Comics A-Z Podcast

G is for Gold Key Comics - The Leader in Licensed Comics
Gold Key Comics occupies a fascinating place in American comic-book history. It was neither the largest superhero publisher of its era nor the most aggressively experimental. It did not produce a continuous succession of characters as culturally dominant as Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, or the Fantastic Four.
Yet for millions of American children growing up during the 1960s and 1970s, Gold Key was one of the most recognizable names on the comic-book rack. Its books offered a remarkably broad mixture of science fiction, fantasy, adventure, horror, mystery, humor, television adaptations, movie tie-ins, Disney characters, newspaper-strip properties, and original creations.
Recommended reading list for this episode:
The Art of George Wilson
The Art of Walt Kelly
Pogo: The Complete Dell Comics — Walt Kelly
Carl Barks Library — Carl Barks
The Golden Age of Comic Books — Bill Schelly
American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960–1964 — John Wells
American Comic Book Chronicles: 1965–1969 — John Wells
The Encyclopedia of American Comics — Ron Goulart
Magnus, Robot Fighter Archives — Russ Manning
Russ Manning's Tarzan — Russ Manning
Turok, Son of Stone Archives — Western Publishing
The Unexpurgated Carl Barks — Carl Barks
Carl Barks and the Disney Comic Book — Geoffrey Blum
The Art of Walt Disney's Donald Duck
Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book by Gerard Jones
Comic Book Nation by Bradford Wright
The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu
COMICS A-Z is the podcast that showcases the history of sequential art: comic books, comic strips, the characters, their creators, one letter at a time. Each episode highlights an interesting aspect of the long history of comics, as a creative medium and a growing industry.
COMIC A-Z is hosted by Kevin Cleary, a former executive with First Comics, Classics Illustrated Comics, and TV Comics.  Kevin was also the Sales Director for the Dream Factory chain of 22 stores and Purchasing Director for Heroes World Distribution, the 3rd largest comic book, trading card, and toy distributor in the country. 
Kevin was an advisor to the Overstreet Price Guide, The Overstreet Premium Ring Guide and a columnist/feature writer for the Comic's Buyers Guide, Overstreet Monthly, and Wizard Magazine.
He was the founder of Quantum Licensing, a company that produced pins, rings, and other licensed comic book related merchandise. He even wrote issue #4 of THE MUNSTERS from TV Comics.
Kevin currently works in Hollywood as a literary manager and occasional producer.
This podcast is made by humans. Accept no substitutes.
© Kevin Cleary 2026

F is for Flash Gordon: Alex Raymond and the Legacy of a Science-Fiction Icon
Long before Star Wars, before Star Trek, before modern superhero comics transformed outer space into a familiar fictional landscape, there was Flash Gordon: the handsome Earthman rocketing across the cosmos, the beautiful Dale Arden at his side, the brilliant and sometimes dangerously obsessive Dr. Hans Zarkov behind them, and the three of them confronting tyrants, monsters, alien civilizations, giant creatures, flying warriors, strange machines and fantastic worlds. Created and initially illustrated by Alex Raymond, with stories by writer Don Moore, the strip was conceived partly as King Features' answer to the enormous popularity of Buck Rogers. Yet what began as a commercial attempt to compete with another science-fiction adventure quickly became something considerably more important. 
Recommended reading list for this episode:
Flash Gordon: Classic Collection by Alex Raymond
Alex Raymond: His Life and Art by Tom Roberts
Alex Raymond: The Power of the Image by Ron Goulart, Daniel Herman
Children of the Yellow Kid: The Evolution of the American Comic Strip by Robert C. Harvey
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Edited by John Clute and Peter Nicholls
The Comics: An Illustrated History of Comic Strip Art by Coulton Waugh
The Encyclopedia of American Comics - Ron Goulart, editor
The Comics: Since 1945 by Brian Walker
The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics
100 Years of American Newspaper Comics by Maurice Horn
The Comic Strip Century by Bill Blackbeard and Dale Crain
The Funnies: 100 Years of American Comic Strips
Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book by Gerard Jones
Comic Book Nation by Bradford Wright
The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu
COMICS A-Z is the podcast that showcases the history of sequential art: comic books, comic strips, the characters, their creators, one letter at a time. Each episode highlights an interesting aspect of the long history of comics, as a creative medium and a growing industry.
COMIC A-Z is hosted by Kevin Cleary, a former executive with First Comics, Classics Illustrated Comics, and TV Comics.  Kevin was also the Sales Director for the Dream Factory chain of 22 stores and Purchasing Director for Heroes World Distribution, the 3rd largest comic book, trading card, and toy distributor in the country. 
Kevin was an advisor to the Overstreet Price Guide, The Overstreet Premium Ring Guide and a columnist/feature writer for the Comic's Buyers Guide, Overstreet Monthly, and Wizard Magazine.
He was the founder of Quantum Licensing, a company that produced pins, rings, and other licensed comic book related merchandise. He even wrote issue #4 of THE MUNSTERS from TV Comics.
Kevin currently works in Hollywood as a literary manager and occasional producer.
This podcast is made by humans. Accept no substitutes.
© Kevin Cleary 2026

