Monthly Archives: February 2004

So the other day, my gas tank's just about on Empty and the car's so dirty, I'd forgotten the original color. Time to get it washed. I pulled into a nearby car wash and told the attendant to fill it with Super Unleaded and to give me the plain, garden-variety, no-frills, no Spraywax or ArmorAll wash. A few minutes later, as my auto rolled through walls of suds, I paid the bill, which was $29.65 and browsed about the Gift Shop, checking out the greeting cards, sunglasses and about 9,000 different kinds of air freshener.

A few minutes later as I went to tip the attendant and get my clean, wet car, it suddenly dawned on me that $29.65 was darn cheap for a full tank of gas and a wash these days. A check of my receipt revealed that I had paid $11.95 for the "Full Service Wash" (their cheapest) and I'd gotten 16.065 gallons of gas @ $1.099. A buck-nine for gas???

I checked the sign out front: Super Unleaded was $2.09 per gallon. I walked over and checked the pumps. They all said $2.09 except for the one my gas had come from, which said $1.09. I pointed this out to the attendant who reacted pretty much the way you'd react if I told you that Martian warriors had landed. There was disbelief. Then there was shock. Then there was all-out horror. Apparently, the pump had been mis-set for days like that.

Managers were summoned. Yelling commenced and I'm pretty sure someone was fired. In the midst of it, I interjected and offered to pay the sixteen bucks I'd been undercharged but someone — he may have been the guy who owned the place since he seemed to be doing the firing — said, "No, that's okay. You're honest and it was our mistake."

Returning to my car, I laid a big gratuity on the guy who'd swabbed it down with rags. He asked me what all the fuss was and I told him, including the part about someone being fired. He moaned in sadness. "Friend of yours?" I asked. He said, "No…I was just meaning to get my car filled with gas here this morning."

Our friends over at Spinsanity fact-check certain financial claims that George W. Bush made on Meet the Press. Surprise, surprise: His claims don't stand up.

Okay, this one isn't by me, either. But it's a good biography of the man and you'll note that at the end, it gives the address to which you can send donations in his memory. Here then is DC Comics' official press release on the subject of Julie Schwartz…

JULIUS SCHWARTZ, ARCHITECT OF COMICS' SILVER AGE, DEAD AT 88 FORMER SCIENCE FICTION AGENT SOLD FIRST STORIES BY RAY BRADBURY AND OTHERS

Julius Schwartz, one of the best-loved and most influential members of both the comics and science fiction communities, died Sunday morning, February 8, in Winthrop Hospital in New York from complications from pneumonia. Schwartz was 88 years old.

Schwartz, who was popularly called "a living legend" and served as DC's Editor Emeritus, will be remembered as one of the founders of science fiction fandom, as a comic-book editor whose vision spanned five decades with DC Comics, and as the architect of comics' Silver Age, revitalizing the careers of such super-heroes as Batman, Superman, The Flash, Green Lantern and The Justice League of America.

"DC has lost a living legend this weekend and a true original," says Paul Levitz, DC's President & Publisher. "Julie was an editor who entertained and educated millions over three generations, performed the near-impossible feat of getting great work out of his contributors without ever ruffling their feelings, and taught many of us our craft. If the measure of an editor is the respect of his peers, he was immeasurable – for his peers who loved and respected him were often legends in their own right. Most of us were simply left in awe."

Schwartz was born on June 19, 1915, in the Bronx, NY. In 1932 he created science fiction's first fanzine, The Time Traveler, with fellow enthusiasts Mort Weisinger and Forrest J Ackerman. With Weisinger, he formed Solar Sales Service, the first literary agency specializing in science fiction, with clients including Ray Bradbury, Henry Kuttner, Alfred Bester, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert Bloch, and many others. In 1939 he helped organize the first World Science Fiction Convention.

