David's Reviews > Direct Comments: Comic Book Creators in their Own Words

I finished reading “Direct Comments: Comic Book Creators in Their Own Words” (2020) by Paul Kupperberg last night.

A fun read for those familiar with comic books and the writers, artists, editors, and publishers of the 1970s and 1980s mostly.

Kupperberg (a comic book writer himself since 1975 and also the authors several books including the DC Comics tie-in novel, “JSA: Ragnarok”) from 1988 to 1995 while on staff at DC had the duty of writing their monthly promotional newspaper, “Direct Currents”.

In addition to blurbs about then upcoming issues and special projects, Kupperberg included an interview with a fellow comics professional conducted by himself in each issue (although in one issue he “interviewed” himself).

Only part of each interview actually saw print in “Direct Currents”. Here in this book are the twenty-two edited and annotated full interview transcripts that still survive plus two bonus interviews done earlier by Kupperberg for other projects: an interview with Warren Publishing founder and publisher James (Jim) Warren that Kupperberg and Paul Levitz interviewed Warren for an issue of their fanzine “Etcetera” #4 (June 1971), and another interview Kupperberg and DC color artist Carl Gafford had with veteran comic book and newspaper comic strip artist Al Williamson in either 1972 or 1973 also for “Etcetera” but did not see print until July 1981 in “Comics Feature” #10. (Note: These two interviews are worth the price of the book all by themselves, especially the interview with Jim Warren! Not much information about what was then happening at Warren Publishing can be found in the interview but you can definitely know what the never afraid to speak his mind Warren really thought about Kupperberg and Levitz!)

The “People at Work” Direct Currents interview subjects in this book are as follows (in the order they are presented in the book which is also the order they originally ran in the promo newsletter): Denny O’Neil, Kyle Baker, Kurt Schaffenberger, Paul Kupperberg, Mike Grell, Jerry Ordway, Walter Simonson, Keith Giffen, Ed Hannigan, Julie Schwartz, Adam Hughes, Brian Bolland, Pepe Moreno, Klaus Janson, John Costanza, Jerry Robinson, Tom Lyle, Chuck Dixon, Carmine Infantino, Jim Aparo, John Byrne, Lee Mars, and Dick Giordano.

Again, these names may not be familiar to non comic book readers of the 1970s (some of them as early as the 1940s) through 1990s. However those who did read comics regularly during those decades should know who most if not all of these people are.

Kupperberg also has an interesting introduction going over the various incarnations of DC’s promotional newsletters over the years, including before and after his time on “Direct Currents”.

The profile interviews are fun light reads (most between five and ten pages long). For more in depth interviews I recommend hunting down the magazines and books published by TwoMorrows, which has become the gold standard of comics history publications. (This “Direct Comments” book is published by Buffalo Avenue Books.)