Voices In My Head Podcast Episode 345: Forgotten All-Star: A Biography of Gardner Fox with Author Je

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Gardner Fox wrote over 4,000 comic book stories, co-created such enduring heroes as The Flash and Hawkman, and inspired a generation of comic book writers. He also wrote dozens of novels, and yet his story has never fully been told until now. From his youth in Brooklyn to his decades as a pulp fiction and comic book author to his lasting legacy, Jennifer Duras tells the timely tale of Gardner Fox in her new book, Forgotten All-Star: A Biography of Gardner Fox. Jennifer Duras, welcome to Voices in My Head.

Thank you very much.

Well, Jennifer, before we get into the fascinating story of Gardner Fox, I wanted to ask you about something. When I got to the end of your book, I was reading your biography and I immediately saw something I did not expect to see. It says this: Jennifer deRoss was born in San Jose, California, but spent most of her formative years in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, living without electricity until the age of 9. Reading was a main source of entertainment and comic books were included in her reading materials right from the start. I don't see how I can go any further until I get the inside scoop on you growing up without electricity until you were 9.

Um, yeah, so my, my parents very much had this, um, sort of— I would describe them as hippie homesteaders.

Okay.

We, we moved out to the foothills of Sierra Nevadas when I was about a year old, and so I, I grew up very similar to— like, I, I some of my background is much more similar to that of my grandma's, for instance, you know, getting a bath in a giant tub of water instead of a bathtub.

Wow.

And I really enjoyed that a lot, and it's given me an appreciation for things. Electricity is something like— I remember like the first time that I went to my grandma's house and you could just flick on a light and you could read anywhere in the house. It was amazing. I can't express how hard it is to read by kerosene lamp.

Yeah, I bet.

It's one of those slight difficulties that you don't— I don't think that it's part of a lot of people's upbringing, but I really enjoyed it. We had sheep and chickens and a garden, and I really liked it.

Wow, that's amazing. I don't think I've ever talked to anybody that grew up quite that way in these modern times. I hear of my dad or my grandpa you know, when they would tell stories like that. But like, wow, in these days. So, well, and I would, I would think that it would be a dangerous thing to, you know, be, be reading comic books by lamplight, just in case they, you know, they catch fire pretty easily.

So, I mean, it's pretty contained and it's all, it's, you know, the center of the table. Like, it's not— sure, we never had any lamps get knocked over. We were pretty safe.

That's still pretty awesome though. I actually respect your parents a lot for doing that. That's pretty amazing, especially especially in the days and times that we are so dependent on everything electronic. So that's pretty great. Well, let's get into the reason that we're actually here. Tell me about the genesis of this book that you have written, Forgotten All-Star: A Biography of Gardner Fox. What about the work of Gardner Fox captured your imagination enough to make you want to dig in deeper and ultimately write a book about the man?

It's funny. The stories themselves, like, I definitely— there was a charm that I enjoyed. There was a creativity I enjoyed. I was so excited the first time that I got to go into the archive and read his comics and like having that knowledge. That it was really exciting. But it was the man himself that made me want to take on this project when I realized how little had been done on him. Just how much our comic industry is based on his— I mean, he's essentially the architecture of the comic industry. I really felt like his story is an important one to be told.

Well, you know, and I should tell all of our listeners right at the beginning here, they really need to check this book out because there's so much more that you write about than we're actually going to have time to cover today, and the more you uncover about Gardner Fox, the more you're just kind of amazed, at least I was anyway, because it just seemed like he was so revolutionary in all that he did. And you write in the book that he was first published as a writer before the creation of Superman in the 1930s, and he worked all the way into the 1980s. And you would know this better than I do, I'm sure, but I assume this kind of longevity is rare for comic book writers.

It is. I, I mean, there were definitely those that stuck around, um, for, for a long time. But to make it all the way to the '80s, I, I don't think that there's— I could be wrong, but off the top of my head, I can't think of anybody else whose career is quite that long.