Schwartz left the world of science fiction in 1944 to join the staff of All-American Comics (one of DC's predecessor imprints), where he was hired by Sheldon Mayer. As script editor, Schwartz contributed to Green Lantern, All Star Comics, The Flash, and many others. As interest in super-hero comics faded in the late 1940s, Schwartz moved on to a variety of titles including All-American Western, Danger Trail, Hopalong Cassidy, and Rex the Wonder Dog. His passion for science fiction shined through in launching Mystery in Space and Strange Adventures, which featured fondly remembered series including Captain Comet, Space Museum, the Atomic Knights, Star Hawkins, and Space Cabby.

During this time, Schwartz continued to work with his favored stable of writers including John Broome and Gardner Fox, and artists such as Gil Kane, Carmine Infantino, Murphy Anderson and Joe Kubert. With these creators and others, Schwartz would soon lead comics into a new age.

Schwartz's career — and the history of comics — turned a corner in with the publication of Showcase #4 (October 1956). The issue, which featured the debut of a new Flash, was a hit: it marked the start of the Silver Age of Comics, and of Schwartz's unparalleled streak at reintroducing Golden Age heroes in a way that would appeal to current comics readers.

The Flash soon was followed by the debuts of a new Green Lantern (Showcase #22, September 1959), the Justice League of America (The Brave and the Bold #28, February 1960), Hawkman (The Brave and the Bold #34, February 1961), and The Atom (Showcase #34, September 1961). Not content only to reinvent past heroes, Schwartz edited the far-flung adventures of science fiction hero Adam Strange, who made his debut in Showcase #17 (November 1958).

"I know a lot of people in our business, but not many I could call my friend," says acclaimed artist Kubert. "Julie helped a lot of people in this business, as an editor and as a person, mostly by being a good guy and a straight guy. He came off as a curmudgeon, but he had a soft heart underneath it all."

"Schwartz was a fan, and agent, an editor," writes New York Times best-selling novelist Neil Gaiman. "Without Julie, our media landscape would look nothing like it does today. His passing really is the end of an era."

Schwartz's comics were noted for their rugged heroes, who were scientists, test pilots, and adventurers. Readers enjoyed their attention to detail and their mix of science fact and fiction, as well as their tongue-in-cheek sense of humor and strong romantic relationships between the heroes and their leading ladies.

In September, 1961, Schwartz transformed the world of DC Comics into a complex multiverse with The Flash #123. "Flash of Two Worlds" opened up the possibility that DC's Silver Age heroes could race into adventure alongside their Golden Age predecessors. It was an idea inspired by science fiction, and one that Schwartz would use for years to come in annual Justice League/Justice Society crossovers, and in stories that introduced Earth-2, Earth-3, Earth-S, Earth-X, and even Earth-Prime, home of DC Comics and Schwartz himself. This depiction of the science fiction concept of multiple earths became so iconic that it became the basis for a recent cover on a national science magazine.

By 1964, Schwartz's reputation for revitalizing DC's characters had grown so great that he was asked to rework Batman, whose adventures he edited through 1978. The "New Look" Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #327 (May 1964). The issue featured the addition of an easily recognized bright yellow oval on the Dark Knight Detective's chest, while the tone of the stories shifted to moody and mysterious.

Schwartz helped move the comics industry forward again in the late 1960s by teaming Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams for the first time in Detective Comics #395 (January 1970), which started the collaboration that still informs the portrayal of the Dark Knight today. Under Schwartz's watchful eye, O'Neil and Adams also created an award-winning run of Green Lantern/Green Arrow that brought the concept of relevant, contemporary issues into comics.

Following the retirement of his old collaborator Weisinger, Schwartz stepped in as the new Superman editor from 1971 through 1985. Typically, Schwartz enhanced what made the Man of Steel work while downplaying elements that seemed dated. He pared down Superman's out-of-this-world abilities, introduced a host of new characters into the Man of Steel's milieu, and gave Clark Kent a new job as TV reporter.

Schwartz retired from editing monthly comic books in 1986 with the two-part story "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?," which appeared in Superman #423 and Action Comics #583. The story, written by Alan Moore with art by Curt Swan, George Pérez and Kurt Schaffenberger, served as a closing chapter to the Silver Age of Superman.

