Stephanie Starr Day!

Mike Friedrich was born on yesterday's date in 1949. He was an innovative writer for both Marvel and DC in the late 60's and into the 70's. But his most important contribution to the form was to pave the way for Indy publishers with is Star*Reach publication which straddled the chasm between mainstream and underground comics. 

Star*Reach was a nifty experiment by its editor and owner Mike Friedrich in its day when comics were almost all produced under the strict guidelines of the Comic Code. It straddled the line between the mainstream and the underground, allowing some of the best talents in the decade to find a new voice. It was successful in many ways, pioneering in many respects the Independent Comics market which developed in the 80's and saved the format. Getting a comic which recognized sex and offered up violence with somewhat more realistic aspects was a sufficient novelty in itself. "Stephanie Starr" by Star*Reach's guru Mike Friedrich and master artist Dick Giordano is connected to the cover by Neal Adams above, but just barely.

We see Stephanie in the background, and I guess that's supposed to be her in the center but frankly it looks like a leftover image from Warp. Still and all, it's one of my favorite Neal Adams pieces, a dazzler.  To read the misadventures of the lovely Stephanie Starr in living color, check out this Beach Bum Blog link.

I was the perfect age when I tumbled to Mike Friedrich's wacky spin on the Justice League of America, taking the helm of the book from Denny O'Neil who had done so after Gardner Fox. So as only the third regular writer of such a high-profile book it was incumbent on Friedrich not to shake the Earth too much, but he did anyway. The stories always drawn capably by Dick Dillin and Joe Giella (a team I underrated at the time) and often graced with dynamic covers by Neal Adams or Murphy Anderson, are peculiar and personal not one expects in a high-octane team book. The book touched on the issues of the time such as world hunger, pollution, and more. When it came time for the JLA and the JSA to team up they did so to help an alien boy and his dog, and there was Solomon Grundy as well. The book under Friedrich was not predictable and reading it still all these years later still feels personal, whimsical, and idealistic.

Here are the covers from Friedirich's run.

Looking at those covers again, I'm struck at how on almost all of them the League is downtrodden and shown in a moment of defeat. They recover of course, but it's an interesting way to draw in readers.

Rip Off