Listen in as I look back half a century on what it was like being in the room with Len Wein and Dave Cockrum (or as much as I'm willing to admit) as they plotted Giant-Size X-Men #1, why my mid-'70s likeness still hangs on the wall at Marvel Comics HQ, my freelance income during the first six months of my life as a comics professional, the collaborative short stories my friends and I stayed awake 24 hours to write on Harlan Ellison's 39th birthday, an article I commissioned for F.O.O.M. about collecting comics in 1975 which should make you weep 50 years later, how my meeting with Wicked Witch of the West Margaret Hamilton ended up being a Marvel Comics caption contest, and much more.

Join me as I look back at the trouble I had getting out of an elevator at the first Star Trek convention, what my ballot looked like when I voted for the 1968 Alley Awards, the composers who wrote the music to match the lyrics I had Rick Jones sing in Captain Marvel #50, what teen me got wrong (twice!) about Jim Steranko, the three comics characters I almost cosplayed as at the 1972 Rutland Halloween parade, the mystery woman who would have been my Beautiful Dreamer on a Forever People float, and much more.

Shredding hundreds of pages torn from notebooks filled by my teen and twentysomething self causes me to reminisce about my collaboration with artist P. Craig Russell which could have been, the poem 18-year-old me wrote about Action Comics #1, my mysterious mid-'70s New Jersey comic convention meeting with Anthony Bourdain, why when it comes to the process of writing I'm a voyeur but not an exhibitionist, the complete lyrics to a song I had Rick Jones sing way back in Captain Marvel #50, my joy upon seeing Superman co-creator Joe Shuster's name in my old address book, how the Grim Reaper might have prevented my Scarecrow from being born, and much more.

While destroying hundreds of pages of bad poetry I scribbled as a teenager, I made a few surprising discoveries which cause me to reminisce about my poem "Ode on Comic Book Company Loyalty," written 18 days after I was hired by Marvel Comics, my extremely rough sketch for the second Scarecrow splash page, my team-up with Quicksilver and 7-Eleven to freeze your brain with Slurpees during the summer of 1975, Tony Isabella's heavy edit on my early Avengers script assist (and why we should all be grateful), my forgotten horror pitches bounced by Marvel in 1974, and much more.

As I consider the way getting rejected by the Clarion Workshop in 1974 helped me break into comics and getting accepted by the Clarion Workshop in 1979 helped me break out of comics, I remember the writing schedule suggested by Harlan Ellison which proved impossible for me, the terrible comics-related advice I got from Damon Knight, Thomas M. Disch's tips for building better characters, the questions Robin Scott Wilson wanted us to ask when critiquing short stories, the night Joker co-creator Jerry Robinson predicted I'd work in comics someday, the Barbie artist who painted me with tattoos and drew my portrait, the Robert Graves poem which explains why I had to quit writing comics, and much more.

A stack of mid-'70s Marvel Comics memos reminds me which Golden Age greats Stan Lee didn't want invited to the 1975 Mighty Marvel Con, my discomfort with what is probably a comic book editor's most important role, the day I donned a Spider-Man suit and crawled around the Bullpen, how Uri Geller destroyed my key to the Marvel Comics men's room, my snarky response when a publisher wanted me to find the smoking gun which would shut down our competition, why our softball team dubbed me the "Most Improved Player for a Boy," and much more.

Rummaging though a stack of mid-'70s memos has me remembering the time I attempted to convince Stan Lee to adapt Joseph Heller's novel Something Happened, who was responsible for mutilating the contents of Marvel's 1975 line of Giant-Size Annuals, how I repurposed a Winnie Winkle comic strip to resign from my staff job in the Bullpen, the day comic book fans ran a Baskin-Robbins out of ice cream, the meeting in which Stan Lee had a problem with Iron Man's nose, Gerry Conway's complaint to the Comics Code Authority about an Inhumans innuendo, and much more.

Staring at the hole in the ground which used to be NYC's Statler Hilton Hotel, home to my first comic book convention in 1970, has me remembering the time I heckled publisher Jim Warren (and what he shouted back), the original art I bought for a buck a page, why the National Lampoon's Michael O'Donoghue doused me with a pitcher of ice water, the reason I was locked in a dealers room overnight, the early morning I was stopped by two NYC police officers while wandering Penn Station in a Mister Miracle mask, and much more.

Mulling over whether 2024 me agrees with what 1984 me thought about 1974 me reminded me getting the gig to write Marvel’s Bullpen Bulletins Page was both the best and worst thing that ever could have happened, why my willingness to burn bridges by writing an Ethics column for The Comics Journal shouldn’t be confused with bravery, which comic book art recently caused me to reach out to Robert De Niro, Stan Lee’s all-caps cover critique, the day Larry Hama verified Tony Isabella was right and I was wrong, and more.

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I thought it would be fun to list the many things I have to be thankful for, such as being born at the perfect time to witness the birth of the Marvel Universe, what happened the day in 1963 the first issue of both The Avengers and The X-Men were released and I could afford to buy only one,  how my belief in anti-nepotism scored John Romita Jr. his first Marvel Comics art assignment, the magical night I raved to Brent Spiner about Stan Lee (and what "The Man" himself had to say about it), the first and last Incredible Hulk sketches Marie Severin drew for me 52 years apart, how the most important lesson I learned from being in comics was that I wasn't meant to be in comics after all, and more.