Frank Lovece

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.[3]

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.[3] 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.[4] 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.[5]

Lovece (right) with Stan Lee, signing autographs together at the 1993 Comic-Con International San Diego

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".[6] 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.[7]

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.[8] 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.[9] 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),[9] 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.[10]

Also for Marvel, Lovece wrote for the series Nightstalkers and for The Incredible Hulk and Ghost Rider annuals,[9] as well as an inventory story for Alpha Flight; he additionally wrote a Vampirella inventory story for Harris Comics.[3] 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".[11] Lovece also wrote an educational comic book about the American banking system for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.[3]

He returned to comics in 2012, scripting the feature "Blue Sultan" in RZG Comics' Phazer.[9] 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.[12] That work won the 2017 Independent Publisher Book Awards' Outstanding Books of the Year Independent Voice Award.[13]

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.[14]

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.[3]

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.[15][16]

In addition to his Newsday column, features and film reviews,[17] Lovece has been a movie critic for Film Journal International,[18] the TV Guide website,[17] and the northern New Jersey newspaper The Record.[19][20]