Write Now! #11

INSIDE: HOW TO CREATE GREAT CHARACTERS! # $

5

11

95

In the USA

M AG A ZI N E

January 2006

27

PROS REVEAL THEIR WRITING SECRETS! DeFALCO & FRENZ ON MAKING COMICS

The The Magazine Magazine About About Writing Writing For For Comics, Comics, Animation, Animation, and and SCI-FI SCI-FI

M AG A ZI N E Issue #11

January 2006

Read Now! Message from the Editor-in-Chief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 2

Professional Secrets 27 top comics and animation writers and editors tell you the most important things they know about the art, craft and business of writing. Learn what STAN LEE, NEIL GAIMAN, MARK WAID, and two dozen other top professionals know that you don’t! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 3

Creative Chemistry

John Ostrander talks about Character and characters and how to make the latter have the former . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .page 43

Conceived by DANNY FINGEROTH Editor-in-Chief Cover art by RON FRENZ and SAL BUSCEMA Cover colored by TOM ZIUKO Associate Editor BOB BRODSKY Assistant Editor LIZ GEHRLEIN Designers RICH J. FOWLKS with CHRIS DAY Transcriber STEVEN TICE Publisher JOHN MORROW Special Thanks To

Outline to Script to Finished Art: NANCY DREW GRAPHIC NOVEL #4

THE 27 PROS!!

Pages from “The Girl Who Wasn’t There,” by Stefan Petrucha and Sho Murase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .page 49

and ALISON BLAIRE JOHN OSTRANDER BOB BRODSKY ADAM PHILIPS SAL BUSCEMA CHRIS POWELL KIA CROSS BEN REILLY CHRIS DAY JIM SALICRUP AUGIE DeBLIECK, Jr. STEVEN TICE FRED deBOOM ROBERT TINNELL TOM DeFALCO SHO MURASE RICH J. FOWLKS STEFAN PETRUCHA RON FRENZ VARDA STEINHARDT LIZ GEHRLEIN NEIL VOKES ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON

Interview with Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 11

Re-imagining a classic: NANCY DREW Jim Salicrup, editor-in-chief of Papercutz Comics, talks about how the young detective became a comics star . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 48

Same/Not The Same: One Man’s Reflections on Writing for Film and Comics Robert Tinnell shares his thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 53

Feedback Letters from Write Now! ’s Readers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 70

Nuts & Bolts Department Plot to Printed Comic: WHAT IF #105 Pages from “What If Spider-Man had a Spider-Girl?”

by Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz, and Bill Sienkiewicz . . . . . . .page 39

Creating Characters

Script to Finished Art Pages from “Vengeance is Mine: A Terry Sharp Story” by Robert Tinnell and Adrian Salmon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .page 57 Danny Fingeroth’s Write Now! is published 4 times a year by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614 USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Fax: (919) 449-0327.

Danny Fingeroth, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Write Now! E-mail address: WriteNowDF@aol.com.

Single issues: $8 Postpaid in the US ($10 Canada, $11 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $20 US ($40 Canada, $44 elsewhere). Order online at: www.twomorrows.com or e-mail to: twomorrow@aol.com All characters are TM & © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © the respective authors. Editorial package is ©2006 Danny Fingeroth and TwoMorrows Publishing. All rights reserved. Write Now! is a shared trademark of Danny Fingeroth and TwoMorrows Publishing. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

WRITE NOW | 1

READ Now!

Message from Danny Fingeroth, Editor-in-Chief

R

eady to be amazed? Then you’ve come to the right place!

You hold in your hands the hard-earned advice— ”Professional Secrets,” if you will—of 27 top comics and animation writers and editors. They developed this wisdom the old-fashioned way. They or someone they knew had to make mistakes somewhere along the way and figure out what to do— and what not to do—in given situations. Now, they’re passing the insight gained from all that experience on to you.

I asked them to give the most important piece of creative advice and the most important piece of business-related advice they had for aspiring writers. The 27 didn’t hold back. Stan Lee, Neil Gaiman, Tom DeFalco, Trina Robbins, J.M. DeMatteis, Mark Waid and 21 other folks were generous enough to share what they’ve learned with the Write Now! audience. Individually, their opinions are impressive.

Collectively, they’re an education in life and art. I can’t thank the contributors to the section enough.

But that’s just part of what we’ve got for you this issue.

Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz are an amazing pair of comics creators. They’ve worked together on Spider-Man, Thor, Thunderstrike, and Spider-Girl.

While they’ve both done terrific work with other creative partners, whenever given the chance, they always come back to working together. In their joint interview in this issue, they talk about why they always look forward to collaborating and what makes the relationship so special. What they have to say, not just about teamwork and chemistry, but about the state of the art, craft, and business of comics as it has evolved over the past 20 years is something no serious comics creator should miss.

For good measure, Tom and Ron have provided us with the plot from which Ron drew the first adventure of Spider-Girl, as well as pages from the finished comic story. Yes, the plot. They work Marvel style. And they’re not shy about telling you why.

Also this issue, Papercutz editor-in-chief Jim Salicrup tells how kids’ adventure perennial Nancy Drew has made the leap from prose to comics form. Jim then narrates a Nuts & Bolts section that shows how a Nancy Drew story is created by the writer-artist team of Stefan Petrucha and Sho Murase And if you thought John Ostrander’s article last issue about how to structure a story was informative and inspiring, wait’ll you read his piece about creating characters! Talk about a revelation!

Plus, Robert Tinnell talks about writing comics and movies— both of which he does! He’s brought along samples of his work to show you, too.

Then there’s Bob Brodsky’s interview with Steve Englehart about his past and present writing career on comics such as Batman, Captain America, Coyote… and Batman again! And that’s not to mention his TV and videogame career!

We’ve also got an amazing Survey of Comics Editors who tell you (via Paul Benjamin, himself the former editor of Metal Hurlant comics), what they look for in submissions. You don’t want to miss that, do you?

Speaking of editors, Marvel’s Andy Schmidt will tell you how to break in—and, just as important—how to stay in comics as a writer.

And the amazing Ostrander will give you more writing lessons. This time, John will be giving us the lowdown on theme—also known “moral,” or “controlling idea.” You know— what a story’s really about.

And, of course, we’ll have a passel of inspiring and instructive Nuts & Bolts material that will show you how various aspects of comics writing are done!

Write Now! #12 and you—perfect together!

SHAMELESS PLUG DEPARTMENT: The How To Draw Comics From Script to Print DVD is still available at comics shops or from the TwoMorrows website. (www.twomorrows.com) While it focuses mostly on art, coloring, and lettering, a large section of it is devoted to teaching the tricks of the comics writer’s trade. We’ve had nothing but enthusiastic feedback on the disc from folks who have bought it.

And my book Superman On the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society (from Continuum) is in its third printing! Join the cool kids—check out a copy!

Before I let you go, I want to welcome some folks who have joined the Write Now! team. Bob Brodsky (creator of the O’Neil Observer and the upcoming Yancy Street Gazette) is Associate Editor, and Liz Gehrlein (sparkplug of MoCCA—The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art) is Assistant Editor.

Welcome aboard, folks. (And Fowlks—Rich Fowlks, that is, who’s been doing such a terrific job as new designer for WN!) Now… secrets await you. Go forth and unleash them…

Write Away!

Danny Fingeroth And what about next issue?

Well, in Write Now! #12, we’ve got my in-depth interview with DC Comics President and Publisher Paul Levitz. Paul talks about how he got to where he is, and about controversial issues confronting the comics industry today.

2 | WRITE NOW

P.S. Want to know what my Professional Secrets are? Drop me an e-mail (WriteNowDF@aol.com) or a snail mail message (c/o TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614) and I’ll tell you!

C R E T

Everybody loves secrets. Secrets are information and—today more than ever— information is power.

If you’re trying to get into or move ahead in any field, you might at some point figure there are secrets that people on the inside know that you don’t.

People certainly think this about comics. “Why do those names always turn up in the credits?” “Why did that character get her own series?” “Why did they cancel my favorite title?”

I figured that everyone who’s on the inside as a comics (or animation) writer or editor must have some important lessons they’ve learned over the course of their careers. These are things that may seem like secrets to an outsider, but are really information obtained through experience and reflection. So I asked 27 comics and animation professionals to tell the most important creative advice and the most important business-related advice they’d give to someone looking to break into or move ahead in comics.

I asked them to reveal their secrets.