E is for E-Man - An Independent Hero for Many Publishers
E-Man's history is inseparable from the history of independent comics. E-Man began at Charlton, returned through First Comics in the 1980s, was revived by Comico and Alpha Productions in the 1990s, appeared in later independent publications including Digital Webbing Press, and eventually returned to Charlton-related publishing. The character's ability to survive the collapse or transformation of one publisher after another is perhaps his greatest accomplishment. E-Man never became a Superman-sized commercial property. Instead, he became something arguably more appropriate to his creators' intentions: a genuine cult character whose audience remained loyal for decades.
Recommended reading list for this episode:
Nicola Cuti's Comic Book Guide for the Artist, Writer & Letterer
E-Man: The Early Years
E-Man: Recharged #1 Digital Webbing The Comico Comics
E-Man: The Idol / Curse of the Idol
Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book by Gerard Jones
Comic Book Nation by Bradford Wright
The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu
COMICS A-Z is the podcast that showcases the history of sequential art: comic books, comic strips, the characters, their creators, one letter at a time. Each episode highlights an interesting aspect of the long history of comics, as a creative medium and a growing industry.
COMIC A-Z is hosted by Kevin Cleary, a former executive with First Comics, Classics Illustrated Comics, and TV Comics.  Kevin was also the Sales Director for the Dream Factory chain of 22 stores and Purchasing Director for Heroes World Distribution, the 3rd largest comic book, trading card, and toy distributor in the country. 
Kevin was an advisor to the Overstreet Price Guide, The Overstreet Premium Ring Guide and a columnist/feature writer for the Comic's Buyers Guide, Overstreet Monthly, and Wizard Magazine.
He was the founder of Quantum Licensing, a company that produced pins, rings, and other licensed comic book related merchandise. He even wrote issue #4 of THE MUNSTERS from TV Comics.
Kevin currently works in Hollywood as a literary manager and occasional producer.
This podcast is made by humans. Accept no substitutes.
© Kevin Cleary 2026

D is for Doonesbury - The comic strip that changed everything
Few American comic strips have changed as dramatically as their country changed around them. Peanuts transformed the newspaper strip into a vehicle for introspection; The Far Side expanded its possibilities for surreal humor; Calvin and Hobbes demonstrated the expressive range of the medium. But Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury accomplished something different. It turned the daily newspaper comic strip into a running chronicle of American political, cultural, and social life.
Recommended reading list for this episode:
Trudeau & Doonesbury: A Biography: The Cartoonist Who Turned the News into Art by Joshua Kendall
The Doonesbury Chronicles — Garry Trudeau (1975)
Doonesbury's Greatest Hits — Garry Trudeau (1978)
The People's Doonesbury: Notes from Underfoot — Garry Trudeau (1981
Doonesbury Dossier: The Reagan Years — Garry Trudeau (1984)
Doonesbury Deluxe: Selected Glances Askance — Garry Trudeau (1987)
Doonesbury by G.B. Trudeau  This is the original collection of Yale strips.
40: A Doonesbury Retrospective — Garry Trudeau (2010) Must Read!
Dbury@50: The Complete Digital Doonesbury — Garry Trudeau (2020)
The Comics: Since 1945 by Brian Walker
The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics
100 Years of American Newspaper Comics by Maurice Horn
The Comic Strip Century by Bill Blackbeard and Dale Crain
The Funnies: 100 Years of American Comic Strips
COMICS A-Z is the podcast that showcases the history of sequential art: comic books, comic strips, the characters, their creators, one letter at a time. Each episode highlights an interesting aspect of the long history of comics, as a creative medium and a growing industry.
COMIC A-Z is hosted by Kevin Cleary, a former executive with First Comics, Classics Illustrated Comics, and TV Comics.  Kevin was also the Sales Director for the Dream Factory chain of 22 stores and Purchasing Director for Heroes World Distribution, the 3rd largest comic book, trading card, and toy distributor in the country. 
Kevin was an advisor to the Overstreet Price Guide, The Overstreet Premium Ring Guide and a columnist/feature writer for the Comic's Buyers Guide, Overstreet Monthly, and Wizard Magazine.
He was the founder of Quantum Licensing, a company that produced pins, rings, and other licensed comic book related merchandise. He even wrote issue #4 of THE MUNSTERS from TV Comics.
Kevin currently works in Hollywood as a literary manager and occasional producer.
This podcast is made by humans. Accept no substitutes.
© Kevin Cleary 2026

