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Frank Lovece

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Frank Lovece
Born1957 (age 68–69)[1][2]
Buenos Aires, Argentina
NationalityAmerican
AreaWriter
Notable works
Atomic Age
SpouseMaitland McDonagh[3]

Frank Lovece (/lɒˈvɛtʃə/)[4] is an American journalist, author, and a comic book writer primarily for Marvel Comics, where he and artist Mike Okamoto created the miniseries Atomic Age. His longest affiliation has been with the New York metropolitan area newspaper Newsday, where he has worked as a feature writer and film critic.

He was a nationally syndicated columnist for United Media/Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) for more than nine years, writing weekly interview features with filmmakers and performers. He is the author of several books and has also written for numerous publications including Billboard, Entertainment Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Post, Penthouse, Sound & Vision, and The Village Voice. One of his inflight-magazine features, a profile of telecommunications entrepreneur René Anselmo, was entered into the U.S. Congressional Record.[5]

Early life

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Lovece was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is the son of Italian immigrants. He moved to the U.S as a toddler and was raised in Keyser and Morgantown, West Virginia.[1] There his family ran Italian restaurants.[2] He attended St. Francis High School and West Virginia University in Morgantown, where he was the arts/entertainment editor of the college newspaper, the Daily Athenaeum. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications.[1]

Career

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In the early 1980s, Lovece was on staff at Video Review magazine, and by mid-decade had begun freelancing for that publication and others including video- and media-focused outlets such as American Film and Video[6][7][8], as well as mass-market periodicals including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Post[9][10][11], Penthouse, The Village Voice, and several airline inflight magazines.[4] He was a music critic for Audio and Faces, and a video-technology columnist and home-video feature writer for the trade magazine Billboard.[1] His features have covered subjects ranging from pop culture and technology to film and television. One of his inflight-magazine articles, on telecommunications mogul René Anselmo, was entered into the U.S. Congressional Record in 1995.[5][12]

He was a nationally syndicated columnist for United Media/Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) for more than nine years in the 1980s and 1990s, writing weekly interview features with filmmakers and performers.[13] For that syndicate he additionally wrote shorter-run columns on home video and on cable-TV programming.[14][15]

For Entertainment Weekly, Lovece wrote, in addition to film and TV features and featurettes, a comic-book column. His stories for the magazine included interviews with filmmakers and others, and analyses of pop culture and comics.[16][13] In 1991, he produced the first home video (footage of his own child) to obtain an MPAA rating for an Entertainment Weekly article.  For Newsday, from the 1990s to 2020s, he has worked as a feature writer and film critic, producing entertainment features and reviews that also were syndicated to other outlets.[16][17]

He additionally was a film critic for Film Journal International, the New York Post, The Record of northern New Jersey and TV Guide Online, and was a syndicated film critic through the Associated Press and the Catholic News Service.[18][19][20][21]

Together with the editors of Consumer Guide, Lovece wrote TV Trivia: Thirty Years of Television, published in 1984.[22] This was followed by Hailing 'Taxi': The Official Book of the Show (1988) and similar books on topic including the TV series The Brady Bunch and The X-Files.[23] By 1990, Lovece had become a writer and film critic for Newsday.[24][25] He also wrote an unofficial book guide for Godzilla, but after Godzilla franchise owner Toho filed a lawsuit, a district court judge in 1998 issued a preliminary injunction blocking the book from release in the United States due to alleged trademark violation.[26] The book was published in Europe.[27]

Comic books

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Lovece and artist Mike Okamoto created the four-issue miniseries Atomic Age (Nov. 1990 – Feb. 1991) for Marvel Comics’ creator-owned Epic Comics imprint. Lovece also wrote stories for Marvel’s Nightstalkers, Hokum & Hex, Ghost Rider Annual, and The Incredible Hulk Annual.[28][29] His story “For My Son,” co-created with artist Bill Koeb, appeared in Clive Barker’s Hellraiser Summer Special and was later collected in Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Collected Best. He also has written for Dark Horse Comics and Harris Comics.[30][31]

He edited Stan Lee’s God Woke, written by Stan Lee and Fabian Nicieza, which won the 2017 Independent Publisher Book Award for Outstanding Books of the Year – Independent Voice Award. During this period, he served as editor-in-chief of the independent comics publishers Shatner Singularity and Apex Comics Group.[32]

Lovece receiving an award for editing Stan Lee's God Woke at the Independent Publisher Book Awards

Later career

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He has written articles for Habitat, Entertainment Weekly, Newsday, Yahoo!/MSN.

