Looking back, I guess it took a lot of guts for three kids from Norristown to decide that we wanted to start a comic book company especially considering that we were all still attending college and had no money except for what little we made working part-time jobs.

I struggled to meet class deadlines at the Philadelphia College of Art (PCA now UArts) and labored on weekends at places like 7-11, K-Mart, and Pizza Hut just to have spending money. The dream of making comics preoccupied my mind at every job I held. The evidence is a comic that I made while working as a cook at Pizza Hut in the winter of 1980.

Read Pizza man And Pizza Woman

The Norristown Pizza Hut Presents…Pizza Man & Pizza Woman was the first comic that I had published by anyone other than myself. It appeared on the last page of the company’s nationally distributed, monthly, twelve-page, 8.5 x 11″ newsletter Pizza Hut News Brief. This was a format that I would adapt later when publishing DUCKWORK at PCA with CO2 Comic’s own, Bill Cucinotta and the rest of the self-proclaimed DUCKS.

Phil LaSorda, Vince Argondezzi and I were all dreamers, but at the time we never believed that we could not do what we had set out to do once we had read Don Rico’s How to Start a Comic Book Empire in Free Enterprise magazine.

We considered our biggest asset to be ourselves since we knew that we would create the art for our own publications, saving us a lot of money.

Our biggest asset, however, turned out to be our own naiveté. To every person who scoffed and told us we could not do it, we had only one answer. Why not? Honestly, because we didn’t know any better.

Phil Lasorda & Vince Argondezzi at Creation Conventions

The summer of 1980 was spent developing product for the new company that we would call Comico the Comic Company. My recollection is that Vince first dubbed it The Comic Company. Phil suggested that we shorten it to ComiCo to which I responded that we should pronounce it Comeeco to sound like Mego and Coleco which were popular toy companies at the time.

Gerry Giovinco At Creation Conventions

We each had our own characters to work on. Phil had Az, Vince had Mr. Justice and I had Slaughterman. We planned to feature them in one magazine titled Comico Presents.

That summer Vince illustrated the cover of Comico Presents that would never be published other than as a flyer to promote our new company.

The Comico cover that never was © TM Respective Owners

The Comico Portfolio cover

We each made color illustrations of our character that we would have produced as 8×10″ color glossies and inserted in a hand-made card stock envelope that we simply called the Comico Portfolio. This is officially Comico’s first publication.

AZ from the Comico Portfolio © TM Phil Lasorda

MR JUSTICE from the Comico Portfolio © TM Vince Argondezzi

SLAUGHTERMAN from the Comico Portfolio © TM Gerry Giovinco

Finally, we printed up Comico t-shirts and prepared to exhibit at the Philadelphia Creation Convention were I had made inroads with my Thing costume at previous shows.

Gary Berman and Adam Malin, the producers of the Creation Conventions, were very gracious in giving us an opportunity to display our work. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude for being the first to believe in us.

We had gone public with Comico. There was no turning back…

Gerry Giovinco

Next week: DUCKWORK!
Meanwhile you can check out another DUCKWORK retrospective by Joe Williams HERE!

Creation Conventions produced by Gary Berman and Adam Malin from 1971 till today were where I first discovered a sense of community in comics that has hooked me for life.

Thing costume by Gerry Giovinco

I made my first mark in comics not as a comic creator but as a costume designer. In the summer of 1979 my costume creation of The Everlovin’ Blue Eyed Thing, Ben Grimm himself, impressed everyone who saw it. I was soon a popular guy at the Creation shows.

I think that I had made the biggest impression on Bob Schreck who was working for Creation at the time. He was generally the first guy you would see as you came through the door. Always friendly and welcoming, Bob loved my Thing costume. He would call me and have me do promo spots on the local Philadelphia “Dancing on Air” television show to promote upcoming Creation Conventions.

Hulk Meets Thing cast photo

Bob and his friend, Larry Ruggiero, wanted to make a fan film starring their buddy, Kevin Van Wagner as the Incredible Hulk and they wanted me and my Thing costume to be his co-star.

On the set of Hulk Meets Thing

The Incredible Hulk Meets the Everlovin’ Blue Eyed Thing was filmed in Long Island, NY and completed in 1982.

Hulk Meets Thing movie Poster by legendary artist Joe Sinnott

The short film became a staple at the Creation shows, featured in the movie room with such classics as Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, Phantom of Paradise and Plan 9 from Outerspace.

The relationship that I developed with the people at Creation during this time enabled me to negotiate table space in the artist alley at the shows. This is where Comico was first introduced.

Bob Schreck eventually became part of the Comico family and later moved on to be a mainstay as an editor in the comics industry.

The great illustration that was made for the film was created by the legendary Joe Sinnott.

Enjoy the film that is posted here.

Gerry Giovinco

What a revoltin' development!