I would think there are very few. That was, that was just fascinating though, that— and I had no idea that, that he had written that long, and that really he would have probably written more had he lived longer. So that's, that's really fascinating. Well, you know, there, there are a few writers that the general, the general populace knows of, uh, Stan Lee of course being one. I'd say because of the Marvel films, everybody knows who Stan Lee is at this point. Um, I would say not as many, but a lot of people probably know the name Bob Kane because of Batman movies and the name being there. And probably a lot of people would know, you know, just your average laypeople, they might be familiar with Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Um, and, and these were Gardner Fox's contemporaries, but Gardner, even though he seems to have lasted far longer than they did, doesn't seem to be as well known. I wonder if you have any theories as to why maybe he's just not as well known as other creative people were at that time.

Well, I think some of it was just he's not— from what I've been able to put together, he doesn't seem like he was the biggest self-advocate. There was a story that Timothy Truman told about encountering him just sitting in a hallway at a convention. I feel like that really captures what happened. He's more likely to be there and enjoy the— what's happening around him, but he didn't seem to really insert himself in that forceful way that— because comics really seems like it's a game of self-promotion, and he wasn't interested in that kind of self-promotion. He liked to write. He wanted to keep writing. Fame wasn't as big of a concern for him.

Yeah, publish the work and not yourself. That's kind of a fascinating— it's kind of a novel idea these days, isn't it?

It really is.

Well, you know, there's— there are a lot of, uh, of cultural influences that form all of us into the people that we are. And you explain in your book that Fox's Catholic faith was a big part of his formation into who he was as a person, uh, and in, in the kind of messages that he often put into his stories, and even in the pen name that he used often, this Francis. I wonder if you would mind talking a bit about that. How devout of a Catholic was he?

He was extremely devout. He prayed every night. He had a giant Bible that he kept on his bed stand. It's kind of a family heirloom now. And he, I mean, he was at church every week. The family would talk about, you know, they'd go on vacation and and it was so important for him to be in a church that if he could find a, even Christian church, that was within driving distance, they would drive a couple hours just to, for him to have that. And it really seems like that was a primary force in the way in which he lived his life and the way in which service becomes such an important part of, especially in the Justice Society of America. I think that his Catholicism is very clear once you know that's what's behind it.

Sure, yeah. Well, and you know, even in the names of things, the Justice Society, you know, that he would be someone who sought justice for other people. And I just found that fascinating, especially the part that you just mentioned, how they would drive up to 2 hours. I mean, I honestly, I work in my church part-time, and when I'm on vacation, I don't make that kind of an effort, you know, to get there. So it's really— just to hear that about him was amazing. It sounds like the things that he did, whether it be writing or his faith or even his family, it seems like he just went all in with these things and was completely devoted to it. So fascinating. Well, let's get into some of the characters that he created, because I know that listeners— even if some of our listeners are not hugely into comic books, some are and some aren't— but I think they're going to know some of these characters. And first— At least one. At least one, there has to be. So some of the characters that he had a hand in either creating or co-creating, um, things— characters like Hawkman, which a lot of people are going to know. But then there's The Flash, who is huge right now due to the CW program. And I got thinking that, you know, most creators are lucky if they create one memorable character, but he has at least two that he's a part of at least co-creating. But there are also a number of other heroes that he had a hand in. I wonder if you could tell us about what Gardner Fox contributed to Batman, who definitely, you know, people are gonna know Batman for sure. And though he didn't create him, he really did have a lot to do with Batman right from the start, didn't he?

He really did. And, and this is one of those things that I think Batman is an important character to conceptualize as having multiple fathers. It's not just Bob Kane, and it's, it's certainly not just Bob Kane, let's emphasize that.

Definitely, yeah.

But it's more than Bob Kane, Bill Finger, the Jerry Robinson brought in Robin, brought in Joker. That was a big contribution, or, you know, so the theory goes. A lot of these sort of things, they didn't really keep track of. But Gardner Fox was hugely influential on the character in both small ways and big ways. One of the biggest I consider is the contribution of the batarang and all of the gadgets. When we think of Batman, we often go straight to the gadgets, and it was Gardner Fox that gave him the secret lab to construct those, the utility belt and the Batarang, several other things like, for instance, the Batgyro, which turned into the Batplane later because gyros were the big upcoming technology at the time. Some of it too, I think, is some of that vigilante gothic. I really think that he lined up well with Bob Kane on that, bringing the more explicitly Dracula-type vibes to it.— but yeah, the first girlfriend, fiancée in fact, the first arch-criminal. Like, he really— Batman would be a very different character if Gardner Fox had not written him.

