My Life With Comic Books: Part # 51

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part 51

We got the word from Gene Simmons (of the rock band KISS) that NBC-TV was sending a pre-production crew to Canada to scout for locations to begin filming the two-hour TV movie based on the “Delta Tenn” comic book series that we were publishing. Filming would begin within a few weeks. If this TV movie got good ratings it could possibly become a weekly television series and the creator of “Delta Tenn” would make a fortune in option fees and merchandising. The creator, Mark Marderosian, was one of the nicest guys I’d ever worked with and he deserved all of this success. I was happy to be publishing the comic book series because I knew that we’d sell more comic books once the TV show was broadcast. Then we heard the bad news. A few days before the pre-production crew was scheduled to leave, NBC-TV had a visitor to their offices. Steven Bochco, creator, writer, and producer of popular TV shows including “Hill Street Blues,” “Doogie Howser MD,” and “L.A.Law” pitched a strange idea for a new television show to the network called “Cop Rock”. The idea for the show was that it would be a serious police drama that had many of the characters spontaneously break into song! It sure was a different idea for a show! The network certainly didn’t want to upset Steven Bochco so they agreed to do his show. They dropped “Delta Tenn” and produced “Cop Rock.” “Cop Rock” turned out to be the biggest flop of the season.

Gene Simmons and Shannon Tweed decided not to renew their option on “Delta Tenn.” Sales of the comic book series weren’t high enough for me to justify continuation, so Mark Marderosian “self-published” a few issues. The “Delta Tenn” series ended with issue #11.

With my comic book publishing ended, I knew I’d need to come up with some other way to earn extra money so that my goal of early retirement could be achieved. My father had just recently been experimenting with investments in the stock market, primarily in “index options”. He had read some books about this type of investment and although there were risks involved it seemed interesting. It was basically “betting” that the stock market S+P Index would rise or fall. I really don’t understand how this worked, but at the time it seemed to make some sense. I thought it would be fun (and probably profitable) to try this type of investment with my father. I always enjoyed spending time with him and this would be something we’d have in common. My uncle Jim (my Dad’s brother) also decided to invest in these index options. We met with Gary Cohen, a broker at a local office of Merrill Lynch and we opened our investment accounts. He assured us that we could limit our potential losses by placing a “stop-loss” order with his firm. If our losses ever reached $2500.00 he would “automatically” get us out of that particular option. At that time my wife and I had saved $100,000.00. I didn’t want to risk all of that so we opened the account with $50,000.00 and began the index option trading.

In the first few weeks I profited about $12,000.00! My Uncle Jim and my Dad were also making money. This seemed pretty easy. Certainly easier than working at my comic book store.

Next chapter: The big stock market crash of October 1987.

Picture: Shannon Tweed as Delta Tenn

My Life With Comic Books: Part # 50

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part 50

In 1987, I was publishing a comic book series created by Mark Marderosian titled “Delta Tenn” when we received an inquiry from Gene Simmons, the lead singer of the rock band KISS. He was interested in buying an “option” to produce a feature film or television movie about Delta Tenn. Gene’s girlfriend was actress-model Shannon Tweed and he thought this would be a perfect role for her to play. An “option” is purchased to acquire the exclusive right to use the character and ideas in a movie or television show for a specific period of time. The amount of money is negotiated between the owner of the property and the interested buyer. In the case of Delta Tenn I was merely the publisher.

Mark was the creator and our agreement was that he would own the film rights and merchandising rights to his character. Mark negotiated a reasonable six-month option fee with Gene Simmons and had an attorney draw up the legal documents. Through some smart negotiating, Mark was able to keep the merchandising rights for himself so that if this Delta Tenn project ever got made he’d be able to market trading cards, t-shirts, posters, toys and action figures and keep the money for himself. Initially, Gene wasn’t too happy with this but he finally agreed. I was eager to continue publishing the comic book series because I knew that sales would jump if there were a movie or television show of Delta Tenn.

Gene approached some of the networks with the Delta Tenn concept and although there was some interest, none of them seemed eager to offer the substantial amount of money necessary to produce a film or TV show. Gene Simmons and Shannon Tweed continued to search for an interested network and when their option on Delta Tenn expired they paid to renew it for another six months. Shannon had recently been a guest star on “L.A. Law,” “Hooperman,” and “Cagney and Lacey” and was a more recognizable actress. She believed that they would eventually find someone to produce this film. She even made an appearance on “The Late Show” starring Ross Schaeffer to promote the idea.