Beyond print journalism, Lovece has written for online and broadcast media. He served as a web editor for Gist TV/Yahoo![33], Sound & Vision and the Sci Fi Channel.[34][35]

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. He has also appeared on media and pop-culture panels at conventions and at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City.[36]

Bibliography

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Books

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  • Lovece, Frank. TV Trivia: Thirty Years of Television (1984) New York: Beekman House / Publications International. ISBN 0-517-46367-9
  • Lovece, Frank, with Jules Franco. Hailing Taxi: The Official Book of the Show (1988) New York: Prentice Hall Press ISBN 0-13-372103-5, ISBN 978-0-13-372103-4
  • Edelstein, Andrew J., and Frank Lovece. The Brady Bunch Book (1990) New York: Warner Books. ISBN 0-446-39137-9
  • Lovece, Frank (1992). The Television Yearbook. New York: Perigee Books / Putnam Publishing. ISBN 0-399-51702-2, ISBN 978-0-399-51702-0
  • Lovece, Frank. The X-Files Declassified (1996) New York: Citadel Press. ISBN 0-8065-1745-X, ISBN 978-0-8065-1745-2
  • Lovece, Frank. Godzilla: The Complete Guide to Moviedom's Mightiest Monster. Originally scheduled 1998 by William Morrow / Quill. ISBN 0-688-15603-7; ISBN 978-0-688-15603-9. Subjected to prior restraint in U.S.; released overseas.
  • Smith, Michael Jordan (photographer), and Frank Lovece. Lost and Found (2006) New York: Filipacchi Publishing. ISBN 1-59975-611-0, ISBN 978-1-59975-611-0

Comics

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Dark Horse Comics

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Harris Comics

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Marvel Comics

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Marvel Comics/Epic Comics

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  • Atomic Age #1-4
  • Clive Barker's Hellraiser Dark Holiday Special #1 (story "Nursery Crime")
  • Clive Barker's Hellraiser Summer Special #1 (story "For My Son" - reprinted in Checker Publishing book Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Collected Best

Marvel Comics/Razorline

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RZG Commics

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  • Phazer #3, 5
  • Phazer Crossover #2

