Side Gig 8: “Annie Mae: A Love Story” Part 1

Well, if this is a love story, I’m a monkey’s uncle (featured on page 18)! Because this violates causality, I say we’re going to skip over some of the beautiful, free-form art the Great Gene Colan (with stirring Conte Crayon rendering by Legendary Alfredo Alcala!). Skip right over it because if you ever read it, you’ll see that you have to think like a Tardis. Which can be rough.

I’ve introduced Lynn Graeme previously. She wafted in, stirred the editorial pot vigorously and wafted away in only a couple of years. She appeared to take over the Black & White book department from Rick Marschall (him, we’ll try to figure out in another blog). For those just joining us, it could not be described more aptly. One thing, these were almost comics. The black & white meant that it was “art.” But the classy, 4-color cover meant a more appealing product. Similar to a comic book, but less color throughout. And they were rather larger than a comic.

Here’s the issue in question:

©Disney/Marvel

In Lynn whizzed and she did remarkable concept stories. Avoiding most of the comic standards, she tried to make an anthology of stories as one might find in a literary magazine. [I know. Everybody will disagree with me, but that’s what I saw.] And she also had Howard The Duck as a subject. So how literary could it be? That is for a true comic historian to pick apart. On we move.

Enter Denny O’Neil. If comics has a Hemingway and he’s not Chris Claremont (from 1977 to 1984) then it is Denny. A fellow who has done it all, been praised, lampooned and parodied then lionized again. His bio and non-comic accomplishments may pale when compared to his comic corpus but in this business (and when I say ‘business’ I mean “the industry”) few have stepped outside and then stepped in.

Denny had bounded over the fence between DC and Marvel enough to keep the Wimbleton crowd rubbing their necks. At this point he was Marvel’s and he wanted to shake some trees, see what fell out. And here was a redhead with a tree. Enter Lynn Graeme. Again. [Now it can be told: Denny reverts to a throwback school boy when in the presence of a redheaded gal. If you are a redheaded gal and see Denny in a restaurant, just walk up and ask him to do his napkin hand puppet act. He’ll do it. I don’t care if he’s 80!]

Denny had this mystical, time dilating non-sci-fi love story and Lynn was interested in expanding the walls of comics. How this story style of photo intro/outro with free-form comic art story in between came about, I cannot say. I am but a technician in this matter. I am taking a wild stab at Lynn being the driving concept person on this. She had seen me ooze around the office taking pictures and techno-babbling about printing, so she got me to take pictures.

A lot of details are lost to the swirling mists of time. This was not only a long time ago—I place this late 1979, the book was out in January, 1980– I was a simple chip in a mill race and seeing some of the material again is the only way I can recall anything.

For example, I seem to have pasted up the boards for the picture part of the story. This is where Cover Man Ron Zalme leaps into action and sizes the pictures then sends them out to get printed somewhere. I don’t know to who’s layout. But there it is.

This blog is threatening to be very long and with some rather dry spots where I teach a master class in uhh… boring people. So here’s what I’m starting off with:

©Disney/Marvel

This is scanned from the book. It looks pretty dark. Something that I had hoped the guys at the separators could lighten up. But no. Our two main characters, struggling for love and meaning, are played by Linda Florio and Mark Gruenwald. I’ve said quite a bit about my old friend Mark in an earlier blog. I would add that this sequence of photos was early in our friendship. Mark was Editor Denny’s Assistant Editor! So he was easy to get ahold of. Linda was either Editor In Chief Jim Shooter’s Secretary or someone’s Assistant Editor. When she was approached to get the heck out of the office, she jumped at the chance. And here’s a clearer look at where she ended up!

Wow! Talk about having seen better times. No, strike that; there were no such thing for this pile. This place was a dive. Used to be called flop houses. Where, for $15 you could flop for the night. [Hmmm, maybe it’s my pining for New York City, but that doesn’t sound too bad…]

Here’s where I am so delighted to have scanned the entire batch of negatives. In the shots above are Mr. Dennis J. O’Neil himself, once again trodding the boards as “Street Person #1.” If I were calling the shots, as he apparently was that day—I would not have all three of them so tightly packed. In fact, that’s what this fellow thought—

“Okay, buddy, let’s try that again and I want to feel that bottle in your hand! Go–!”

And here was his Continuity Director, making sure Denny didn’t bump into the walls too much during a take.

Ain’t New York City just great?

End Part 1