C is for Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family - The World’s Mightiest Mortal
There was a time, difficult to imagine today, when Superman was not unquestionably the most successful superhero in American popular culture. Batman was still a relatively young character. Wonder Woman had only recently arrived. Marvel Comics did not yet exist in its modern form.
One of the most commercially successful comic-book characters in the world was a red-uniformed, lightning-bolt-chested hero whose greatest secret was that beneath the muscles, cape, and impossible powers was just an ordinary boy.
His name was Captain Marvel.
Recommended reading list for this episode:
The Fawcett Companion: The Best of FCA — P.C. Hamerlinck, editor
The Shazam! Archives, Vol. 1
The Shazam! Family Archives Vol. 1
Shazam!: A Celebration of 75 Years
Superheroes of the Golden Age by Mike Benton
COMICS A-Z is the podcast that showcases the history of sequential art: comic books, comic strips, the characters, their creators, one letter at a time. Each episode highlights an interesting aspect of the long history of comics, as a creative medium and a growing industry.
COMIC A-Z is hosted by Kevin Cleary, a former executive with First Comics, Classics Illustrated Comics, and TV Comics.  Kevin was also the Sales Director for the Dream Factory chain of 22 stores and Purchasing Director for Heroes World Distribution, the 3rd largest comic book, trading card, and toy distributor in the country. 
Kevin was an advisor to the Overstreet Price Guide, The Overstreet Premium Ring Guide and a columnist/feature writer for the Comic's Buyers Guide, Overstreet Monthly, and Wizard Magazine.
He was the founder of Quantum Licensing, a company that produced pins, rings, and other licensed comic book related merchandise. He even wrote issue #4 of THE MUNSTERS from TV Comics.
Kevin currently works in Hollywood as a literary manager and occasional producer.
This podcast is made by humans. Accept no substitutes.
© Kevin Cleary 2026

B is for Blondie - America's First Family of the Comic Strip
Beginning life as the adventures of a carefree flapper during the Jazz Age, it evolved into perhaps the definitive portrait of the American suburban family. For nearly a century readers have watched Blondie and Dagwood Bumstead navigate marriage, parenthood, careers, neighbors, and the everyday absurdities of modern life.
Recommended reading list for this episode:
Blondie: The Bumstead Family History
The Comics: Since 1945 by Brian Walker
The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics
100 Years of American Newspaper Comics by Maurice Horn
The Comic Strip Century by Bill Blackbeard and Dale Crain
The Funnies: 100 Years of American Comic Strips
COMICS A-Z is the podcast that showcases the history of sequential art: comic books, comic strips, the characters, their creators, one letter at a time. Each episode highlights an interesting aspect of the long history of comics, as a creative medium and a growing industry.
COMIC A-Z is hosted by Kevin Cleary, a former executive with First Comics, Classics Illustrated Comics, and TV Comics.  Kevin was also the Sales Director for the Dream Factory chain of 22 stores and Purchasing Director for Heroes World Distribution, the 3rd largest comic book, trading card, and toy distributor in the country. 
Kevin was an advisor to the Overstreet Price Guide, The Overstreet Premium Ring Guide and a columnist/feature writer for the Comic's Buyers Guide, Overstreet Monthly, and Wizard Magazine.
He was the founder of Quantum Licensing, a company that produced pins, rings, and other licensed comic book related merchandise. He even wrote issue #4 of THE MUNSTERS from TV Comics.
Kevin currently works in Hollywood as a literary manager and occasional producer.
This podcast is made by humans. Accept no substitutes.
© Kevin Cleary 2026