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Abrams, Nancy (September 10, 1989). "Frank Lovece Makes a Living Writing About TV". The Dominion Post. Morgantown, West Virginia. Archived from the original on October 19, 2013. Retrieved July 5, 2013.
  2. ^ a b Seitz, Matt Zoller (October 4, 1996). "Declassified Information, By the Book". The Star-Ledger. Newark, New Jersey. Archived from the original on October 19, 2013. Retrieved July 5, 2013.
  3. ^ Meyer, Ken (March 15, 2010). "Ink Stains 14: Nimbus 3". Ink Stains. Retrieved February 28, 2021.
  4. ^ a b Thompson, Maggie (November 2, 1990). "Epic Comics Goes Back to the '50s with 'Atomic Age'". Comics Buyer's Guide. No. 885. ...Lovece (pronounced 'lah VETcha')...
  5. ^ a b "CONGRESSIONAL RECORD— Extensions of Remarks E 1895". GovInfo.gov.
  6. ^ "American Flops ... European Hits" by Frank Lovece. American Film (September 1988. pp. 44-47
  7. ^ “Inventing the Hyperdisc”. Video (July 1989) pp. 51-55+
  8. ^ “Urban Renewal: Giorgio Moroder and The Remaking of 'Metropolis'”. Video (September 1985) pp. 85-86+
  9. ^ “Movie Overboard, Forget the Lifeboat” [review: The Big Blue]. New York Post. August 22, 1988.
  10. ^ Bailey, Jason (July 10, 2018). "How Die Hard Changed the Action Game". Vulture. Retrieved February 19, 2026.
  11. ^ “Cameras Roll On: Despite Rumors, Film Making Continues to Thrive in Big Apple”. New York Post. September 5, 1990.
  12. ^ "Mar 30, 1986, page 149 - Daytona Beach Morning Journal at Newspapers.com™". Newspapers.com. Retrieved February 19, 2026.
  13. ^ a b Lovece, Frank (November 22, 1996). "Video Reviews: Superhero Films". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  14. ^ "Is your comic book worth $30,000?". Newsday. January 26, 2026. Retrieved January 29, 2026.
  15. ^ "Jan 26, 1986, page 98 - The Standard-Star at Newspapers.com™". Newspapers.com. Retrieved February 19, 2026.
  16. ^ a b Lovece, Frank (August 9, 1991). "Get your own film rating". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  17. ^ Pond, Steve (August 9, 1991). "The Irish Sweepstakes". The_Washington_Post. Style section, p. D6.
  18. ^ Frank Lovece at Film_Journal_International. Archived from the original on August 1, 2015.
  19. ^ Frank Lovece at Rotten_Tomatoes
  20. ^ Lovece, Frank (June 1, 1990). "'Recall': In Space, No One Can Hear You Grunt". (Total Recall film review) The Record.
  21. ^ Lovece, Frank (December 22, 1990). "'Rainman' Takes a Snooze". (Awakenings film review) The Record.
  22. ^ Lovece, Frank (1984). TV Trivia: Thirty Years of Television. New York: Beekman House. ISBN 9780517463673 OCLC 11896508
  23. ^ "Frank Lovece". WorldCat.
  24. ^ For example, Lovece, Frank (September 12, 1990). "Red Skelton: Old Jokes Never Die". Newsday.
  25. ^ "FrankLovece.com". (Official site). Archived from the original on August 16, 2011. Retrieved January 28, 2014.Additional, August 16, 2011.
  26. ^ Jacobs, Alexandra; Flamm, Matthew (April 24, 1998). "The inside scoop on the book world". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  27. ^ Godzilla: alles über den König der Monster. Germany: Econ-und-List-Taschenbuch-Verlag. 1998. ISBN 978-3612265968.
  28. ^ "Clive Barker's Hellraiser Summer Special #1". Marvel Comics. 1992.
  29. ^ Gage, Christos N. "Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Collected Best - 2002". FeoAmante.com.
  30. ^ Thompson, Maggie (November 2, 1990). "Epic Comics Goes Back to the '50s with Atomic Age". Comics Buyer's Guide. No. 885.
  31. ^ "Atomic Age (Marvel, 1990 series)". Grand Comics Database.
  32. ^ Wiebe, Sheldon (July 18, 2016). "Comic-Con 2016: POW! Entertainment and Shatner Singularity Introduce Stan Lee's God Woke!". Eclipse Magazine. Shatner Singularity. Archived from the original on August 6, 2016. Retrieved July 22, 2016.
  33. ^ “Look Back in Humor: The Stars Reflect On The End of 'MST3K'”, Gist.com / Yahoo! TV (Apri 10, 1999)
  34. ^ Frank Lovece at Habitat
  35. ^ "TOM DeFALCO AND RON FRENZ'S THE R.I.G.H.T. PROJECT". First Comics News. April 13, 2023. Retrieved February 19, 2026.
  36. ^ "Lost and Found". National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. 2006. Archived from the original on May 22, 2011.
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Frank Lovece.
  • "Lovece, Frank". The Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators. Archived from the original on May 21, 2013. Retrieved September 13, 2012.
  • Meyer, Ken Jr. (March 15, 2010). "Nimbus 3 (Sept. 1977)". Ink Stains (column) 14, ComicAttack.net. Archived from the original on March 24, 2010.
  • Lovece, Frank, ed. (September 1977). "Nimbus" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on February 27, 2012.
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