Steve Perry; Part 1
My Friend Steve Perry:
Remembering the Man & His Work, Part 1
I’m not sure what to say. I’ve not been writing anything online for most of this week for a reason.
— and more will follow.
So it’s time I say — write — something.
I’m sad to say none of us have heard from Steve since about May 10th; I last had contact with Steve on May 8th.
I can’t say more at this time, save to steer you to the news that has been posted online since May 21st.
Some of these reports may have been updated since originally posted, so I’ll provide some quotes from the earliest versions I’ve kept records of:
“Police would say only that comics artist Stephen J. Perry, 56, James Davis, 46, and Roxanne Davis, 49, vanished from the house they shared on 38046 Eighth Ave. and that the home appears to have been ransacked.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement says the agency has been called to assist the Zephyrhills Police Department with an apparent homicide in the city limits. Saying the information must come from the city’s police department, an FDLE spokesman could not say whether the homicide was related to the missing persons case.”
At some point yesterday afternoon, this horrific detail was added to the initial online article:
“The city’s mayor, Cliff McDuffie, thinks it is. He said a piece of someone’s body – an arm — and Perry’s van were found in Hillsborough County.”
“Police would say only that comics artist Stephen J. Perry, 56, James Davis, 46, and Roxanne Davis, 49, vanished from the house they shared on 38046 Eighth Ave. and that the home appears to have been ransacked.
Roxanne Davis was arrested by Pasco County sheriff’s deputies at about 7:45 p.m. Friday and charged with violating her probation on a grand theft charge. She was being held without bond at the Land O’Lakes detention center.
Late Friday, the Pasco County sheriff’s website showed James Davis was in custody as well. No further details were available.”
The MyFoxTampaBay.com staff added to the previous posted news that “HCSO spokeswoman Debbie Carter said investigators discovered a van that had blood inside it. HCSO also confirmed they are working with Zephyrhills police after Perry’s van was discovered abandoned in the parking lot of the Quality Inn motel on Bearrs Avenue on Sunday…. FOX 13 also confirmed more remains were discovered at a gas station dumpster two miles away from the Perry’s Zephryhills home.”
At present, the police have requested that no one publicly say anything more.
As you can imagine, this has been horrifying, sickening, depressing, frustrating, infuriating, sorrowful news.
I can say no more at this time, I’m sorry.
I can, however, talk about my friend Steve Perry — his life, his work, the man.
_____________
The Steve Perry I know and love is not to be confused with rock musician Steve Perry, or science-fiction author Steve Perry (whose occasional brush with publication by publishers associated with comicbooks only furthers the confusion: the Steve Perry who authored the novel Predator: Turnabout for Dark Horse in 2008 is not the Steve Perry I’m writing about today).
Steve Perry was born in Maine in 1954. By all accounts from Steve himself and those who knew him before I did, theirs was a very unsettled and difficult life, the details of which I will not go into here.
I first met Steve at Johnson State College in Johnson, VT in 1974. Steve had already made quite an impression at JSC as a playwright, including his scripting an ambitious science-fiction play which was staged at JSC’s Dibden Theater prior to my freshmen year. He studied writing and was quite industrious in his studies, which included an independent study in writing for the comicbook industry.
When we first met – Steve was the first serious comicbook fan, scholar and aspiring comicbook professional I’d ever known – he was writing and mailing a plethora of letters of comment to various comicbook editors, pursuing the well-worn path of getting his foot in the industry door via persistent letters-of-comment. Steve had a number of fan letters published; the only one in my collection is his letter which appeared in Eerie #80 (January 1977).
His first published comicbook writing was thanks to my own first published effort, the one-shot black-and-white comic magazine Abyss (1976), bankrolled by Tim Viereck and featuring the lengthy story “Not Yeti,” two Lovecraftian single-pagers and the horror poem “Incunabula,” all scripted by Steve and illustrated by yours truly. Only 200 copies were printed (by Johnson College Press), and Steve’s attempts to use Abyss to enter the comicbook profession proved frustrating at best (a rejection letter from a Warren editor simply stated, “the magazine is aptly named”).
