The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics by Dennis O’Neil

O’Neil, Dennis. The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics. New York: Watson-Guptill, 2001.

Denny O’Neil has been writing and editing comics for decades. He is particularly known for his work on comics featuring Batman. He has also written novels and taught writing.

As the title of the book suggests, the focus is on writing for comics. Comics are unique in using both words and drawings (and sometimes only drawings) to tell a story. A comics writer must write with pictures in mind and, unless he is one of those talented people who can draw well as well as write, be ready to describe to the artist the pages, panels and images he will create to bring the story to the page. Comics are inherently a collaboration between the writer and the penciller.

O’Neil’s style is very informal and is advice is direct and practical. As and insider, he can frankly lay out the difficulties of writing for comics and the expectations a writer should have.

Even so, he is quick to point to point out there is no exact formula. A comics writer must be prepared to do what works. Even in scripting, there are two major types: plot first a full script. (Editors will probably prefer full scripts from new writers). Even when writing a full script, there isn’t a standard way. O’Neil reproduces pages from several scripts. They all contain the same type of information, but they all look a little different in their particulars.



O’Neil deals with writing both the single-issue story and the multi-issue story arc. As the editor of Batman titles, he oversaw one of the most long and ambitious story arcs in superhero comics. There is an economic advantage for writers and publishers in that good story arcs can have a longer life reproduced in trade paperbacks (or even hardbacks). Even in a long story, every issue has to be good and offer a point of entry for new readers.

To some degree, what makes a good story is the same in any medium. If someone is looking for a short, readable book on fiction writing and the practical matters of keeping readers interested and managing a complex tale, in comics or other media, this book will be useful.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
The Golden Age of DC Comics: 365 Days by Les Daniels, Chip Kid & Geoff Spear
How to Write Mysteries by Shannon OCork
How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card
Stan Lee by Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon

Reading Comics by Douglas Wolk

Douglas Wolk’s book Reading Comics has two major sections. In the first section, outlines a framework for comic book criticism. First, he makes it clear that the comic book (or graphic novel) is a distinct medium. Comics are not half-assed attempts at some other media such as film or prose.

Next he draws a distinction between mainstream comics and art comics. Mainstream comics have always been an corporate effort. It is corporate in the sense that it has been controlled by publishers. It is also corporate because most mainstream comics are the product of a team (a writer, an artist—sometimes separate penciller and inker—a colorist, and a letterer). Both of these types of corporate authorship give rise to a house style.

This gives rise to one of the major points of distinction between mainstream and art comics. Mainstream comics are dominated by a house style. Art comics are an expression of the style of the cartoonist. There is an element of auteurism in this understanding of art comics. An art comic, to a much greater degree than a mainstream comic, is a single artist’s interpretation of what he sees or envisions. Art comics are valued as an expression of their creators’ visions. The more skillful the cartoonist, the more likely he is to produce good comics.

There is more to Wolk’s framework of comics criticism than this, but it seems to me to be the central element. Wolk does not claim to be making a comprehensive system of criticism. Comic books are too new a medium for that, especially because comics criticisms is necessarily younger.

In the second section of the book, Wolk discusses the works of particular cartoonists. Some of these work heavily or mostly in mainstream comics, but the focus remains on how the artist interprets and expresses his vision in comics, with or without the expectations of mainstream comics.

One of the great examples of this is Alan Moore. Moore’s work for mainstream publishers had turned the mainstream, and especially the superhero genre, on its head while still producing comics that work excellently as mainstream comics. Moore bucks the trend of artsy cartoonists by being a writer only; all of his comics are mainstream-style collaborations with an artist. Wolk mentions several works of Moore, but the grand example is Watchmen. Moore, and especially Watchmen, has cost a long shadow on mainstream comics. He has pushed the mainstream to be much better, and eager imitators have unfortunately produced some horrible comics by learning all the wrong lessons.

Several cartoonists receive attention: the dark, strange visions of Steve Ditko (cocreator of Spider-Man), the epically deep world-building and beautiful drawing of Jaime Hernandez, the epic opus of Cerebus comics by Dave Sim, the artistry of Will Eisner, the power of Frank Miller (sometimes overpowering), and the consciousness-expanding ouvre of Grant Morrison (another writer, but not artist).