As a coda to his career as a comic book editor, Schwartz edited seven DC Science Fiction Graphic Novels, adapted from classic science fiction works by Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, Bradbury, and others.

Since his retirement in 1987, Schwartz made countless appearances as a goodwill ambassador for DC Comics. He has received awards including the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award, the Shazam, the Eagle, the Alley, the Inkpot and the Jules Verne Awards. In 1998, DragonCon established the Julie Award, whose recipients, including Bradbury, Ackerman, Gaiman, Ellison, Will Eisner and others, are recognized for achievements in multiple genres.

Schwartz's memoirs, Man of Two Worlds: My Life in Science Fiction and Comics, co-written with Brian Thomsen, was published by HarperCollins in 2000.

Schwartz is survived by his son-in-law, three grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. The family asks that donations be made to the Julius Schwartz Scholarship Fund c/o DC Comics, 1700 Broadway, New York, NY, 10019.

I posted Elliot Maggin's thoughts about Julie and then decided, "Okay…no more that aren't by me." But then this one came in from my pal Mindy Newell, another fine writer who worked for him. And since it's Mindy and it's so nice, I'm making an exception. Here it is…

Julie was truly one of a kind, and a man who was not only shaped by his era, but who also helped shape the era he lived in. I will always remember him with love and a smile, which is the best way to be remembered — we should all be so honored!

My favorite memory of Julie is how he used to feed those pink sucking candies he kept in his office at DC (when it was at 666 Fifth) to my daughter Alixandra, who was only four when I first started in the business. She, with a young person's true sight, saw right through his gruffness, and displayed no fear, only putting out her hand again and again for another candy, calmly and patiently staring down Julie's gruff "You want another one?" until he delivered.

My other memory of Julie is one from before I became a comics professional, and dates back to the late '50's and early '60's, when Julie was the editor of the Superman books and I was six and/or seven — 1959, 1960. Anyway, I was in a science quiz…the question was "How far is the Earth from the Sun?" Of course I knew the answer — 93 million miles. The teacher and the principal were so impressed! And you know how I knew the answer? Because when Julie was the editor of Superman, and Supes flew to the sun, his Editor's Note said: "The Sun is 93 million miles from the Earth." Julie always put little facts like that into his comics in those days…it was also how I discoverd that krypton is an inert gas, and how I learned what "invulnerable" means, and, oh, so many other things!

Julie, you were a true mensch, the living proof of how one life touches another and another and another until, to paraphrase the Talmud, you havae touched the world.And I will miss you. We all will. And when I told Alixandra (now 24) tonight that you had crossed over, she said, "I remember him. He used to give me all those pink candies."

Alechem shalom, Julie.

There are tributes to Julie all over the Internet but I thought I'd direct your attention to the ones from from Neil Gaiman and Mike Netzer.

And here's a link to the AP wire service obit, which contains a lot of info from this site. An important and probably beautiful obit by Harlan Ellison will be appearing shortly.

Lastly, a correction: I said Julie, back in his agenting days, sold some of H.P. Lovecraft's first stories. Wrong. As Bob Beerbohm reminds me, Julie actually sold some of Lovecraft's last stories, including those that appeared in Astounding Science Fiction in 1936. As the tale is recounted, Julie (then a young, go-getter agent) approached Lovecraft, who was living in near-poverty. Lovecraft agreed to let Julie rep his work, whereupon Julie got him the highest fee he'd ever received…which, amazingly, displeased Mr. Lovecraft. He apparently felt it was unseemly for a writer to fight for money, which might explain why he so rarely had any. In any case, the author responded by firing his new agent and dying not long after…so Julie knew Lovecraft at the end, not at the beginning. My apologies for the error and my thanks to Bob and also to Juli Thompson, who wrote in about it.

