I especially enjoyed the "Wack Off competition"

MARVEL COMICS IN THE SILVER AGE

In the career-girl fashion of that era, Steinberg spent some months living at a YWCA and job-hunting through employment agencies. "After a couple of interviews, I was sent to this publishing company called Magazine Management. There I met a fellow by the name of Stan Lee, who was looking for what they called then a 'gal Friday'.... Stan had a one-man office on a huge floor of other offices, which housed the many parts of the magazine division.... Magazine Management published Marvel Comics as well as a lot of men's magazines, movie magazines, crossword puzzle books, romance magazines, confession magazines, detective magazines.... Each department took turns, one day a week, covering the switchboard...when the regular operator took her lunch break".[2]

Marvel's only staffers at that time were Lee and Steinberg herself, with the rest of the work handled freelance. De facto production manager Sol Brodsky "would come in and set up an extra little drawing board where he would do the paste-ups and mechanicals for the ads". She recalled that the "first real Bullpen" — the roomful of artists at drawing boards making corrections, preparing art for printing, and, as envisioned later within Marvel's letter pages and "Bullpen Bulletins", a mythologized clubhouse in which the likes of Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Don Heck and others would be found kibitzing — was created when Marvel moved downtown a few buildings from 655 Madison Avenue to 635 Madison Avenue (with Magazine Management at 625, the formal address found in the comics' indicia). "Stan finally had his own office. There was a big space with windows where I was, and Sol Brodsky, now on staff, had his own desk".[3] Among the first Bullpen staffers, Steinberg recalled, were Marie Severin and Morrie Kuramoto, followed by John Verpoorten and Herb Trimpe.

Artist Jim Mooney once recalled,

• She was wonderful! You’d go to DC and it was a business-like thing and I'd come out of there and I'd feel, 'Oh, God, I need a drink'. [laughter] I'd go to Marvel and I'd come in and Flo would say, 'Hello, Jim! Oh, I'll call Stan right away! Stan!!! Jim Mooney is here!!!' And I'd think, 'Oh my God, who am I? I'm a celebrity'. [laughter] She was great. It wasn't just me, believe me, it was everybody and anybody, but I still felt, well, it was really just me.[4]

The all-purpose Steinberg — given the sobriquet "Fabulous Flo", in the manner of many other Marvel Comics endearments — said that she

• ...became so overwhelmed with the fan mail and the Merry Marvel Marching Society fan club that Stan started. There was just so much work! I need extra help and had gotten this wonderful letter from a college girl in Virginia by the name of Linda Fite. She came up and was hired to help me out, though she eventually went on to do writing and production work.[3]

Steinberg became exposed to the underground comix scene after meeting and becoming friends with Trina Robbins, who had come to the Marvel offices to interview Lee for the Los Angeles Free Press alternative newspaper. Through her, Steinberg became acquainted with contributors to the New York City alternative paper the East Village Other, and met such underground cartoonists as Kim Deitch, Art Spiegelman, and Spain Rodriguez.

Journalist Robin Green, who succeeded Steinberg at Marvel in 1968, wrote in Rolling Stone:

• It was three years ago that I went to work at Marvel Comics. I replaced Flo, whose place I really couldn't take. Fabulous Flo Steinberg, as she was known to her public, was as much an institution in Marvel's Second Golden Age as Editor Stan (The Man) Lee himself. She joined Marvel just after Stan had revolutionized the comic industry by giving his characters dimension, character, and personality, and just as Marvel was catching on big.[5]

LATER CAREER

Steinberg left Marvel in 1968. "I was just tired. The last years were so long because the fan mail was overwhelming. Bags of it would come in, and all the letters had to be acknowledged".[6] The position itself, even after five years, was not particularly well-paid, and Steinberg quit after not receiving a $5 raise.[7] Marie Severin, recalling the day of Steinberg's going-away party, observed in 2002: "I think the stupidest thing Marvel ever did was not give her a raise when she asked for it because she would have been such an asset to have around later because she's so honest and decisive. ... I was thinking, 'What the hell is the problem with these people? She's a personality. She knows what she's doing. She handles the fans right. She's loyal to the company. Why the hell won't they give her a decent raise? Dummies.'"[8]