And they did. There’s an incredible array of information in this issue. Some is simple, elegant common sense. Some is actual outside-the-box thinking. All of it is valuable, although not all of it will be valuable to every reader. But if you look at this issue in one, five, or ten years from now, I’ll wager you find different “secrets” important at different points of your life and career.

I want to thank all the pros who shared their information. You’ve provided an incredible resource for the comics community.

And now, without further ado, let the secrets be revealed...

—Danny Fingeroth

WRITE NOW! PROFESSIONAL SECRETS WRITE NOW! PROFESSIONAL SECRETS WRITE NOW! PROFESSIONAL SECRETS WRITE NOW! PROFESSIONAL SECRETS WRITE NOW! PROFESSIONAL SECRETS WRITE NOW! PROFESSIONAL SECRETS

E

S

L

PR

WRITE NOW! PROFESSIONAL SECRETS WRITE NOW! PROFESSIONAL SECRETS WRITE NOW! PROFESSIONAL SECRETS WRITE NOW! PROFESSIONAL SECRETS WRITE NOW! PROFESSIONAL SECRETS

A

S

WRITE NOW! PROFESSIONAL SECRETS WRITE NOW! PROFESSIONAL SECRETS WRITE NOW! PROFESSIONAL SECRETS WRITE NOW! PROFESSIONAL SECRETS WRITE NOW! PROFESSIONAL SECRETS WRITE NOW! PROFESSIONAL SECRETS

O

S FES ION

WRITE NOW! PROFESSIONAL SECRETS WRITE NOW! PROFESSIONAL SECRETS WRITE NOW! PROFESSIONAL SECRETS WRITE NOW! PROFESSIONAL SECRETS WRITE NOW! PROFESSIONAL SECRETS

PROFESSIONAL SECRETS | 3

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: The best creative advice I can give any beginning writer is—write to please yourself! Whatever you write, ask if you yourself would wanna read it. If you had a lot of stories to read, is this the one you’d pick? If it was a movie, would you pay your own hardearned shekels to see it? If the answer is “no,” then why write it?

Why try to inflict it on someone else? The theory I always used is— I’m not that much different than most other people. So, if I like something I’ve written, chances are other people would, too. If I don’t like it, then why should I expect anyone else to like it?

However, in using this advice you’ve got to be sure you’re 100% honest with yourself when giving your opinion.

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: I’m a lousy businessman. The only business advice I can give is one that I wish I myself had taken years ago. Whenever you create something for someone, try to make sure that you don’t sign away all your rights to your creation. Make every possible effort to end up owning a piece of it yourself.

racters, Inc. © 2006 Marvel Cha

S TA N L E E

Voted “Favorite Editor” and “Favorite Writer” of the 20th Century by a poll of comic book fans and professionals conducted by the Comic Buyer’s Guide in 2000, Stan Lee stands as one of the industry’s greatest talents. The co-creator of Spider-Man, the XMen, and the Fantastic Four continues as an active creative force into the 21st Century as Publisher Emeritus of Marvel and founder of POW! Entertainment.

© 2005 by Neil Gaiman.

NEIL GAIMAN

Best known to comics fans for his acclaimed version of DC’s The Sandman, Neil Gaiman has written numerous film, television, and book projects. His 1602 series for Marvel won the Quill Award, and his 2005 novel, Anansi Boys, debuted at number one on the New York Times Bestseller List.

4 | WRITE NOW

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: Finish things. Don’t push them, but make sure you finish them.

It’s the most important advice I can give any writer. Beyond that, there are lots of useful bits of advice (Write! Read! Go and live a bit! Write about what you’ve seen and thought and felt, not about other stories you’ve watched!), but unless and until you start finishing things once you start writing, all the rest are moot.

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: Everything’s negotiable in a contract, up to and including the date on the top (oddly enough, this morning I would up moving the date on the top of a contract three months). Read your contracts, do not sign them blindly. Change things you aren’t comfortable with, even if your lawyer or agent has already read and signed off on them. Insist on contracts, otherwise you’ll find yourself having to sue crooked publishers one day, and that’s less fun than a root canal, even if you win.

TO M D e FA L C O

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: Always remember that this is a business and never let your ego get in the way of your craft or wallet. In terms of the craft: your job is to tell your story as well as you can. You are not being hired to impress the critics with esoteric techniques or a flashy style. In terms of the wallet: if you want to be treated like a professional, you must act like one. Always be honest with your editor and keep him/her informed if the story takes an unexpected turn or you need extra time or pages to complete it. The editor hires you to do a job and should be treated with the same respect you’d offer any employer. Some editors are wonderful. Others are creeps. But you should always act like a responsible adult and leave the temper tantrums to the amateurs.

racters, Inc. © 2006 Marvel Cha

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: Learn your craft, learn it well and learn how it applies to comics.

If you’re a writer, focus on the unique aspects of the medium and exploit them. Comics is a visual medium with an unlimited budget for special effects. It’s also a static medium. A lot of tricks that work in film do not translate to comics. If your dialogue is more important than your visuals, you might be more suited to doing plays, prose, or even radio dramas than comics.

Editor-in-chief of Marvel from 1987 to 1994, Tom DeFalco has consistently produced top-notch work during his many years as a comics writer and editor.

His current monthly title, Spider-Girl, is a fan favorite that has found runaway success in bookstores, as have his books about comics, including Comics Writers on Spider-Man (Titan) and The Ultimate Guide to the Fantastic Four (DK).

© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.

J . M . D e M AT T E I S

J.M. DeMatteis has written hundreds of scripts for comics including Spider-Man and The Spectre, and his own Brooklyn Dreams. His current projects include Hero Squared for Boom! Studios and Abadazad for Hyperion.

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: The best advice I could give to any writer—aspiring or otherwise— is simple: follow your bliss. Yeah, yeah, we’ve all heard that old Joseph Campbell line a thousand times... but we’ve heard it a thousand times because it’s true. Let your passion guide you and you can never go wrong. It may not lead you exactly where you want to go, but it will always lead you someplace good; and sometimes your final destination will be better than the one you originally had in mind.

Don’t get sidetracked by practicality. You’re a writer. If you were practical you’d be doing something else. Let your passions carry you forward and don’t listen to the Naysayers and the Practical People who are always around to tell you exactly why your dreams can never be realized. I’m here to tell you that your dreams can be realized, if you pursue them with all your heart and soul. Follow your bliss.

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: As for business advice... well, here’s something it took me years to figure out: Always remember that you’re a freelancer. Work for as many different companies as you can. You’re out there on the front lines chasing your dreams and trying to make a living and your loyalty should always be to the work and to your collaborators—the artists, writers and editors who are an intimate part of your creative process. Don’t fool yourself into being loyal to a company. Companies aren’t people, they’re entities.

I’m not saying that you can’t have a terrific relationship with Marvel or DC or Dark Horse or Whoever. I’m just saying that you have to remember that the relationship isn’t with a name or a brand... it’s with people. And people come and go. The company you think you work for on Monday can be a completely different place on Tuesday: That editor-in-chief who thought you were a genius? Fired. The publisher who understood your creative vision? Gone. And the next editor-in-chief, the next publisher, could very well decide that you’re a talentless neophyte or a tired old hack and toss you right out the door.

PROFESSIONAL SECRETS | 5

You’re a freelancer... so freelance. Always keep your feet in as many doors as possible. This way, when one of them slams, you won’t be standing in the hall, alone and confused, wondering how the hell you’re going to support your family.

And when that door does slam... and, at some point in your career, it will... don’t give up. Hold on to your dreams. Believe: in magic and miracles and your own ability to manifest your dreams.

Follow your bliss.

J IM MY PALMIOTTI

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: Be professional, work with editors and not against them and always be conscious of the deadline given on the project you are working on. Remember, there are artists waiting on our work… and every day we keep them waiting, it is costing them time and money. It’s considered rude and obnoxious to do this and will cost you professional relationships as well.

© 2006 DC Comics.

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: Probably the best advice I can give a young writer in comics is to not read too many comics for inspiration and to keep your reading limited to newspapers and novels… mostly fiction. The other thing is to travel… see the world and experience things yourself and not through someone else’s eyes. I personally think that is the only way to really write anything. It’s a big world and anyone who doesn’t experience different places and cultures is doomed in this business.

In addition to his numerous writing accomplishments, Jimmy Palmiotti is renowned as one of the best inkers in comics. His writing credits include Hawkman, The Monolith, and Jonah Hex.

BRUCE JONES

© 2006 Marve

l Characters, Inc .

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: In real estate they say: Location. Location. Location. The rule of writing is similarly redundant but in two parts: Write.

