My buddy Greg Burgas commented on a comic book poll that ranked writers and artists. I’m not participating because I haven’t really followed comics since 1994, when I sold the bulk of my collection. There are several names I do not even recognize. I still have books such as the Marvel Masterworks, the Moore/Bissette Swamp Thing, a couple of Will Eisner titles, and the original Dark Knight.
The post got me reflecting on some of the people I’ve interacted with, though.
David Mazzucchelli and Denny O’Neill made a store appearance at FantaCo in 1985 during their Daredevil run. There’s a photo I lent to someone to digitize; it shows them, Matt, a couple of other people, and me in the store.
I never dealt directly with Bernie Wrightson except in short phone calls, but FantaCo published some of his work. When he died too young, I wrote about him here because he was so talented and a sweet guy in even those brief interactions.
In his Wikipedia page, [Greg] “Capullo’s first comic work was a publication called Gore Shriek, which was picked up and published by a comic book store in Albany, New York, called Fantaco Enterprises. Gore Shriek was a horror comic book specifically labeled Not Intended for Children because of the violent and graphic nature of it.” FantaCo didn’t “pick it up,” but whatever. I knew Greg, though not well.
Barry Windsor-Smith appeared in FantaCo pubs, but my dealings with him were meager.
Frank Miller created the cover for FantaCo’s Daredevil Chronicles, edited by Mitch Cohn, and also did a centerspread and interview. When I was going to edit a Spider-Man Chronicles, Miller agreed to produce the cover. But he bailed at the last minute, causing me quite a lot of stress.
Pre-Maus
Art Spiegelman used to come to FantaCo to personally deliver copies of Raw, the oversized and eclectic comics and graphics magazine he and his wife, Françoise Mouly, published in the 1980s. I remember hanging out with him during the 1988 San Diego Comic-Con; it’s probably recorded in my diary.
FantaCo was in discussion with Denis Kitchen about putting out a Kitchen Sink Enterprises Chronicles with a Will Eisner cover. I would have edited that issue; alas, it never happened. Except for asking him a question at a panel discussion during that ’88 Con, I never had any dealings with Eisner.
I bought a graphic novel from Jim Starlin at an Albany comics show in the 2010s. He autographed it, but he was very busy.
I told my Jack Kirby story here.
George Perez created the Avengers Chronicles cover for FantaCo, He was supposed to make the back cover for the Fantastic Four Chronicles but was problematically late.
John Byrne saved my bacon as an editor, not once but twice, as I noted here, re: Miller and Perez.