Frank Lovece
Encyclopedia
Frank Lovece is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

, comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

 performer and comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

 writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

. He was additionally one of the first professional Web
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 journalists, becoming an editor of a Silicon Alley
Silicon Alley
Silicon Alley is a nickname for an area with a concentration of Internet and new media companies in Manhattan, New York City. Originally, the term referred to the cluster of such companies extending from the Flatiron District down to SoHo and TriBeCa along the Broadway corridor, but as the location...

 start-up in 1996.

For an Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...

article on direct-to-video movies
Direct-to-video
Direct-to-video is a term used to describe a film that has been released to the public on home video formats without being released in film theaters or broadcast on television...

 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 and career

Raised in Morgantown, West Virginia
Morgantown, West Virginia
Morgantown is a city in Monongalia County, West Virginia. It is the county seat of Monongalia County. Placed along the banks of the Monongahela River, Morgantown is the largest city in North-Central West Virginia, and the base of the Morgantown metropolitan area...

, Frank Lovece attended West Virginia University
West Virginia University
West Virginia University is a public research university in Morgantown, West Virginia, USA. Other campuses include: West Virginia University at Parkersburg in Parkersburg; West Virginia University Institute of Technology in Montgomery; Potomac State College of West Virginia University in Keyser;...

 in that city, graduating with a bachelor of arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 degree in communication. 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
Radio News
Radio News was an American monthly technology magazine published from 1919 to 1971. The magazine was started by Hugo Gernsback as a magazine for amateur radio enthusiasts, but it evolved to cover all the technical aspects to radio and electronics. In 1929 a bankruptcy forced the sale of Gernsback's...

 service, and, in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

, the USDA Cooperative Extension Service
Cooperative extension service
The Cooperative Extension Service, also known as the Extension Service of the USDA, is a non-formal educational program implemented in the United States designed to help people use research-based knowledge to improve their lives. The service is provided by the state's designated land-grant...

.

He became a stringer for the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 newspaper Newsday
Newsday
Newsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...

in the late 1980s, becoming a weekly TV columnist there in 2003. Lovece's book Hailing Taxi
Taxi (TV series)
Taxi was an American sitcom that originally aired from 1978 to 1982 on ABC and from 1982 to 1983 on NBC. The series, which won 18 Emmy Awards, including three for "Outstanding Comedy Series", focuses on the everyday lives of a handful of New York City taxi drivers and their abusive dispatcher...

: 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
The Brady Bunch
The Brady Bunch is an American sitcom created by Sherwood Schwartz and starring Robert Reed, Florence Henderson, and Ann B. Davis. The series revolved around a large blended family...

and The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...

, and on the Godzilla
Godzilla
is a daikaijū, a Japanese movie monster, first appearing in Ishirō Honda's 1954 film Godzilla. Since then, Godzilla has gone on to become a worldwide pop culture icon starring in 28 films produced by Toho Co., Ltd. The monster has appeared in numerous other media incarnations including video games,...

 movie
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 series.

Comic books

Lovece and artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

 Mike Okamoto
Mike Okamoto
Mike Okamoto is an American comic book artist and commercial illustrator best known for co-creating Marvel Comics' Atomic Age; as a "good girl art" cartoonist; and as the five-time International Network of Golf Illustrator of the Year.-Early life and career:Born and raised in Detroit Michigan,...

 created the four-issue miniseries
Miniseries
A miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...

 Atomic Age
Atomic Age (comics)
Atomic Age is a four-issue comic-book mini-series, cover-dated November 1990 to February 1991, published by the Marvel Comics creator-owned imprint Epic Comics...

(Nov. 1990 - Feb. 1991) for Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...

' creator-owned Epic Comics
Epic Comics
Epic Comics was a creator-owned imprint of Marvel Comics started in 1982, lasting through the mid-1990s, and being briefly revived on a small scale in the mid-2000s.- Origins :...

 imprint. The series was among the items featured in the Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green State University, often referred to as Bowling Green or BGSU, is a public, coeducational research university located in Bowling Green, Ohio, United States. The institution was granted a charter in 1910 by the State of Ohio as part of the Lowry Bill, which also established Kent State...

 exhibition "The Atomic Age Opens: Selections from the Popular Culture Library". Collaborator Al Williamson
Al Williamson
Alfonso "Al" Williamson was an American cartoonist, comic book artist and illustrator specializing in adventure, Western and science-fiction/fantasy...

 won the 1991 Eisner Award
Eisner Award
The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, and sometimes referred to as the Oscar Awards of the Comics Industry, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books. The Eisner Awards were first conferred in 1988, created in response to the...

 for Best Inker for his work on that and other series that awards-year, with Okamoto winning the The Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award
Russ Manning Award
The Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award is an American award presented to a comic book artist whose first professional work appeared within the previous two years. It was named after comic book artist Russ Manning...