Write. Write. Read. Read. Read.

Writing is solitary, lonely, and self-containing. No one’s going to do it for you. Learn to like yourself.

Don’t write to get published. Write because you’re impelled to, because you cannot do otherwise. Write in a fever, especially during the first draft, get it all out—you can tidy up later at a more leisurely pace. Write from your heart Acclaimed for his innovative recent turn on The and write truthfully. Try to write a set amount of pages every Incredible Hulk, Bruce Jones signed a two-year day at the same time of day—your heart and mind will follow exclusive agreement with DC Comics in 2004. The first the routine. Relax. The best writing is from the subconscious issue of his six-part revival of The Vigilante was and you can’t order it about. Similarly, don’t wait for the released in September 2005.

Muse; she doesn’t exist. Don’t quit when it gets hard (it’s always hard), but don’t stay at it when your daily pages are done—not writing is part of the process too. Take regular walks. Turn off the TV. Resist temptation. Skinny writers know how fat, dieting non-writers feel. Have your own private writing space, preferably with a closed door that locks. Never quit. Never. Write even though you know what you’re writing stinks; even Hemmingway’s first drafts stunk. One good paragraph from five pages of bad writing is worth its weight and worth its wait. Under no circumstances listen to your parents. Find one person you trust to read your stuff; listen to this person because no writer knows complete objectivity.

Marry someone who understands selfishness. Never marry another writer unless you both agree to live in a dirty house 6 | WRITE NOW

with a sink piled to the ceiling. Get used to depression. Get used to rejection. Use them. Some of the best writing we have comes from desperation. It helps to be manic-depressive, though this is not a prerequisite. Great joy and pride will eventually come from your efforts—and there is nothing to equal them—but never aim for them, or for money. Art and commerce are uneasy bedfellows. Writing for money or to be published is like chasing the horizon that recedes the closer you get. Write every day and write passionately and from the heart. The rest will come; you should be too busy writing to notice. Be bullheaded. It helps to think of it as a job. But also as a calling.

Know this: if you weren’t a wonderful person before being published, you won’t be after you are. You might want to copy this down and tape it below your word processor.

rs, Inc. © 2006 Marvel Characte

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: Most great artists make lousy businessmen. This is why God made agents. If you are a comic book writer you will hate how easy it is for artists to get work. This is because it’s easier for publishers to see a portfolio than read one. Artists also tend to get all the glory. Take consolation in the fact that writers are generally more introspective and articulate: handy at parties and with traffic tickets.

Move to New York. The two biggest companies are still there. Live cheap—you’ll have to anyway. Get used to being broke. Affect a Bohemian élan to get you through the bad days. You are a writer—wear it like a badge. Hang around editorial offices. Be a pest. Don’t worry, editors are so harried and see so many faces they won’t remember yours until the third or fourth time. Sooner or later one of them will need a rush assignment done quickly, done well, and mostly done on time. If you aren’t there, someone else will be.

Network. Go to parties. If you’re just starting out, hang with others who are just starting out too; the moral support can be restorative. Talk up your friends’ talents to editors. Then instruct your friends to do the same for you. Go to comic conventions. San Diego tends to be rushed and impersonal; look for a medium or small size con where a noted editor is billed to appear.

Don’t be disgruntled when he doesn’t. Besides, the late night convention parties can be fun.

Comic groupies are among the most ardent in fandom and appear to be increasing in both number and comeliness. Take full advantage of this. Never spend more time hustling than writing; not even half as long. The sooner you get good at writing the sooner the word will spread, sometimes magically. This is when you lose all your still-struggling friends. You can always tell yourself you didn’t have time for them anyway.

The comic book field has shrunk, along with your odds. On the other hand, so has the competition. Write one brilliant piece; it will find its way.

Comic book writing is not novel writing. It is not leisurely paced. It is all about structure. Keep your dialogue crisp and terse; this is a visual medium. Let the art breathe and speak for itself when it can. Get to the point. Don’t indulge in flowery scene exposition only the artist and editor will ever read. They will love you for this. Some editors are frustrated writers; listen to them, they know the shorthand. Some will practically write the comic for you. Let them. Writing is lonely enough. Sooner or later you’ll work with an editor who offers no feedback whatsoever. This can seem refreshing at first; but so can an ice cold shower.

Learn to defer. Learn to be funny, but not too funny. Learn to be charming, but never more charming than your editor. Pick your fights. Praise the efforts of your peers while secretly grinding your teeth in envy.

Comic book, TV, and movie writing are “collaborative” crafts. This means that almost never do the visuals come up to the level of your writing. It makes you feel routinely awful because it’s true that lousy art drags down good prose. However, on rare occasions your artist will outdo himself and actually improve the story. This also makes you feel awful: it should have been you. The consolation here is a better selling comic—meaning more work for you.

Artists are my favorite humans. But some think of writers as a necessary evil. They will tell you the opposite, but this is what they think. They glance at your script once, then throw it aside and go their own way. Unless they are brilliant you will feel sabotaged. Avoid this kind of artist in the future, it’s your career.

Don’t take yourself too seriously. Take your writing seriously. To publishers, comics is a business; any “art” is an afterthought and your problem; live with it.

Finally, try to be truthful in real life, with others but particularly with yourself. Remember, writing fiction—making things up—is really just lying. Your job is to make it sound like it’s not. To find the truth within the lie.

PROFESSIONAL SECRETS | 7

Superman © 2006 DC Comics.

Alter Ego © 2006 Roy Thomas.

R OY T H O M A S

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: Know what rights you’re giving up, if any, when you write something for someone or some company. If they want all rights, then decide if it’s worth it to you to give up these rights in order to be published... and if it is, then don’t come back whining later claiming you didn’t know what you were doing! I hate it when that happens.

JOH N OSTRANDER The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: When you have a thought or an idea or a concept, write it down first. I’ve said this and written it many times but I think it bears repeating. You don’t have anything really until it’s written down. Telling someone else the idea is like letting the creative steam out of the engine. The urge—the need—to tell it will evaporate and you’ll have nothing. Once it’s written, you can look at, play with it, decide if it’s worth anything. Don’t keep it in your head, don’t talk about it—write that sucker down. A writer writes.

John Ostrander’s earliest comics stories were The most important business advice for an aspiring published in First Comics’ Warp series. A prolific writer: writer, Ostrander has tackled characters as varied as Beware the tax man. If you have never been freelance before, Martian Manhunter, Bishop, and Lady Death. His dealing with taxes is a whole ’nother ball game compared to recent revival of GrimJack at IDW Publishing created being a staff employee. For example, if you work at a “real” excitement throughout comicdom. job, your employer pays half the Social Security tax and plucks it out before you even see your check, along with federal and state income tax. Not when you’re freelance. You’re a selfemployed contractor, which means that you have to pay both parts of Social Security and you need to make tax payments quarterly and you have to do it yourself. If you don’t, the results are quite painful. Get a good accountant, one who knows the ins and outs of freelancers and what is and is not deductible.

Also—and this may seem really insignificant, but it’s not—if you get to the point where people are asking for an autograph, make sure your autograph signature is not the same as your legal signature. This is the era of identity theft; don’t give the thieves a tool that helps. Make sure the autograph is one that you can do over and over again, quickly and reasonably legibly, so that people know whose name it is. Making it distinctive is cool. Walt Simonson’s looks like a dinosaur and is very memorable.

8 | WRITE NOW

and Production © and TM Nightsky GrimJack Rights LLC. Vehicle (Four Wheel Drive Model)

Now celebrating his 40th year as a comics writer and editor, Roy Thomas was Marvel’s first editor-in-chief after Stan Lee. Roy currently edits Alter Ego—a highly acclaimed TwoMorrows publication devoted to the creative greats of the Golden and Silver Ages.

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: Best creative advice? Write, write, write... read, read, read... and never give up just because people don’t fall all over you when they read your stuff.

KU RT BUSI EK © 2006 Juke Box Prod uctions.

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: The most important piece of creative advice I can offer an aspiring comics writer? Simple: Write.

There is no substitute for practice, no book you can read, no class you can take that will teach you as much as writing stories will. Books and classes and such can help, sure, but they’re all theory, and you can’t find out what you can do until you put those theories into practice. So write. Write full stories, beginnings, middles and ends.

If you keep getting bogged down, all the time starting something new, or going back and revising and revising and Kurt Busiek is one of the busiest, and most popular, never making it to the middle of your story, you’re not doing writers in comics today. His credits include Marvels, it right.

