with the offer of a job as his assistant. Career The 1960s and early 1970s In 1965, Skeates moved to New York City to become Lee's assistant editor, which largely required him to proofread finished comics. His lack of skill for this quickly became apparent, and Lee grew frustrated when obvious artwork errors were overlooked. Within two weeks, Roy Thomas became the new assistant, and Skeates was assigned to write westerns as compensation. Using his brief term as Lee's assistant as a calling card, Skeates picked up work at Tower, Charlton, DC, Gold Key, Red Circle, Archie, and Warren Publishing (for whom he wrote 72 stories from 1971 to 1975). His stories were illustrated by such artists as Dick Ayers, Gene Colan, Alex Toth, Gil Kane, Ogden Whitney, Ramona Fradon, Mike Grell, Wally Wood, and Dick Giordano. After penning two tales for the second issue of Charlton's mystery anthology The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves (July 1967)--one of which, "The Mystic Book," is a favorite of his—Skeates was given total control of the writing for the title, including introductory pages, through issue #12. With cartoonist Sergio Aragonés, he won the ACBA Shazam Award for the best humor story of 1972, which was "The Poster Plague," a tale that inspired DC's dark-humor anthology Plop!, the series about which Skeates professes to be the proudest because it "spoke quite emphatically to the disillusionment extant at least throughout this country during the so-called Watergate era." In 1973, he shared the best humor story award with Bernie Wrightson for "The Gourmet," which has been reprinted more than any other Skeates-written work. Favorite co-workers Of all of his artistic collaborators, Skeates has named as his favorites Pat Boyette, with whom he worked at Charlton (his favorite employer); Jim Aparo, his partner on a highly regarded Aquaman run that lasted until April 1971 and Steve Ditko, with whom he co-created the quirky team Hawk and Dove in Showcase #75 (June 1968), despite the fact that progressive Skeates and Objectivist Ditko are politically polar opposites. During the 1970s he began a long-standing collaboration with fellow comics writer Mary Skrenes. Plastic Man One of the series Skeates wrote at DC in the 1970s was Plastic Man, for which he created the villain Carrot Man, an evil game show host who hit contestants on their heads with a toaster. When that character appeared on the Plastic Man animated show,