It did, however, serve as my primary portfolio piece when I applied to the newly-opening Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art Inc. in Dover NJ – a school I only knew of thanks to Steve, who showed me the initial announcement for the school in the “Beautiful Balloons” column in The Comics Buyer’s Guide. Steve urged me to apply, and was very forceful in his arguments that I should attend. Thanks to Steve (and the support of other beloved JSC friends), I finally did apply, and was accepted.
While I pursued my own path into comics via the Joe Kubert School, Steve and his partner and fellow writer Gail Flatow lived in Vermont and moved for a time to Sante Fe, New Mexico.
By the time I was able to provide inroads to the comicbook industry in 1981, Steve and Gail were back in Vermont; Steve was working for comics mail-order retailer and shopowner Alan Goldstein at Moondance Comics in Brattleboro, VT.
Steve worked with Alan and Moondance for many years, and they later would partner to create First Run Video. Steve met his first wife while they both were working at Moondance.
His entry into Marvel Comics – Steve’s lifelong dream – was thanks to our collaborative work on a few stories for Marvel’s experimental comics magazines: Epic Illustrated, edited by Archie Goodwin, and the black-and-white comic magazine Marvel Preview, which became Bizarre Adventures with issue #25 (March 1981).
Steve and I collaborated on the story “Kultz,” from an original idea by yours truly, in Epic Illustrated #6 (June 1981). Steve and I subsequently collaborated on what many still consider our best effort, “A Frog is a Frog,” in the ‘violence’ issue Bizarre Adventures #31 (April 1982). We also collaborated on the Dracula origin story – for which we created the prehistoric vampire character Varney – in Bizarre Adventures #33 (October 1982), and Steve scripted a downbeat based-on-true-life Christmas story that Rick Veitch illustrated for Bizarre Adventures #34 (February 1983).
Steve and Rick completed three stories in all for editor Denny O’Neil, who was, along with Archie Goodwin, Steve’s personal favorite of all the comicbook editors he worked with during his short time in comics. Bizarre Adventures was cancelled with #33, and of those stories only one ever saw print: “Ahhh… Christmas” by Perry and Veitch was published in the one-shot Amazing Adventures (1988).
From the summer of 1984 to spring of 1986, Steve collaborated with artist Tom Yeates on the 8-issue fantasy series Timespirits for Archie Goodwin’s Epic Comics line at Marvel. It was initially a fruitful collaboration, yielding a comicbook series still celebrated by its readers and fans, and which some argue provided inspiration for elements of the recent James Cameron blockbuster hit Avatar (2009), specifically the blue tribal people of Timespirits #6 (September 1985). Alas, differences between the creators, including disagreements concerning what direction the series should go (specifically, disagreements concerning overt political content being folded into the series), resulted in an unhappy conclusion to the series and its early termination.
Steve and I collaborated on one of his own all-time favorite stories, “The Saurian Remains,” for editor Carl Potts for Amazing High Adventure #4 (November 1986). Steve also scripted the initial issues of the Marvel New Universe series Psi-Force #1-2 (1986), from a concept created by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson, working with penciler Mark Texeira and inkers Kyle Baker, Hilary Barta, and Romeo Tanghal. When Harris Publications relaunched the venerable Warren horror anthology title Creepy in 1985, Steve immediately was on board. He had two stories in Creepy #1 (June 1985), “The Dump Man,” illustrated by Eric Shanower, and a previously unpublished two-pager we’d collaborated on for Heavy Metal, “A Base and Nasal Hunger” (an earlier collaboration Steve and I sold to Heavy Metal did see print, but I haven’t been able to locate that issue at the time of this writing).