The Avengers, The Power Company, and his creatorWrite complete stories. Then go back and revise them. If owned series, Astro City. Since 2003, Kurt has written nothing else, it’ll cut down on all that farting around with the the latest incarnation of Conan for Dark Horse Comics. beginning, since by finishing the story, you’ll figure out a whole lot more about how it should have started. So do the whole job—you need the practice at all of it.

A side note: A lot of those complete stories will be bad.

That’s okay. That’s why you need the practice. John D. MacDonald once said that every beginning writer has a million words of bad fiction in him, and the way to learn to write was to sit down and start writing until you got those million bad words out. Once you did, what you’d have left is good writing. With comics, it’s the same idea, only it’s what, 20,000 bad panels?

But practice will let you figure things out. Reading about Alan Moore’s panel transitions, or figuring out how many words Mark Millar puts on a page will only help you if you then try the ideas out, and figure out whether they work for you. Because what works for you, what serves your ideas, your inspiration, is what you need to figure out. A bunch of rules that serve other writers’ ideas might do nothing more than stifle yours. So practice. Play. Experiment. See what sings to you, and see what lies there on the page and feels phony. Write.

The most important business-oriented piece of advice for an aspiring writer: It’s this: The publisher is not your friend.

This doesn’t mean the publisher’s your enemy, or the publisher’s out to screw you. It just means that publishers and editors have their own concerns, and they don’t necessarily coincide with yours. Your job, as a businessman—and that’s what every freelance writer is, a small businessman (or businesswoman)—is to look out for your own concerns, because if you don’t, nobody will.

The publisher’s looking for whatever he can use to accomplish his goals, be they selling books, winning awards, reaching out to new audiences, whatever. It’s usually selling books, but I like to leave the door open for other possibilities. If you can help accomplish those goals, then that publisher will want you. But your goals may be different—maybe you want to work your way toward doing creator-owned books that are more about mood and place and character tension than slam-bang action, and the publisher wants lots of books about steroid cases in emotional turmoil, expressing it through massive property damage. That publisher, if you’re working for them, will guide you toward writing lots and lots of books about steroid cases. And then, if they decide that the future is in humor, and you’ve got no practice at it, you may find yourself out in the street watching the humor writers go out to lunch with your old publisher, and you’re wondering what you did wrong.

This is an exaggeration (but not by much, in some cases), but it illustrates the point: You have to guide your career where you want it to go, because you’re the only one who knows where you want it to go and the only one who really, truly cares if you get there. You break into comics by figuring out how to fill the needs of an editor well enough for him to hire you instead of someone else. You build a career by figuring out how to take steps toward filling your own needs until you get there—and then by figuring out how to stay there and be successful at it. And all that’s on you—it’s your responsibility.

Good luck.

PROFESSIONAL SECRETS | 9

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: Listen to those who know more than you do, but trust no one absolutely. While there are certainly good, solid rules of thumb that have been developed over the years through trial and error, there have also been rigid formulas that have come into being that were actually detrimental to the work overall. But only experience is going to give you the proper perspective to tell one from the other. So do not be so arrogant that you disregard the good advice and criticism that those who’ve already made it in the business have to tell you, but at the same time do not be too hasty to sell out the unique perspective that you bring to your creative efforts in an attempt to curry favor with those in a position of power. Those who truly bring something unique to the table will eventually find a seat; those who chase the trend-ofthe-moment will inevitably find themselves on the outside again wondering how they got there.

© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.

TO M B R E VO O RT

Joining Marvel as a student intern in 1989, Tom Brevoort is now a well-respected senior editor there.

His editing credits include Fantastic Four, Marvel Team-Up, and New Avengers.

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: To break into the comic book field, especially these days, you need three things: talent, perseverance, and luck—the talent to be able to produce quality work, the perseverance to continue to take every opportunity to practice your craft and to work through those periods when all you’ll get is rejection, and the luck to be in the right place at the right time when somebody who’s in a position to give you work needs somebody to get a job done. To a certain degree, you can affect all three of these—and the people who truly want to break in (as opposed to those who constantly say they do, but seem unwilling to do what it takes to make that happen) will strive unceasingly to make that dream a reality. But remember, as Mark Gruenwald said: the comics industry will not miss those that do not make it; you cannot miss something that was never there to begin with.

© 2006 DC Com

ics.

M A R K WA I D

During his 20-year professional writing career, Mark Waid has specialized in bringing new vitality to classic super-hero concepts. Mark’s best-known work includes Kingdom Come, Fantastic Four, and The Flash. He’s currently writing The Legion of SuperHeroes and is an editorial consultant for DC Comics.

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: In my experience, if you’re writing a script and you get stuck for any uncomfortable length of time, it’s not because you’re out of ideas or you’ve got what laypeople call “writer’s block” or any other such nonsense; it’s that your subconscious has thrown itself in a giant heap in front of you, trying desperately to save your sanity by holding you back from going down what it instinctively knows is the wrong path for your story. If the scene you’re trying to write is a square peg and the hole in the script is round, no amount of brute force is gonna make it fit. Create a new peg. Travel back through the script to the last scene that worked and felt good and made sense and try veering off into some unexpected new direction. Remember, the joy in writing is the surprises you uncover during the journey.

Any writer who claims he’s got his mega-epic already pre-outlined and figured out in slavish detail is either lying or a crash-test dummy.

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: To quote Christopher Priest, the best still-too-anonymous writer in the business, the only thing that makes you look like more of an unhireable loser than blowing an editor’s deadline is blowing a deadline that you volunteered. Be realistic about what you can deliver. Don’t ever say, “I’ll have it to you on Tuesday” and then take until Friday—it makes you look unreliable and stupid.

[SECRETS continues on page 60.]

10 | WRITE NOW

CREATIVE CHEMISTRY:

the Tom De Falco and Ron Frenz Interview Conducted via telephone October 6, 2005 by Danny Fingeroth Transcribed by Steven Tice Copy-edited by Liz Gehrlein, Danny Fingeroth, Tom DeFalco, and Ron Frenz

H

ow many creative teams, in any field, work together for more than two decades? How many creative teams, in any field, work together that long and are still close friends as well as co-workers who bring out the best in each other?

To tell you the truth, I can’t think of any. Except Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz.

These two guys first worked together when Tom was editing the Spider-Man titles for Marvel. Tom was looking for an artist for Marvel Team-Up (which featured Spider-Man) and hired Ron, maybe because he liked what Ron did with Spidey as a guest-star in Ka-Zar the Savage, which Louise Simonson and I were editing.

Then Tom got booted upstairs and I took over as editor of the Spider-Man books. And it came to pass that I needed a new writer and artist team for Amazing Spider-Man. I put Tom and Ron together and they clicked like crazy. Together they did some of the most memorable Spider-Man stories of the ’80s.

After that, they did a long, well-remembered run on Thor together. From there, they created Thunderstrike. When Ron went off to DC to do Superman, Tom had become editor-inchief at Marvel, so they took a hiatus from working with each other. But in 1997, they were brought together again in a What If? story that introduced Spider-Girl (Spider-Man’s daughter May “Mayday” Parker) and her universe. Eventually, they became, and (with legendary inker Sal Buscema) still are, the regular creative team on Spider-Girl, the series that not only refuses to die, but is headed toward—and beyond—a landmark 100th issue! On top of that, the Spider-Girl paperback collections are runaway best-sellers!

I thought it would be interesting, informative, instructive—and fun!—for Write Now!’s readers to hear how and why Tom and Ron have kept their partnership alive and cooking for so many years. They’ve seen and done a lot, together and individually, and aren’t shy about sharing their memories, predictions and opinions. And as you’ll see in this interview, their enthusiasm for their work has, if anything, grown stronger over the years.

—DF

Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz at the April, 2001 Pittsburgh Comicon.

(Photo by Augie DeBlieck, Jr. from his Pipeline column at www.cbr.cc.)

DANNY FINGEROTH: Obviously, you two enjoy working as a team. Has that always been true of each of you individually, as opposed to being sullen loner types? Did you always enjoy working in collaboration?

RON FRENZ: Tom? TOM DeFALCO: No, I’m a sullen loner. [laughter] Growing up, I enjoyed team sports. To me, the magic of comics is the collaborative aspect of it, because this is really the only medium where you actually do collaborate with other creative artists in a supportive way, where you’re working for the story. Other media claim to be that, but it’s more just a case of taking a bunch of notes.

DF: How about you, Ron? Were you a sullen loner, heading for serial killerdom?