Even though the book is not new, it introduced me to cartoonists and comics that were new to me. It was worth the read for that, though Wolk’s perspective on the development of mainstream and art comics is interesting, too.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

American Splendor (Film)

Comic Book Nation by Bradford W. Wright

The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics by Dennis O’Neil

How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster

Maus by Art Spiegelman

Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones

Writing for Comics with Peter David

Douglas Wolk. Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2007.

The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu

Hajdu, David. The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.

Earlier this year, the last of the major comics publishers to use the Comics Code Authority dropped it in favor of their own rating standards. The seal of approval was one almost ubiquitous on newsstand comics. It lingered as sale shifted to comic book stores and older readers.

What led to the industry self-censorship represented by the little square seal is an interesting combination of social, political, and economic forces in American history. David Hajdu tells the story. (When The Ten-Cent Plague was published, major comics publishers were still using the seal.)

When comic strips first appeared in newspapers, the intent was to make the papers more appealing to the lower classes and immigrants who might not speak English, or even read. These cartoons appealed to the interest, problems and culture of this audience, along with other minorities, often thumbing their noses at the cultural establishment, the wealthy, political elites and others who had or represented power. As you might expect, the funnies had many detractors among the defenders of decent society.

This same countercultural element was transferred to comic books when they were invented in the 1930s. By the post-war years of the 1950s, the main countercultural was youth. People had been criticizing comics for their possible effects on children almost from the start, but the growing concern about juvenile delinquency (and possibly Communism) led to a successful campaign against comics. Rock and roll hadn’t been invented, so there wasn’t much else to blame.

Actually, a lot of the more reasonable explorations of the connections between comics reading and juvenile delinquency found it to be tenuous if it existed it all (delinquents read comics, but so did nearly every kid who could get an occasional dime). Detractors of comics thought they had evidence enough, especially Frederic Wertham, who’s Seduction of the Innocent added a sense of scientific respectability to the anti-comics camp.


The comics publishers reacted to save their industry from the wave of parental discontent and pending legislation. The Comics Code was a self-censorship standard like the film industries Hays Code, except much more restrictive. The code, and the forces that led up to it, almost killed the comics industry. It mostly eliminated the crime and horror comics that inspired the most ire through their excesses.

While Hajdu agrees that the crime and horror comics of the 1940s and early 1950s often had material that was unsuitable for children, he finds the roots of the anti-comics movement to be in the fundamental shift in culture between generations that occurred during the cold war. He also exhibits a lot of sympathy for the writers and artists that created comics, some of whom who left the arts altogether after the industry contracted.

Hajdu’s style is journalistic, like other works of popular history. The bibliography is extensive for those who are looking to make a study of comics. There is a touch of humor, which is bound to come up given the sometime goofy nature of comics and the ironies that abounded in the arguments both for and against the medium.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
The Golden Age of DC Comics by Daniels, Kid and Spear
Stan Lee by Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon

Writing for Comics with Peter David

David, Peter. Writing for Comics with Peter David. Cincinnati, OH: Impact, 2006.

Peter David brings his more than two decades of experience as a comics writer, including a well known stint as a writer of The Incredible Hulk, to bear on the subject of writing for comics. David’s book is mainly a guide to writers who want to break into comics, but it’s also written to appeal to comics fans who want a better understanding of their favorite medium.

To some degree, good writing is good writing, so much of the advice David provides could be useful to fiction writers in general. Conflict, character, setting, plot and pacing are things all fiction writers must handle. David draws on examples from other media, especially movies, to illustrate his points.

Even so, comics have there own conventions, traditions and techniques. David deals with some of the unique elements of comics directly such as script style, speech balloons, continuity and writing instructions for artists. Mostly, relevant techniques are dealt with as they arise in discussing writing for comics.

The main audience of the book is writers, so it deals with art, editing and other elements of comics from the standpoint of the writer’s place. All writers need to understand the craft of writing; comics writers also need to understand the craft of making comics since he not only writes a story, but also a script that gives shape to the final product, often page-by-page and frame-by-frame.