During this fruitful period, Steve also collaborated with veteran EC Comics and Secret Agent X-9 comicstrip artist George Evans on a western horror tale entitled “The Ballad of Hardcase Bradley” which was published (if memory serves) in Pacific Comics’ anthology Vanguard Illustrated #7 (July 1984; addendum: this recall has now been confirmed by Rob Imes in the comment thread, below, who also offered the quote I’ve added in the next sentence. Thanks, Rob!). In editor David Scroggy‘s inside-front-cover editorial, he wrote: “Steve Perry [is] writing from the wilds of Vermont, and some amazing scripts are rolling from his typewriter. You’ll be seeing more of his work in Pacific Comics.” Sadly, that was not to be, as Pacific Comics soon folded, though Steve had caught the interest of Scroggy and others at Pacific with numerous stories and projects.
If I get into the unrealized projects, this essay would be twice as long. So many dreams, plans, proposals that (through no fault of Steve‘s) never saw light of day. As I’ve repeatedly stated (and provided evidence of concerning my own orphaned projects — e.g., Rawhead Rex, Grumm, Little Brothers, etc.) here at Myrant, the comics industry is littered with lost projects and opportunities, and one rarely knows why something doesn’t find a home. Steve had developed numerous concepts with myself and other cartoonists that didn’t see print – including an ambitious series entitled “Dinosaur Bill” – and a number of unsold self-standing comics stories we were never able to find a home for (including “Blessings,” “Tiny Dinosaurs,” and many others).
[Addendum: Ditkomania fanzine editor and comics scholar/historian/fan Rob Imes has also brought to my attention Steve‘s work on the mid-1980s revival of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, which I’d dimly recalled but couldn’t find any sign of in my own collection; see comments thread, below. Quoting Rob: Steve also “wrote the Menthor story “A Change of Mind” (drawn by Keith Giffen & Rick Bryant) in Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 (Deluxe, Nov. 1984)… Perry also wrote the Noman 2-parter (penciled by [Steve] Ditko, inked by Greg Theakston) in the same series, issues #3 (Nov. 1985) and #4 (Feb. 1986). I suspect that this Noman 2-parter had originally been done (at least the writing & penciling anyway) in 1984, during a brief period when a Galaxy Comics was going to publish T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, before the Deluxe series happened.” Thanks, Rob!]
I’d welcome any further information on Steve’s other comicbook credits.
By this time, Steve was hard at work writing TV screenplays for the Rankin/Bass animated Saturday morning TV series Thundercats and Silverhawks. Working under series story editor Peter Lawrence, who Steve always enjoyed working with, he created a number of characters (primarily villains) for both series, including the lead Silverhawks nemesis Mon*Star.
The pay was far better than any comicbook scripting freelance had ever reaped, but these jobs were done under far more aggressive work-for-hire terms than was the norm in comicbooks. Despite having created a number of characters for the TV shows, Steve saw no royalties of any kind, and when the Kenner Toy lines featured action figures of his characters, he had to buy them for his sons (more than once, I loaned Steve the money to do so).
Thundercats debuted on January 23, 1985 and proved an immediate success, running 130 episodes until its conclusion in 1989. Silverhawks was less successful, debuting September 8, 1986 and running 65 episodes. Steve scripted four episodes of Silverhawks.
I would welcome a complete listing of Steve’s writing credits for the two series; please note that the imdb listing for ‘Steve Perry’ is incorrect, conflating his TV writing credits with another animation writer named Steve Perry (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0675310/), who is possibly the science-fiction novelist Steve Perry. My friend Steve Perry only scripted for story editor Peter Lawrence on the two Rankin/Bass series noted here.
The Marvel ‘Star Comics’ series Thundercats was launched in 1985; adaptations of the TV animated series scripts began with issue #13 (cover dated July 1987), thanks to Steve’s breakthrough with pre-clearance from Rankin/Bass of all TV script adaptations. The laborious process of clearing original comicbook scripts through the TV producers was time-consuming and often created delays. Steve took it upon himself to, with the blessings of the Marvel series editor, negotiate a way around this problem by arranging for ‘pre-clearance’ of adaptations of existing TV scripts from the TV series itself – since those scripts were already ‘approved,’ having been scripted and broadcast, such an arrangement would make the editor and writer’s job much more straightforward, removing an enormous obstacle in facilitating speedy completion of comicbook scripts for the Star Comic series.
