Bob Rozakis

Robert "Bob" Rozakis (/rəˈzækɪs/; born April 4, 1951)[1] is an American comic book writer and editor known mainly for his work in the 1970s and 1980s at DC Comics, as the writer of 'Mazing Man and in his capacity as DC's "Answer Man".

Bob Rozakis
Rozakis at the Big Apple Convention,
May 21, 2011
BornRobert H. Rozakis
(1951-04-04) April 4, 1951
NationalityAmerican
Area(s)Writer, Editor
Pseudonym(s)The Answer Man
Boris Zabok
Ted P. Skimmer
Notable works
'Mazing Man
Spouse(s)Laurie Rozakis
ChildrenCharles Rozakis and Samantha Rozakis
http://bobrozakis.blogspot.com

Career

Bob Rozakis got his start in the comics industry through his many letters to comic book letter columns. Among his earliest credits is that of editor on DC Comics "Pro-zine" ("Professional fanzine") The Amazing World of DC Comics[2] between 1974 and 1978. In addition to editing, Rozakis wrote for the bi-monthly publication and oversaw the letters page.

He is known as DC's "Answer Man", answering trivia questions from readers in the Daily Planet promotional page in many late–1970s comics and he has had an online presence in that capacity since the mid-1990s.[3] Other pen names used by Rozakis are Boris Zabok[4] and Ted P. Skimmer.[5]

Comics credits

His first comics credit was in Detective Comics #445 (March 1975), as writer of the back-up feature "The Touchdown Trap", with back-up stories in Action Comics, The Flash and Batman Family soon following.[6] He was assistant editor to Julius Schwartz[2] on issues of Action Comics, Detective Comics, and Superman. His writing credits consist largely of back-up features, especially for Action Comics featuring Air-Wave, Aquaman, and the Atom. Rozakis stated in a 2014 interview that "I don't recall how we ended up with the three of them. It may have simply been that all three had names that began with 'A' and it was a backup in Action Comics".[7]

His credits during his 25-year career with DC total "almost four hundred stories" featuring most DC characters, "plus dozens of features, puzzles, and activities pages".[8]

In 1976, Rozakis and Paul Levitz co-wrote a revival of the Teen Titans.[9] Among his characters he created during this time are Duela Dent;[10][11] the Bumblebee;[12] and the Calculator,[13][14] a character who later played a major role in DC's Identity Crisis limited series. He revived Batwoman[15] and the original Bat-Girl.[16] Rozakis and artist Juan Ortiz crafted an origin for the Teen Titans in issue #53 of the series.[17]

He was the writer for The Secret Society of Super Villains when it was cancelled as part of the DC Implosion. Issue 15 was the last published, but the unpublished issues 16 and 17 appeared in Cancelled Comics Cavalcade, and later in a hardcover collected edition published in 2012.[18]

He and artist Dan Spiegle created the character Mister E in Secrets of Haunted House #31 (Dec. 1980).[19] Rozakis wrote seven stories for the "Whatever Happened to...?" backup feature in DC Comics Presents in 1980 and 1981[20] and the Superman: The Secret Years miniseries in 1985. He scripted the comics adaptations of such movies as Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer (1985), Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), and Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989).[6] He was the writer of the syndicated comic strip The Superman Sunday Special for two years.

His most well-known writing came in the twelve-issue 1986 series 'Mazing Man, featuring the misadventures of self-declared homemade hero Sigfried Horatio Hunch III, which Rozakis co-created with artist Stephen DeStefano. The two returned to the character for three specials and for Secret Origins #16 (July 1987), to tell "The Closest Thing To A Secret Origin of 'Mazing Man You Will Ever Get". Rozakis co-created the series Hero Hotline with DeStefano, on which Rozakis provided the coloring.

Rozakis' comic book work in 1998–2000 was a variety of custom publications including the "Celebrate the Century" comic books[6] for the United States Postal Service, as well as publications for Con Edison, the San Francisco Giants and the United Nations Land Mine Awareness program. In 2008, he began writing a series of "alternate reality" articles titled "The Secret History of All-American Comics Inc." for Alter Ego and Back Issue! magazines.

DC Production Department

Between 1981 and 1998, Rozakis ran DC Comics' production department, and as Executive Director of Production, he was instrumental in the development of offset-printed comic books in a wide variety of formats. He was the leading proponent of "computerized color separations and typesetting, electronic page preparation, and computer-to-plate printing", and as a result of his efforts on DC's behalf, the look of comic books across the entire industry changed, DC won "over one hundred awards for printing excellence", and Rozakis himself was profiled in Publishing & Production Executive on two separate occasions.[8] In 2003, Rozakis announced his retirement from the comic book industry.

Personal life

Rozakis is married to author Laurie E. Rozakis, a professor of English, grammar expert and "author of more than 100 books",[21] and Bob Rozakis' co-writer on Detective Comics #464 (Oct. 1976).[6] The two have collaborated on The Complete Idiot's Guide to Office Politics[8][22] They have two children: son Charles "Chuck", who wrote his Princeton University thesis on the business viability of webcomics,[23] and daughter Samantha "Sammi".[21] In 1973, Laurie and Bob drove the DC Comicmobile, a van which sold comic books "like the ice cream man did".[24]

gollark: The nuclear family is a rather recent innovation.
gollark: I'm accepting of polyamory (polygamy I think, if you dislike mixing Latin and Greek) but only if people are honest about it.
gollark: This is true, but in general.
gollark: Yes, I feel like the bad part is the lying mostly.
gollark: Although I *probably* haven't isolated my Discord-y profiles from my real-life information as well as I should, oops!