David’s advice can be taken more as guidelines as rules. One of his repeated points is to do what works. Even in his own writing, he adapts his script style and level of detail according to the story he is telling, the artist he is working with and the expectations of his editor.

Even though David doesn’t lay out one way, he does show the better ways and the danger zones. Someone wanting to write for comics will find a lot to help him do it well and possibly break into the tight market (including advice from a Marvel editor on pitching a story and detailed script guidelines from Dark Horse).

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics by Dennis O’Neil
How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card

Kirby by Mark Evanier

Jack Kirby, born Jacob Kurtzberg in 1917, picked up the nickname King when he was young. That is not the only reason Mark Evanier applies the title to him in Kirby: King of Comics. Kirby was one of the most influential creators in comics over the course of his long career, beginning in 1938 at the Eisner-Iger shop, which began in the early days of the medium.

Kirby is a coffee table book, full of images from Kirby’s work. Though Evanier’s biography of Kirby is interesting, I suspect these images, some of them large, full-page reproduction were always conceived as a major selling point of the book. Kirby was a professional artist, mostly in comics, his entire career, which was long, so it only makes sense that you need to see a selection of his drawings to understand why he had such an impact on comics.

You can see Kirby’s influence everywhere in comics, especially superhero comics. He worked for both Marvel and DC at different times, and had a hand in creating or co-creating many popular characters and settings.

More than that, he had an influence on the style and visual language of comics that writers and artist still used today. He was one of the first comic book artists to break away from strip layouts (carried over from newspaper comics) to designing for a full page. His characters busted through the panels. His drawings were dynamic and suggested powerful motion; this is a striking characteristic of his work that is discussed by nearly everyone who writes about Kirby. I find his drawings can seem strangely flattened out and dimensional at the same time.

Because Kirby worked for so long, on so many comics, for so many publishers, and had such an influence on the artists who grew up reading his work, you’ll still see many Kirby touches in current comics. I see them in the depiction of technology, the design of characters and costumes, the framing of action scenes, and even the continued use of Kirby dots (especially at DC, no doubt because they just look so cool).

He was an innovator who introduced new types of images into comics, such as collage, and new genres, such as romance. He even foresaw the future of the comic books, pushing his publishers for better quality material and printing, new formats, longer stories, and new ways to market and sell comics. Publishers balked at the cost of such innovations at the time, but many of the changes Kirby predicted and sought for the industry eventually came to pass.

Kirby is known mainly as an artist, but he was also a writer. It may be fair to say that Kirby couldn’t leave a script alone and regularly modified scripts he was adapting to drawings. His solo writing was packed with big ideas and wild concepts and sometimes had trouble finding large audience in his day, though these comics have often done well when collected and reprinted. I do not think it unfair to say that some of his best work was collaborations with other writers. For much of the first half of his career, he partnered with writer Joe Simon, with whom he created Captain America and romance comics. In the 1960s, he collaborated with Stan Lee at to co-create much of what is now the Marvel Universe.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Comic Book Nation by Bradford W. Wright

Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones

Stan Lee by Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon

The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu

Will Eisner by Michael Schumacher

Evanier, Mark. Kirby: King of Comics. New York: Abrams, 2008.

Marvel Comics: The Untold Story by Sean Howe

Marvel Comics has a long history in comic books, especially superhero comics. It’s first superheroes, the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner, debuted in 1939 and the company is currently unrolling popular series of films based on a The Avengers, a superhero team that first appeared in comics in 1963.

The extended, interconnected, iterative melodrama of Marvel’s comics is a complicated fictional world. The real-world company has a complicated history, too. It started as a scion of a pulp magazine publisher seeking diversify and is now a part of media powerhouse Walt Disney Company. Sean Howe provides a detailed history of the company in Marvel Comics: The Untold Story.

Howe divides the history of the Marvel into five major ages. He discusses the early history of the company, but Marvel as we know it today could mark its origins in the resurgence of superhero comics of the early 1960s, after a post-World War II slump that all but the most popular titles.