Here are two views of Bush's turn on Meet the Press, neither of them particularly favorable. Fred Kaplan notes that Bush seems to be advancing the idea that it's fine for the U.S. to attack any country we think might someday have the capacity to build Weapons of Mass Destruction. And Andrew Sullivan, formerly a Bush cheerleader, discusses the economic part of the interview, which greatly worried him.

I watched a little of George W. Bush on Meet the Press and thought he did poorly. He seemed to be clinging to the notion that if you act with a pure heart, you can't possibly be accused of being a poor president. (I think that was Jimmy Carter's attitude, too.) Even if the public buys that Bush's intentions and courage are admirable, I think they'll still demand some sort of reckoning for the vast disparity between what we were told, pre-war, about Weapons of Mass Destruction…and what now seems to have been the case. Most of those who believe that Saddam's ouster was a good thing, well worth however many American lives and dollars it will ultimately have cost us, can't be too comfy with the thought that our leaders were that misinformed in the planning stages. As I understand it, the current excuse is that it was all the C.I.A.'s fault. But of course, we still have absolute confidence in the current administration of the C.I.A. and do not contemplate any changes there.

I have no particular enthusiasm for John Kerry…or any name I'm likely to see on a ballot this year. I suspect we will all spend much of '04 revisiting the Vietnam protest era. Republicans seem to be ready to start tarring Kerry's patriotism and linking him with the likes of Jane Fonda. Democrats are going to flog Bush's National Guard service as far as it will take them. My Press Corps pal says that the wish-dream there is to uncover something that will suggest not just that Bush got special family-related privileges but that he stopped flying due to a drug problem. This is sounding to me a little like the folks who were praying that by keeping the Vince Foster matter alive, they would eventually implicate one or more Clintons in a murder scheme.

Getting back to Meet the Press: It's interesting to see not only the wide mix of reviews for Bush but also for Tim Russert's interrogation. The right-wing websites think it's obvious he had it in for Bush and was doing the Democrats' bidding. The left-wing websites think it's obvious he avoided the kind of follow-up questions that might have shredded Bush's answers. I never thought much of Russert as an interviewer but if he's evoking this range of reactions, he probably did a decent job.

Julie Schwartz loved going to comic conventions, especially the annual Comic-Con International in San Diego. He loved being at the con, he loved seeing friends, he loved signing autographs. He especially loved answering questions about his work and every time I had him on a panel — I did at least four dozen with him over the years — he'd goad me: "Ask me something you don't know, something they [meaning the audience] don't know." I tried. Lord, how I tried…but it was tough sledding, especially in the later years when some anecdotes were rerun more often than "Chuckles Bites the Dust." Year before last, I had what I thought was a brilliant idea: Scott Shaw! assembled a slide show of a couple hundred of the odder covers that appeared on Schwartz-edited comics. Then we did a panel where Scott projected said slides and I sat with a microphone to interview Julie and extract whatever recollections were evoked by each cover. It was sound in theory but in practice, it went more or less like this…

ME: Here's the cover of Strange Adventures #144 where you have the Atomic Knights riding giant dalmatian dogs. How did you come up with an idea like that?

JULIE: Boy, I don't remember this cover at all.

Last year, we had a wonderful panel with Julie, Ray Bradbury and Forrest J Ackerman, three long-time friends from the Paleolithic era of science-fiction. Before it started, Julie told me to make sure and ask him to tell some of the secrets about Bradbury that only he, as Ray's one-time agent and long-time friend, knew. I said fine. When we got into the panel itself in front of 2000+ rapt audience members, it went roughly like this…

ME: Julie, you've known Ray here for close to seventy years. Tell us something about him that we don't know.

JULIE: (A long pause, then:) You'll have to come back to me on that one.

But I didn't care and most of the audience didn't, either. The man was in his late eighties and he'd given so much, he didn't have to give any more. What did drive me crazy was the occasional (like, every year) matter of his hotel room in San Diego.