Editor-publisher Steinberg's Big Apple Comix (Sept. 1975). Cover art by Wally Wood.
Steinberg went to work for the American Petroleum Industry, leaving when that trade group relocated to Washington, D.C..[citation needed] A "Marvel Bullpen Bulletins" page in Marvel comics cover-dated February 1969 and necessarily written two to three months earlier noted that she "has a great new job at Rockefeller Center".[9] She moved to San Francisco, California, in the early 1970s, and later to Oregon before returning to New York City to help run Captain Company, the mail-order division of the horror-comics magazine firm, Warren Publishing.[10]

She spoke at a 1974 New York Comic Art Convention panel on the role of women in comics, alongside Marie Severin, Jean Thomas (sometime-collaborator of then-husband Roy Thomas) and fan representative Irene Vartanoff.[11]





A fictionalized Steinberg was portrayed as part of an alternate-reality Fantastic Four alongside Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Sol Brodsky in Marvel Comics' What If #11 (Oct. 1978). Art by Kirby and unspecified inker
[12]

In 1975, Steinberg published Big Apple Comix, a seminal link between underground comix and modern-day independent comics, with contributors including such mainstream talents as Neal Adams, Archie Goodwin, Denny O'Neil, Al Williamson, and Wally Wood.[13][14] Critic Ken Jones, in a 1986 retrospective review, suggested that Big Apple Comix and [Mark Evanier's] High Adventure may have been "the first true alternative comics".[15]

In the 1990s, Steinberg returned to work for Marvel as a proofreader, succeeding Jack Abel.

they are wacking and crying

This early 1980's Shooter era photo of Marvel staffers.
Left to right: Christie Scheele, Tom DeFalco, Carmela Merlo, Roger Stern, John Byrne, Mark Gruenwald, and Belinda Glass and at the back, Jim Shooter (who stood on a cinder block for comedic effect).

Jim Shooter, from sometime during his reign as Editor-in-Chief at Marvel (Jan 1978-Feb 1987)

He seemed to deliberately cultivate an image of himself as an imperious boss. But as demonstrated by many of the fun projects he oversaw (FANTASTIC FOUR ROAST, MARVEL FUMETTI book, HOWARD THE DUCK magazine 5 that portrays him firing Marv Wolfman, similar photos and behind-the-scenes in HULK magazine and Marvel Bullpen bulletin pages) it seems like he had a fun side too.

SHOOTER: Has anyone ever told you that you look like a Mafia boss?

COLLETTA: Back when Stan Lee was doing your job he once printed photos of all the artists in the comics one month, After he saw how my picture came out he called me up and asked me to come back and get another picture taken. He thought I looked too much like a gangster. He didn't want me to scare the kids... or their parents.

An early 1960's photo with Vince Colletta (left), with Stan Lee (right).

I still remember that time DC actually [had] the audacity to let Colletta ink Marshall Rogers of all people

I know John Byrne was furious that Colletta inked his story for SPECTACULAR SPIDERMAN 58 in 1981, and demanded that Colletta never be assigned to ink his work again.

Mary Skrenes is a comic book writer and screenwriter. She may be best known as co-creator (with Steve Gerber) of Omega the Unknown for Marvel Comics,[1] although she worked on other Marvel characters such as the Defenders and Guardians of the Galaxy. She was the creator of and inspiration for Beverly Switzler, the companion of Howard the Duck. For Omega the Unknown, Skrenes created the supporting characters Amber Grant and Dian Wilkins. She published a number of horror stories for DC under the name Virgil North, and began a long collaboration with Steve Skeates. According to Skeates, a number of his mystery stories were actually co-written with Skrenes, but she insisted on submitting them under Skeates's name alone because of bad blood between her and editor Joe Orlando.[2]

Skrenes got her first professional work for DC Comics in the early 1970s, writing horror and romance stories under the tutelage of editor Dorothy Woolfolk.[3]

Skrenes wrote several episodes of Jem, GI Joe and Transformers in the 1980s. In 2004 she re-united with Gerber to write the short-lived comic Hard Time. For contractual reasons, she was credited only on Season Two; however, the first issue stated that she had been involved with the series from the beginning.



Collaborator Steve Gerber once described Skrenes in his blog as "such a private person that when she gets back to town she’ll probably castigate me for having just revealed that she’s such a private person."[4]

Her last name is pronounced skree-neez

Here's a page of mostly DC letterhacks who turned pro as DC staffers, from AMAZING WORLD OF DC COMICS 1, July 1974. They were fans and gofers at this point at DC, maybe not even assistant editors. And with so many fanzines, they started doing this one for DC from 1974-1978, 17 issues total.
https://comiconlinefree.net/amazing-world-of-dc-comics/issue-1

• 
  Carl Gafford was a colorist for DC in the 1970's and 1980's. He colored many of the Levitz/Giffen LEGION issues in 1982-1983.
  