The succeeding ages roughly correspond to the decades. The 1960s marked the birth of modern Marvel. The 1970s were a time of artistic experimentation when comics, especially Marvel, were embraced on college campus and in the counterculture.

In the 1980s, kids who grew up reading Marvel became adults writing the comics. It was also a time when corporate culture began to consume the company—though the priority of making money, executive interference and possibly shady business was something that went back to the days of the pulps. This decade also marked a change in the way comics were sold, shifting from newsstands and grocery-store spinners to specialty shops, which created opportunities and problems for comics publishers.

The 1990s was a period of excess. Comics creators were finally making money (at least some of them were), but old contentions between publishers—especially Marvel—and writers and artists led to the rise of superstars spinning off to publish works to which they would retain the rights. The growth in comics collecting encouraged marketing practice, especially at Marvel, that eventually led to a bust.

Throughout this time, Marvel’s various owners had been attempting to transition the company from a comics publisher to a media company that leveraged its intellectual property in many ways. In the 2000s, Marvel has done that. A criticism often leveled against Marvel today is that the comics are driven by decisions to make the characters marketable in other media, especially movies and toys.

Comics have come a long way since I started reading them as a kid. For one thing, they cost 10 times as much. Howe wraps up with the opinion that Marvels products are better, and in some ways I agree. However, I think comics often uses the words mature and adult when they are simply prurient, and that the improvement in printing quality is not always accompanied by improvements in story or art. I have mixed feelings about the multi-issues stories designed for collection into graphic novels aimed at book retailers, but I think the event-driven mega-crossovers that have become standard for Marvel and DC don’t move me much—I’d rather read a good short story than an overblown novel.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Amazing Fantastic Incredible by Stan Lee, Peter David & Colleen Doran

Comic Book Nation by Bradford W. Wright

Kirby by Mark Evanier

Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones

1939 by David Gelernter

Stan Lee by Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon

The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu

Howe, S. Marvel Comics: The Untold Story. New York: HarperCollins, 2012.

Amazing Fantastic Incredible by Stan Lee, Peter David & Colleen Doran

When a book is entitled Amazing Fantastic Incredible, Stan Lee must be involved. That is the title of Lee’s graphic novel memoir, co-written with Peter David with art by Colleen Doran, about his long career in comic books.

Lee has a career in comic books going back the Golden Age. He started working in comics soon after they became a popular medium. Few people have had a career in comic books as long as Lee’s, partly because he is still working. No one has been the public face of comic books, or a spokesman and promotor for the medium, as much as Lee.

Because Lee’s career in comics is well known, at least among fans, some of the more interesting parts of the memoir deal with other aspects of his life. He depicts himself as being crazy in love with his wife, Joan, even after decades of marriage. He recalls himself as a lonely kid during the Great Depression, who took refuge in books and the world of his own imagination. He retelling of his army service during World War II, mostly serving as a writer stateside, is mostly humorous.

I suspect Lee’s humor has a lot to do with his popularity. He comes across as self-aggrandizing with a self-deprecating wink.

Even so, Lee’s status as a comics celebrity has sparked criticism in some circles. He was the face of Marvel Comics, and so has taken the heat for the way the publisher treated the artist who worked for him (comics publishers treated artists shabbily for decades). Maybe he could have done more for the artists who worked for him, and maybe he would have been unemployed if he tried. Lee doesn’t get into this matter much, but when he does he shifts the blame to publisher Martin Goodman.

Lee addresses some of his most famous characters and the artists who co-created them. Some might see his recognition of co-creators as a defense against detractors who say he has claimed too much credit. I think the book presents the situation the way Lee would like to remember, and the way he would like others to remember it. I think he genuinely liked and admired many of the people he worked with. Throughout the book, Jack Kirby is depicted as handsome, powerful and dynamic, almost like a superhero, even when there was a rift if their personal and professional relationship.

This is a memoir, not an autobiography. Lee and his collaborators do not attempt to independently confirm memories, though they straightforward about some memories being fuzzy. A few scenes a clearly constructed to present information in a manner more interesting than direct exposition, though they may have had some root in an actual event. Lee’s conversations with his boyhood self are plainly fictional; I thought they tended to be the weakest parts of the book, though they were functional.