Sure. Well, and you know, there's another character too that I wanted to talk about that he created, and everybody knows Batman. This may be a hero not as many people knew of, but I did because I had the superpowers toy when I was a kid that Kenner made, and that character was Dr.

Fate.

And, uh, you know, I never realized that he was a character inspired by H.P. Lovecraft until I read your book. Uh, talk to us a bit about Dr. Fate and who he was, or still is. He's still a very much used character, but what's—

what is so Lovecraftian about Um, well, I mean, just the way he operates, I would say, is the biggest Lovecraftian aspect. Even his creation, where we've got this idea of otherworldliness and a universe that's beyond humans. And like the mysteriousness of the character. A lot of the villains that he faces feel very Lovecraftian where we've got ancient civilizations and a lot of horror tropes and archaic, you know, like I remember the first time I came across the Book of Thoth, I got very excited because he did a lot of research into all of that. A lot of it is just kind of this vibe of— and the, the fact that we can't see his face, so it's this— how there's just this otherworldliness about Doctor Fate that's really fun and interesting.

Sure. Yeah, I just love sort of like that there's this whole other world we can't see that is happening all around us, but we can't see it, you know. Yeah, right now. And such a cool character. And Doctor Fate was one of those that as a kid, again, I connect to it because of the toy that I had. And there were even some comic books that came out through Super Powers, the title that DC had when I was a really young kid, probably like 6 years old or something. And that was my first introduction to Dr.

Fate.

And he was always, you know, casting these spells, and I always wanted to know a little bit more about him. But, you know, I was— it was great to find out again. I'm learning things as I'm reading the book. I'm like, oh, Gardner did Dr.

Fate too?

That's amazing. So I was, I was just a kid all over again reading these things.

It was great.

Oh, that's awesome. Oh, and I do want to say too, the fact that you knew him visually, I do think that's one of the most distinctive things. Like, he stands out from the crowd, and it's really the closest that Gardner Fox got to full creation because he actually sketched out the character before he gave it over to Howard Truman.

I'm trying to remember now too, because it was one of the first heroes that I had seen on TV that was sort of the— I don't know if we call them B or C list heroes or whatever that are not as well known,, but I think it was on— was it Smallville where I first saw him?

Yeah, he was on Smallville.

And I remember thinking like, whoa, that's the Doctor Fate mask and they've got it all, you know. And I'm sure that Gardner Fox would just be, you know, completely blown away thinking, wow, my stuff's on TV now, you know, at this point.

Well, but his stuff was on TV before. It was his Ruse of the Riddler that was the basis for the first two episodes, the, you know, two-parter opener of the Batman TV series. Oh, right, right. Did not receive credit for.

Oh wow. Yeah, talk to us a little bit about that because I completely forgot that he was somewhat involved in those episodes. How did that come about?

Well, that they just kind of adapted it. He became involved in that side of things though when he was approached— actually, I think it was Julius Schwartz that was approached to create Batgirl. Which is another huge contribution to the Batman mythos. That was Gardner Fox doing the writing of Batgirl, which I personally think seems very heavily based on his sister Kay Fox, which was a whole other side story in the book that I was delighted to find out about. She was head librarian of the Keene Public Library, and she lived a very big life as well.

Wow.