References
  1. Miller, John Jackson (June 10, 2005). "Comics Industry Birthdays". Comics Buyer's Guide. Iola, Wisconsin. Archived from the original on October 30, 2010. Retrieved December 12, 2010.
  2. Bob Rozakis (editor) at the Grand Comics Database
  3. Contino, Jennifer M. (January 2001). "The Answer Man Bob Rozakis". Sequential Tart. Retrieved September 5, 2015. I started doing the chatroom in 1996 because I saw it as a way for DC staff people to be in direct contact with the fans.
  4. The colorist credit for the Robin story, "Terminus" Detective Comics #483 (April–May 1979) at the Grand Comics Database
  5. Rozakis, Bob (September 24, 2009). "Ted P. Skimmer and Me". Anything Goes. Archived from the original on March 28, 2012. Retrieved March 27, 2012. Ted does not exist. In fact, everything he wrote was actually written by yours truly.
  6. Bob Rozakis at the Grand Comics Database
  7. Trumbull, John (October 2014). "Shrinking Roles and Shorter Features: The Atom in the Bronze Age". Back Issue!. Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows Publishing (76): 27–28.
  8. Rozakis, Bob (November 24, 1998). "The Bob Rozakis Home Page". Archived from the original on July 26, 2008. Retrieved March 27, 2012.
  9. McAvennie, Michael; Dolan, Hannah, ed. (2010). "1970s". DC Comics Year By Year A Visual Chronicle. London, United Kingdom: Dorling Kindersley. p. 171. ISBN 978-0-7566-6742-9. More than three years since Teen Titans was canceled, writers Paul Levitz and Bob Rozakis, with artist Pablo Marcos, revived the series.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  10. Rozakis, Bob (w), Novick, Irv (p), McLaughlin, Frank (i). "The Joker's Daughter!" Batman Family 6 (July–August 1976)
  11. Manning, Matthew K.; Dougall, Alastair, ed. (2014). "1970s". Batman: A Visual History. London, United Kingdom: Dorling Kindersley. p. 123. ISBN 978-1465424563. It would be Robin's story [in Batman Family #6] that was destined to go down in Batman's history with its introduction of the Joker's Daughter.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  12. Rozakis, Bob (w), Delbo, José (p), Colletta, Vince (i). "Daddy's Little Crimefighter" Teen Titans 48 (June 1977)
  13. Rozakis, Bob (w), Grell, Mike (p), Austin, Terry (i). "Crimes by Calculation" Detective Comics 463 (September 1976)
  14. Manning "1970s" in Dougall, p. 123: Detective Comics #463 "The second villain to debut in this issue was the Calculator...written by Bob Rozakis and drawn by Mike Grell."
  15. Manning "1970s" in Dougall, p. 125: Batman Family #10 "The original Batwoman, Kathy Kane, made her first appearance in the Bronze Age of comics...in this story by writer Bob Rozakis and artist Bob Brown."
  16. Manning "1970s" in Dougall, p. 127: Teen Titans #50 "The time was ripe for [Batwoman's] sidekick, Bette Kane, the original Bat-Girl, to return from comic book limbo. In an adventure written by Bob Rozakis and drawn by Don Heck, Bat-Girl came out of retirement."
  17. McAvennie "1970s" in Dolan, p. 176: "The team's untold origin...was vividly transcribed by writer Bob Rozakis and artist Juan Ortiz."
  18. Secret Society Of Super Villains: Volume 2, DC Comics, 2012. ISBN 9781401231101
  19. Manning, Matthew K. "1980s" in Dolan, p. 189: "In the last feature of its thirty-first issue, a story by writer Bob Rozakis and artist Dan Spiegle, a new monster hunter named Mister E was introduced."
  20. Wells, John (May 2013). "Flashback: Whatever Happened to...?". Back Issue!. Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows Publishing (64): 51–61.
  21. Rozakis, Laurie (September 26, 2008). "Adventures with Sammi!". Test Success: Grammar, She Wrote. Archived from the original on March 28, 2012. Retrieved March 27, 2012. We were able to go because Sammi held me up, especially up and down the stairs. What a wonderful daughter!
  22. Rozakis, Laurie; Rozakis, Bob (1998). The Complete Idiot's Guide to Office Politics. New York, New York: Alpha Books. p. 320. ISBN 0-02-862397-5.
  23. Rozakis, Charles (April 9, 2003). "An In-Depth Look at the Business Viability of Webcomics" (PDF). Princeton University. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 23, 2005. Retrieved March 27, 2012.
  24. Hamlin, Brad (August 2011). "Mystery Island Interviews DC Comics Super Alumni Bob Rozakis". Archived from the original on March 28, 2012. Retrieved March 27, 2012.
Preceded by
Bob Haney
(in 1973)		 Teen Titans writer
1976–1978		 Succeeded by
Marv Wolfman
(in 1980)
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