Fans of Lee will probably enjoy the book. Someone who wants a brief and easy history of comics, and isn’t too concerned about the lopsidedness that would naturally come with Lee’s perspective, might also like it. Lee would know, he was there.

Stan Lee also wrote Spider-Man with Steve Ditko. Peter David also wrote Writing for Comics with Peter David.

If  you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Comic Book Nation by Bradford W. Wright

The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics by Dennis O’Neil

Kirby by Mark Evanier

Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones

The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore

Stan Lee by Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon

The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu

Will Eisner by Michael Schumacher

Lee, Stan, Peter David & Colleen Doran. Amazing Fantastic Incredible: A Marvelous Memoir. New York: Touchstone, 2015.

The Caped Crusade by Glen Weldon

Based on his self-description in The Caped Crusade, Glen Weldon and I are close in age. Unlike Weldon, the limited selection of broadcast television channels in my rural community did not present 1960s Batman series. My childhood impressions of the Dark Knight came almost exclusively from the comics. My favorite version of Batman is the “World’s Greatest Detective” (when I came across his team-up with a very old Sherlock Holmes in Detective Comics 500, I had to have it). I’m also fond of the adventure hero who hues close to his pulp roots—basically the Shadow or Doc Savage in a bat suit (I also had to buy Batman 253, in which the awestruck superhero acknowledges the Shadow as an inspiration).

I suppose that I staked out my position on Batman because that is partly what Weldon’s book is about, the contradictions between Batman the character and Batman the idea, and the tension between stories loved by hardcore fans and stories appreciated by a wider audience who engage with Batman in diverse ways.

Weldon illustrates this tension, and the character’s shift as the pull is sometimes stronger in one direction or another, through the history of the character. He sees a cycle in Batman’s depiction. He starts as a dark loner. He becomes a father figure (most directly to Robin). He grows into the patriarch of a family (Robin, Alfred, Batgirl, and Huntress just to start a list). Then a desire to revitalize the character, get back to roots, or satisfy the core fandom returns him to the loner stage.

The hardcore fans Weldon writes of generally conceive Batman as serious. They want a Batman who is realistic and gritty. In my experience as a reader of comics, “serious,” “realistic” and “gritty” are often code words for prurience, grotesquery and gore. I’m not interested in that in comics or any other media.

These fans have a love-hate relationship with the Batman of other media (they just hate the Adam West version). The Tim Burton films revitalized public interest in Batman when the comics were in a serious sales slump. (The hardcore fans hate the Joel Schumacher movies. I’m with them on that.) In the Chris Nolan trilogy they finally got a Batman who is serious and has acceptance in the wider culture.

That culture is much wider now than ever, especially due to the Internet. Comics fandom was once very insular, and in some ways it still is. In the Internet age, many people are engaging the character and idea of Batman. Comic book fans, cosplayers, fan fiction writers, movie buffs, fashionistas, retro TV watchers, hipsters and a host of others are interacting with Batman’s stories, history, image and iconography. It is a world that some of the old hardcore fans may find discomfiting, but it may be a place where Batman can have lasting relevance.

Weldon plainly likes that prospect. In his view, the super-straight Adam West Batman and the grounded, brooding Chris Nolan Batman can coexist. They are both really Batman. People have always focused on the aspects of the character that resonated with them. They have also imposed on him interpretations that the writers and artists that created his stories never imagined. We do this with every text, but few texts have the longevity of Batman. That may be the Weldon’s other point. We can take any version of Batman as seriously as we want, or we can simply enjoy the stories. He is a fictional character after all.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in:

Amazing Fantastic Incredible by Stan Lee, Peter David & Colleen Doran

Comic Book Nation by Bradford W. Wright

The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics by Dennis O’Neil

Fic by Anne Jamison

Kirby by Mark Evanier

Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones

Reading Comics by Douglas Wolk

The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore

Stan Lee by Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon

The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu

Will Eisner by Michael Schumacher

Wisdom from the Batcave by Cary A. Friedman

Weldon, Glen. The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016.

The Spirit by Darwyn Cook

The Spirit. Written by Darwyn Cooke and Jeph Loeb and drawn by Darwyn Cooke. New York: DC Comics 2007.