During this second option period, Mark was approached by Sybill Danning’s “people” expressing an interest in Delta Tenn. Sybill Danning was a beautiful actress who worked in numerous science fiction films in the 1970’s and 1980’s including one of the “Conan the Barbarian” movies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Her agent was sure that Delta Tenn would be a great movie for Sybill to star in. Mark explained that the option was now owned by Gene Simmons. Sybill’s people contacted Gene to see if the option could be bought out, but Gene declined their offer.

Mark also received a call from the management of Brigitte Neilson, the wife of Sylvester Stallone. They had written a short “treatment” for their version of a Delta Tenn movie and it was typical Hollywood! Mark’s version of Delta Tenn was set ten years in the future in New York City. Delta was a tough, leather-clad policewoman. Hollywood’s version changed the whole character. They wanted it to be set in current time and she’d be a jeep-driving, bikini-wearing Malibu beach cop! All they really wanted to keep was the name, “Delta Tenn!” They were willing to pay thousands of dollars to buy out Gene Simmons option and then spend millions of dollars on the feature film but they wanted to change almost everything about the character. They claimed that they could be ready to begin filming within a few months if Gene would accept their offer. Before a deal could be arranged, Brigitte was diagnosed with cancer and the project was off.

Gene paid for a third option period. He assured us that a deal was being considered by a major network. It wasn’t long before we got the good news. The project was going to be a joint production of Touchstone Pictures and NBC-TV. Touchstone was a highly respected film company and NBC-TV was the number one network at the time. The script was being written as a two hour TV movie by the author of the hit movie, “Two Men and a Baby”. If the TV movie did well in the ratings it would become a weekly television series. Mark would be a wealthy man when this project was finished.

NBC-TV was preparing to send a production crew to Canada to begin scouting for a filming location. Filming could begin within a few weeks.

Next chapter: More Hollywood craziness!

Pictures: Mark Marderosian with Gene Simmons of Kiss

My Life With Comic Books: Part # 49

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP - Part 49

In 1987 my wife, Mal, and I went on our first real vacation without our two kids. We were on a seven-day Carnival cruise to the Caribbean and we both thought that we’d have a great time without Adam and Cassandra. We were surprised to find that we couldn’t stop thinking about them. We kept thinking about how much fun they’d have in the swimming pool and on the water slide. We knew they would love the great food because they both enjoyed trying different things. We watched young kids playing and actually wished that our children were with us! When we got home we immediately booked a cruise for the whole family and six weeks later we were cruising to San Juan, St. Thomas, and Bahamas. We didn’t book this trip through AAA because we were unhappy that they charged us “full brochure price” for our first cruise. We found a travel agent who got us a price for all four of us that was cheaper than the first cruise was for just Mal and I. Our kids loved this vacation. They got involved with the supervised kids program that Carnival offers and each morning they were excited to get together with all of their new “friends.” They would play all day and we would all get together as a family for lunch and dinner. When the ship would dock at an island we’d tour old forts and historic sites, swim in the ocean, and go shopping together. Cruising is a great family vacation. For years, even though we all loved to go to Disney World, when we’d ask the kids what they’d like to do for a vacation, they’d chose a cruise. (Usually we’d go to Disney World each year too!)

In the last chapter I told about the beginning of my comic book publishing of The Man From Uncle. What I neglected to mention were the other comic books I published. Two customers from my store approached me with an idea for a three issue “mini-series” titled “Forever Now.” Chris Coleman and Dan Courtney had previously written and drawn some issues of our “in-store” amateur comic book of “Insect Man” and I liked their style so I agreed to publish this new series.

David M. Lynch and Skip Simpson had an idea for a comedy super-hero series called “The Bird.” I loved David’s writing and I knew that Skip was a very talented cartoonist so I agreed to publish this comic book.

My cousin, Steven, introduced me to Mark Marderosian. Mark was a writer and artist who had come up with an idea for a new comic book series that would feature a strong female character named “Delta Tenn.” She was a big city policewoman whose adventures were set ten years in the future. Mark was very talented and professional and he offered to present me with a new issue all ready to be printed once every two months. It required almost no work on my part so I agreed to be his publisher.