A is for The Avengers - How The Avengers Assembled
What began in 1963 as a simple idea—bringing Marvel’s most popular heroes together into one team book—eventually became the centerpiece of Marvel Comics, the foundation of the most successful film franchise in history, and one of the defining myths of modern popular culture.
The Avengers transformed from a comic-book experiment into a global brand recognized by billions of people.
Yet the team's history is much richer than the blockbuster films that made them household names.
Recommended reading list for this episode:
The Avengers: The Ultimate Guide
Avengers Assemble: An Oral History of Earth's Mightiest Heroes
The Avengers Vault: A Museum-in-a-Book
Marvel's Avengers: The Ultimate Character Guide
Excelsior! The Amazing Life of Stan Lee
True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee
Kirby: King of Comics
Hand of Fire: The Comics Art of Jack Kirby
Marvel Comics: The Untold Story
Slugfest: Inside the Epic 50-Year Battle Between Marvel and DC
Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book
Comic Book Nation
Seal of Approval
The Ten-Cent Plague
COMICS A-Z is the podcast that showcases the history of sequential art: comic books, comic strips, the characters, their creators, one letter at a time. Each episode highlights an interesting aspect of the long history of comics, as a creative medium and a growing industry.
COMIC A-Z is hosted by Kevin Cleary, a former executive with First Comics, Classics Illustrated Comics, and TV Comics.  Kevin was also the Sales Director for the Dream Factory chain of 22 stores and Purchasing Director for Heroes World Distribution, the 3rd largest comic book, trading card, and toy distributor in the country. 
Kevin was an advisor to the Overstreet Price Guide, The Overstreet Premium Ring Guide and a columnist/feature writer for the Comic's Buyers Guide, Overstreet Monthly, and Wizard Magazine.
He was the founder of Quantum Licensing, a company that produced pins, rings, and other licensed comic book related merchandise. He even wrote issue #4 of THE MUNSTERS from TV Comics.
Kevin currently works in Hollywood as a literary manager and occasional producer.
This podcast is made by humans. Accept no substitutes.
© Kevin Cleary 2026

Z is for Zines -The Origins of Comic Book Fandom
Long before online message boards, social media debates, convention livestreams, podcasts, YouTube essays, or even dedicated comic-book shops, comic-book fandom existed through the mail. It was a culture built out of typewriters, mimeograph machines, spirit duplicators, staplers, envelopes, and obsessive enthusiasm. The engine of that culture was the comic-book fanzine.
Comic-book fanzines — amateur fan magazines produced by readers rather than publishers — became the connective tissue of early fandom. They were discussion forums before digital forums existed. They were criticism, scholarship, rumor columns, creator interviews, amateur comics, and classified ads all at once. Most importantly, they transformed comic-book readers from isolated consumers into an organized subculture.
Recommended reading list for this episode:
Essential Historic Fanzines
Alter Ego
The Comic Reader
Rocket’s Blast Comicollector
Newfangles
Squa Tront
Fantasy Advertiser
Modern Historical Magazines
Alter Ego (TwoMorrows)
The Comics Journal
Comic Book Creator
Hogan's Alley
Books About Early Comics Fandom and Fanzines
The Golden Age of Comic Fandom by Bill Schelly
Founders of Comic Fandom by Bill Schelly
Alter Ego: The Best of the Legendary Comics Fanzine by Roy Thomas and Bill Schelly
Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of American Comic Books by Jean-Paul Gabilliet
Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones
The Great Comic Book Heroes and Other Essays by Jules Feiffer
Comic Book Culture by Ron Goulart
Comic Book Nation by Bradford W. Wright
Demanding Respect: The Evolution of the American Comic Book by Paul Lopes
Pretty in Ink by Trina Robbins
COMICS A-Z is the podcast that showcases the history of sequential art: comic books, comic strips, the characters, their creators, one letter at a time. Each episode highlights an interesting aspect of the long history of comics, as a creative medium and a growing industry.
COMIC A-Z is hosted by Kevin Cleary, a former executive with First Comics, Classics Illustrated Comics, and TV Comics.  Kevin was also the Sales Director for the Dream Factory chain of 22 stores and Purchasing Director for Heroes World Distribution, the 3rd largest comic book, trading card, and toy distributor in the country. 
Kevin was an advisor to the Overstreet Price Guide, The Overstreet Premium Ring Guide and a columnist/feature writer for the Comic's Buyers Guide, Overstreet Monthly, and Wizard Magazine.
He was the founder of Quantum Licensing, a company that produced pins, rings, and other licensed comic book related merchandise. He even wrote issue #4 of THE MUNSTERS from TV Comics.
Kevin currently works in Hollywood as a literary manager and occasional producer.
This podcast is made by humans. Accept no substitutes.
© Kevin Cleary 2026

