THE OFFICE TOUR

For some reason people like to see the offices of other people. I'm not sure why, but I'm not here to question the unanswerable. Therefore, I've decided to give a short office tour. Hope you enjoy it.

This is my desk. As you can tell, I work on one of those new flat-screen iMacs.Way back when I was one of, if not the first East Coast comic book writer to use a computer, an old pre-DOS Victor 9000 operating on CPM-86. I stole the idea from my West Coast pal, Mark Evanier, who, while I was visiting him, suggested, nay, forced me against my very will to use his dedicated word processor to write a letter column. I was an instant convert. I did some research and decided to buy a computer because I also wanted to use a modem. I signed up with Compuserve during its very first year and helped start the very first dedicated comic book sig by being its (only) resident pro. Once a week I'd invite my fellow professionals to the house to see how a computer could help in their work. Everyone who came over bought one within six months.

Okay, so what's in this pic: My desk you can see. I sit in what is called a "Stressless" chair which is good for the back. My feet are raised on a separate foot rest. I'll go into more detail on what's on the walls and such in their photos.

Directly above my desk is a shelf of 'stuffies,' stuffed animals, that is. There are the few requisite Disneys and Warner Bros, but mainly it's filled with the stars of Pocket Dragon Adventures, the animated TV series I co-created, wrote and co-exec. produced. Behind them is a Superman clock and a couple of old ACBA awards.

My office is filled with reference books as well as some comic art. Also, I have a lot of photos of my wife, Noel, and my daughter, Jessica, here on the desk as well as in bookcases, etc. The bookcases, which cover three walls, are filled with reference material on almost any subject I may need. Within arm's reach of my desk are computer books as well as dictionaries, thesaurus' and more. Research is vital. The CD set of the National Geographic that sits on the shelf to the left of my desk (seen at the far right) has helped me write an ungodly number of stories, the most recent being an episode of the Disney Tarzan animated series. According to the series' bible, the Tarzan show took place between 1910-1920. Before I came up with any ideas I went through the Geographic to research Africa during that time period. One of the articles recounted the story of President Roosevelt's African safari - and it was written by Roosevelt himself. It provided a great background for my story. The idea of Roosevelt meeting Tarzan was irresistable to someone who was both a Tarzan fan (as I am of all the Burroughs characters) as well as an admirer of Teddy Roosevelt. The Geographic is an indespeinsible tool for research. I wish Time Magazine would come out with a complete CD or DVD collection of all their issues, too.

To the left are two shelves in a bookcase filled with action figures based on characters I've created. Top shelf are DC characters, bottom are Marvels. You can see the Titans - in various forms, Destiny (one of my earliest professional creations, done in 1971). There's a 'business man' version of Lex Luthor that I created for the Superman revamp back in the mid-late 80s, and the 'living metal' version of Brainiac that I created back in the early 80s. Bottom shelf features characters such as Blade, Black Cat, Bullseye, Terrax and Nova.

To the right of the toy bookshelf is a wall that features some of the awards I've received.

Now it's time to leave. As you do you pass under the incredible 3-D dioramas of several of the comics I worked on over the years.

That's it. Maybe some day I'll show you the "comic book bathroom," which, I've been told, keeps party guests in the bathroom for far too long as they have to inspect every little thingie.

-Marv