RF: I’ve never been a sullen loner. For one thing, I grew up with a picture of working in comics that was all about collaboration. My picture of comics was not just writer/artist collaboration, but penciler/inker collaborations.

When I got into it, I never really trained myself with the inking tools. One of the things I always looked forward TOM DeFALCO/RON FRENZ | 11

to when working in comics RF: No, I didn’t have any interaction with Bruce, professionally was working with personally. I think I might have talked to him on different inkers, or finding that the phone once or twice. But he would write one inker who would work those cool little short stories. They weren’t even hand-in-glove with me. That’s really in any kind of a comic form, as far as a always how I saw—as I was plot or full script or anything. They were told like growing up as a fan—that’s how I short stories, “he said, she said,” and all that saw the whole product, as this kind of stuff. And it was really a wonderful way wonderful collaboration. Very early to learn how to break down a story, because it on I recognized the names and the was really left up to me. And thank God I had credits and could identify the you and Louise. artwork, and could see “this inker works really well with that penciler,” DF: Here’s where my memory is vague. Did he “this writer really seems to enjoy not even break it down into pages? working with that penciler,” that kind RF: Hardly at all. It read like a short story, and of thing. So it was always very broken it was left up to me. You know what it’s like down for me. I was always trying to when you get hired, you kind of get thrown look behind the curtain and see how in the deep end, and there’s not really different creative people affected other a lot of time for feedback. But I creative people. I have a brother three remember you and Louise would take years older, and he actually ended up time with me, and occasionally, like writing some stuff over at DC for me. But after two or three issues, we’d go over when we were kids and we used to do our stuff and see what’s working and what’s little comic books at the table, whether I not and all that kind of jazz. So I’ve really listened to him or not, he was always worked with different writers, I’ve the “writer,” and I was the penciler. enjoyed the working relationship with The most important thing in any different writers. Tom and I met before collaboration is respect. I mean, you have we even knew we were ever going to to respect the input of the other person. work together. We met at a convention in Don’t work with somebody if you don’t Pittsburgh, and it became very evident respect the input that they might have to that we loved the same kind of comics, give, or you don’t respect the actual work were both very influenced by Stan Lee’s that they’re going to contribute. And I was innovations, and had similar ideas about lucky to meet Tom early in my career. I what kind of comics we wanted to do. worked with other writers, and I respected And I remember it being a very, very fun them as the writer of the job. I tried to conversation, and I’m pretty sure it do the best job I could just serving the predated us actually working together.

Ron Frenz covers to Ka-Zar the stories that were given to me.

Savage #21 and #22, both written by DF: I wonder if it was maybe because Bruce Jones. Inks by Armando Gil. DF: I don’t think when you were on we had a big period of Spidey guest[© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Ka-Zar with Bruce Jones you really had starring in Ka-Zar, so maybe Tom saw much interaction with him. your work a lot?

Marvel Team-Up covers penciled by Ron. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.] 12 | WRITE NOW

RF: The Ka-Zar work got me Team-Up. And Team-Up got me Amazing Spider-Man—which is kind of the way it’s supposed to work.

DF: As far as you guys having a special connection, you think it really was as far back as that first meeting?

RF: I think it was, yeah. It was a realization that we enjoyed the same type of material. And Tom has an element of the teacher in him. He never made arbitrary decisions. He would always explain his decisions, when it came to storytelling. Like, if I were to make a suggestion, he would never dismiss it out of hand or just say, “No, that won’t work.” He would tell me why he didn’t think it would work. And everything that I know about storytelling, which, at this point, I kind of arrogantly consider quite a bit, I learned from DeFalco, because he tends to Ron’s conceptual designs for the Puma… teach almost by default along the way. He doesn’t just say, “No, that wouldn’t work.” He’ll tell you why.

DF: Well, Tom is as hard on himself as he is on anybody else. I remember, in the pre-computer days, getting scripts from Tom. They would have like a half-an-inch of whiteout on them.

RF: Oh, they looked like kidnapping notes. [laughter] DF: And then, before I’d even get a chance to read it, I’d get another draft. “I rewrote it.”

“But, Tom, it might have been great the first—.”

“Nah, I had to rewrite it.”

RF: What I really discovered about Tom early on, and really appreciated and always understood, and to this day, it’s what makes me really appreciate working with him and keeps me at a level where I respect his decisions, whether I completely agree with him or not emotionally, is that I know he’s a craft worker. He works from the craft. Every decision he makes about the story is serving the story through the craft. And there’s nobody like that in comics anymore.

TD: Uh… Tom is still here.

RF: Yeah, it’s not like he died or anything. [laughter] DF: We keep trying, but… [laughter] RF: Do you want to address your greatness, Tom? TD: I have no greatness. Basically, every month I had to come up with another issue. And I had no ideas. I’d call Ron and say: “We’ve got to do something this month.

Should we have him fight somebody?” And Ron would go, “Oh, yeah! You know what? I’ve got a great idea for a guy called the Puma, and he can do this, and he can do that.”

RF: See, now, that’s just a flat-out lie.

…the villain who debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #256.

Cover pencils by Ron, inks by Josef Rubinstein. [Unless otherwise noted, Ron’s shown art, from here on, is for stories written by Tom.] [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

TD: What do you mean, that’s a lie?

RF: Because the Puma came from the animal cards that you bought.

TD: [half whisper] We can’t talk about the animal cards.

[Ron laughs] DF: The animal cards? I’ve never heard about the animal cards.

RF: He bought, like, in some offer on late night TV, he bought some “Animals of Nature” cards, and they only cost a little bit of money. I guess they were a bargain price.

TD: Fifteen bucks or something.

RF: And out of that purchase came the Puma, Silver Sable, and Black Fox. DF: Wow. That was money well spent.

RF: So he came up with this Puma. I remember doing a more human design, and then he said, “No, I’m thinking more of a were-puma.” And we took him in the direction we took him, and the costume went through a bunch of changes. So that was all Tom. The thing that’s cool TOM DeFALCO/RON FRENZ | 13

working with Tom, as you can tell from what he just said, is that there’s no ego involved. And he will accept ideas from anybody, because he sees it as a collaborative effort. And I’ve worked with writers who are so paranoid of taking somebody else’s ideas, because I guess, they see it as a sign of weakness. “If I take an idea from a penciler, or the letterer, or even (God forbid) from the editor, that it’s showing weakness, it’s showing that I don’t have any more ideas, and they’ll fire me.” And I’ve worked with one guy who was just insane that way, to the point where, if I would liner-note dialogue, even if it was stuff that he had in his plot, he wouldn’t use it! [“Liner-noting” is when the penciler puts dialogue in the margins so the writer will have a general idea of the what the characters might be saying to each other. This is done in a Marvel-style script, where the dialogue is written after the story is drawn from a plot.—DF] Because he forgot it was his. He would come up with something else. That, to me, is just killing yourself.

DF: I guess he was thinking about the history books in forty years, when somebody says, “Who really wrote those

stories?” Which actually brings up a question. Who really wrote those stories? I know the credits usually read “plotted, written and drawn by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz.” So, Ron, are you the co-plotter? Tom, do you do any drawing? [laughs] RF: That’s a pretty generous credit that Tom gives to a lot of his collaborators.

TD: Well, let’s get something out here in the open. I am not allowed to hold a pencil.

RF: That’s true. The only thing I’ve ever seen Tom draw was a little thumbnail to a full script one-pager, “What If Thor Had a Magic Bazooka.”

TD: “Instead of a Hammer?” See, we were the first guys to come up with silly “What Ifs.” I do not do any drawing whatsoever. What happened early on in our relationship is, we would be on the phone for hours discussing Peter Parker, and Peter Parker’s world, and what’s happening to him, and what’s going to happen to him, what’s happening to these individual members of the cast, and what twists and turns we can fold into his life. These discussions lasted for hours. We were routinely on the phone for two or three hours at a time, sometimes four or five hours. And, at the end of those discussions, a lot of times I would sit down and write a plot. And I realized that, by the time the discussion was over, I had no idea who came up with what idea. After a while I didn’t even care anymore, because the final ideas that we had come up with were ideas that Ron and I both liked. Here’s something that your readers have to understand. We’ve both been to conventions where somebody comes up and says, “Hey, I have a great idea for a story.” And you go, “Oh, okay, fine.” But what they don’t realize is, you need a hundred great ideas for a story. Writing the first chapter of a novel, if you don’t have fifty ideas for that chapter, even if it only runs five pages long, you’re ripping off your readers. So what Ron and I established early on was, one of us would throw out an idea, and that would spark other ideas.