. The non-comics, academic journal Nuclear Texts & Contexts described Atomic Age as "dealing with alien invaders set during the Sputnik era. ... Although no nuclear war
Nuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...

 is featured, there is plenty of wry satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 on Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

 paranoia, and on racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

".

Lovece went on to write stories for Epic's anthology series Clive Barker's Hellraiser
Hellraiser
Hellraiser is a 1987 British and American horror film based upon the novella The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker, who also wrote the screenplay and directed the film. Hellraiser explores themes of sadomasochism and morality under duress and fear. The film spawned a series of sequels...

, and wrote the nine-issue run of Hokum & Hex
Hokum & Hex
Hokum & Hex is a superhero comic book series published by Marvel Comics' Razorline imprint. It was created by filmmaker and horror/fantasy novelist Clive Barker, written by Frank Lovece and penciled by Anthony Williams.-Publication history:...

for Marvel's Razorline
Razorline
Razorline was an imprint of American comic book company Marvel Comics that ran from 1993-1995. It was created by filmmaker and horror/fantasy novelist Clive Barker, with its characters existing in one of the many alternate universes outside the mainstream continuity known as the Marvel...

 imprint, created by novelist Barker
Clive Barker
Clive Barker is an English author, film director and visual artist best known for his work in both fantasy and horror fiction. Barker came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories which established him as a leading young horror writer...

. Other work includes such children's comics
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...

 as the licensed series Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is an American live-action children's television series based on the 16th installment of the Japanese Super Sentai franchise, Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger. Both the show and its related merchandise saw unbridled overnight success, catapulting into pop culture in mere months...

(including one story penciled by industry legend Steve Ditko
Steve Ditko
Stephen J. "Steve" Ditko is an American comic book artist and writer best known as the artist co-creator, with Stan Lee, of the Marvel Comics heroes Spider-Man and Doctor Strange....

), VR Troopers
VR Troopers
VR Troopers was a syndicated live action show produced by Saban from 1994 to 1996...

and Masked Rider. The Hellraiser story "For My Son", by Lovece and artist Bill Koeb
Bill Koeb
Bill Koeb is an American illustrator, painter, and comic-book artist whose work includes the Marvel Comics' series Clive Barker's Hellraiser and the Vertigo miniseries Faultlines...

, 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 online version from web publisher Wowio.

Additionally for Marvel, Lovece wrote for the series Nightstalkers
Nightstalkers (comics)
The Nightstalkers is a fictional trio of preexisting characters in comic books published by Marvel Comics. A team of occult experts, they reluctantly banded together to fight supernatural threats....

and for The Incredible Hulk and Ghost Rider
Ghost Rider (comics)
Ghost Rider is the name of several fictional supernatural antiheroes appearing in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Marvel had previously used the name for a Western character whose name was later changed to Night Rider and subsequently to Phantom Rider.The first supernatural Ghost Rider is...

annuals, as well as an inventory story for Alpha Flight
Alpha Flight
Alpha Flight is a fictional superhero team published by Marvel Comics, noteworthy for being one of the few Canadian superhero teams. Created by John Byrne, the team first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #120 ....

. He additionally wrote a Vampirella
Vampirella
Vampirella is a fictional character, a comic book vampire heroine created by Forrest J Ackerman and costume designer Trina Robbins in Warren Publishing's black-and-white horror comics magazine Vampirella #1 . Writer-editor Archie Goodwin later developed the character from horror-story hostess, in...

inventory story for Harris Comics
Harris Publications
Harris Publications Inc. is an American consumer-magazine publisher in New York City, New York, that publishes over 75 titles, including Juicy, XXL, King, Dog News, 0-60, Guns & Weapons for Law Enforcement, Small Business Opportunities, Men's Workout, Exercise & Health, Celebrity Hairstyles, and...

. His three-part child-abuse drama "Egg" ran in Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...