For a long time, DC Comics paid to fly Julie out each year and they'd pick up his hotel costs and other expenses, as well. That was the case while he was actively editing for the company and also later, when he was semi-retired and serving as a kind of Good Will Ambassador for the company. Finally though, the company could no longer justify the expense and Julie had to either pay his own way or not go to the con. For a time, he paid his own way but money got tight so each year, he'd call some of us (always me, sometimes Harlan Ellison and others) and urge us to use whatever clout we had to suggest that the con at least cover his hotel bill. He got to be a terrible, self-admitted nag about this, calling over and over, to the point where Harlan and I were both ready to just pay for his room ourselves so we didn't have to endure endless calls from Schwartz. I don't think either of us ever did pay because every year, either the convention would find it in the budget or some other organization would sponsor his appearance.

Julie hounded the convention committee members with requests, as well. A year or so ago, they decided that in recognition of his magnificent contribution to the field, they would make him a "permanent" guest of honor, meaning they would fly him out to every San Diego Con and put him up in a hotel room at their cost. When they told me of the decision, I was thrilled…and not just for Julie. I was thrilled for myself because it meant I wouldn't have to put up endless badgering to please, please, please talk to the convention about getting him a free room. I was so happy I wanted to call him right up and tell him but I didn't. I waited until the next con and let the convention officials tell him how it would henceforth be. Right after they did, he came over to me…and I assumed he was about to tell me how pleased he was and perhaps thank me for whatever role I had played in making it happen. The entire exchange went like this…

JULIE: Have you heard? The convention's going to fly me out every year now and give me a hotel room.

ME: Well, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy. You deserve that, Julie. You really do. And of course, now you don't have to ask me to talk to them for you.

JULIE: Well, that's just it. I was wondering if you could talk to them. You see, with my legs giving me trouble, I really need to be flown First Class…

Which of the two major political parties is interested in limited government? Well, according to James Pinkerton, neither of them.

Last Saturday night, Don Pardo made a funny gaffe doing the opening announce on Saturday Night Live. He gave the name of Chris Kattan when he was supposed to say "Chris Parnell." He quickly caught and corrected his own mistake, which was then fixed for the West Coast broadcast. If a show is supposed to be live, they ought to leave in things like that.

In other late night announcer news, some time in March, Edd Hall is departing as Jay Leno's guy. No word yet on a replacement. Hall has had a pretty good track record in late night TV. He worked for ten years for David Letterman, mostly behind the camera in a production capacity and doing graphic design but occasionally in sketches. Then he logged twelve as Jay's announcer. You can find out more about the guy over at his website.

There's plenty to be read about Julius Schwartz on the Internet. Marv Wolfman has posted a tribute to the man and so has Mike Grell. Here's a link to Don Markstein's biographical sketch and here's a link to an interview Roy Thomas conducted with him.

To answer the two most-asked questions in my mail: Yes, there is an address to which donations can be made in Julie's name and I'll post it here as soon as I get it. And yes, there will be tributes and memorials at conventions all year and probably in New York in a few weeks. All that will be reported in this space.

A couple of folks have written to remind me that not only was Julie the first agent for Ray Bradbury but he sold several of H.P. Lovecraft's first stories, as well. Actually, Julie did a lot of things that I haven't had space to report. If you really want to know about this man, seek out a copy of his recent autobiography, Man of Two Worlds: My Life in Science Fiction and Comics. It may be slow-going but Amazon can probably get you a copy.

Lastly, to the readers of this site who have little or no interest in comics: Sorry if this baffles you but this man was important. I'll be back to the normal mix of topics here tomorrow.

A number of fine writers worked with Julius Schwartz over the years. One was Elliot S. Maggin (often written out as Elliot S! Maggin), who I believe sold his first professional script to Julie, then followed it with hundreds more. Elliot just sent me this and asked that I post it here, and I am delighted to comply…

Probably my favorite moment with Julie was kind of a typical one: he was showing off like a kid. Sometime not long after Jean died — I guess it had to be maybe 20 or 25 years ago or so — I invited him over to my parents' house for their Passover Seder, the annual ritual dinner where you tell long stories about freedom and adventuring before you eat.

