Greetings airmen. Almost twenty years ago, I made my one and only sale to Marvel Comics. It was a short, 8 pg. HULK story and illustrated by then newbie, Paul Pelletier. The story was our campaign to get Paul into the pros and it worked. He is still one of today’s finest, most dependable pencillers, having worked for all the big guys. Thing is, I had hoped to maybe make a few more sales to the old House of Ideas and suggested something radical to then HULK editor, Bobbie Chase. At that time Peter David was writing the HULK and his brand of wry wit was quite evident throughout his run. Meanwhile John Byrne was handling SHE-HULK and he too was giving it a really broad, comedic feel. So much so that I saw both books very much ala the old Fawcett CAPTAIN MARVEL titles, what with Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel leading the clan. But they had a Captain Marvel Jr. and I felt that junior member of the family was the missing element at Marvel. So I suggested to Ms.Chase the possiblities of creating a KID HULK!

She turned me down quite cooly, stating in no uncertain terms that the HULK was not a humorous title. No? You could have fooled me. I’ve often wondered since then if Ms.Chase actually read her own books? But that is neither here nor there, loyal airmen. I was shot down. But I still liked the idea of a HULK-like teenager roaming the world. There was a real appeal to it. So I sat down and wrote up the concept, only now making it my own, and leaving out anything remotely connected to the Marvel Universe. I then tried to find some interested artists who would want to work on this idea, but alas wasn’t lucky there either. So, as I’ve done so many times in the past, I simply slid the now tagged folder, BULLDOZER, into my files and went on to other things.

Of course, if any of you are at all aware of the current crop of Marvel titles, you’ll note that a few years back they put forth a Junior Avengers group and smack dab in the middle of this teen group was a KID HULK!!! Several of my comic amigos made a point of calling to tell me this. Oh, yeah. Was upset. Naw. It was a good idea twenty years ago. I’m just sorry it took Marvel so long to figure it out. NOTE, I have not seen a single comic with this character, nor do I plan to. Why? Because, somewhere during our first session of the School for Sequential Graphics, I gave out BULLDOZER presentation packages to our two students and gave them the assignment of doing up character sketches from it. Little did I know at the time that homework would result in a full-blown resurrection of the project.

Tom Bonello, one of those first two students, turned in such fantastic sketches, both artist Rich Woodall and I were amazed. As the class wound down, I began to nurture the thought of returning to BULLDOZER full-force, if Tom were willing to take it on. I popped the question to him on our last night of class..and he said yes! I was estatic!! The pin-up above is one of several Tom has completed since then. It was inked by Ken McFarlane, another local talent I’ve known for many, many years. They make a great team. So there you have it, airmen. What was thought to be long dead, now has a new life and a very hopeful future. And rest assred, I’ll keep all of you posted with lots of previews as Tom starts turning in full pages.

This week saw the posting of my latest PULP FICTION review column. See the logo above this log? Go to it and click on to it. Please. As I had mentioned in one of my entries last year,
2005 saw the passing of my favorite writer of all time, Ed McBain. Well, one of his last published titles was a reprint from Hard Case Crime, the best new mystery publisher on the market. If you haven’t checked out any of their titles yet, you are missing out on some great reading. Check them out, and do let me know what you think of the reviews.

Finally, this week saw the return to television of my favorite show, LOST. After a long, holiday hiatus, they came back strong with one of their best episodes ever. I love this series and think it has the best writing on televsion.

Take care, Ron over and out.