Today in Comics History, January 29: Happy birthday, Steve Skeates!

Born on this day: Steve Skeates, writer for comic books (Adventure Comics, The Flash, House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Debbi's Dates, Plastic Man, Plop!, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves, Underdog, Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham, Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella, and many other comics at Tower, Charlton, DC, Gold Key, Red Circle, Archie, and Warren Publishing), animation (Transformers, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, Jem) and self-publisher ("Could I Have My Reality Check Please?").

Didja know (I didn't!) that he's the actual author of Marvel's Generic Comic Book, published under the pseudonym "A Writer." Speaking of pen names, Steve has also written under the aliases Chester P. Hazel and Warren Savin. I mention that because it'll become an Important Point™ a little later. Not too much later, but not right now! Geez, people, have some patience.


from "Behind the Scenes at the House of Mystery" in Limited Collectors' Edition #C-23 [The House of Mystery] (DC, Winter 1973), text by Joe Orlando
Here's another fun fact I discovered about Steve while researching him on Wikipedia ("We Don't Charge You for Our Encyclopedia But by Golly We'll Hound You to the Death for a $3.75 Donation"):

One of the series Skeates wrote at DC in the 1970s was Plastic Man, for which he created the villain Carrot Man, an evil game show host who hit contestants on their heads with a toaster. When that character appeared on the Plastic Man animated show, his creator received no royalties, but the showrunners "tried to make good" by changing Carrot Man's true identity to Stephen Skeates.

Oh wait. That's not fun at all! That's just another case of a writer being cheated out of royalities and given "exposure" instead! I'm going to report you to @forexposure_txt, DC! Sheesh.

Here's Steve apologizing for jumbled-up rules in a Doctor Strange game he wrote in Crazy Magazine. I imagine Pal Dr.PTOR, collector of all things Stephen Strange, has a copy, but do you think he has the correct rules?


from Crazy Magazine #91 (Marvel, October 1982)

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Edit on 3/22/2022: Hey, Dr.PTOR did have a copy, and all the rules, and he's bligged about it, scanned it, and offered it for download! So head over to the leading Doc Strange blog to get it by clicking here! Thanks, oh Munificent One!

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Say, speaking of board games...and trust me, this segue makes sense, unlike this segue...


...because no matter how confusing that Doctor Strange game was, it can't possibly be as bad as this Abbott and Costello board game from a comic book (trust me, I'm getting there)...


"Abbott & Costello Game Page" from Abbott & Costello (1968 series) #8 (Charlton, April 1969), script by Steve Skeates, pencils and inks by Tony Tallarico (?), letters by Ray Burzon
...which is in the same comic book as this story that features a character named Warren Savin (trust me, we're so almost there), which, if you remember all the way back to the top of this post, was a pseudonym for Steve Skeates! (Blows horns, whistles, lets off streamers to celebrate the fact that we finally got to the Interesting Point™ I'd promised you at the beginning)!




from Abbott & Costello #8
We leave Bud 'n' Lou debating the potential player line-up of an upcoming game of baseball and we leave Steve Skeates by wishing him a very happy birthday. Happy birthday, Steve!