My father is a little bit younger than Julie, but not much. The way he runs a Seder is to assign things to people to read on the fly, while he pages forward through the book looking for things to leave out that he supposes no one would miss. That way we can eat sooner. Jewish holidays, in my limited religious education, are usually about eating — sooner if possible. Apparently Julie had not been to a Seder in a number of years. Jean was always the spiritual one in the family; she went to church regularly and I guess he had always depended on her to cover him in the area of grace.

There's a crucial point at the beginning of the Seder ceremony when the youngest person at the table reads a short but rather difficult paragraph in Hebrew called "The Four Questions." It's the kickoff for the storytelling part. My nephew Mitchell was not yet one year old, and my wife Pam, the next youngest, is generic Protestant and doesn't do Hebrew. So it fell to my youngest sister Robin to read the questions, and she never particularly enjoyed the role. First, she complained in her ritual manner about how long it had been since Hebrew school, and it turned out she didn't get to go through all the other caveats that generally preceded Robin's reluctant performance.

"I haven't been to Hebrew school since 1928," Julie barked. "And watch this."

And he read the Four Questions in perfect Hebrew, beginning to end, without tripping over a syllable. So it was that the oldest person at the table asked the Four Questions this time.

My father was thrilled. It brought us an entire whining-session closer to the food.

Julie was very proud of himself over this, of course. He generally was. A few days later, back at work, he showed me a gold watch he'd gotten for being the smartest kid in the Hebrew school he attended. It had Hebrew letters for the numbers, and I suggested it ought to run counter-clockwise, but it didn't.

"The Governor's wife came and gave this to me," he said. And he waited for me to realize something, which I didn't. He got impatient quickly.

"So who was the Governor's wife in 1928?" he asked me.

Then I realized who the Governor of New York was in the late 1920's — and that the watch was presented to him by Eleanor Roosevelt.

Julie was impish and wide-eyed and always suffered a little from a touch of arrested development — even into his eighties, but the thing most people who knew him never really thought about much was how incredibly bright he always was. He had a mind that kept working and didn't stop, I suspect, until early this morning.

Eleanor Roosevelt noticed, though — and my little sister did. When we remember how it was that he could make so many of us happy, we might remember that a guy who knew as much as he knew, and understood as much as he understood, doesn't do much by accident.

First time I met Julie Schwartz was 1970 in the DC offices, which were then located at 909 Third Avenue in New York. That was a scary building, more appropriate for an investment firm than a maker of comic books, and the halls were austere and very corporate. You either wore a tie there or felt like you should be wearing one. Julie shared a tiny cubicle with fellow editor Dick Giordano and they each had one chair for a guest. If one of them had two visitors at the same time, he had to borrow the other guy's chair. Julie did this to accommodate my then-partner Steve Sherman and me, then he began pulling out photos to show us…mostly group shots of old-time science-fiction writers. He seemed a bit miffed that I couldn't identify Henry Kuttner or Edmond Hamilton from their pictures, but he invited us to lunch. With the same commanding authority with which he assigned deadlines, he told us to "be back here at 12:30 on the dot." Then he went off to conduct his duties, which seemed then to consist of striding through the DC corridors, rattling change in his pockets and making curt remarks to everyone he encountered.

12:30 on the dot, we were back at his door and by 12:31, he was leading us through a labyrinth of underground tunnels and subway paths to what he kept telling us was his favorite place to eat. I wrongly assumed that this might have something to do with the food there but instead, it had everything to do with the legs of the waitresses. The meal (I had roast beef and rice that I'm still digesting) was mediocre but the servers were all young, cute and dressed in perky little maid's outfits. To Julie, this was the essential purpose of lunch…and lest he sound like a Dirty Old Man here, I hasten to add: The waitresses loved him. They flirted, they hugged him, and one in particular put on a little show, bending over way more than necessary when she cleared dishes around the man. In later years, no matter how old he got, you'd see this charm in action. If you wanted to find the best-looking woman at any comic or science-fiction convention, just locate Schwartz and look who had his arm.