This book collects the first six issues of DC’s new line of The Spirit with writing and penciling by Darwyn Cooke and the one-shot Batman/The Spirit written by Cooke and Jeph Loeb with pencils by Cooke. The Spirit was created Will Eisner and originally ran as newspaper insert in the 1930s and 1940s.

I think Cooke handles The Spirit well. To fans, the character is almost as iconic as the likes of Superman. However, Superman has been continually published since his creation with contributions for many writers and artists. The Spirit ceased publication over 50 years ago and has only appeared in reprints. This could pose a problem for some. Do you keep the character historical, do you modernize him, and how do you make it work?

Cooke handles it the way most comics with such long-lasting character do, he ignores it as much as possible. He has kept what is distinctive and great about The Spirit and his supporting cast and simply written and drawn very good new stories.



The Spirit stories are hardboiled detective tales with a touch of superhero adventure and a big dose of humor. The stories cover a wide emotional range, but the tendency is toward the lighthearted. This is in keeping with Eisner’s work and done well by Cooke, who seems to be involved in several detective-oriented comics projects.

Cooke’s drawing style differs from Eisner’s, though I suspect he could imitate Eisner well if he wanted to. Where the new Spirit resembles the old is in it use of design and layout. This is one of those things Eisner brought to The Spirit that made it great and that Cooke does very well. The layout and design element produces two things. First, it results in some stunning and interesting images. Second, and probably more important, it creates a strong integration of image, action and story. This is something all comics should do, but it is done especially in Eisner and Cooke’s Spirit tales. A great example is the first few pages of Batman/The Spirit. A visually interesting device smoothly transitions an opening dialogue to an action sequence. The action builds to an image that cleverly integrates elements from previous frames that is both a dynamic part of the action and static graphic that serves as something like title page. The effect is magnified because it is presented after the turn of a page.

The fans of the original Spirit stories will find much to enjoy in the new ones. For someone unfamiliar with The Spirit, but liking action-filled detective stories, you’ll find some of the finest here.

Investigating Lois Lane by Tim Hanley

Lois Lane is one of the most recognized names among superhero comic book characters even though she is not a superhero. The intrepid reporter made has been around for more than 80 years, and her history is recounted by Tim Hanley in Investigating Lois Lane.

Lois was not in the original Superman stories created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster. As they worked and reworked the character, setting and supporting cast in an attempt to come up with something that would sell, they took inspiration or the girl reporter movies of the time to add a love interest for the man of steel. Several popular movies in the mid-1930s featured smart, tough, fast-talking, blonde female reporters such as Torchy Blane, a character that premiered in 1937’s Smart Blonde.

Schuster’s innovation was to make Lois brunette. He took inspiration from Jolan (Joanne) Kovacs, a high school student in Cleveland who advertised herself for modeling.  Schuster was apparently smitten with her—she was his model Lois, and all his other heroines resembled Lois—and they stayed in touch as she moved around the country pursuing her modeling career. They met up again in New York after World War II. He invited her to a ball—even rented a gown for her. Jerry Siegel was there, too, and she left with him. Siegel left his wife and young son to marry Kovaks.

Not only was Lois a career woman, an unusual thing when she premiered with Superman in 1938, she was also headstrong, cunning, independent and determined to become a top reporter. However, the writers of Lois’ stories were men; the first Lois Lane story written by a woman, Tasmyn O’Flynn, was published in 1982.  Though she remained a working woman, she was often depicted as a damsel in distress or a love-struck cheerleader for Superman.

Depictions of Lois changed over time as the status of women changed in American society. Sometimes she was at the forefront, as she briefly was in the women’s liberation movement during the 1970s. Other time she lagged and reflecting traditional role for women, or Superman and others shamed her unfeminine ambition. Too often she was simply a background player in Superman stories, even though she was more than able to carry a story on her own in the hands of writers who cared.