DF: Is there any consistent pattern as far as who throws out the idea, or just one of you has an idea and calls the other guy up?

RF: There’s no pattern to who presents the initial idea, because I’ve been made to feel welcome to throw ideas against the wall, and when I talk about this no ego thing, that has to work both ways.

TD: Or, Ron, you make me feel welcome. The way you’re talking, it’s like I’ve got more control over this than you’ve got.

RF: Well, classically, the writer should. That’s all I’m addressing. That’s the paradigm that I’m working from, and why we’re any different is because you’re very giving as a writer. These days, most guys do full scripts.

TD: Well, that’s insane.

RF: I agree. I’ve only worked full script a few times, and I hated every minute of it.

Unused Amazing Spider-Man #261 cover sketch by Ron. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.] 14 | WRITE NOW

DF: I was going to ask you about that later, so I’ll get to that. But for now, go on about your collaborative process.

RF: There’s no real pattern to it. What I remember is, the first scene that I ever liner-noted, that I ever called Tom up and said, “You know what…?” after he had written a

plot, and I had called and said, “What about this?”, and he liked it and said, “go with it,” and I actually liner-noted it, was pretty much a silent scene. But it was as late as Spider-Man, like, #275 or something. I mean, before that we would have those conversations you’re talking about, Tom, and you would distill all that down into a plot, so it was two minds in the pot, boiling together. But the first time that I ever called with an idea that I identified as my own, and you said, “Okay, go with it,” and I even liner-noted it, was as late as Spider-Man #275, and it was that scene on the subway platform with Pete and Mary Jane. It was a one-page bit, and, I said, it didn’t have a Ron’s sketch, done for a fan, of the “traditional lot of dialogue, but it “wall-crawler alongside the 1980s black-suit was something I felt version. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.] would bring home the fact that Pete felt something about the fact that Mary Jane never wanted to know his origin before, and we were going to retell his origin. So it was just a couple of moments between the two characters, where she says, “I don’t even know how you ever became Spider-Man,” and, instead of just telling her, he goes, “Well, you never wanted to know, lady.” Y’know, that kind of thing. And then he goes to fume, and she walks up behind him and very seriously takes his hand and says, “Pete, I’m asking now.” And then we go into the origin. So it was just a small bit.

TD: It was a great scene!

RF: Yeah, but it didn’t change the complexion of the story at all. But, like I said, because I’m a big fan/geek, I remember that. And from there, Ron’s covers to Amazing Spider-Man it became even more, I became # 252 (inked by Klaus Janson), #258 and even freer with contributing ideas. #259 (both inked by Josef). [© 2006 I would come up with Marvel Characters, Inc.] backgrounds for the bad guys that bits of dialogue. With Spider-Girl I’m he was beating up. I would come up with, “This guy’s the still, even after two years finding my level, I’m still big brother of the group, and this is the unsure rookie,” learning the character, because Tom spent so much time and all this sh*t. And I remember one time, mentioning with Pat [Olliffe] and the character that I kind of feel like stuff like that to Tom after the fact, after it was penciled and he had written the script. And he went, “What are I’m still learning. So I will throw a lot of ideas at Tom, you doing? Tell me that stuff before I put in the dialogue! and I think the biggest mistake I make with Spider-Girl I can use that stuff, that’s great!” And I started getting is that they’re not really Spider-Girl ideas. So I’ll pitch an more and more comfortable with suggesting scenes and idea, and if Tom doesn’t use it, I don’t take it personally TOM DeFALCO/RON FRENZ | 15

in any way, shape, or form. And the next time he talks to me, he’ll get another five stupid ideas. And if one of them sticks, great. And, if not, fine. And he and I understand that about each other.

the theme. I believe that, when someone has finished reading one of my stories, they have to say, “Man, how did they get that much stuff in?” And I can only do that if I write a 35-page story that I have crunch down to 22.

DF: Will there ever be an editor involved in these conversations? Is there ever a conference with the two of you and an editor?

RF: No, nothing like that. The editor becomes involved when Tom decides what’s worthy and what’s not, and that has to do with what serves the story. I mean, there have been a few issues of Spider-Girl where the original idea was generated through me, and was fine-tuned by Tom, and then I got to pencil it, so I got to tweak it a little bit more, and back and forth, back and forth. But our regular collaboration is, Tom sends me a plot, which probably came from some conversation between the two of us, and I get to play with it when I’m penciling it.

Because there have been times where I’ve called Tom up while penciling a book and said, “You know, I just figured out what the story’s about.” And he goes, “Really?” And I said, “Yeah, what about this?” And he goes, “Holy sh*t!”

And he says, “Be sure to put that in the liner notes!” [laughter] And it helps, because you live with it a little longer when you’re penciling it than when you’re typing it. So sometimes there’s a character interaction or something, or I will always try to keep my eye open for visual echoes, or visual signs, things I picked up from J.M. DeMatteis and Sal Buscema and other people , that you’re always kind of looking for that thread through the story, visually and otherwise. And sometimes I’ll make connections that may not have been as obvious, and Tom will like them, and that’ll help the story gel a little bit.

TD: There have been times where, when I’ve turned in a plot to Ron—Danny, you know this from having read my plots—I usually have a sentence at the top: “The theme this month is….” I just want to make sure that the editors understand what the goal of the story is.

DF: So you’re not one of those decompressed writers, Tom? RF: Tom is so not decompressed that he’s got ulcers older than most of the decompressed writers.

DF: Do you come up with a theme before you’ve written the plot, or after? Do you know the theme, or do you only realize the theme after you’ve written the story?

TD: Well, before I actually type the story, I have to know what the theme is. But sometimes, in the early construction stages, I’ll discover the theme. There’re two levels to a story. There’s what I refer to as the “action level,” the stuff that happens in a story. And then there’s the “thematic level,” which is what it all means to the characters.

RF: Which includes what all that the action has to say.

TD: And what it then means to the readers. My fallback, obviously, with the Spider-Man titles, is stories about responsibility.

RF: If you can’t come up with anything else, it’s about responsibility.

DF: My theory is that any Spider-Man story that’s any good has that theme in there somewhere, no matter what the other themes may be.

TD: Right. And what I do is, I work out a whole story, and I end up with 35 pages of action for an issue. And then I go back and I just basically pull out everything that doesn’t fit 16 | WRITE NOW

One of Ron’s cover roughs for Amazing Spider-Man #260…

…and the finished product by Ron and Josef. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

TD: This is just serious craft.

RF: And I love that about you, Tom. Very early on you made it very clear to me that doing a comic book is not just about exercising your creative jones. It’s more like building a chest of drawers. It can be a beautiful piece of woodwork, but it’s not a chest of drawers if the doors don’t work. A belt can be a beautiful piece of leathercraft, but if it doesn’t hold your pants up, it’s not a belt. And a comic book can be a beautiful piece of artwork, but if it doesn’t clearly tell a story and evoke a reaction from your reader, then it didn’t serve its function.

TD: Our goals, as creative people, are to grab our readers by the throat, by the heart, punch them in the gut. I’ve always said that the perfect comic book story is, you punch a reader in the face on the first page, and you keep on punching them, sometimes on the face, sometimes in the gut.

Then, every once in a while, you kiss them on the cheek. Then you punch them again. And then at the end of the story, the readership should be gasping for breath and going, “Oh, man! What a roller coaster ride!” And, in the end, I want them to be thinking about the themes in the story. I want them to be thinking about the characters. I hate when people write letters and say, “Oh, DeFalco’s dialogue is this,” or blahblahblahblahblah. I want them to write letters: “What have you done to Mayday this issue?!”

RF: Something that Tom always stressed to me is, we should be invisible. It’s always more gratifying to me when we get letters about the characters than when we get letters about the craft.

But the one thing I see very seldom in the books these days coming through on the pages is a sense of fun. And I think—maybe I’m giving us too much credit— but what I get from our fans is that that comes through on our pages, that they can see that we’re having fun doing this, that we love the characters, that we’re having a gas, and it can’t help but come through. And I think that’s so incredibly important that you’re not grinding your own creative axe. You’re serving the characters and having a gas, and I think that really does

come through on the page. And if you’re not doing that, then it’s not worth doing.

DF: Have you ever had a major creative disagreement over, say, something you refused to draw, Ron, or that Tom has refused to script?