My agreement with each of these creators was a fifty-fifty split on all profits. I would handle all of the marketing, printing, shipping, and billing. They needed to deliver their work on time and they all did. Especially Mark Marderosian. Mark also helped me with my “main” comic book series, “The Man From Uncle” by doing the mechanical layout of many of our front covers. Beginning with issue number seven of The Man From Uncle we started using photographs from the old television series and Mark hand-colored old black and white photos for us. This was before computers made this an easy task! He was a great guy to work with.

We worked with a lot of writers and artists on our Man From Uncle series and most of them were able to meet their deadlines. We would always ask them to set their own schedule. Some artists could draw an entire issue in thirty days but other artists worked a little slower or were doing this while they worked a “real” full-time job so they would agree to finish their issue within sixty days. I was agreeable to the artist’s time schedule because I had several writers and artists working on issues all at the same time so I could wait and publish their work when it was finished. Things were going fine until I hired a good friend of mine to draw issue number five.

Kevin Burns was a customer of my comic book store and he was a lot of fun to be around. We’d spend hours laughing together when he’d stop by the store. He was a serious toy collector and had a love of old classic television shows including “The Munsters” and “Lost In Space.” He worked full time at Twentieth Century Fox and he was a very busy man but he assured me that he could draw the entire issue within sixty days. He drew the cover first and I was “blown away” by it! It was (and still is) my favorite cover for the entire series. He perfectly captured the look and style of Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin that we wanted for our series. They looked like the original actors but with a slightly updated sense of style. I now knew that Kevin was capable of turning in our best issue yet.

With his repeated assurance of completing the project on time I paid Kevin in advance and eagerly waited for the finished artwork. I sent in the information and a picture of Kevin’s gorgeous cover artwork to all of the distributors so they could begin the two-month process of getting the orders from the retailers. When the order came in it was for only 10,000 copies but I knew that when the retailers saw the finished comic book they would be encouraged to order more of our future issues because the quality had improved so much. I also knew that the Man From Uncle fans would love Kevin’s work. But for some reason, Kevin was unable to deliver the artwork on time. Months went by. Finally the comic book was so late that the distributors required me to cancel their original orders and resolicit new orders. When the new order came in it was for only 8000 copies.

After about five months I received the artwork from Kevin and it was great. I was proud to publish this and I thought it was our best-looking issue to date. It was our lowest selling issue so far but the fans loved it and we got quite a few complimentary letters. I learned a lesson with this experience. I would no longer assume that artists could reasonably predict how long it would take them to complete the project so I’d just wait until it was completely done before I would solicit orders from the retailers.

I decided to go to “Spy-Con,” the biggest television and movie spy-related convention in the United States. I flew to Chicago and spent three days mingling with friendly Man From Uncle fans and spent some time promoting our comic book series. I wanted this publishing venture to be successful. I even ran advertisements in the major comic book retailing publication offering hundreds of free copies of our publications to try to stir up interest. I hoped that if the retailers gave these free copies to their customers, a portion of the readers would enjoy the series enough to buy the new issues. This publishing idea was part of my plan to accumulate enough money so that I could retire before I was forty years old. Despite my efforts, sales did not increase enough.


Over the two-year period that I published The Man From Uncle comic book series I worked with several writers and artists. Issues #1-2 were written by David M. Lynch and Skip Simpson and drawn by Ken Penders. Issues #3-4 were written by Stan Timmons and drawn by Ken Penders, Larry Juliano, and Tom Cuda. Issue #5 was written by Glenn A. Magee and drawn by Kevin Burns. Issue #6 was written by Glenn A. Magee and drawn by Ronn Sutton. Issue #7 was written by Stan Timmons and drawn by Paul Daly. Issue #8 was written by Skip Simpson and drawn by David and Dan Day. Issue #9 was written by Paula Smith and drawn by Wayne Reid. Issue #10 was written by David M. Lynch and drawn by Ken Penders, Bruce Meservey, and Edwin Brady. Issue #11 was written by Paula Smith and drawn by David and Dan Day. Every issue was profitable but when it came time to renew our contract with MGM-Turner, they wanted to double the fees so we sadly made the decision to stop publishing the series. It was fun for a while but the profits from the sales of the comic books were now too small and it wasn’t “worth” the time, energy, and stress to continue.

Next chapter: Hollywood buys the option to produce a movie based on our comic book series, “Delta Tenn!”

Picture: The Cover of The Man From Uncle comic book # 5, drawn by Kevin Burns