Every day this month I will share with you the first (at least as far as I know) U.S. professional work by a notable comic book creator. Here is an archive of the creators who have been featured so far.

Today's featured creator is Doug Moench!

Enjoy!

Doug Moench is best known today for his acclaimed runs on Masters of Kung Fu, Moon Knight and Batman (where he created the popular Batman villain, Black Mask).

Moench first worked as a critic for the Chicago Sun-Times before getting into comics in his early 20s in the middle of 1970. His first comic book work was for Warren Publishing. His first two stories are actually both cover-dated the same month, September 1970.

They appeared in Eerie #29 and Vampirella #7.

Here's the last few pages from the Eerie story, "Snow Job" (with art by the great Jack Sparling - talk about lucky! Sparling as your first artist?)...

And here's the ending to his Vampirella tale, "Plague of the Wolf" (with art by Frank Bolle)...