Brunner entered the comics profession as a horror writer-artist for the black-and-white comics magazines Web of Horror, Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella.[5] His first work for Marvel Comics was inking an 11-page Watcher backup story in The Silver Surfer #6 (June 1969).[5] Brunner's best-known color-comics work is his Marvel Comics collaboration with writer Steve Engelhart on the supernatural hero Doctor Strange in Marvel Premiere #9–14 (July 1973 – March 1974)[6] and in Doctor Strange: Master of the Mystic Arts #1–2 and #4–5 (June–August 1974 and Oct.–Dec. 1974). The two killed Dr. Strange's mentor, the Ancient One, and Strange became the new Sorcerer Supreme. Englehart and Brunner created a multi-issue storyline in which a sorcerer named Sise-Neg ("Genesis" spelled backward) goes back through history, collecting all magical energies, until he reaches the beginning of the universe, becomes all-powerful and creates it anew, leaving Strange to wonder whether this was, paradoxically, the original creation. Stan Lee, seeing the issue after publication, ordered Englehart and Brunner to print a retraction saying this was not God but a god, so as to avoid offending religious readers. The writer and artist concocted a fake letter from a fictitious minister praising the story, and mailed it to Marvel from Texas; Marvel unwittingly printed the letter, and dropped the retraction order.[7] In 2010, Comics Bulletin ranked Englehart and Brunner's run on the "Doctor Strange" feature ninth on its list of the "Top 10 1970s Marvels".[8]
Brunner briefly returned to comics in the early-1980s as artist on the First Comics title Warp!, based on the science fiction play that ran briefly on Broadway in the 1970s. He then wrote and drew the graphic novelThe Seven Samuroid (1984), a science-fiction takeoff of the movie classic Seven Samurai.[5]
^Cronin, Brian (December 22, 2005). "Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #30". Comic Book Resources. Archived from the original on February 4, 2012. Retrieved December 26, 2008. We cooked up this plot-we wrote a letter from a Reverend Billingsley in Texas, a fictional person, saying that one of the children in his parish brought him the comic book, and he was astounded and thrilled by it, and he said, "Wow, this is the best comic book I've ever read." And we signed it "Reverend so-and-so, Austin Texas"-and when Steve was in Texas, he mailed the letter so it had the proper postmark. Then, we got a phone call from Roy, and he said, "Hey, about that retraction, I'm going to send you a letter, and instead of the retraction, I want you to print this letter." And it was our letter! We printed our letter!
^Sanderson "1970s" in Gilbert (2008), p. 169: "Howard the Duck returned in a new series of stories by writer/creator Steve Gerber and artist Frank Brunner in the back of Giant-Size Man-Thing."
^Sanderson "1970s" in Gilbert (2008), p. 174: "Gerber and artist Frank Brunner quickly brought Howard back...in his own comic book."
