The Direct Currents Hotline
I’ve often wondered if anyone ever actually called the DC Hotline. Supposedly you could call in and “hear artists, writers and editors with a new report starting every Monday.” Presumably these would have been recorded messages, as putting your creative staff on phone duty all day would have been a sure way for 70s-era DC to miss even more deadlines than Marvel infamously did.
My first take on this concept, back in the day, was “how much of a fanatic would you have to be to call DC for hints about future comics”? Of course I couldn’t have imagined the era of internet “spoilers” and electronic chat sessions with comics creators, or for that matter “Previews” magazine with its plot synopses for comics still months away from release. If fans are that impatient to know what’s ahead now, they probably were back then, as well.
The other thing that struck me was the implication that comic book writers and artists (and even editors) were some kind of celebrities, like rock stars or TV actors, and that we should be excited at the prospect of “talking to” them. I couldn’t imagine being dorky enough to run around saying, “Ohmigod, I just heard the voice of Al Milgrom coming out of my very own phone!” But again, now I know better. (”Ohmigod, Grant Morrison himself just joined this thread!”)
At the bottom of the same page is an ad for possibly the least tempting issue of Amazing World of DC Comics I’ve ever heard of. Wonder how that one sold? Maybe I should call the Hot-Line and ask.
I remember calling the Direct Currents line a couple of times before they discontinued it. The messages were recorded, and were pretty short…maybe 30 seconds, tops. The only one I can recall specifically was Gerry Conway talking about all the guest-stars that were going to turn up in Challengers of the Unknown: Deadman, Swamp Thing, and Rip Hunter Time Master(???).
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I can recall calling the DC hotline at the time, quite regularly. It was always difficult to get through on a Monday, and the recording technology was so primitive that most of the time you could only really make out half the message–which would drive me to call again, to try to figure out the parts I was missing. The one message I specifically recall was about the “Atom’s Quest” storyline that ran in the later issues of SUPER-TEAM FAMILY.
Tom B
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Hey, now, that’s pretty neat, actually!
Imagine a present-day take on this idea. You know it would be one of those numbers you dial that costs you, the fan, $2.50 a minute with little tricks here and there to keep you hanging on the line.
I have the luxury of distance, and there was never any possibility I could call the number, but I see this as such a cool thing for DC to do.
That’s a Schaffenberger Superman… What’s the approximate date of this ad? (Albano on Jonah Hex goes back a ways, yes? And, what? A parody?) Lucky the lines were open till midnight — to catch those ten-year-old insomniacs!
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I’ve got that particular Amazing World of DC Comics among my meagre handful or so issues of that magazine.
You’re quite right, it’s very uninteresting on the whole, apart from an article by latter-day blogger Mark Evanier on the history of the Fox and the Crow (and an original short story by Steve Ditko and Wally Wood, if you’re into Ditko, which I’m not at all), which spurs an interest in me to read more than the one or two stories I’ve ever seen.
However, I can’t afford the extravagant prices of back issues of The Fox and the Crow, and as DC don’t own the rights to it I think there is a snowflake’s chance in hell of any it being reprinted by them in meaningful quantities, if at all.
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I, too, had called The DC Hotline years ago, but unfortunately, by the time -I- called, it was already disconnected. I just got some guy at home in Illinois!
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Not only did I call the hotline regularly but I also cataloged 18 messages and as soon as I get around to retyping the list will be sharing their presenters (many of whom are now my Facebook friends weirdly enough) and their often hard to understand topics –such as the casting of one “Richard Leeds” in the upcoming SUPERMAN movie! Don’t know if Mike Gold was slightly off on Christopher Reeve’s name or if I just misheard him but that’s what I have written down. Anyway, keep watching BOOKSTEVE’S LIBRARY for the full list soon!
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