The Unfinished Monument: The Steranko History of Comics

The Unfinished Monument: The Steranko History of Comics

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The Steranko History of Comics, Volumes One and Two, front covers

Imagine Mount Rushmore with only one president on it. Picture a Washington Monument that’s only 185 feet tall instead of 555. How about a Statue of Liberty missing two arms and a head? No takers? I don’t blame you; there’s nothing more frustrating than a great beginning that remains incomplete.

Take The Steranko History of Comics, a work that was intended to fill six volumes. The first two came out in 1970 and 1972… and then, nothing. It’s been fifty-four years now and I don’t mind telling you, I’m starting to lose hope.

Certainly no one was (or is — he’s still with us at the age of eighty-eight) more qualified to write a history of comics than Jim Steranko. Active in the industry as an artist and writer since the late 50’s, he did his most famous work for Marvel on their Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. title. Charging through the door that Jack Kirby had kicked open, Steranko created some images (especially his Nick Fury covers) that have become icons of the psychedelic 60’s as essential as anything by Andy Warhol or Peter Max.

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Forgotten Authors: Dave Dryfoos

Forgotten Authors: Dave Dryfoos

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Fantastic Adventures, October 1950, cover by Robert Gibson Jones

Dave Dryfoos was born on March 29, 1915 in San Francisco, California to Jesse and Beatrice (née Goodman) Dryfoos. He attended Lowell High School and attained the rank of Eagle Scott before attending the University of California at Berkeley.  He earned a law degree from the University of California’s Hastings School of Law before being admitted to the bar in 1936.

In 1942, Dryfoos married Dorothea Gallatin and shortly afterwards was drafted into the Army, serving in Australia, New Guinea, and the Philippines during World War II before being mustered out in 1946 as a staff sergeant. He returned to Benicia California after the war.

Dryfoos published his first short story in the October 1950 issue of Fantastic Adventures: “Lest Ye Be Judged…” Over the next six years, he published twenty-one additional short stories, including “Some Like It Cold,” “The Old-Fashioned Spaceman,” and “Younger by the Minute.” His work appeared in Galaxy, Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, as well as several other magazines. He stopped published in 1955 with “Seller of the Sky,” which appeared in the February issue of If.

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Sour Bill: The Issue at Hand and More Issues at Hand by William Atheling, Jr.

Sour Bill: The Issue at Hand and More Issues at Hand by William Atheling, Jr.

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The Issue at Hand, by William Atheling, Jr., AKA James Blish (Advent: Publishers, 1964). Cover by Jon Stopa

In 1952, a science fiction fanzine, Sky Hook, began publishing a series of critical essays by William Atheling, Jr. When its publisher, Redd Boggs, suspended publication, the science fiction writer James Blish publicly revealed that this was a pseudonym he had adopted. But a few years later, he revived “Atheling” for more criticism, published in another fanzine, Axe.

In 1964, Advent: Publishers collected his critical writings, including both fanzine articles and addresses given at science fiction conventions under his own name, as The Issue at Hand, credited to Atheling, “edited and with an introduction by James Blish,” though the book made no secret of the author’s identity. In 1970, a second collection appeared, More Issues at Hand.

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David C. Smith, Part 5: Sometime Lofty Towers, A Magnificent Work of Sword & Sorcery

David C. Smith, Part 5: Sometime Lofty Towers, A Magnificent Work of Sword & Sorcery

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Sometime Lofty Towers (Brackenbury Books, December 2025). Cover by Saša Đurđević

I’ve just finished reading what may be David C. Smith’s best work — Sometime Lofty Towers.

My first contact with Smith was from the Robert E. Howard related pastiche work he did earlier in his career. He wrote an excellent Black Vulmea story, The Witch of the Indies (Zebra, 1977, cover by Stephen Fabian), and a Bran Mak Morn tale, Witch of the Mists with Richard Tierney (Zebra, 1978, cover by Doug Beekman), and he and Tierney (1936 –2022) collaborated on six novels about Red Sonja. The Sonja tales are not REH pastiches, of course, but are based on a comic book character created to interact with Conan in the Marvel series.

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The Literacy Crisis – Audiobooks

The Literacy Crisis – Audiobooks

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Me… yet again

Good afterevenmorn, Readers!

I made an attempt this past fortnight to return to social media. As a small author, it’s really important to make attempts at getting seen if I have any hope of selling my books. Social media is one of the best ways to do this, for better or worse. I’m not especially good at marketing myself or my stuff, so I was trying to use this past couple of weeks as an opportunity to observe and learn.

