Comics Interview — Issue #132

Main Topics: Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (TV Series), Atlas Comics History, Superman Mythology on Television

Contents
  1. Bryce Zabel & Paul Power
  2. Jeff Rovin
  3. "Up Front" (David Anthony Kraft)
  4. Jack Kirby Checklist
  5. "The Last Word" (Letters)
interview Bryce Zabel & Paul Power
Interviewed by Jeff Gelb
Bryce Zabel Supervising Producer / Screenwriter, Warner Bros. / Lorimar Working on: Lois & Clark (Season 1), MANTIS (Fox)
Paul Power Storyboard Artist, Freelance Working on: Lois & Clark flying sequences
A roundtable end-of-season conversation covering how each became involved with Lois & Clark and how their shared passion for comics shaped it. Topics range from creative constraints imposed by DC Comics and network notes, the difficulty of establishing jeopardy for an invincible superhero, the show's Moonlighting-style romantic tension, to Zabel's anecdote about sitting next to Jerry Siegel at a DC dinner and being asked to sign his own script for the Superman co-creator.
interview Jeff Rovin
Interviewed by Lou Mougin
Jeff Rovin Writer / Editor, Freelance Working on: Encyclopedia of Adventure Heroes, Adam West biography
The second and concluding part of a two-part conversation, picking up with his tenure at Martin Goodman's short-lived Atlas Comics in 1974–75 (including titles such as Phoenix, Iron Jaw, Scorpion, and Tarantula) and Goodman's heavy-handed editorial interference that forced Atlas toward Marvel imitation before it folded. Rovin then describes his subsequent freelance career writing pop-culture encyclopedias, Hollywood-scandal books, and his contacts through expert-witness work in copyright cases involving Star Wars, E.T., and The Greatest American Hero.
article "Up Front" (David Anthony Kraft)
DAK recounts his childhood attachment to the George Reeves Superman TV series and traces every subsequent Superman media adaptation, arguing that Lois & Clark's focus on character and relationship puts it closer to early Marvel Comics storytelling than to contemporary superhero slugfests.
article Jack Kirby Checklist
A complete reference guide listing every piece of Jack Kirby artwork that appeared in Comics Interview from issue #1 through #131, presented as a tribute following Kirby's death in early 1994.
article "The Last Word" (Letters)
Reader David Nesbitt requests help locating the Richard Donner version of the Superman II screenplay mentioned by Margot Kidder in issue #123; typography staffer Don Markstein writes humorously about his uncredited work Americanizing European Disney duck stories for Gladstone. ---