Day: March 19, 2004

DC has announced the Julie Schwartz tribute comic project, in which they gave covers of classic Julie comics to various writers and we are to produce 11-page stories tying in with the covers. This has been in the hopper for a little while, but since they’ve announced it (check out Newsarama.com) and attached my name, I figured I’d tell you that I’m scheduled to co-write mine with Harlan Ellison (Harlan would do the plot, I’d turn it into a script) and the cover we’re doing is Justice League of America #53, which features the JLA being attacked by their own weapons. (Hey, Glenn, if somehow you have a copy of this cover laying around, feel free to post it here.)

PAD

(UPDATE: Peter, I’ll look through my collection for Justice League of America #53 as soon as I get back from the hotel I’m at with your wife. –GH)

(UPDATE 2: Oh, all right. Here. –GH)

We left at 7:30 AM to drive into Manhattan for Julie Schwartz’s 9:30 memorial service. It’s a drive that I can make in as little as an hour, so I allowed two. Naturally it took three (thanks to accidents snarling traffic on literally every possible way into the city because so few people seem to comprehend travelling at the proper speed for conditions), so we missed a good portion of it, which frustrates the hëll out of me.

It was certainly well attended: I’d guesstimate between 100 to 150 people there. Speakers that we saw included Neil Gaiman reading a eulogy from Alan Moore (which Neil will likely be putting up on his blog), Irwin Hasen, Maggie Thompson, Tony Tollin, and Bob Greenberger reading on behalf of Len Wein. Paul Levitz, visibly choked up, made some concluding comments, followed by some final thoughts from one of Julie’s granddaughters. Copies of Julie’s autobiography were available on a table upstairs for anyone who wanted one, and most of them had disappeared by the time we left. I didn’t take one because I already had a copy, signed to me by Julie. It’s that much more valuable now.

PAD

(UPDATE: Alan’s note, which was not so much read by Neil as channeled, is now up here. -GH)