In later years whenever I went back to Manhattan, I'd always make time to visit the DC offices and go out to lunch with Julie. This meant he would take me to some nearby restaurant where the food was terrible but a lot of good-looking waitresses knew him and would flirt unmercifully. Usually, it was the Star Diner on 54th and 7th, but the last time I was back, I experienced a truly impressive example of the old Schwartz Magic. He was having trouble walking and felt he shouldn't leave the office so I said, "Okay, I'll go out and get us lunch." I hiked over to the Carnegie Deli on 7th and got us chicken soup, potato salad, soft drinks and a couple of corned beef sandwiches the size of Pontiacs. While waiting for the order, I ran into another DC editor and we got to talking. A very attractive hostess overheard me say, "I'm taking lunch back to Julie Schwartz" and she asked, "Is that the cute bald man who gives out the Superman pins all the time?" I told her it was and she said, "Give him a big kiss from me, smack on the lips."

I did not do this. I loved the guy but not that much.

In the mid-fifties, nothing was selling well at DC Comics. The marketplace was so fragile that Publisher Jack Liebowitz was afraid of launching new comics for fear that they might all flop and further injure retailer confidence. The solution, conceived by Editorial Director Irwin Donenfeld, was a new book called Showcase wherein they could try out concepts before perhaps launching them as full-fledged, ongoing books. The task of filling this book rotated between the various DC editors, and a kind of competition erupted among them. It was most intense between Mort Weisinger, who edited the Superman titles, and Jack Schiff, who helmed the Batman books. DC then had no editor-in-chief and the two men both coveted the post. Each sought to prove his commercial skills by midwifing the first Showcase feature that proved worthy of graduating to a regular book. As it happened, Weisinger's first Showcase effort (Fire Fighters) flopped but he got DC to okay a regular book of his second, Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane, the same month they also launched Schiff's new acquisition, Challengers of the Unknown. Partly because they'd more-or-less tied, and partly because one would have quit if the other got the job, DC never did name an editor-in-chief that decade or the next.

But in hindsight, the guy who really won that contest was Julius Schwartz. His contender, The Flash, was the third Showcase feature to get its own book but it was the one that demonstrated the most editorial savvy. Lois Lane was just an extension of a book that was already DC's top, and Challengers was a book Joe Simon and Jack Kirby had created outside of DC and just handed to Schiff. Schwartz had actually worked with writers and artists to develop The Flash out of a then-worthless property. More to the point, The Flash gave DC a new franchise and a new direction. There were no spin-offs from Challengers, and Lois Lane — though successful — actually seemed to be drawing some of its sales from the Superman title. Schwartz's Flash, however, outlasted both books and pointed the way to DC's future. Which may explain why Julius Schwartz's tenure as a DC editor far outlasted both Weisinger's and Schiff's.

He was one of the founding fathers of science-fiction fandom and later of comic book fandom. For a time, he was an agent for science-fiction authors where among other accomplishments, he sold the first stories by a kid named Ray Bradbury. But you could only go so far in that field so when he heard about an opening as an editor of comic books, he grabbed it, figuring it might be good for a few years of increased income. On his way to the job interview, he later claimed, he read the first comic book he'd ever read. He apparently gleaned enough of the form because for the rest of his life, Julius Schwartz was not only an employee of DC Comics but, some said, the best comic book editor there ever was. His background as science-fiction fan and editor served him when he helmed comics like Strange Adventures and Mystery in Space, but he really distinguished himself as an editor of super-hero comics. Whatever the "Silver Age of Comics" was, it more or less commenced with Showcase #4, which revived The Flash in a new form and figure. Super-hero comics had been in decline before Schwartz edited that book, supervising and steering the reinvention of an entire genre. It led to more revivals: Green Lantern, Hawkman, Atom and (best of all) The Justice League of America. And then, at another company across town, came The Fantastic Four and all the Marvel heroes — all born or reborn because Julie had paved the route.

