My Marvel Comics Internship

In 1995, I was a high school intern at Marvel Comics in New York City. I made it happen because all I wanted to do at that age was write comics. While at Marvel, I savoured every day, lived the dream, and pitched scripts to the editors I befriended.

The outcome was that I had my stories published in two Marvel comic books: Spider-Man Holiday Special 1995 with artist Mike Manley, and Spider-Man Unlimited #11 with artist Sal Buscema... and omg, to this day I still can't believe I collaborated with such a legend. Sal Buscema! He called me on the phone and was incredibly kind to the 17-year-old kid who wrote his latest job.

My stories went on to be re-published in other languages. To this day, they're available digitally and in a giant "omnibus" print edition of Spider-Man stories from the period.

I was also a Mississauga celebrity for about 5 minutes. This photo ran in the Toronto Star.

I hoped to continue writing comic books for the rest of my life... but one year later, Marvel declared bankruptcy and most of the people I'd worked with lost their jobs. I knew my Marvel experience had been precious, but still didn't quite realize how rare a life opportunity it had truly been. I graduated high school, went to university, and stopped making comics.

30 years passed.

To be continued…