Of course she fought crime when the sun went down, right? No, I'm kidding. No, she was fun to read about too. That actually is cool the way that some of his characters really are based on people that he knew and loved. And I think that's wonderful that he did that. Real quick, before we get into too many more of the characters, I did want to ask a question about him and sort of his dedication to work, because it was fascinating for me to also Again, one of these things that I envisioned as a kid and growing up is that all these writers and people who are artists and colorists and different ones that come in, they must all be in the same building, in the same room together, almost doing these things. But you talk about how Fox actually worked out of his home a good bit of his life, and a lot of people thought, well, that must be great because, you know, he gets to work at home and that must be so easy. But he really was very— like, had this very strong work ethic, didn't he, even when he was at home? And, and there's this great story. I wonder if you would mind sharing just a little bit of kind of like his daily routine. But then there's also a story about his— I believe it was his nephew, John Fogerty. And I don't know if— I don't know if he's the same guy from Creedence Clearwater Revival or not, but there is a John. You would think that, oh yeah, you know John Fogerty. But in my mind, I like to imagine that anyway, that he did this to John Fogerty But tell us a little bit about sort of the way that he structured his daily work life, even at home. And then if you don't mind, would you just share that story about John Fogerty coming to visit?

Yeah. So he very much had a strong work ethic. And I think some of that came from his academic background. He knew how to ensure success. You just have to treat it like a job. And so he would sit down and he would work and he would have everything scheduled out, his meals. Meals were especially important. He had to have dinner at a very set time. But he did not want to be distracted during that time because he treated it as if he was at work. And so he'd be up in his office and poor John, one day he hitchhiked all the way to visit his uncle and knocked on the door and it was during Gardner Fox's work time. And so Gardner Fox had to get up. And I mean, I think that it's easier to understand this if we think about it as if somebody had just like came and like knocked on your cubicle door or whatever and like insisted you come hang out. It would be ridiculous in that context. And so John comes and visits his uncle's home expecting it to be, you know, home environment. But to Gardner Fox, it wasn't. And so he was just like, nope, sorry, and closed the door and made him hitchhike all the way home.

And again, in my mind, I know it's most likely not the same John Fogerty, but I picture him carrying his guitar, you know, all this way to the door. And thus was inspired Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Yeah.

No, it's just, it's a great story. I love that though. Hey, you want to hang out, Uncle? Nope, working slam, you know. So it's awesome. I love hearing that. And, you know, it's those personal stories that you put in throughout the book, which are just so above and beyond. Your research, which make it so much fun to, to read, because we're not just hearing about the characters that he created, but we really are getting a sense of sort of his personality and his work ethic. And I'm gonna read a passage from your book. If I would have thought ahead, I would have had you do it, because that's fun too. But I feel like this is a really important passage because it has to do with the way that Gardner Fox really believed that he was kind of serving the war effort because he wasn't able to serve and this would have been during World War II, correct? Okay. And this is the passage from your book, and I'd love to just talk about this a little bit. It says, says, more than anything though, Fox's writing of the JSA was tied to his core beliefs. As a Catholic who believed in service to others, and because he was unable to serve in the military, he found writing to be a way of enacting his values.

Values.

It was through his writing of the Justice Society of America that Gardner Fox found an alternative way to serve his nation and all of humanity, writing comics that encouraged readers to help the war effort in whatever way they could, while also trying to make the world a better place by encouraging readers to focus on our commonalities instead of our differences. So, what were the— some of the ways that he achieved this, do you think, as he was trying to find ways to serve his nation but also was really focusing in a way that not a lot of people do, especially during wartime, of looking for commonalities even with our enemies?

Well, I, I think that there's multiple pieces at work there. One, the, the War Board absolutely was including information that was important to those that were at home, but Gardner Fox went, in my mind, above and beyond that at points. For instance, just talking about the war effort at home, he has one issue where he even includes grandmothers knitting sweaters as part of the war effort. So I think he did a lot to kind of expand the way we can think about how we are helping in morale and and things like that and the importance of that. You know, supporting our troops becomes almost an empty word or term now, but he really believed in that. And he would include information about what was going on in the war in his comics, which I think is important for especially children readers who were not given information like that unless they sought it out themselves. And even then, it was not easy, you know. They cite some information in there about the fact that war books were not on any librarians' lists or things like that where children would be able to find access to those kinds of books. And also, like, those comics did go overseas, and so having stories about those kinds of things are important to the soldiers who are there because they're going to see what's happening, and That's where that morale boost comes from. Also, even just putting power to words. There's the issue where Hawkman is helping with a Secret Freedom newspaper, which includes information about saying that the bombs aren't going to be dropping, they're just dropping in those areas and not over allies and information like that. That. So there's a lot of working pieces there that drew me to that conclusion.