Later, when sales on Batman were sinking, DC turned to Schwartz to institute a "new look" and bolster the character, which he did. And when Superman was in need of an editor who knew what he was doing, Julie came to the rescue. How many people in this world could say honestly that they saved both Superman and Batman?

But the main beneficiaries of Schwartz being on this Earth (as distinguished from the others he presided over) were not comic book characters, and they fell into two groups. First, you had your writers and artists who loved working with the man. They found him encouraging, stimulating and devoutly intent on producing the best comic books humanly possible at the moment. And yes, they sometimes found him maddening to deal with. But despite all the years I've been around comics and Julie Schwartz, I've only known of one writer who did not love the man and their association, and it was the kind of writer you'd be proud to not have like you. Given Julie's years and position, that is a truly amazing accomplishment: To do so much hiring and firing and rewriting and critiquing…and to be almost completely undespised.

And the other group that profited from the existence of Schwartz was the readers…those of us who got to buy and read and savor all those fine comics. We loved Schwartz and he loved us, possibly because he had been one of us. He and his boyhood friend Mort Weisinger had published one of the first, if not the first science-fiction fanzine. Julie loved fanzines. He loved conventions. The last few years, nothing depressed him more than the fear that some physical ailment would keep him from the annual San Diego gathering. (Quick Story: Last year, Julie was reticent to come out because he was having trouble walking and didn't want to be rolled about in a wheelchair. I asked him why not and he said, "Because old men are in wheelchairs." I told him, "Julie, you're 88 years old. You are an old man." He still balked so I said, "Tell you what. Come out, sit in the wheelchair and I'll arrange for a woman with large breasts to push you around in it." He said, "In that case, okay.")

Perhaps the greatest thing about Julie was that there was so much overlap in the above two groups. He gave many readers the opportunity to become writers and even artists. And he stood on no ceremony: Anyone who met him at the conventions can attest to how friendly and accessible he was. He got annoyed with you if you didn't ask him questions. It's going to be sad going to conventions without him.

Julie died this morning at Winthrop Hospital in New York — around 2:30 AM. It was not a surprise and it was one of those deaths that, and everyone reading this will understand what I mean, provides a certain amount of relief. He had been in terrible shape the last few weeks. His hearing was almost gone and I had to shout to be heard in our last phone conversation. He had been proud and fiercely independent in his apartment but he had begun falling down and had come to the very sad realization that he could no longer live alone. He'd been in and out of Winthrop, staying with his granddaughter during the "out" parts, and plans were underway to move him to a senior home. The last thing I said to him about a week ago was to promise, because he was afraid he'd never see his friends again, that I'd round up half the comic book biz and come see him in his new digs.

I first knew Julie like most of you did — as a reader. I had letters printed in a lot of his comics and we corresponded, and once I started writing comic books, I politely declined his invitations to submit ideas to him. Frankly, he scared the hell out of me. When I finally did work for him, I found it a delightful experience and after two assignments, opted to quit while I was ahead. I liked writing for Julie but I liked being his friend even more…and perhaps foolishly, didn't want to jeopardize that friendship.

It is sad to lose the man we called, only half-jokingly, The Living Legend but there's a positive way to view our loss: Like one of the Challengers of the Unknown (a comic he never edited), Julius Schwartz sometimes seemed to be living on Borrowed Time. Close to twenty years ago, his wife Jean passed away. They were one of those couples that are practically inseparable. Each day when he went to work, he would phone her on the odd-numbered hours (9:00, 11:00, 1:00, etc.) and she would phone him on the even. When she died, everyone who knew them said, "Oh, poor Julie. He'll go to pieces. He won't last six months without her." You've all seen that happen with older married folks but in this case, it didn't. After a suitable period of mourning, Julie was at conventions, partying 'til dawn, charming the ladies and displaying more energy than guys half his age. I always thought there was a wonderful symmetry there: Schwartz had helped create fandom and now fandom was embracing him and providing him with a place to be in his senior years.

I'll think of more things to write about him here later today. Right now, I just want to sit here and think how wonderful it was to have him around for so long.