Frank Lovece

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

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. He later became editor of a television network site, that of the Sci-Fi Channel.

For an Entertainment Weekly article on direct-to-video movies passing themselves off as theatrical releases, he produced the first — and, after the article's publication, only — home video to obtain an MPAA rating. ^[1] ^[2]

1 Biography
2 Humor
3 Quotes
4 Footnotes
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life and career

Frank Lovece attended West Virginia University, from which he graduated with a degree in communications. 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 and, in Washington, D.C., the USDA Cooperative Extension Service.^[3]

He became a stringer for the New York City newspaper Newsday in the late 1980s, becoming a weekly TV columnist there in 2003.^[3] 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.

[edit] Comic books

Lovece and artist Mike Okamoto created the four-volume graphic novel Atomic Age (1990-91) for Marvel Comics' Epic 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 Russ Manning Award for most promising newcomer.

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 Barker-created Razorline imprint. 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, free online version from web publisher Wowio.^[4]

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.^[3] His three-part child-abuse drama "Egg" ran in Dark Horse Comics' Dark Horse Presents #110-112. Additionally, he wrote an educational comic book about the American banking system for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.^[3]

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

[edit] Later career

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.

Beginning 1996, he served as a website 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 2003, at the Sci-Fi Channel, 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^[5] and for The Bergen Record.^[6]

In 2005, Lovece and photographer Matthew Jordan Smith collaborated on Lost and Found (Filipacchi, New York, 2006; ISBN-13 9781599756110 ISBN 1599756110), a photojournalistic record of families of abducted children and the work of The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.^[7]

[edit] 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.^[3]

[edit] Quotes

Dark Horse Comics editor Bob Schreck: "Frank is probably the most under-exploited, most sensitive writer this field has to offer".^[8]

Nuclear Texts & Contexts #6 (Spring 1991): "Atomic Age (Frank Lovece, writer, & Mike Okamoto, artist, Epic Comics) is a four-part series 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".^[9]