Well, and it's also interesting too that, you know, those comics were so often being carried around by the soldiers.

Oh, absolutely. There are some great stories that I couldn't include because I couldn't find, you know, exact I couldn't find exact information that I wanted, but I, you know, there's a lot of military people in my family, and I definitely have heard stories about people having comics, and they would literally just rip out a page and send it down the line so the entire— in their trenches could read the comic together. And I think there's something really powerful about that.

—And I can almost hear all of us comic book nerds cringing. It's not mint anymore, you just ripped it! No, I'm just kidding.

—But that's kind of why they were perfect to send, though, because they were seen at the time as throwaway, so it was okay to do that. It would be worse to rip up a novel, and then how would you even make sure that you had all of the pieces of the novel? There's a lot more, like, if it's just, you know, 20 pages of a comic.

—Exactly, you know, and that's what's so fascinating about it, because I I don't, I don't think anybody would have thought at the time, you know, any more than if we would just save a newspaper we got, you know, usually, well, out to recycling now or whatever after you're done with it. So it is fascinating, but that they were so portable, you know, and that they could be shared by other soldiers in that way. And I always find that very fascinating because, you know, what, what do you do with a superhero comic? And they always used to say about Superman, you know, there was all these covers of Superman where he's off, he's off to war, but they never really dealt with it in the comics because it seemed like an insult to soldiers who were really fighting.

Oh, but they still put it a little bit. Like, for instance, he tried to enlist, but then, like, he accidentally used his x-ray vision, and so he failed the vision test because he was reading the vision chart, like, one group over. Right.

Oh, yeah, that's amazing to think of that. But, yeah, they always seemed to try to find ways to keep him out of the war in the comics. And I get that because, you know, you've got soldiers who are literally dying and seeing friends die, and it would almost probably seem bad taste to say, well, here comes Superman, he just wrapped up the whole war in a day type thing, you know. But I love the way that Gardner seemed to really want to put those, those real-life situations in there. And there were some different things that I hadn't thought about before just reading this book. And, and he does focus some on the commonalities. And one thing that's very interesting in wartime is we always, you know, want to make the enemy the most evil person that ever walked the planet, you know. And that's one way that we kind of build up maybe the soldiers to say, okay, you've got to go fight these people, they're less than human. Or— and it's interesting that I noted one thing that he remarked that you quoted in your book. Gardner Fox said even during World War II, you didn't treat the Germans as monsters the way so many comics did. But people, as people deceived, as easily led by corrupt leaders. And, and he says that, well, I always felt that way, that people everywhere are basically the same. And I thought, what a, you know, that's a really honorable thing for a man to say, especially back in that time when I know that might not have been a very popular view to have of the enemy. But I love the way that he was seeking out the humanness in everyone in these situations, and that good people could be easily deceived and corrupted by leaders. It didn't necessarily make them evil themselves. And that's a hard thing, you know. I don't think that, you know, when soldiers are being trained, their commanding officers say to them, you know, hey, these people you're gonna fight are good people, and you know, they're just led astray, because it makes it hard to kill these enemy, you know. So I think that's fascinating. Again, it probably gets back to Gardner's, you know, upbringing as a Catholic too, that he held life to be precious no matter if they were American or German or Japanese or whoever. He just thought, you know, people, we had this commonality, and I really respect that about him. I agree. Well, sorry, I talked too much on that one, but I really find it to be a fascinating topic.

But I mean, again, that was part of that it was the human that made me want to write the book. It was exactly those kinds of things that made me really— I couldn't just set it aside.

