Dan Fingeroth. Former group editor of the Spider-Man comic books. Darkhawk writer. Editor-in-chief of Virtual Comics. Binghamton University Graduate. This week, Release spoke with the cinema major from Newing who went on to conquer the comic book world. Okay, maybe not conquer, but he did graduate from Binghamton and wind up with an extensive career in comic books.

Release: What is your favorite college story/experience in general?

Dan Fingeroth: I just liked the school and the area. Having grown up in New York, I found it enjoyable to discover this whole other world up in upstate New York. It helps that I don’t mind rain.

Release: You were a cinema major here at Binghamton. How was your time in the program?

DF: It was terrific. My teachers were accomplished filmmakers in the avant-garde and underground worlds, when “independent film” didn’t just mean a low-budget Hollywood-style movie. It was a unique education. When I applied to the school, I got a letter from the department that promised that my training would be a fine arts one that would guarantee me not being able to get a commercial film job. Well, some of us did, but the idea was film as art, like poetry or painting.

Release: Can you give me a quick timeline from your time at BU to working at Marvel Comics?

DF: It was pretty fast. I graduated in May, 1976. I went home — which in my case was New York — and worked some lousy jobs in offices and in film, then had a job interview at Marvel in June, 1977, and started working there in July.

Release: Tell me about your work at Marvel, on “Dazzler,” and as an editor.

DF: I was there for 18 years, so the jobs I had were constantly changing. I started out working for (Spider-Man co-creator) Stan Lee’s brother, Larry Lieber, in a department that prepared mostly reprint, but some new (“Captain Britain,” etc.) material for publication in England. Then I was the assistant editor on the X-Men books, and ultimately group editor of the Spider-Man line of comics. I was story consultant on the 1990s “Spider-Man” animated series, and on early stages of the first Spider-Man movie, when James Cameron was still associated with it. I wrote a lot of comics for Marvel, too, including the “Dazzler” [and] “Darkhawk.”

In general, working at Marvel was a lot of fun. There were the stresses of any job — deadlines, problem people, etc. — but on the whole, spending my time with interesting, creative people, making up comic book stories, was a great way to make a living.

Release: What are you doing now? I’ve read that you’re teaching now at New School. Did any professors at BU affect they way you teach now?

DF: I teach comics writing at The New School, and have done so at NYU and The Media Bistro. One of the things I’m doing now is producing a magazine called Write Now (for TwoMorrows publishing), which is like Writers Digest for comics, animation and science fiction. I also have co-authored (with Mike Manley) a book called “How to Create Comics from Script to Print,” which is what it sounds like: a how-to book, also published by TwoMorrows.

And I’ve written two books about comics which have been well received. One is called “Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society” (2004), and the other is called “Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics and the Creation of the Superhero” (2007). Both are published by Continuum-International and both have forewords by Stan Lee.

As far as my teachers, I was lucky enough to have some wonderful teachers in high school (Bronx Science) as well as at Binghamton. They were passionate about what they were teaching and fascinating people as well. The Binghamton Cinema teachers who were important to me were innovative filmmakers Ken Jacobs, Larry Gottheim, Dan Barnett and Saul Levine.

Release: When was the last time you visited campus?

DF: I haven’t been there since the ’80s, although I’d be delighted to come read from and speak about my books.