Steve himself scripted the Thundercats #14 (August 1987) adaptation of his own TV script “Safari Jo!”, featuring art by Ernie Colon and Al Williamson; the #16 (October 1987) adaptation of his own TV script “The Queen of Eight Legs!” with art by Jim Mooney and Vincent Colletta; and the #19 (January 1988) adaptation of his own TV script “Doomgaze!” with artists James Mooney and Michael Esposito. I believe he also scripted at least a couple of issues of Marvel’s short-lived Silverhawks comic series (7 issues, 1987-88), but I cannot confirm that at this writing.
[Addendum: see comments thread, below: Richard Caldwell confirms that Steve scripted the Silverhawks Star Comics series, “working with artist Mike Witherby.” Thanks, Richard; very much appreciated!]
Alas, what should have been a windfall for Steve instead resulted in the series editor promptly assigning the adaptations of TV scripts to other writers (through to the series end with Thundercats #24, June 1988). This was a major blow to Steve; he had worked hard to arrange for the unprecedented process of pre-clearance for TV script adaptation to considerably ease Marvel’s ability to quickly turnaround scripts for the Thundercats TV series, using his own Rankin/Bass connections and status as a writer for the animated program to facilitate the process.
His reward: immediately losing the comicbook gig. I was subsequently told by a Marvel staffer that when Steve visited the Marvel offices to confront the series editor, the editor locked his office door and hid under his desk.
In despair, Steve soon quit writing for comics entirely. His final effort was a collaboration with then-up-and-coming cartoonist Paul Chadwick, Salimba, which was published by independent black-and-white comics publisher Blackthorne as a two-issue series Salimba 3-D (August-September 1986) – technically, issues 6 ane 9 of the series Blackthorne 3-D – and a one-shot collected edition reprinting the two issues sans 3-D (cover dated January 1989).
Salimba had originated as a proposal developed initially by myself (I created the thumbnails Steve scripted from) and then with former Timespirits partner Tom Yeates, who suggested the ethnicity and name ‘Salimba’ for the lead character (Steve had originally conceived of the character as a ‘white jungle princess,’ like Sheena).
This was Steve’s final published comicbook series; in 1989, he also scripted a nominal followup to “A Frog is a Frog” entitled “Chasing Lincoln Home” for Taboo, which was never completed.
Work had already dried up at Rankin/Bass; the relative failure of Silverhawks and the late 1980s downturn in the American TV animation industry meant no further work was or would be forthcoming from his connections in the TV animation industry.
[To be continued…]
Silverhawks comics:
#1: The Origin Story (adapted from the episode by Peter Lawrence)
#4: The Copper Kidd Beats the Odds
#6: A Few Laughs with the Old Crowd
#7: Darkbird (adapted from the episode, also by Perry)
Those are all the issues I have, but given that he wrote them all I wouldn’t be surprised if he wrote the entire series (I think it only lasted 7 issues — that would fit with the story about him losing his job right after negotiating pre-approval for adaptations of his scripts, as that’s what #7 was). I’ll see if I can scrounge up the others.
You know, it occurred to me the other day that the first time my dad took me to a comic shop, when I was 4, he got me Thundercats and Masters of the Universe. I can’t say for certain, but it’s entirely possible that the first comic I ever read was by Steve.
Found the others; can confirm he wrote all of them. Titles:
#2: Kidnapped
#3: Clementine
#5: Fantascreen (adapted from his episode)
Clementine says it’s adapted from one of his scripts too, but there’s no episode with that title. It could have been retitled (in which case it would probably be Limbo Gold Rush, as Darkbird and Fantascreen both have comic adaptations and Bounty Hunter Returns is a followup to an earlier story), or it may never have been produced. I’ll look into it when I get a chance.
Confirmed: Clementine is the same story as Limbo Gold Rush. Smart money says the former was Perry’s original title and it got changed sometime during production of the TV episode.
Incidentally, Silverhawks is FRICKIN’ CRAZY.