It was Thursday night of Comic-Con, and we mingled on the third-floor of the Westgate Hotel. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund party was in full effect, and Monster Matador creator Steven Prince tapped me on the shoulder. “You need to meet this guy,” he said. “You do theater, right? He writes plays about comics history.” And that was my introduction to actor/writer/director Mark Pracht. (Or as he’s billed in the credits of his latest play, “The House of Ideas,” Mark “30-foot” Pracht.)
Steven was right. We talked a bit about Mark’s work and promised to connect after Comic-Con was over. The rest of the weekend, sight unseen, I couldn’t stop thinking about his “Four-Color Trilogy.” (Which could evolve into a Four-Color Cycle.) “The Mark of Kane” delves into the relationship between Bob Kane and Bill Finger. “The Innocence of Seduction” uses Dr. Frederic Wertham as the very horror comics host that his work destroyed, along with several talents now lost to history. In a week, the aforementioned “The House of Ideas” opens to cover the creative push and pull between Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
Then I bought the first two plays and devoured them. This isn’t just comics history for those of us who love it; these are terrific plays with challenging themes. When we finally connected after a long day of tech rehearsal for Pracht, we still talked for about an hour, which I edited down to 34 minutes. And as I mention in the video, I have a bibliography below in case you want to read the books we enthuse over.
First, if you’re in Chicago, you can get tickets for “The House of Ideas” at Citylit.org.
Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman by Marc Tyler Nobleman
Marvel Comics: The Untold Story by Sean Howe
The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America by David Hadju
Invisible Men: The Trailblazing Black Artists of Comic Books by Ken Quattro
It Rhymes with Lust by Arnold Drake and Matt Baker
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