  Allan Asherman went on to do my favorite book on the Star Trek series, titled THE STAR TREK COMPENDIUM, that I first bought in 1982. It tells you a lot of background about the series, but manages never to bore you. It gives a background on the series development, each season, a synopsis of each episode, and a bit about the actors and how the story developed on each one. My edition covers up through the first 1979 movie. Probably newer editions expanded to cover later movies. In a pre-internet era, it was a great resource, at a time I was really into the series.
  
  Steve Mitchell is best known as an inker and staffer for DC in the 1970's and 1980's. He briefly had an art director job for short lived Seaboard Atlas in 1974-1975, and designed their company logo that appeared in the upper left on all their covers. He also inked an issue of Sienkiewicz's MOON KNIGHT run.
  
  Bob Rozakis needs no introduction. He wrote a ton of stories for DC in the late 1970's. One in particular I liked was a Bat-Mite story in DETECTIVE 482, illustrated by Michael Golden, included several photographed here as characters in the story.
  https://comiconlinefree.net/detective-comics-1937/issue-482/50
  
  Paul Levitz again needs no introduction. I think he's the best writer LEGION ever had, particularly the Levitz/Giffen 1982-1984 run.
  
  Guy H.Lillian, for my money, is the best, most clever, playful and funny of the DC letterhacks of that era. Across titles like GREEN LANTERN, DETECTIVE, BATMAN, JLA, the Superman titles and PLOP.
  
  Sol Harrison here was probably right at the end of his time as Vice President/Production Manager of DC. My appreciation for him is diminished by the fact that he's one of the the two that gave a Super-screwing to Schuster and Siegel, cheating them out of their life's work. As I recall, Harrison is the one who put the eye-catching "go-go chex" across the top of all DC's covers for a while in 1965-1966 to make them stand out. There was a house ad for the DC line that said "Look for the go-go chex!"
  
  E. Nelson Bridwell was a fan and letterhack in the 1960's who visited the DC offices often, and that resulted in him becoming an assistant editor of the Superman titles. He had incredible memory of Superman continuity details that DC's editors referenced for decades. He died in 1986, around the time Alan Moore's "Last Superman Story" came out.

There's also a Joe Kubert interview earlier in the issue, with photos of him at age 48, at the time he was still doing his TARZAN run, SGT ROCK, and a few other projects, editing DC's war comics line.

There are also Cathy Lee Crosby photos from her Wonder Woman TV series. She was very pretty, but Lynda Carter owns the role. For a long time I thought Cathy Lee Crosby and Denise Crosby were related, but they are not. Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar on Star Trek Next Generation) is the grandaughter of Bing Crosby.
Cathy Lee Crosby has no relation to either.



You can see every page of every issue on this site. I spent one hell of a long time purchasing the actual issues in mostly pre-internet times. Issues 4, 5 and 6 I bought back in the day by mail order from DC. I was out of comics for a few years after, and they were not as easy to buy after that. I bought most of them in the late 1980's and early 1990's, issues 2, 3 and 7-16, some on a lucky find at my local comic shop in the back issue bins, the rest by mail order or at conventions.
The last of those I purchased was issue 1 by mail order around 1995 or so, I think it was about 25 dollars. Tough to find! I didn't know for a long time there was an issue 17, and that was a surprise gift mailed to me by a friend of mine.

I'd say that series, the Adam Strange MYSTERY IN SPACE issues, and the STAR SPANGLED WAR and SHOWCASE Enemy Ace issues, were the hardest runs for me to assemble, throughout the 1980's and 1990's. But as all of you know, the adventure of finding them is, while sometimes difficult, half the fun!

Between Mycomicshop.com and Ebay, these things are generally much easier to find than they used to be.

480 Lexington Avenue was the home of most of the Donenfeld businesses from the early 1930s to around 1960. It was the address for the east side of the Grand Central Palace building, shown here, that filled an entire city block. Donenfeld’s offices and companies were on the ninth floor. The lower floors held a large exhibition hall where trade shows were presented for about 40 years, and there was probably at least one restaurant or banquet hall included. That might have been where the DC holiday party was held, we don’t know. The date of Dec. 24th, 1945 is interesting in that it’s Christmas Eve Day and despite that, the room is packed with over 200 people. This shows how local the comics business was in those days. People could attend the party and still get home to their families that evening before the Christmas Day holiday.