Easily the highlight of my Toronto Comicon experience was my conversations with Denny O’Neil. Who if you don’t know is the creator credited with coining the name Optimus Prime (he’s known as Convoy in other parts of the world) and restoring Batman following the comical 66 tv show…in the late 60s/early 70s Denny along with other his DC Comics collaborators basically established a Batman by nerds for nerds.

Denny is also the same age as the character he popularized: he and Batman are celebrating being 80 years young this year…Bats at the end of this month, Denny in May.

Earlier this afternoon Denny was sharing he’s got a big week ahead of him.
Oh?
Yes he says…like tomorrow he hasta get up and send 3 emails!!

I hadda suppress a smile…for us we don’t even put emails on our to do lists…we just fire them off…I can’t even imagine how many I send in a given day.

But for an 80 year old I can imagine that’s “a big week.”

If you are attending a con this year and he’s a guest…go hang out with Denny.

He remains a passionate storyteller: he’s an affable New Yorker who talks like a James Bond villain

He will tell you highly entertaining tales…like working with Frank Miller on Daredevil and there’ll be this amazing old man twist where he’s suddenly talking about Breast Men…the 1997 movie with David Schwimmer? and I’m not sure how either of us got here.

Or if my follow up questions should be about Frank Miller or David Schwimmer? It’s that classic Three Card Monte feeling…I did not follow the Queen.

Denny’s cool.

He’s a legend and a damn fine writer.

So if you can go hang out with Denny and ask him questions. Then sit back and enjoy the show.

-28-

Listen to My Summer Lair @ W • T • F

Also published on Medium.