Such ups and downs will likely be Lois’ fate for a while. We can hope that she get the treatment she deserves with stories that let her shine.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Book of Lies by Brad Meltzer

The Caped Crusade by Glen Weldon

Comic Book Nation by Bradford W. Wright

The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics by Dennis O’Neil

Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones

Miss Mizzou by J. B. Winter

Reading Comics by Douglas Wolk

Reckless by Chrissie Hynde

The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore

Seduction of the Innocent by Max Allan Collins

Suggestible You by Erik Vance

The Supergirls by Mike Madrid

Superman versus the Ku Klux Klan by Rick Bowers

The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu

Why Comics? by Hilary Chute

Hanley, Tim. Investigating Lois Lane: The Turbulent History of the Daily Planet’s Ace Reporter. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2014.

200 Books Reviewed on Keenan’s Book Reviews

First Time Reviews

365 Thank Yous by John Kralik
The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis
Acts
American Splendor by Harvey Pekar
Batman created by Bob Kane

Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov
Change Your Brain Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen
The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande
The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics by Dennis O’Neil
The Drunkard’s Walk by Leonard Mlodinow

The Essential Engineer by Henry Petroski
Exodus
Finding Your Writer’s Voice by Thaisa Frank & Dorothy Wall
God’s Secretaries by Adam Nicolson
The Gospel of John

The Gospels
Have a New You by Friday by Kevin Leman
Histories and Fallacies by Carl R. Trueman
How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein
How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster

How to Write & Present Technical Information by Charles H. Sides
How to Write Horror Fiction by William F. Nolan
I Can Make You Thin by Paul McKenna
In the Beginning by Alister McGrath
Jonah Hex created by John Albano and Tone DeZuniga

Judge Dredd created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra
King James Bible
Little Shifts by Suzanna Beth Stinnet
Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs
Newton and the Counterfeiter by Thomas Levenson

Numbers
On Becoming a Leader by Warren Bennis
Our Cancer Year by Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner
Paperboy by Henry Petroski
The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan

The Procrastination Equation by Piers Steel
Romans
Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life by Bryan Lee O’Malley
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World by Bryan Lee O’Malley
The Sherlockian by Graham Moore

The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu
Thanks! by Robert A. Emmons
True Blood by Charlaine Harris
The Ultimate Weight Solution by Phil McGraw
Vital Friends by Tom Rath

Walk Away the Pounds by Leslie Sansone
War Against the Weak by Edwin Black
Wide as the Waters by Benson Bobrick
Writing for Comics with Peter David
Zorro created by Johnston McCulley

Additional and Expanded Reviews

The Holy Bible
Into the Depths of God by Calvin Miller
The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek
Simple Pictures are Best by Nancy Willard, illustrated by Tomie de Paola

Continuation of list of 200 books reviewed

First 25 Reviews
Reviews 26-50
Reviews 51-75
Reviews 76-100
Reviews 101-150

Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction by Patricia Highsmith

“It is impossible to explain how a successful—that is readable—book is written,” wrote Patricia Highsmith in Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction. As an alternative, she offers her own thoughts and experiences from writing her novels. It is not a how-to book; it is reflections with less experienced writers in mind.

 Something that comes through is that writing is something of an organic process. Books grow from a seed of an idea to a full plant. The writer must tend its growth, sometimes pruning, to make it beautiful and fruitful. This isn’t a metaphor Highsmith uses, but she frequently mentions how she enjoys gardening, so it seems fitting.

 As this suggests, writing takes time and effort. Highsmith’s normal path involves two drafts and revisions requested by her editor or publisher. In some cases, she rewrote parts of a book more than that before it was finished. Even an experienced writer is unlikely to produce a finished book on the first draft. There will be things to correct, improve, fill in and cut. It is part of the work.

 “I create things out of boredom with reality and with the awareness of routine and objects around me. Therefore, I don’t dislike this boredom which encroaches on me every now and then, and I even troy to create it by routine,” Patricia Highsmith, Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction

 One of the few specific recommendations Highsmith offers is for beginning writers to outline a book chapter by chapter. This will keep them focused on what will advance the story. It takes practice to learn to portion out the parts a book and discipline to make sure every part serves the story. These are skills a new writer may not have, but can develop.

