either working, drunk, or both", Friedrich said, alluding to the alcoholism from which he began recovering on "New Year's night in 1979". When the newspaper ceased publication in late summer 1965, Friedrich began working a union job at a Cape Girardeau factory, installing heating elements in waffle irons. Roy Thomas, now a Marvel Comics staff writer in New York City, called his friend with the suggestion that freelance work might exist in the newly resurgent medium. Friedrich took a Greyhound bus the following day, and stayed with Thomas and a fandom friend, Dave Kaler, in Manhattan's East Village. Shortly afterward, Friedrich and Thomas took an apartment on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. This was a time of transition between the beat movement and the hippie era, when the Village flourished as a creative mecca. "The Village was a really neat place to be at that time. We went to the theater that was to become the Fillmore East; it wasn't called that yet, but they were starting to have some rock concerts, like Chuck Berry. ... I began to let my hair grow and become a real New York hippie", he recalled. Comics career After Thomas recommended Friedrich to Charlton Comics editor Dick Giordano, Friedrich began writing romance comics for that low-budget publisher, where many pros got early breaks. "I did it with a great good sense of humor", Friedrich recalled. "I wrote things like 'Tears in My Malted' and 'Too Fat to Frug'...." With anonymous help and input from Thomas, Friedrich also began writing superhero stories, beginning with his backup feature "The Sentinels" (with penciler-inker Sam Grainger) in Peter Cannon ... Thunderbolt #54 (Oct. 1966). He wrote the feature for two more issues before handing it off. Friedrich also dialogued the debut and the next three stories of the Blue Beetle, plotted and drawn by Steve Ditko, in Captain Atom #83–86 (Nov. 1966 – June 1967). Friedrich's last recorded Charlton story was "If I Had Three Wishes", penciled by Ditko, in Ghostly Tales #60 (March 1967). Marvel Comics By this time Friedrich had already begun writing Westerns for Marvel, including issues of Kid Colt, Outlaw; Two-Gun Kid; Rawhide Kid; and his first regular series, the Western Ghost Rider – launched with debut-issue co-plotter Thomas, and running six issues, mostly co-scripted by Friedrich and series penciler Dick Ayers. Friedrich also contributed to the parody series Not Brand Echh. He began