TD: I don’t know if there’ve ever been extreme disagreements. One of the things I love about Ron is that he has no ego, either. Sometimes in the course of a conversation, I’ll pull out an idea, he’ll pull out an idea, and we’ll just keep throwing out different ideas. “How about we do this?” “Nah, that doesn’t work. How about we do this?” Blahblah-blah. And we just keep throwing out ideas.

There have been times where, at the end of discussion, Ron and I have both thrown out a couple hundred ideas each, and we’re just not happy with where we are, where the two of us are frustrated by the conversation just because neither one of us has come up with something that gets us going, “Oh, man! I never saw that coming!” Part of what we do is, we try to surprise each other, and surprise ourselves, and, consequently, surprise the readers.

RF: My big thing is, I don’t get married to anything until I bounce it off of Tom. So I come up with things where I think, “This is going to knock him on his ass.”

DF: Ideas for a scene, or a bit?

RF: For a series of issues. A concept or something. And I will pitch it to Tom, and it Ron’s pencil breakdowns for may not knock him on his the final page of Amazing ass. But he’ll tell me why it Spider-Man #259, where doesn’t knock him on his Spidey re-donned his original red-and-blues. [© 2006 Marvel ass. And I’ll go, “Sonuvabitch, really?” And he goes, Characters, Inc.] “Yeah!” But, luckily, I didn’t sit there writing three treatments of it and getting married to it. You cannot get married to an idea in this business. The people that I feel sorry for, and I’ve met them, are the people that have, one or two ideas a year, so they protect them selfishly, and guard them. And, fortunately, we’ve never been plagued by that. Every time TOM DeFALCO/RON FRENZ | 17

A potpourri of The Mighty Thor covers penciled by Ron. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

we think we’re dry, something sparks something. Even if it’s an old idea that sparks something—! Like, I’ll sit there and read through the Spider-Man encyclopedias or something like that, something will spark an idea or whatever. But I can’t think of a time when Tom and I came to blows over an idea. If I think an idea is worthy, I will stand my ground until Tom either convinces me it’s not a good idea, or I convince him it is a good idea.

DF: An idea for an ongoing storyline?

RF: Usually. Tom never dismisses anything out of hand. If it doesn’t ring true to him, he will tell you why. And you have to be open to that. You have to be open to the idea that what at five in the morning, seemed like the idea that was going to remake the book, it sounded like a great idea. But, in the cold light of day, come up with something else, dude. It just happens that way.

DF: And you do the same to him? Do you shoot down his ideas?

RF: Yeah. It’s just the nature of the beast. Usually Tom will take the germ of something I pitch and he will tailor it to Spider-Girl, and I’ll just be sitting there six issues into the run, and realize: “That’s right, I originally suggested this idea.” But it took a different form. I have to admit there have been times where I will say to friends: “Do you believe that idiot shot that idea down?” But I don’t see any profit in harping on it, because I understand why Tom didn’t go for it, but I will go ahead and vent to somebody. I’ve also had third parties who knew about the genesis of an idea tell me, “Well, you should take the idea back.” And I’m like, “Excuse me?” “Well, take the idea back!” “You’re out of your mind!” The one I’m thinking of is, I’d come up with this idea about doing a three-part Thor story where Thor battles Dr. Doom, and Dr. Doom is trying to free his mother from Mephisto, and I wanted to draw Mephisto. And when I pitched it to Tom, the biggest problem was that Doom’s continuity at that point was all messed up. My original idea was, Doom steals the hammer to open a rift in space to take on Mephisto and try to free his mother, and that leads to the fight with Mephisto. But what we ended up doing 18 | WRITE NOW

was, Doom stole the hammer to use it to try to regain Latveria, because they were doing all the Kristoff continuity at that time.

DF: Okay, you are the biggest geek in the room, Ron. RF: I am, I know it! So it turned into a really cool twopart story. It was a lot of fun. I got to draw Dr. Doom out the wazoo, and She-Hulk ended up guest-starring in it, and all that kind of jazz, but, because it wasn’t the pure essence of what I had pitched, I had this friend of mine talking in my ear, going, “You should pull your idea back.” I said, “There’s no time for that.

We’re producing a monthly book. If that’s the only idea I’m going to have this year, then I’ve got to go start flipping burgers.”

TD: And one of the reasons why we had to change that idea was that, with Thor, we were not in a vacuum. I like the idea that we’re part of a larger playground. In many regards, I kind of miss that with Spider-Girl, although in certain regards I’m kind of happy about that in Spider-Girl. Spider-Girl has a very big playground, an entire version of the Marvel Universe, but we don’t get to play with anybody else, because we’re the only guys there. That’s both the good news and the bad news, because, on certain levels, it’s really good to collaborate with other creators, but in other ways, as you’ve experienced with crossovers, it can be very aggravating.

DF: You have something in mind, you have to draw it out, or put it off, or make it work with something else that’s completely inappropriate.

TD: Exactly.

RF: When the Spider-Man books were interacting as closely as they were, we all experienced that at some point.

DF: You both, without being prompted, voiced distaste for the full script method, which is of course the preferred method of, it seems like, 90% of comics writers these days. What do you think they like about it, and what don’t you like about it?

TD: Well, I can tell you what I like about it, and then I can tell

you why, as a general rule, I don’t think it works in comics.

What I like about a full script is you have total control over every nuance.

DF: Well, that’s the illusion, but okay, yeah.

TD: Well, yeah, at least at the script stage. And I think that that works when you’re doing a novel. It works for the first draft of any sort of teleplay or screenplay. And then you get your notes from the producers and life gets interesting. “Turn this 43year-old black man into a 16-year-old white girl.” [laughter] Anyway, as a writer, you can get your pure idea out in a full script. I think full scripts really are a waste of time in comics, because I think comics are a visual medium.

DF: So I’ve heard.

RF: It’s a rumor.

TD: As a result, we should be really dealing with our visuals, and we should have a marriage between the words and pictures.

Too many writers today, I think, when they write their full scripts, are essentially writing radio scripts, scripts that are totally dependent upon dialogue, and do not involve pictures at all, and could essentially be produced as radio dramas. I happen to like radio dramas, I think they’re terrific, but if you’re doing radio, you do radio, and if you’re doing comics, you do comics. I think it’s a total waste of time when dealing with an artist like Ron, who is a consummate visual storyteller, to waste his time with a full script, because, no matter how I can see the visual, he lives in the visual.

Every once in a while I work out what I think are these great visual bits, and I put them in the plot. And Ron says, “Oh, this is terrific. But how about I do…?” And then he describes two or three panels which are always ten times better than what I wrote, and make me want to jump across the phone lines and strangle him out of envy. Because he’s the visual guy.

DF: Ron you don’t like full script, either. What’s your take on it?

RF: I’ve never enjoyed it. I’ve met pencilers who prefer

full script. I’ve met pencilers confounded by full script because it takes longer to adjust to a writer. Writers vary in how they feel about the artist adjusting a full script, and you never know when you first start working with them what their tolerance is. So you find yourself trying to get everything that’s in their full script into the panels, but you’re not using your own tools. You’re not reading a plot, picturing it in your head, and doing it. We see it as a movie, and then we have to cut it down and pick the scenes that most clearly and quickly tell the story. And the times I’ve worked full script, I’ll read a panel description eight times, and I’ll go, “This character’s got to have three arms to do what the writer’s describing!”

Or, “How does he stand behind this other character and in the foreground at the same time?” It makes me nuts.

TD: A lot of writers confuse comics with movies.

DF: That’s one of my pet peeves.

TD: With movies and television, you have continuous motion. With comics, we are essentially a slide show. If you put enough pictures together, they create the illusion of movement.

But each panel is a static picture, and a lot of writers are thinking film.

So they have a panel with someone doing two or three simultaneous acts, which is impossible. I always remember, one time, an artist came into my office, plopped down on a chair, and said, “I’m ready to give up, because I’ve got a full script, and the writer says that in the first Ron’s pencils for the cover of panel, there’s a guy Thor #457. [© 2006 Marvel standing on a mountain, Characters, Inc.] looking through binoculars and seeing two different civilizations that are separated by a range of mountains. But, with his binoculars, he can see both. And in one civilization, we can see …” [Danny laughs] And it went on like that. And this was all in the same panel. I also remember one time someone full-scripted a splash panel for a Spider-Man story. Spider-Man is web-swinging past a building and he sees a guy sitting at a table, and crawling on the table are these spiders. But if you’ve got an outside shot of Spider-Man swinging past TOM DeFALCO/RON FRENZ | 19

DF: Why do you think the full script is in ascendance now?

RF: Writers are in ascendance now.

