Warning! This story is filled with memory-related mistakes. I have gone to essentially zero trouble to check facts or even speak to Mike… I am making a good deal of the non-photographic data up out of a clear-blue sky!
For a long, long time, our favorite Tarzan-ish and very first Marvel character, Za-Bar [–Excuse me, fellow New Yorkers… I mean Ka-Zar!—Sweet on Lori Brown!] was written by legendary, genre-spanning Bruce Jones for a long time. For a short time, it was written by colleague, comrade and good chum, Mike Carlin.
Mike has done an awful lot in comics, pretty much everything there is to do in comics. But there’s one thing in comics that no one else has done. Or would do—or think to do—in comics.
–Appear in your own Photo-Editorial in long johns. With your house cat. Now, I am not going to look up this minor photo-novella. Nope, I’m going to take some of the original pictures, show them to you and then mess them up for fun.
Ka-Zar #28 told a sad tale—no not the story; the event of prying Mr. Jones from the title with Mike as the pry bar. Told in the credits: Written by: Bruce Jones & Mike Carlin. I have no idea how difficult that may have been. The only clue is that by Ka-Zar #34 the book was done. 34 was the “Collectors Item Last Issue!”
Mike wanted to put his stamp on his run—and nothing says, “extraordinary lengths” like hiring your old pal, Eliot, to take a bunch of pictures of you in long johns.
I freely confess, sometimes I am just a hired gun. Truth be told, I don’t need to know the story to get the shot. Here’s a case, where, if Mike told me anything, it sure didn’t stick all these years later.
What did stick—was Mike to his long johns. And the fact that he is one funny person. Put a camera in front of him and the Orson Bean roars out!
That mysterious fellow to the right is not Count Dante, though he could be—it is Howard Mackie, before he ascended to Howard Mackie Writer! That’s a remote controlled flash unit in his hand—which I hoped would add a bright edge to help the Bullpen find a “cut line.” Below is a plain, drab office.
Mike placed great faith in the powers of the Marvel Bullpen. He believed, with the faith of a child, that they would take those two images, work a little magic… just add these two together–
Magic—I say! I had to add that jungle vine—I mean, there is Jungle Accessories down on Canal Street, but who has time for that trip? And then—
BOOF! Not-Count Dante throws a little paper and the special effect is complete! I mean, that’s just convincing.
Who says Mike Carlin can’t act? Send him my way… And Howard? The best paper backdrop support a boy could hope for
Think Spankie can’t live through a six-foot fall? Well, he did! Several. And look at that face, those claws, that tail—I do mean the cat, not Mike!
A bit more magic…
And again–Boof!
HOOO HAAA!!
[Mikey, when you write your book, here’s your bio photo– no, really! Ripped-from-life Brown!]
I wish to assure one and all, no Spankie was harmed during the making of this photo essay. Yes, that is a knife…
I think anyone who knows Ca-Zar, knows he prefers cheese sandwiches to dinosaur steak. And so much easier to cut the cheese sandwich. [–That’s strictly me channeling Mike by the way, that gag was no doubt in the comic this appeared in!—Love-the-smell-of-my-own-freshly-cut-cheese-sandwich Brown]
Only the backdrop and neat table is different. I have it on good authority that this is how Mike writes everything.
Spankie was one of the nicest, coolest cats I ever met. Caption Contest, anyone?
During Mike’s becoming the writer of Ka-Zar, Wondrous Editrix Louise Jones was leaving Pangea and taking on real danger, thrills and adventure—freelancing.
That meant a new Editor was needed… fresh from escaping the jaws of Stegron, Writer, Creator and now Editor Danny Fingeroth stepped into the jaws of Editing Ka-Zar!
Danny to the left– Position #3 is the one and only Armando Gil—an inker’s inker from way back. He performed Ka-Zar inks for many issues. I feel compelled to show the original pic this was pulled from—
Because of one thing—not just the narrow point in time when the Carlin/Gruenwald office was wallpapered with Sultry Newscastress Michelle Marsh, but the New York Post headline:
Son Kills ‘Devil Mom’ April 14, 1983–I’m just going to let that lie; suffice it to say, you can buy a copy of that entire paper on eBay…
Finally, here is a picture that tells a lot of Editor/Freelancer relations… well, how do you think they get the work in on time?
