GENE : Well, I never, ever, avidly read comics for the stories or the art in the beginning. First of all, I was born and raised in a different country, Israel. When I was nine I came to the United States, and read comics because the colors and pictures were interesting, and the people dressed funny. The first comic book I picked up was Congo Bill in Congorilla, a back-up feature in SUPERBOY. The Jack Kirby version. (Note: Jack Kirby is the co-creator of Captain America, Thor, X-Men...He's the man who totally redefined the medium. He is considered as the father of superheroes and a legend in his field.) Did you know that Kirby drew a couple of the SUPERBOYs? I later picked up those issues. And I really wasn't very interested. Everybody was sort of plastic - peachy-keen middle-class America, Anglo-Saxon, white and Protestant. Nobody lived like that in New York. So it was totally fabricated. I didn't believe in it. So, I really didn't read comic books until I saw SPIDER-MAN #1, with Spider-Man hanging upside-down and the Fantastic Four pointing up towards him. Wasn't that SPIDER-MAN #1?

MARTY : I think so.

GENE : And I never even heard of AMAZING ADULT FANTASY #15 - the last issue, that features the first Spider-Man story, with the cover drawn by Kirby because they didn't trust <Steve> Ditko's style to sell. (Note: Steve Ditko is a famous Spider-Man artist.

MARTY : You're really into the lore of it.

GENE : The Peter Lorre.

MARTY : So you wanted to be an artist?

GENE : Yeah, I wanted to be Jack Kirby, and before Stan Lee started doing too many books, I wanted to be Stan Lee too. My true loves were the Kirby-Ditko-Lee fantasy stories...

MARTY : "Fin Fang Foom"...

GENE : Not that one, so much as the one with the little old man who made a puppet, and it came to life, and he's about todie, and all of a sudden the puppet saves him, and the police come and they can't explain it, and there's sort of a Ditko character with one hand on his hip and taking off his hat with the other hand and scratching his head - and over in the corner, looking back over his shoulder, looking back into our point of view, is the smiling puppet. It really touched me. It just grabbed me.

MARTY : Those were great little short stories.

GENE : They're the best, those stories of the "twilight zone". And the great invasion stories too. There was one, "I Am Doomed", in which this creature, sort of a Ditko thing - ''Nothing can stop me, I am the biggest thing, nothing can stop me'' - keeps growing and growing. One foot crushes a mountain, and all of a sudden he grows bigger than the planet. ''Nothing can stop me! There is no God! There is only doom!'' And all of a sudden, it starts raining. And the water doesn't stop. And he says, ''This is impossible!'' And he starts drowning. And this is the end, ''This is my doom...'' Then, he dies. And, in the last panel, the scientist says to his helper, ''Did you wash off that Petri dish?''

MARTY : But you taught school?

GENE : Teah, sixth-grade. I'd bring in SPIDER-MAN and assign it as homework. ''I want you to write a synopsis of the story. And tomorrow you'll be quizzed on it. I may ask you what any word means. That's your homework.'' And the school would just be on my ass all the time about it.

MARTY : How do you feel about comics as a learning medium - are they beneficial?