Yeah, for sure. Well, there are a couple of other really key things that I want to cover before our time is done today. And again, there's so much in the book, I wish we could cover all of it, but guess what, everybody? You have to read the book, and that's a good thing. So, but Fox was groundbreaking in another way too, in that he was, as you tell tell us, the first to write a superhero team crossover as well as the first intercompany crossover. And, you know, those type— those types of things are happening like for the first time on TV too now, you know. So there's a sense in which like we, we don't get these things probably unless Gardner Fox had done it first. Talk to us about these, these crossovers and why he was kind of groundbreaking in doing them at the time.

Well, They seem like such simple ideas now, but I mean, I think that he was just really creative, and some of that was, you know, editors pushing for things, I'm sure. Like, I can't give him full credit for everything he ever did because, you know, comics, as you commented before, are done by a lot of different people. But he certainly was the one who figured out how to do all of those things. And yeah, like that, we're still seeing the patterns that he established. For instance, the way in which we have the team that starts out together and then they all break apart and do their individual things and then they come back together as a team at the end. This is something we see even in The Avengers most recently. That's how the endgame ends, right?

Yeah. Oh, thanks, in case nobody saw it.

Just kidding. Even from the commercials we can see that.

I think everybody just about, and their pets, have seen it at this point, probably. It was a huge movie, for sure. Sorry, go on. Please continue.

I mean, I just, I think that those sort of things, we're still using the Gardner Fox Fox playbook.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, and stories like, like The Flash of Two Worlds, yeah, which is sort of this really iconic comic. And again, I'm sure he had no idea he was writing something that was so—

he really didn't think it was that big of a deal. Like, that— he had written multiple stories already with a multiverse, so to him it was just using a common science fiction device.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, so, so yeah, the concept of multiple Earths. I mean, could we, could we credit him mostly though for the idea of sort of at least putting that into comics in the way that he did? Yeah, definitely. Well, it's, it's really just fascinating to kind of hear about all that. And again, it may not seem all that groundbreaking now, but it was really something kind of, kind of new and novel at the time. And, and it's always neat, you know, when you get to kind of see your favorite heroes coming together and finding a way to make that happen, especially when some of the characters, you know, had changed from the first Flash to the Barry Allen Flash later on. And it's always great fun. Well, you know, another thing I want to talk before we run out of time here together today, and we talked a little bit about Batgirl, but you know, there's another character that Fox seems to take some criticism on a little bit, and that's Wonder Woman. And I think I know where you're going. Yeah. Yeah, and I, and I love, I love hearing your, your take on this for sure, because he's received some criticism, and some people have called him, you know, like, his work sexist for his portrayal of Wonder Woman as the secretary of the Justice Society. But you really do have a different understanding of Gardner Fox on this issue, and you don't feel that way at all. I just love to hear your perspective on that.

Yeah, no, I, I do think that we have judged him too harshly for that. I remember there was one critic who— I try not to, you know, say bad things, so I won't name her— but she basically was just like, oh, well, Gardner Fox didn't know what to do with her. And like, that was the end of any kind of analysis. And then, of course, it gets worse with people describing making her the secretary as this really sexist moment. And there can be a perspective, depending depending on, you know, how sexist you think it is to have, you know, a female be a secretary, you know, like maybe we should take a look at why we think that's inherently sexist in the first place. But also, so much of that wasn't Gardner Fox. Like, if you really take a step back and look at the inner workings of the industry at the time, that was not a decision that he made. Made. And more than that, if we look at not just his writing of her, but his writing of multiple female superheroes, we can see that that's not what's going on. Most— all of his superheroes are these strong, empowered, and agency-filled characters. Wonder Woman, in fact, if reading the two scripts, I was really surprised at, you know, perhaps Gardner Fox's Wonder Woman, or his brand of feminism that he's presenting in that story is a little obvious, you know, like flat out having a character say, "You would have me think that women are just as equal as men on Earth," and things like that. Like, a little on the nose, perhaps. Perhaps, but certainly a strong feminist message, especially considering the fact that he's a fairly wealthy white dude born in 1911. Yeah. Yeah. But to compare that to Marston's Wonder Woman, I think that they're just two different animals. Marston was doing something with her and trying to present a way of thinking that goes beyond just the character. And so I don't think that it's fair to slam Gardner Fox for something that I don't think that there's actually a whole lot of evidence for.

