"From A to Z, in the Chocolate Alphabet" appeared in the October 1976 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, where its genesis is explained in some detail in the afterword.
It was reprinted as part of the Ellison collection Strange Wine and then adapted into comic book form by Larry Todd and published by Last Gasp.
The story was sparked by a painting by underground cartoonist Larry Todd entitled 2 Nemotropin, which Ellison saw in 1974, and around which he promised to write an eight-page comic story illustrated by Todd, and published by "San Francisco underground comix magnate Ron Turner"[citation needed] and his company Last Gasp Eco-Funnies.
The comic book version, Harlan Ellison's Chocolate Alphabet, with cover and art by Larry Todd, appeared in 1978, published by Last Gasp.
[2] Ellison wrote a sort of sequel to this entitled, "From A to Z, in the Sarsaparilla Alphabet," on November 10, 1990, at the bookstore Dangerous Visions in Sherman Oaks, California, beginning it in the window and then inside the store with his manual typewriter and completing it after health issues, which interrupted the writing, were addressed.