This might have been an error. In just a week and a half of returning to social media, I have stumbled across several topics in the bookish world that may have done irreparable harm to my blood pressure. And sense of optimism.

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A (Black Gat in the Hand: Ballard’s Bill Lennox in Hollywood (my intro)

A (Black Gat in the Hand: Ballard’s Bill Lennox in Hollywood (my intro)

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“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

Pulp Fest took place in Pittsburgh first week of the month. It’s a really cool event, and the Hilton Doubletree is a nice site. Steeger Books rolls out its Summer line at this event. Last week I shared the latest intro I wrote for Hammett’s Continental Op series; which is up to four volumes. This week, it’s my other new Steeger release. I’m a big fan of W.T. Ballard’s Hollywood studios troubleshooter, Bill Lennox. He’s a neat take on the hardboiled PI. 

Lennox was featured in short stories and novels, and I wrote the intro for Volume 2.

Willis T. Ballard’s middle name is ‘Todhunter.’ While that is certainly a rare one, it is also the middle name of his cousin, Rex Stout, who created the hugely popular Nero Wolfe. Apparently Todhunter is a good name if you want to become a successful writer.

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Weird Times 3: Fashion

Weird Times 3: Fashion

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Fashions of the week in March of 1923.

This post is the third in a series reflecting on the world of 1923, and the 1920s generally, as a background to early issues of Weird Tales. Imagine that you’re an American in 1923, and you’re taking a walk to the newsstand to buy the first issue of a new pulp fiction magazine. What sort of things will you see?

Walk down a city street and you’ll observe other people around you, meaning you’ll see the fashions of the time. Any given era has its characteristic clothes and hairstyles, and the nineteen-twenties are no exception. Interesting to me personally are the reasons behind the adoption of specific fashions, and what they have to say about the way the world is changing. I’m writing these background posts as though one aspect of the 1920s can be divided from the others, but the truth is that then as now everything’s mashed together. Fashion’s affected by technology and politics, by ideas about formality and ideas about sexuality; and it can create images that will, for later years, define its moment.

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Half the Sky: A Meditation on Battleborn Magazine #1

Half the Sky: A Meditation on Battleborn Magazine #1

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Battleborn magazine, issue 1 (Iron Age Media, , May 31, 2026). Cover by Samuel Dillon

This is a man’s, man’s, man’s world

— James Brown

One blustery Maine spring day, I blew off class to spend an hour hanging out with a friend in the math department’s student lounge. Picture a Coke welded to my hand and a coffee to hers, as we discussed fantasy and science fiction and divers other subjects in the “wrong” lounge (we were English majors, but it was the English/Math Building and the math lounge was empty. What can I say?). Picture my friend as the reason I figured out I’m a feminist a lot sooner than I would have otherwise. Picture the talk turning to men, a gender to which only one of us is attracted.

“I’m fine with men,” she said. Then she said something I hadn’t heard before, but have heard other women echo many times since: “I just want them to remember women hold up half the sky.”

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Forgotten Authors: Edwin K. Sloat

Forgotten Authors: Edwin K. Sloat

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Edwin K. Sloat

Edwin K. Sloat was born on March 1, 1895 in Denmark, Iowa.

The attended State Normal College in Edmond, Oklahoma (now University of Central Oklahoma), graduating in 1916. Following his graduation, he worked as a newspaperman, an employee of the post office, and as a band leader during World War I, in which he was a Musician 1st Class Petty Officer.

After the war, he married Corinne Evelyn Lake in 1922 and they had two sons, Jerry and Donald.

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Dark Muse News: Unearthing Black Gate, and the Cave of Wonders – Interviewing John O’Neill

Dark Muse News: Unearthing Black Gate, and the Cave of Wonders – Interviewing John O’Neill

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Issue and cover artists: 1  Keith Parkinson (2000), 4  Charles Keegan (2002), 10 Denis Rodier (2007), 12 Bruce Pennington (2008), 15 Donato Giancola (2011)

Learn the lore and allure of Black Gate!

Building on our June 2026 coverage of The Legend of Top-Shelf Books Open Mic, the near-mythical, yet true, confluence of many Black Gate contributors and authors, this Dark Muse News post corners Chief Editor John O’Neill to detail the history of the magazine. It’s over 25 years old!

I learned about Black Gate magazine in 2010 at the World Fantasy Convention, when Howard Andrew Jones espoused about it on a panel. I immediately ordered Issue #15, and then the print run ended! Eh gad. I was late for the party again! (Context in The Legend of Top-Shelf Books post).

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