Y is for The Yellow Kid - The Birth of The American Comic Strip
Although later comic icons such as Superman, Mickey Mouse, and Charlie Brown would become more globally recognizable, The Yellow Kid occupies a singular historical position: it stands at the point where cartooning, mass media, urban culture, advertising, and serialized storytelling converged into what would become the comic strip industry and eventually the comic-book medium itself.
The history of The Yellow Kid is not merely the story of one comic character. It is the story of industrialized American media at the dawn of the twentieth century, the rise of immigrant urban culture, technological innovation in color printing, and the emergence of modern mass entertainment.
Recommended reading list for this episode:
Children of the Yellow Kid: The Evolution of the American Comic Strip by RC Harvey (1998)
The Yellow Kid: A Centennial Celebration of the Kid Who Started the Comics
Comic Strips and Consumer Culture 1890–1945 by Ian Gordon
The Comics: The Complete Collection by Brian Walker
The Funnies: 100 Years of American Comic Strips by Ron Goulart (1995)
American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide by Allan Holtz
Masters of American Comics - John Carlin Paul Karasik, editors
The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics by Bill Blackbeard & Dale Crain
Winsor McCay: His Life and Art
Krazy Kat: The Comic Art of George Herriman
Three Rocks: The Story of Ernie Bushmiller: The Man Who Created Nancy by Bill Griffith
The Comic Strip Century by Bill Blackbeard
The Early Comic Strip: Narrative Strips and Picture Stories in the European Broadsheet from c.1450 to 1825 by David Kunzle
Comic Art in America: A Social History of the Funnies, the Political Cartoons, Magazine Humor, Sporting Cartoons, and Animated Cartoons by Stephen Becker
COMICS A-Z is the podcast that showcases the history of sequential art: comic books, comic strips, the characters, their creators, one letter at a time. Each episode highlights an interesting aspect of the long history of comics, as a creative medium and a growing industry.
COMIC A-Z is hosted by Kevin Cleary, a former executive with First Comics, Classics Illustrated Comics, and TV Comics.  Kevin was also the Sales Director for the Dream Factory chain of 22 stores and Purchasing Director for Heroes World Distribution, the 3rd largest comic book, trading card, and toy distributor in the country. 
Kevin was an advisor to the Overstreet Price Guide, The Overstreet Premium Ring Guide and a columnist/feature writer for the Comic's Buyers Guide, Overstreet Monthly, and Wizard Magazine.
He was the founder of Quantum Licensing, a company that produced pins, rings, and other licensed comic book related merchandise. He even wrote issue #4 of THE MUNSTERS from TV Comics.
Kevin currently works in Hollywood as a literary manager and occasional producer.
This podcast is made by humans. Accept no substitutes.
© Kevin Cleary 2026

X is for X-Men - A Tale of Two Super Teams
The X‑Men occupy a singular place in American popular culture, a franchise whose longevity and resonance stem not only from its colorful characters and superhero spectacle but from its deep engagement with the social anxieties, political tensions, and cultural transformations of the last six decades.
Their story begins in 1963, in the cramped offices of Marvel Comics, where Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were in the midst of reinventing the superhero genre in what would become a pop culture revolution.
Recommended reading list for this episode:
Marvel Comics: The Untold Story by Sean Howe
The Marvel Age of Comics 1961–1978 by Roy Thomas
The X Men: The Characters and Their Universe by Michael Mallory
X Men: The Art and Making of the Animated Series by Eric Lewald & Julia Lewald
Kirby: King of Comics by Mark Evanier
Stan Lee: A Life in Comics by Liel Leibovitz
True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee by Abraham Riesman
Stan Lee Lied: Your Handy Guide to Every Lie in the Origins of Marvel Comics By Chaz Gower
Chris Claremont’s X Men (Documentary, 2018)
Jim Lee’s X Men Artist Editions (IDW)
The Ages of the X Men: Essays on the Children of the Atom in Changing Times by Joseph J. Darowski
The Unauthorized X Men: SF and Comic Writers on Mutants, Prejudice, and Adamantium — Ed. Len Wein
COMICS A-Z is the podcast that showcases the history of sequential art: comic books, comic strips, the characters, their creators, one letter at a time. Each episode highlights an interesting aspect of the long history of comics, as a creative medium and a growing industry.
COMIC A-Z is hosted by Kevin Cleary, a former executive with First Comics, Classics Illustrated Comics, and TV Comics.  Kevin was also the Sales Director for the Dream Factory chain of 22 stores and Purchasing Director for Heroes World Distribution, the 3rd largest comic book, trading card, and toy distributor in the country. 
Kevin was an advisor to the Overstreet Price Guide, The Overstreet Premium Ring Guide and a columnist/feature writer for the Comic's Buyers Guide, Overstreet Monthly, and Wizard Magazine.
He was the founder of Quantum Licensing, a company that produced pins, rings, and other licensed comic book related merchandise. He even wrote issue #4 of THE MUNSTERS from TV Comics.
Kevin currently works in Hollywood as a literary manager and occasional producer.
This podcast is made by humans. Accept no substitutes.
© Kevin Cleary 2026