will continue this series when I have time, it takes surprisingly long to list the stories from my Archives, cross reference with dates to get the date order, look up each job on the GCD for the creator credits, and put the blog post together, but I’m enjoying the trip down memory lane!