Frank Lovece

Frank Lovece is an American journalist and author, and a comic book writer primarily for Marvel Comics, where he and artist Mike Okamoto created the miniseries Atomic Age. He was additionally one of the first professional Web journalists, becoming an editor of a Silicon Alley start-up in 1996. His longest affiliation has been with the New York metropolitan area newspaper Newsday, where he has served as a feature writer and film critic.

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

Early life

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the son of Italian immigrants, Frank Lovece moved to the U.S. as a toddler and was raised in Keyser and Morgantown, West Virginia. There his family ran Italian restaurants. He attended St. Francis High School and West Virginia University in Morgantown, graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in communication.

Career

Early work

At West Virginia University, Lovece 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 service, and, in Washington, D.C., the USDA Cooperative Extension Service.

He became a stringer for the New York City / Long Island newspaper Newsday in the late 1980s, producing feature articles and movie reviews, and becoming a weekly TV columnist there in 2003. 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 the Godzilla movie series.

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. For an Entertainment Weekly article on direct-to-video movies representing themselves as theatrical releases, he produced the first – and, after the article's publication, only – home video to obtain an MPAA rating.

Comic books

Lovece and artist Mike Okamoto created the four-issue miniseries Atomic Age (Nov. 1990 – Feb. 1991) for Marvel Comics' creator-owned Epic Comics 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 Most Promising Newcomer Award.

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 Razorline imprint, created by novelist Barker. Other work includes such children's comics as the licensed series Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (including one story penciled by Spider-Man co-creator 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 No. 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 online version from web publisher Wowio.

Also 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. His three-part child-abuse drama "Egg" ran in Dark Horse Comics' Dark Horse Presents #110–112, where editor Bob Schreck opined, "Frank is probably the most under-exploited, most sensitive writer this field has to offer". Lovece also wrote an educational comic book about the American banking system for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

He returned to comics in 2012, scripting the feature "Blue Sultan" in RZG Comics' Phazer. In 2016, he became editor of the comics company Shatner Singularity, beginning with the graphic novel Stan Lee's 'God Woke', written by Stan Lee and Fabian Nicieza. That work won the 2017 Independent Publisher Book Awards' Outstanding Books of the Year Independent Voice Award.

Later career

Beginning in 1996, Lovece served as a Web editor and streaming video producer at the Silicon Alley startup Gist TV (Gist.com). He later became a Web editor at Hachette Filipacchi, creating sites for Sound & Vision and Popular Photography magazines, and, from 2001 to 2004, at the Sci-Fi Channel television network, 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. In 2002, he began a longtime association with Habitat magazine, writing about New York City real estate.

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.

In 2005, Lovece and photographer Matthew Jordan Smith collaborated on the book Lost and Found, a photojournalistic record of families of abducted children and the work of The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

In addition to his Newsday column, features and film reviews, Lovece has been a movie critic for Film Journal International, the TV Guide website, and the northern New Jersey newspaper The Record.