I almost mentioned Dynamite’s “relation” to Mike Hammer, but it was pretty obvious.

I always assumed that Morisi was the Will Eisner of Johnny Dynamite. Now I know, but he still drew some nice covers.

Any chance you might create a JOHNNY DYNAMITE prose novel?

Morisi is not really credited anywhere as the creator — he was the artist and occasional writer. Various writers (William Waugh chiefly, I believe) have been mentioned as the actual creator of the character, but comics being comics in those days, the history is fuzzy. The character was a very direct rip-off of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, hence my interest in it.

The TV series will derive only from our graphic novel, UNDERWORLD, and the new concept that Terry and I created, which puts a tough noir detective into the world of monsters, demons and the devil.

We did indeed purchase the rights to the original series for reprint purposes in MS. TREE as a back-up feature and to be able to do other things with the character.

Though, based on the plot descriptions I’ve read, this show seems to focussing exclusively on the Collins/Beatty mini, rather than any of Morisi’s work.

I’ve seen some of the original comics illustrated by Pete Morisi. The interiors are good, but the covers always impressed me the most. Reminded me of Steranko, except this guy was illustrated DYNAMITE about ten years before Jaunty Jim broke into the field.