Well, and as you write about in the book too, you know, his female characters, again, they were very strong. And it wasn't uncommon for, like, in his stories for Batgirl to be the one to come in to save Batman and Robin, you know? And it's, it's really interesting to me on that level. And I think sometimes we, we suffer a bit now from what I've heard people call retroactive wokeism. There's a sense in which a lot of times, you know, the times have changed to a certain extent, and we almost expect people to act like they do in their era, the way that they would do and think in our era. And, and sometimes that just doesn't line up very well, just doesn't match up, for better or for worse. But I really appreciate it.

And on that note though, I do want to say too that I think that Gardner Fox has some nuances that make me like his female characters more, because that, that sort of woke culture, I think that we can overcorrect sometimes, like that stereotypical strong woman when we're using masculine characteristics to define strength and then just applying that to a woman. One of the things I find really refreshing about some of Gardner Fox's female characters is the fact that they're allowed to cry, they're allowed to be scared, and that's something that I think is harder to find now.

Yeah. Well, you know, there's another thing that I really loved reading about with Gardner Fox, especially in the years when he had retired but he was still working working, you know, pretty regularly, it seemed like. He was getting a lot of chance to do writing and things like that. But one thing I really liked about him, and I definitely wanted to cover this to balance out when we talked about him kind of slamming the door on John Fogerty, you know, his nephew, because really, especially in the later years, as you write about, he really took time for his fans. And something that I think is probably very uncommon, even even to this day, is the way that he would— they would show up at his house sometimes and he would just invite them in, you know, come on inside. And they would talk with him. And it was just quite important to him, I think, that he was able to discuss his work with other people. And I think that's pretty rare. Wouldn't you say so?

I would say. And I think that some of that, again, as a counterpoint to the Fogarty story. He was also very active in fan letters, and he would do interviews a lot in his later years. It was one of those— he was able to slow down. He was just writing about a novel a year, which sounds like still a lot of work, but that gave him that time to dedicate to essentially helping the next generation of comic creators, you know, fill their role in the industry. And we do see a little bit of that sort of timeliness, is the way I think of it, in some of the interviews he would do. He'd be like, "All right, well, I gotta go." Yeah, that's funny.

Well, this has been a real joy to get to talk to you today, Jennifer. I've been looking forward to it for some time, and I really enjoyed the book, and I hope that a lot of people will just continue buying it and finding out more about Gardner Fox. It's one of these biographies that is just fascinating to me. And again, the title for everybody listening, it's called Forgotten All-Star: A Biography of Gardner Fox, and it's written by my guest today, Jennifer DeRoss. I wonder if in the time we have before we wrap up today, what's the best place for people to find out more about you and your work?

Honestly, Twitter is probably the best place. I like to throw out little Gardner Fox factoids and whatnot here and there, and it's a good way to reach me. I also have a blog on WordPress, just Jennifer's Comic Blog, that you can reach me through that as well.

Terrific. Well, and I hope that we're going to get more books from you in the future. I know Gardner Fox was writing a novel a year, and that's just amazing. And maybe you'll emulate him, a book a year, but you know, who knows?

I don't know about that, but I mean, there's— it's a different animal to write creatively and write research-based biographies. But I, I'm definitely— I'm, I have a person in mind.

Well, that's terrific. Well, whenever you finish the next book, let us know for sure, and I'd love to have you back to talk again. I really enjoyed your book, and I think you've got a great future ahead in the writing that you do. So as I say to my guests each week here on this show, Jennifer Duras, thank you for being one of the voices in my head this week.

Ah, thank you very much, and thank you for inviting me.

Thank you for joining me here this week on Voices in My Head. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com where you can find out more about me, get my music on vinyl and CD, follow my blog, and even schedule me for a concert or speaking engagement.

Better yet, even even a book signing in your neighborhood.

You can find all that and more at rickleejames.com. Also, it would mean a great deal to me if you could write a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast will be online. And now for the benediction: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, —so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. God bless you, and thank you for listening to Voices in My Head.