Frank Lovece

Frank Lovece
Lovece (right) with Stan Lee, signing autographs together at 1993 Comic-Con International, San Diego
Nationality	American
Area(s)	Writer
Notable works	Atomic Age Hokum & Hex Nightstalkers

Frank Lovece is an American journalist, author, comedy performer and comic book writer. He was additionally one of the first professional Web journalists, becoming an editor of a Silicon Alley start-up in 1996.

For an Entertainment Weekly article on direct-to-video movies representing themselves as theatrical releases, he produced the first — and, after the article's publication, only — home video to obtain an MPAA rating.

Early life and career

Raised in Morgantown, West Virginia, Frank Lovece attended West Virginia University in that city, graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in communication. He was the arts/entertainment editor of the college newspaper, the Daily Athenaeum; held posts in student government; and interned with both the WWVU statewide radio news service, and, in Washington, D.C., the USDA Cooperative Extension Service.

He became a stringer for the New York City/Long Island newspaper Newsday in the late 1980s, becoming a weekly TV columnist there in 2003. Lovece's book Hailing Taxi: The Official Book of the Show, was published in 1988, the first of several books he would write on topics including the TV series The Brady Bunch and The X-Files, and on the Godzilla movie series.

Comic books

Atomic Age #1 (Nov. 1990): Cover art by Mike Okamoto & Kevin Nowlan

Lovece and artist Mike Okamoto created the four-issue miniseries Atomic Age (Nov. 1990 - Feb. 1991) for Marvel Comics' creator-owned Epic Comics imprint. The series was among the items featured in the Bowling Green State University exhibition "The Atomic Age Opens: Selections from the Popular Culture Library". Collaborator Al Williamson won the 1991 Eisner Award for Best Inker for his work on that and other series that awards-year, with Okamoto winning the The Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award. The non-comics, academic journal Nuclear Texts & Contexts described Atomic Age as "dealing with alien invaders set during the Sputnik era. ... Although no nuclear war is featured, there is plenty of wry satire on Cold War paranoia, and on racism".

Lovece went on to write stories for Epic's anthology series Clive Barker's Hellraiser, and wrote the nine-issue run of Hokum & Hex for Marvel's Razorline imprint, created by novelist Barker. Other work includes such children's comics as the licensed series Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (including one story penciled by industry legend Steve Ditko), VR Troopers and Masked Rider. The Hellraiser story "For My Son", by Lovece and artist Bill Koeb, originally published in Clive Barker's Hellraiser Summer Special #1 (Summer 1992), appears in Checker Publishing's Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Collected Best, Volume 1 (ISBN 0-9710249-2-8), though with the last page inexplicably missing; the complete story appears in an authorized online version from web publisher Wowio.

Additionally for Marvel, Lovece wrote for the series Nightstalkers and for The Incredible Hulk and Ghost Rider annuals, as well as an inventory story for Alpha Flight. He additionally wrote a Vampirella inventory story for Harris Comics. His three-part child-abuse drama "Egg" ran in Dark Horse Comics' Dark Horse Presents #110-112, where editor Bob Schreck opined, "Frank is probably the most under-exploited, most sensitive writer this field has to offer".

Lovece also wrote an educational comic book about the American banking system for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Later career

Lost and Found (2006), by Lovece and photographer Matthew Jordan Smith

By the 1990s, Lovece was a weekly syndicated columnist for United Media/NEA, and a writer for periodicals including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Post, Penthouse, Billboard, and Entertainment Weekly, where he wrote features and reviewed home video releases and comic books. For an Entertainment Weekly article on direct-to-video movies representing themselves as theatrical releases, he produced the first — and, after the article's publication, only — home video to obtain an MPAA rating.

Beginning 1996, he served as a Web site editor and streaming video producer at Gist TV. He later became a Web editor at Hachette Filipacchi, creating sites for Sound & Vision and Popular Photography magazines, and, from 2001 to 2004, at the Sci-Fi Channel television network, creating sites for Battlestar Galactica, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, The X-Files, The Incredible Hulk, Legend of Earthsea and other television shows, movies and miniseries. Since 2005, in addition to his Newsday column and features, Lovece has been a movie critic for Film Journal International. He had previously been a movie critic for the TV Guide website and for the northern New Jersey newspaper The Record.

In 2005, Lovece and photographer Matthew Jordan Smith collaborated on Lost and Found (Filipacchi, New York, 2006; ISBN 9781599756110 ISBN 1599756110), a photojournalistic record of families of abducted children and the work of The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Humor

From 2001-2003, Lovece was a member of the New York City improv comedy troupe Wingnuts. His humor writing has appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Newsday, Yahoo!/MSN, and elsewhere.

Bibliography

• Lovece, Frank. TV Trivia: Thirty Years of Television (1984) New York: Beekman House/Publications International. ISBN 0-517-46367-9
• Lovece, Frank, with Jules Franco. Hailing Taxi: The Official Book of the Show (1988) New York: Prentice Hall Press ISBN 0133721035, ISBN 978-0133721034
  • Reissued and updated: Taxi: The Official Fan's Guide (1996) New York: Citadel Press ISBN 0806518014, ISBN 978-0806518015
• Edelstein, Andrew J., and Frank Lovece. The Brady Bunch Book (1990) New York: Warner Books. ISBN 0-446-39137-9
• Lovece, Frank (1992). The Television Yearbook. New York: Perigee Books/Putnam Publishing. ISBN 0399517022, ISBN 978-0399517020
• Lovece, Frank. The X-Files Declassified (1996) New York: Citadel Press. ISBN 080651745X, ISBN 978-0806517452
  • U.K. edition: The X-Files Declassified : The Truth!: The Unauthorized Guide to the Complete Series (1996) London: Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0340682329, ISBN 978-0340682326
• Lovece, Frank. Godzilla: The Complete Guide to Moviedom's Mightiest Monster. Originally scheduled 1998 by William Morrow/Quill. ISBN 0688156037; ISBN 978-0688156039. Subjected to prior restraint in U.S.; released overseas.
• Smith, Michael Jordan (photographer), and Frank Lovece. Lost and Found (2006) New York: Filipacchi Publishing. ISBN 1599756110, ISBN 978-1599756110

Further reading

• Thompson, Maggie, "'Atomic Age' Features '50s SF". Comics Buyer's Guide #885 (November 2, 1990)

External links

• The Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators
• "Comics" at CliveBarker.com (unofficial site). WebCitation archive.
• Meyer, Ken Jr. (March 15, 2010). "Nimbus 3 (Sept. 1977)". Ink Stains (column) 14, ComicAttack.net. Archived from the original on March 24, 2010. http://comicattack.net/2010/03/ins-14-nimbus-3/. 
• Lovece, Frank, ed. (September 1977). Nimbus. Archived from the original on July 25, 2011. http://www.kenmeyerjr.com/fanzines/nimbus3.pdf.