My First Freelance Writing Sale: A History Of DC Comics' THE SECRET SIX

You never forget your first.

I've been a freelance writer since 1984. I have never been a terribly successful freelance writer, but I wrote some stuff, made some sales, collected my meager paychecks, and got some notice. My widest notoriety was connected to my rockin' pop journalism for Goldmine magazine 1986-2006, for Rhino Records' 1997 CD collection Poptopia! Power Pop Classics Of The '90s, for contributions to books like Bubblegum Music Is The Naked Truth and Shake Some Action, and for my proudly biased proselytizin' on behalf of The Flashcubes. Since 1998, I've co-hosted (and written weekly commentary for) This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. Since 2016, I've pursued the cockeyed notion of daily blogging right here at Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do). I'm currently writing a book called The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). I'm at least as active now as I've ever been. 

But before I ever started getting money to write about rock 'n' roll, I was paid to write about comic books.



My very first freelance writing sale was to a magazine called Amazing Heroes. In 1984, AH editor David W. Olbrich bought my history of The Secret Six, a DC Comics title which had run for seven issues in 1968-69. 



Success! MONEY! Nearly enough money to buy dinner for two, and a movie! Nearly. But the best thing was seeing my byline in Amazing Heroes # 58 (11/1/84), and knowing that whatever happened or didn't happen next, I had been paid for writing. I really liked that idea.



I did a little more work for Amazing Heroes over the next couple of years, and branched out to Krause Publications with a 1985 retrospective of the 1960s Batman TV series for Krause's Comics Collector magazine. Krause also published a music magazine called Goldmine. That history was told elsewhere, in a lengthy reminiscence called "The Road To Goldmine."

My freelance writing story started here, with a fond look back at a 1960s comic book about five adventurers being blackmailed by the sixth member of their team. But none of them knew which teammate was doing the blackmailing. Until they figured that out, they were obliged to answer the call:






DC did eventually do a sequel series to The Secret Six, published in the late '80s in the pages of Action Comics Weekly. The "Secret Six" title was later appropriated and repurposed for an unrelated group of DC super-villains, and while some of those stories have their moments, they weren't about my Secret Six. 



My Secret Six was important to me. I wrote about them. I sold what I wrote. And I kept writing after that.

In 2019, I sold four short stories to AHOY Comics. I'm working on my book. I'm blogging. I'm writing. And I'm not done writing just yet.

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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

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Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 155 essays about 155 tracks, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1).