Forwarded to me this morning by Pat DiNizio who has joined me in chronicling the Fall of America.
Herb Trimpe, who brought us the first appearance of Wolverine in the last panel of Incredible Hulk #180, weighs in on my previous post regarding Wolvie's birth:[The creation] was a kind of a group grope with John [Romita] doing the final model sheet. Len's concept, I believe, or Roy, but I think Len. I, being present in the bullpen at the time, was privy to what was going on. I like to think that they sewed the monster together and I brought it to life. All this of course with Stan's approval.--Herb







From the Associated Press...
I hate to be a party pooper, but we found the new Security Checkpoint toy from Playmobile somewhat disappointing. My six-year-old nephew pointed out that the passenger's shoes can’t be removed, and when we placed some potentially dangerous peanut butter beneath the passenger's jacket, neither the passageway detector nor the security wand picked it up. “That's the worst security ever!” said my nephew. But it turned out okay because when the passenger got on the Playmobil 757 and tried to hijack it, several heroic passengers kicked the crap out of her.
I think I misled you: The Shores lived on Long Island. Syd's wife, Selma (nee Hirschhorn) Shores came from Mt. Freedom. Selma's father, Bernard Hirschhorn was the "Patriarch" of the Hirschhorn family, who sponsored his parents and siblings including my grandmother, when they came over from Galicia. He made his fortune in the garment center and settled in Mt Freedom. Ben was one of the founders of the Mt. Freedom Jewish Center, which is why Syd, Selma and many of the Hirschhorn descendents are buried there.

Don't know if you know this but the recent Marvel Comics stamps that the Post Office produced contains a cover by our cousin, Syd Shores. Syd was married to a first cousin of my father's side (the Hirschorn side). Apparently, he drew and dad wrote a whole lot of books together. Other than the books I have, I really didn't know much about my father's early career in comics - still don't.I didn't know Mike's father's work either, so I looked it up. Turns out that Phil Sturm (Mike's father and my father's first cousin) was a writer on All Hero Comics #1 from Fawcett (1943), Blue Ribbon Comics #3 from Archie (1939), and the following Marvel-Timely books: Daring Mystery Comics #3 (1940), Mystic Comics #5, and USA Comics #1, #2, #3, and #4 (1941).

Duffy later regaled me with what happened after I exited the bullpen. Dave looked up, his big blue eyes wide, looked both ways and asked wildly, “Uh...Who-waz-that? What? Who?” Duffy is, by this time howling and nearly falling down. Duffy was the human embodiment of Volstagg from the Thor series, with girth and flaming red hair and beard to match, so when he laughed, it was rolling. “Oh,” sez he to a totally startled and befuddled Dave, “that's just Paty. She's harmless.”
Cliff--Thank you very much for the post about my inking. I've never been a fan if inking awards, because people tend to just vote for whomever's inking their favorite comic. But it's good to see inkers get some recognition, at least.



Back to Howard, my first reaction to him some fifteen years ago was in response to his first reaction to me, which carried his discomfort with my smashing some wise-mouth skinhead in the teeth at NBC Studios. At least that’s how I remember it. Harlan remembers me hitting three guys, and all that without a single beer. Though I see him only on occassion (or perhaps because of it), I enjoy Howard’s company more than I do most people’s, a keen repository of accurate information and sense and good humor, this man—“He was the voice of sanity at an otherwise insane publishing house,” as Bob Silverberg recently described him to me. Howard had several vodkas, then caught a train home from Port Authority, while I had to walk with a bellyfull of tequila and ale and no dinner back to a parking lot to locate my Toyota. It wasn’t hard to find; some dickless piece of shit had sideswiped it, leaving me without a sideview mirror. Not a lot of cars look like that. I drove through the Lincoln Tunnel, worse for tequila, and phoned a few friends until the cell kicked out, an asshole move that late at night but almost forgivable given my state of un-mind. Made it as far as Passaic before hunger overtook me, so I pulled off the road and found an all-night glatt-kosher Chinese takeout joint, then ate lo mein in my front seat.