To clarify: my “generation” was the last to come into The Biz while much of the Old Guard was still in charge, still mostly driving the bus. But that was changing rapidly, and the more fans-turned-pro who came in, the more true professionalism slipped away. (Did Stan and Jack ever suffer the “Dread Deadline Doom”?)

By the time I came in, the rot was more and more in evidence. Missed deadlines, fill-ins, unexpected reprints. Things we just didn’t see when the songs were more important than the singers.

•••

Once, at a con in Ithaca, before the show opened, I was standing off to one side chatting with Richard Pini. A dealer stepped up behind me, grabbed my shoulder and spun me around to face him. He had a stack of comics he wanted me to sign before the crowd came in.

I definitely lost my cool. I tore a verbal strip off the guy, sending him skulking away to doubtless concoct his own version of the encounter. “All I did was ask for a couple of autographs!”

When the guy was gone Richard pumped my hand and with a big grin said “You have no idea how many times I’ve wanted to do that!”