' 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
Bank
A bank is a financial institution that serves as a financial intermediary. The term "bank" may refer to one of several related types of entities:...

 for the Federal Reserve Bank
Federal Reserve Bank
The twelve Federal Reserve Banks form a major part of the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States. The twelve federal reserve banks together divide the nation into twelve Federal Reserve Districts, the twelve banking districts created by the Federal Reserve Act of...

 of New York.

Later career

By the 1990s, Lovece was a weekly syndicated columnist
Print syndication
Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. They offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content of which they own/represent copyrights....

 for United Media
United Media
United Media is a large editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States, owned by The E.W. Scripps Company. It syndicates 150 comics and editorial columns worldwide. Its core business is the United Feature Syndicate and the Newspaper Enterprise Association...

/NEA, and a writer for periodicals including the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

, the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...

, Penthouse
Penthouse (magazine)
Penthouse, a men's magazine founded by Bob Guccione, combines urban lifestyle articles and softcore pornographic pictorials that, in the 1990s, evolved into hardcore. Penthouse is owned by FriendFinder Network. formerly known as General Media, Inc. whose parent company was Penthouse International...

, Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

, and Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...

, where he wrote features and reviewed home video
Home video
Home video is a blanket term used for pre-recorded media that is either sold or rented/hired for home cinema entertainment. The term originates from the VHS/Betamax era but has carried over into current optical disc formats like DVD and Blu-ray Disc and, to a lesser extent, into methods of digital...

 releases and comic books. For an Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...

article on direct-to-video movies
Direct-to-video
Direct-to-video is a term used to describe a film that has been released to the public on home video formats without being released in film theaters or broadcast on television...

 representing themselves as theatrical releases, he produced the first — and, after the article's publication, only — home video to obtain an MPAA rating.

Beginning 1996, he served as a Web site editor
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...

 and streaming video producer at Gist TV. He later became a Web editor at Hachette Filipacchi, creating sites for Sound & Vision
Sound and Vision (magazine)
Sound & Vision is an American magazine, published by Bonnier Corporation, covering home theater, audio, video and multimedia consumer products....

and Popular Photography magazines, and, from 2001 to 2004, at the Sci-Fi Channel
Sci Fi Channel (United States)
Syfy , formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel and SCI FI, is an American cable television channel featuring science fiction, supernatural, fantasy, reality, paranormal, wrestling, and horror programming. Launched on September 24, 1992, it is part of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, a...

 television network
Television network
A television network is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, whereby a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay TV providers. Until the mid-1980s, television programming in most countries of the world was dominated by a small...

, creating sites for Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica is an American science fiction franchise created by Glen A. Larson. The franchise began with the Battlestar Galactica TV series in 1978, and was followed by a brief sequel TV series in 1980, a line of book adaptations, original novels, comic books, a board game, and video games...

, Stargate SG-1
Stargate SG-1
Stargate SG-1 is a Canadian-American adventure and military science fiction television series and part of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Stargate franchise. The show, created by Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner, is based on the 1994 feature film Stargate by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich...

, Stargate Atlantis
Stargate Atlantis
Stargate Atlantis is a Canadian-American adventure and military science fiction television series and part of MGM's Stargate franchise. The show was created by Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper as a spin-off series of Stargate SG-1, which was created by Wright and Jonathan Glassner and was itself...

, The X-Files, The Incredible Hulk, Legend of Earthsea and other television shows, movies and miniseries
Miniseries
A miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...

. Since 2005, in addition to his Newsday
Newsday
Newsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...

column and features, Lovece has been a movie critic for Film Journal International
Film Journal International
Film Journal International is a motion-picture industry trade magazine published by the American company Prometheus Global Media. It is a sister publication of Adweek, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, and other periodicals....

. He had previously been a movie critic for the TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...

website and for the northern New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

 newspaper The Record.

In 2005, Lovece and photographer Matthew Jordan Smith collaborated on Lost and Found (Filipacchi, New York, 2006; ISBN 9781599756110 ISBN 1599756110), a photojournalistic record of families of abducted children and the work of The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is a private, non-profit organization established in 1984 by the United States Congress.-Establishment and overview:...

.

Humor

From 2001-2003, Lovece was a member of the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 improv comedy troupe Wingnuts. His humor writing has appeared in Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...

, Newsday
Newsday
Newsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...

, Yahoo!
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...

/MSN
MSN
MSN is a collection of Internet sites and services provided by Microsoft. The Microsoft Network debuted as an online service and Internet service provider on August 24, 1995, to coincide with the release of the Windows 95 operating system.The range of services offered by MSN has changed since its...

, and elsewhere.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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