 The book is short and easy to read. Fans of Highsmith’s novels might enjoy a peak behind the curtains. Aspiring writers might find some encouragement is seeing that the things they struggle with are part of the process of writing; they can be overcome with focus, persistence and humility.

 If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Big Thing by Phyllis Korkki

The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics by Dennis O’Neil

Finding Your Writer’s Voice by Thaisa Frank & Dorothy Wall

Good Naked by Joni B. Cole

How to Write Horror Fiction by William F. Nolan

How to Write Mysteries by Shannon OCork

How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card

Just Write by Walter Dean Myers

Mastering Fiction Writing by Kit Reed

No Plot? Not Problem! A Low Stress-High Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days by Chris Baty

Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose

The Right to Write by Julia Cameron

Shut Up & Write! by Judy Bridges

Write Naked by Jennifer Probst

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

Writing for Comics with Peter David

 Highsmith, Patricia. Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction. 1983. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1990.

Interesting Stuff Feb. 17, 2011

Comics Code Authority Seal of Approval
-Archie Drops CCA in February
-Censors and Sensibility: RIP, Comics Code Authority Seal Of Approval, 1954 - 2011
-Comics Code Authority—Defunct Since 2009?
-Comics Code Authority is Dead
-DC Replaces Comics Code Approval
-The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu

Deconstructing Lichtenstein: Source Comics Revealed and Credited
February is Earthquake Preparedness Month (Missouri)
Interesting Stuff Jan. 27, 2011

Joanne Siegel, Inspiration for Lois Lane, Passes
-Joanne Siegel dies, widow of Superman co-creator, model for Lois Lane
-Joanne Siegel, Inspiration Behind Superman’s Lois Lane, Dies at 93
-Joanne Siegel, the Inspiration for Lois Lane, Passes Away at 93
-Joanne Siegel, the Model for Lois Lane, Passes at 93
-Joanne Siegel, Widow of Superman Creator Jerry Siegel, Dies at 93
-RIP: Joanne Siegel

National Engineers Week (February 20-26)
-Discover Engineering
-Future City Competition
-Let’s Celebrate Engineers
-National Engineers Week Foundation
-Popsicle Stick Bridge Contest

The New York Public Library’s Extremely Useful Predecessor
Teenager Invents Working Solar Death Ray, Athenians Rejoice

Whats New July 7, 2010

The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics by Dennis O’Neil
Bill Watch—111th Congress (Updated)
Interesting Stuff July 7, 2010
Show Me the Money: Stimulus & Infrastructure News
What's New July 6, 2010
What’s Up in Congress

Interesting Stuff Feb. 8, 2010

1808 – 1908 – 2008: National Planning for America
Covered posts reenvisionings of comics covers by various artists
-A cool graphic take on New Mutants
-Something whimsical
-This makes me laugh
-This Spider-Woman cover is pretty cool
DC Comics First Wave
-More about First Wave, Doc Savage, The Spirit
Disney Princesses You Won’t Be Seeing
The Geek Teamups of Sherlock Holmes, From Batman to Doctor Who
Gumby Creator Art Clokey Is Dead
Hey, Oscar Wilde! It’s Clobberin’ Time! is an art blog with a literary bent
-Here are several takes on Dashiell Hammett
I don’t stay up late much anymore, but I say, “Keep Conan. If I’m staying up that late, I won’t be watching Leno.”
-Big Money at Stake If Conan O'Brien, NBC Divorce
-Conan O’Brien to lose characters
-Conan O’Brien, NBC settlement
-Conan O'Brien Rips NBC in Monologue
-Conan O'Brien Says He Won't Budge for Jay Leno (You go girl!)
-Conan Pays the Price for NBC Chief's Lack of Vision
-David Letterman invites Conan O’Brien
-Dear NBC: Just Let Jay Leno Go
-Jay Leno, Letterman marriage joke
-Jimmy Fallon speaks up
-Jimmy Kimmel sabotages Jay Leno
-Late-Night Hosts Gang Up to Pummel NBC
-Why We're on Team Conan O'Brien
Interesting Stuff Jan. 5, 2010--Happy New Year
Superhero Versions of 80s Album Art by Cliff Chiang
Why Leno & Letterman hate each other