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 Gary Friedrich was born Aug. 21.1943 in Jackson, Missouri, the son of Jerry and Elsie Friedrich. He attended Jackson public schools and graduated from Jackson High School in 1961. He was editor of the high school newspaper and a member of the marching band.
He met future Marvel Comics Editor Roy Thomas while both worked at the Palace Theatre in Jackson while they attended high school. They shared interests in rock and roll music, movies, books and of course, comics. They began reading DC superhero comics during the revival of the late Fifties and discovered the new Marvel comics of Stan Lee in the early Sixties. Friedrich also helped Thomas with early issues his fanzine, Alter Ego.
Also while in high school, Friedrich and Thomas began performing in rock and roll bands, first as Evetz Pretzel and the Transjordainaires and later as members of the Galaxies. Friedrich played drums and Thomas was vocalist.
After working as manager/buyer for the record dept. in a Cape Girardeau, Mo. music store for a couple of years, Friedrich became first a reporter, then managing editor of The Jackson Pioneer, a twice-weekly newspaper in his hometown. In November 1965, he moved to New York City at the invitation of Thomas, who'd moved there in the summer of that year and become associate editor for Stan Lee at Marvel. They roomed together for a time in late 1965 and early 1966 on Bleecker St. in Greenwich Village and for several months shared the apartment with Sub-Mariner creator Bill Everett, with whom they became close friends.
Friedrich worked in a Queens record store for this first few weeks in New York, then began writing first romance scripts, then superhero stories for Dick Giordono at Charlton Comics. Among the superhero mags he worked on there were Blue Beetle with artist Steve Ditko and The Sentinels, with fan artist Sam Grainger .
In the spring and summer of 1966, he worked as an assistant to Woody Gelman and Len Brown at Topps Chewing Gum where he also met teenaged writer/artist to be Art Spieglman. While at Topps, he authored a series of Superman in the jungle bubble gum cards.
A staff opening occurred at the company which was then publishing Marvel comics in the fall of 1966, and Friedrich was hired as assistant editor under Lee and Thomas. In addition to working the staff position, Friedrich also began contributing freelance scripts to Marvel, starting with Millie the Model and various western titles like Kid Colt and Rawhide Kid.
He also teamed with Ayers on numerous issues of Marvel's "war mag for people who hate war mags", Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos. In writing Fury, Friedrich included a series of stories whose titles began with "The" such as "The War Love" and "The Peacemonger" which carried strong antiwar messages.
Friedrich also scripted sueprhero titles like The Hulk, Daredevil, Captain America, The X-Men and a Marvel Team-Up issue featuring Spider-Man. He also wrote an adaptation of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" and several issues of Marvel's "Monster of Frankenstein" title.
He left his staff position at Marvel in the summer of 1968 but continued to write for them on a freelance basis, returning for a brief time in 1971 to read and answer fan mail.
From 1970 to 1971, he worked as managing editor of FOR MEN ONLY magazine and wrote numerous freelance stores and articles for the magazine. FOR MEN ONLY was published by Marvel parent company Magazine Management.
During this period, he co-authored two popular music encyclopedias with Len Brown. He also wrote a novel which was published in paperback.
Between 1968 and 1972, while doing freelance scripting for existing Marvel characters, Friedrich also began working to finalize an original idea of his own which he'd first begun to formulate as a youngster on viewing the movie "The Wild One." His idea was for a motorcycle-riding superhero who would somehow be connected with Satan. He continued to work on this idea in his spare time over the next few years.
By 1971, he'd finally fleshed out the full look and origin of the character, and at that time he approached Roy Thomas and Stan Lee about publishing a comic featuring his new hero. In the summer of 1971, an agreement was reached to publish and introduce the character in Marvel Spotlight #5.
Friedrich's new creation, the Ghost Rider, first appeared in 1972, drawn by Mike Ploog who later would work with Friedrich on the Frankenstein adaptation as well.
The character has continued to be popular over the years, culminating in a hit movie version which was released in early 2007. That movie and related products, however, were made and sold without any authorization or participation by Friedrich, who has filed suit against Marvel Comics, Columbia Pictures and others. At this time, the suit is pending.
He left the comics field in 1978 and worked for many years as a pioneer in the movie rental business in St. Louis, Missouri. He has worked for the past 12 years as a driver/courier in the St. Louis area.
Friedrich recently started his own company, Gary Friedrich Enterprises LLC, to market himself, his Ghost Rider characters and copyrights as well as other characters and copyrights. At this years Comic Con, Gary was awarded the prestigious “Inkpot Award”. To arrange for personal appearances, talks, autograph sessions, etc. at comics stores, conventions, schools, etc. or for further information, please contact his agent, Ken Sills at 314-486-4127 or email kenghostrider@yahoo.com Friedrich currently lives in Jefferson County, Missouri with his wife Jean and daughter Leslie. |
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