The name Donald F. Glut (last named pronounced “gloot”) may not be familiar to some of you, but chances are you already know the man’s work. Glut is an author, screenwriter, comic book scribe, filmmaker, and an amateur paleontologist. His 1980 novelization of The Empire Strikes Back was a national bestseller and he has written for comics published by Marvel, DC, and Warren Publishing. Glut is widely credited with creating some of the characters and back story for the Masters of the Universe toy line, material that proved useful when the franchise moved into animated television and feature film in the mid-1980’s. To this day he continues to hone his craft behind the camera as the director of a series of low-budget sexploitation flicks that you’ll usually find on Cinemax or Showtime in the middle of the night.

Before he found professional success Glut had achieved minor fame in the horror and sci-fi fan community for something that was very unique in those days. In 1953 after being inspired by a viewing of the monster movie classic The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Glut began making his own amateur short films dinosaurs, aliens, monsters, and his favorite superheroes of the day including Superman and the Spirit. After graduating from high school he was accepted into the University of Southern California’s prestigious film school, the same talent factory that birthed to the world the filmmaking careers of Steven Spielberg, John Carpenter, George Lucas, and Robert Zemeckis to name but a few. Between 1953 and 1969, Glut made 41 short films, many of which received special praise in the pages of the late Forrest J. Ackerman’s beloved genre fan magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland.

The last amateur short Glut made was an original Spider-Man adventure where Marvel Comics’ wall-crawling crimefighter takes on the nefarious Dr. Lightning. You can watch the full video here below.