When I met James Warren of Warren Publishing, I was trying to get him to advertise my Stone Eater poster. Instead of accepting an ad, he bought it for cover rights. He paid top dollar.  He never did use it on any cover, but I did get several commissions for his line of horror comics. That launched my career because all the editors and publishers in New York City at various magazines and publishing houses seemed to know each other and the rumor spread that there was hot new talent.  Warren was known for a fiery temper, but he was always very polite with me. Being called into his office was always an honor, although usually I dealt with Chris Adames, Kim McQuaite and Louise Jones, his editors.
In his early years Warren was accepted into Armored Infantry Officers Training. He was deafened six months later in a night training operation when he got too close to a heavy machine gun. He was medically discharged a few months later.
In the 1950s, Warren launched his own men's magazine, After Hours, which lasted four issues and led to his arrest on charges of obscenity and pornography for featuring bare bosoms on the inside and Bettie Page on the cover. The Philadelphia Enquirer headline read "Pornographer Arrested", with a photo of him in handcuffs. The Attorney General in charge used the case to get reelected. Later, Warren founded Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine with After Hours contributing writer Forrest J Ackerman, an avid collector of movie memorabilia including stills and horror-­‐movie props.
After my illustration career was launched by James Warren with Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella, I was hot property. The word got around that a new “different” talent was around. I attended a couple of SF/Fantasy conventions. At a small convention at Columbia University I met Stu Schiff. He sat at his table across the room from me. Stu was a dentist by profession, but was a sci-­‐fi fantasy publisher by hobby. What a hobby! He did author-­‐signed first edition hardcover limited editions of writers like Isaac Asimov and Harlan Ellison. He also published an anthology called Whispers. Stu Schiff, a long-­‐time art collector and when younger a dentist with the army, decided to fill the gap in the publishing industry, and in doing so became a legend. Among the fiction writers featured in the magazine were Manly Wade Wellman, Fritz Leiber, Robert Bloch, Ramsey Campbell, and Karl Edward Wagner. David Drake published much of his early fantasy fiction there. Among the artists to contribute were Stephen Fabian, Lee Brown Coye, Vincent Napoli, and many others, both legends in their own right and younger stars. The magazine won the first "Howard" or World Fantasy Award for non-­‐professional publishing in 1975, though it was clearly on a professional level in editorial content and production.