Robert "Bob" Rozakis (b. April 4, 1951) is a comic book writer and editor known mainly for his work in the 1970s and 1980s at DC Comics, as the writer of Mazing Man and in his capacity as DC's "Answer Man."
Rozakis is well known as DC's Answer Man, answering trivia questions from readers in the Daily Planet promotional page in many late-1970s comics. He has also had an online presence in that capacity since the mid-1990s.
Rozakis got his start in the comics industry through his many letters to comic book letter columns. Among his earliest credits is that of editor (both managing and contributing) on DC Comics "Pro-zine" ("Professional fanzine") The Amazing World of DC Comics in between 1974 and 1978. In addition to editing, Rozakis wrote for the bi-monthly publication and also oversaw the letters page.
His first comics credit was in Detective Comics #445 (Mar, 1975), as writer of the back-up feature "The Touchdown Trap," with back-up stories in Action Comics, The Flash and Batman Family (among others) soon following. He was co-editor (with Julius Schwartz) on the landmark issue Superman #300, and also served editorially on issues of Action and Detective Comics. His writing credits are largely comprised on back-up features, and in particular on dozens of "Action Comics Featuring:..." (Air-Wave; Hero Hotline, Aquaman, etc.), between #461 and 640, but he also wrote the 1985 four-issue miniseries Superman: The Secret Years (with art by Curt Swan and Kurt Schaffenberger), and the comics adaptations of such diverse movies as The Quest for Peace (1987), Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989), and Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer (1985). Rozakis was also the writer of the syndicated comic strip The Superman Sunday Special for two years.
Arguably his most well-known writing came in the twelve-issue 1986 series Mazing Man, featuring the misadventures of self-declared homemade hero Sigfried Horatio Hunch III, which Rozakis co-created with artist Stephen DeStefano. The two returned to the character for three specials and, most notably for June 1987's Secret Origins #16, to tell "The Closest Thing To A Secret Origin of 'Mazing Man You Will Ever Get." Rozakis also co-created the series Hero Hotline with DeStefano, on which Rozakis also provided the coloring, a job he also undertook on the "Action Comics Featuring: Hero Hotline" back-up features.
Among his other creations are Mister E, the Bumblebee, and Duela Dent (of the Teen Titans, created during his run on the Teen Titans title in the late 1970s), and The Calculator (a character who was later to play a major role in DC's Infinite Crisis event). Overall, during his 25-year career with DC, his credits total "almost four hundred stories" featuring most DC characters, "plus dozens of features, puzzles, and activities pages."
Rozakis' most recent comic book work was a variety of custom publications including the "Celebrate the Century" comic books for the US Postal Service, as well as publications for Con Edison, the San Francisco Giants, and the United Nations Land Mine Awareness program. In 2008, he began writing a series of "alternate reality" articles titled "The Secret History of All-American Comics Inc." for Alter Ego and Back Issue magazines.
Behind the scenes
Between 1981 and 1998, Rozakis ran DC Comics' production department, and Executive Director of Production he was instrumental in the development of offset-printed comic books in a wide variety of formats. He was also the leading proponent of "computerized color separations and typesetting, electronic page preparation, and computer-to-plate printing", and as a result of his efforts on DC's behalf, the look of comic books across the entire industry changed, DC won "over one hundred awards for printing excellence," and Rozakis himself was profiled in Publishing & Production Executive on two separate occasions.
In 2003, Rozakis announced his retirement from the comic book industry.
Rozakis is married to prolific author Dr. Laurie E. Rozakis PhD, "a professor of English," grammar-expert and "author of more than 100 books," and Rozakis' co-writer on Detective Comics #464 (Oct, 1976). The two have collaborated on The Complete Idiot's Guide to Office Politics (Alpha Books, 1998) (ISBN 0028623975). They have two children: son Charles "Chuck" (who wrote his Princeton University thesis on the business viability of webcomics), and daughter Samantha "Sammi". In 1974, Laurie and Bob drove the DC Comic-mobile, a van that served as a lending library for comic books.
Rozakis has also taught creative writing courses "for the Farmingdale (NY) Youth Council and CTY, a Johns Hopkins University summer program for gifted students."
