News: Walt honors late, great comics writer from St. Louis with new book
THE DENNY O'NEIL TAPES: A CONVERSATION ABOUT COMICS, CULTURE AND AMERICA is now on Amazon as both a hardback and paperback book.
Walt Jaschek holding a copy of his new book on Amazon, THE DENNY O’NEIL TAPES, published in 2023 by Walt Now Studios.
TO: COMICS MEDIA AND ST. LOUIS MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Late Comics Writer From St. Louis Lauded in New Book
When comics writer and St. Louis native Denny O’Neil died in 2022, he left a virtual vault of highly regarded superhero stories for Marvel and DC Comics, including Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man. Known for helping to bring “relevancy” into comics in the 1970s via his award-winning, influential runs on Green Lantern and Justice League, O’Neil worked as prolific writer and editor in the comics business for decades.
Cut to present: local author and comic book fan Walt Jaschek rediscovered a long interview with O’Neil conducted by a group of young, St. Louis comic fans during a July, 1970 visit by the writer to his hometown. Jaschek was a participant in that interview, recorded it and transcribed it for a local fanzine. He was 15 years old at the time.
The Denny O’Neil Tapes: A Conversation About Comics, Culture in America, Jaschek’s new book, re-presents that interview in its entirety, the first time it has been seen in wide circulation. The book also offers samples of the late writer’s published works from the early 1970s, and a complete, typewritten O’Neil comic book script for a Green Lantern comic book, with published pages for comparison.
The 111-page book is available in paperback and hardcover on Amazon.com, and in select, local comic book stores.
Topics discussed include O’Neil’s takes on the iconic natures of the superheroes he writes; the evolving definition of heroism in society; the passion and quirks of his creative collaborators; and the possible fate of comic books themselves.
Says Jaschek: “My first goal in publishing this book is to honor Denny O’Neil as a writer of great pop culture influence, one whom many in his own hometown might not know.”
“Until I can help get him a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame,” Jaschek says, “I hope this book can be a first step toward more posthumous recognition in the region.”
Jaschek’s secondary goal is, he says, “to preserve for comic fans and historians that little-seen, 1970 interview we did during the writer’s early ascendency. It was a thrill to be part of it.”
O’Neil was born in St. Louis in 1939 to a family who owned a grocery in North City for decades. He graduated from St. Louis University, served in the U.S. Navy, and began a writing career that led him to New York and the comic industry.
Jaschek is a retired, St. Louis-based copywriter whose career creating ad campaigns for national brands earned him in 2018 induction into the St. Louis Media History Foundation Hall of Fame. He’s currently working on more books, comics and screenplays.
See THE DENNY O’NEIL TAPES on Amazon.com.