DF: Maybe it’s because I was trained Marvel style, but I find it much easier to write Marvel style.

TD: I prefer Marvel style for super-hero stories. But full script is much faster.

RF: And then you never have to revisit it, either.

DF: But ten years ago, there were lots of popular, superstar writers, but they mostly worked Marvel style.

What do you think changed?

TD: I think there are two reasons. One, we’re in an era of superstars. Superstars get their way. And it’s easier to sit down and just knock out a 22-page script.

DF: And you get your entire check in one lump sum in advance, too.

TD: I started at Archie Comics, doing full scripts. I still find full script much, much faster than Marvel style. But, even though I find it faster, I think the final product is much better doing Marvel style.

a building and looking through a window, how are you going to see spiders on the table?

DF: If you were writing a story, and you didn’t know who the artist would be, which style would you use?

TD: Well, if I didn’t know who the artist was going to be, then I might want to go full script. But if I know that I’m dealing with Ron, or Pat Olliffe, or Ron Lim, or Paul Ryan, I know that whatever visuals I can come up with, they can do so much better. Let’s not kid ourselves.

RF: There have been times where he’s done full script and then found out that I was going to do it, and he said, “You’re going to forget that full script, right?” Because the problem with full script, even when you don’t know who the artist is, is that you could be working against that artist’s strengths. You’re not using his individual talents as much as you’re just using him as a conduit. Some guys really thrive in that environment, and do wonderful work. Obviously, there are guys out there that are very comfortable with it, because there’s a lot of it being done these days. I’ve worked full script with some of the best. The easiest I ever had full script was, I had Archie Goodwin full script on a Star Wars movie adaptation. And Arch was a friggin’ genius, and he was very good at communicating visually.

But then, I’ve worked with other guys, not so much.

Ron’s cover sketch for Thor #405…

…and the Joe Sinnott-inked (over Ron’s pencils) final cover. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.] 20 | WRITE NOW

DF: Well, Archie was also an artist.

RF: Yeah. Well, I mean, I’ve done some full script stuff that wasn’t published, and my biggest problem with that was just the form. I went through the script with a highlighter and just highlighted all the panel descriptions, because it was just driving me up the wall. It was very, very frustrating to me. This writer asked for eight panels on a page. I’m just like, “Ooookay. But did you want them laid out in any particular way?” Sometimes they leave that up to you, and it becomes that much more of an exercise in physics, getting what they want on that page.

Some very accommodating writers will ask an artist— and Tom has never asked me this, and I’ve always respected that—”What do you like to draw?” And I don’t have an answer. But there are plenty of people out there who do have a preference, whether it’s dinosaurs, or big leaves “because I’m in a jungle phase right now,” or something. And I’ve never understood that. I’ve never understood that urge to just express a jones, like, “I have this urge to draw polar bears fighting in a snowstorm,” that kind of thing. I don’t relate to that at all. Just give me a friggin’ story, and I’ll do the best job that I can on it.

TD: Well, sometimes when you’re dealing with a guy who’s doing a fill-in, say a Spider-Man fill-in, you might say to him, “What Spider-Man villain have you always wanted to draw?”

RF: Right. But usually when you ask, “What would you like to draw?” they say, “Well, I like to draw cars.” “I love drawing tech.” Well, that’s kind of encouraging something that might not serve a Spider-Man story.

DF: Now, the main things you worked together on were Spider-Man, of course, Thor, Thunderstrike, Kickers Inc., and now Spider-Girl. Is there anything I’m leaving out?

RF: We did a three-issue Hercules mini-series together that was one of my favorites.

TD: And Mr. Right.

RF: Mr. Right, which never saw print.

DF: A five-page preview story saw print in The M@n #1, and was thoroughly analyzed in Write Now! #4.

RF: You also read the complete Mr. Right issue that never saw print, Danny. It got incredible reviews from people who saw advance copies.

TD: What happened was, we got television interest.

And as we were developing the TV show, it looked like the television series was going to take a slightly different turn from the comic, so we put the comic on hold until the show premiered. And, as often happens, the show didn’t end up getting picked up.

really recognized or folded into regular continuity because it was the only issue of Spider-Girl that was a fill-in for both writer and penciler. And they really didn’t say anything about her other than suggest that she’s Electro’s daughter. So the idea that had come to me was this metaphor that, because Electro and the girl have electrical auras that aren’t sympathetic. They can’t touch each other. They’ve never been able to touch. And to use that as the metaphor of separation between father and daughter, that it’s painful for them to touch, for them to even be in the same room.

DF: Oh, Ron, I’m tearing up already.

RF: Thank you. So that’s what I sold to Tom. I had a couple of ideas as far as how the story would play out, but I also knew that it was a perfect avenue to explore the relationship between

DF: But you never printed the full-length comic.

TD: No. We got distracted with other projects.

Somewhere along the line we have to find a publisher and do that. We completed the first issue and finished the pencils for the second issue. And, of course, there is still some interest in a Mr. Right movie, but I don’t know if that’s going to actually happen or not.

DF: Cool. Anyway, let’s talk about your working process…

TD: Here’s a prime example of one of our collaborations.

Ron came up with this idea for the Spider-Girl story about Electro’s daughter, basically came up with the idea of the story and the theme of the story. It’s about fathers and daughters and things related to that, and for a lot of the scenes in it, I just sat back and said, “Wow!” RF: Now, see, again, he’s being too generous. I remember the phone conversation, because I was going, “Come on, Tom! I’m handing you a solid gold metaphor!” Another writer had already introduced a character that was apparently Electro’s daughter, and I said she’s never been

Ron’s cover to, and an inked page from, the as-yet-to-be-printed Mr. Right #1. Inks by Sal Buscema. [© 2006 Tom DeFalco & Ron Frenz] TOM DeFALCO/RON FRENZ | 21

Mayday and Pete. Because what I love about the book is the same thing that I loved working on Spider-Man, because, if you look at our run on Spider-Man, we dealt with Aunt May a lot. We loved Aunt May, and Nathan, and everything that was going on with Peter’s family responsibilities. When we were on Thor, we dealt with Odin a lot. When we created Eric Masterson, we gave him a son because we wanted that to parallel the Odin/Thor relationship. I mean, we’re very familial in a lot of our stuff, and what I love about Spider-Girl is the family aspect of it. You’re taking two characters, Pete and Mary Jane, that everybody loves from the movies. All you have to say is, “You know the upside-down kiss? Well, they had a kid.” So it was an idea that, like I said, I sold on the hook, the solid gold metaphor. And Tom recognized the validity of it, and crafted it into a terrific story. I was able to contribute some dialogue because my sister, who is three years younger, has a daughter, and her marriage is broken up. And a lot of Pete’s dialogue to Max Dillon was what I would say to that son of a bitch if I could see him, about what fatherhood is. I’m not a father, who am I to preach to anybody about fatherhood? But I know enough to know that it’s 24-7 and it hurts like h*ll. And I’ve seen my

Ron and Sal’s cover for Mr. Right #2. [© 2006 Tom DeFalco & Ron Frenz] 22 | WRITE NOW

parents go through it, I’ve seen my friends go through it. If you do it right, it’s supposed to hurt! And it hurts both of you. And that kind of sparked the concept, and it went from there. But Tom, I can always pass these things off to Tom, no matter how personal they are, and know that he’s going to serve them well and craft them into a great story.

DF: Ron, do you ever have any desire to sit down and actually write a story, whether it be Spider-Man or anything else, for yourself or somebody else to draw?

RF: There have been issues that we’ve done that I’ve plotted more tightly than others. I’ve plotted some stories. I pitched some stories to Ralph Macchio. I pitched a Thor fill-in and a Tales of Asgard series of three stories which he liked enough that we started to work on it, but then the assignment went away. We never really pursued it. And I was very involved in the plotting of the four-part “Strange Visitor” saga in the Superman book. I left Superman to do a Strange Visitor series, which never happened. So I’ve done plotting where it becomes my responsibility to make sure that everything serves the theme and the premise. And it’s scary. [laughter] I don’t really enjoy it. And I also know that with Tom, I can liner note the sh*t out of an issue, but it’s still not a full script.

I can liner note something, but the panels where I don’t have any idea for dialogue, Tom steps in and makes it real. But what I do is not writing, I recognize that. I recognize that as much as I’ve co-plotted, and as much as I maybe have even, to more of a degree, full-plotted— because there were issues of Thunderstrike that were just notes over the phone, that were the way they must have done it at old Marvel. Thunderstrike #15, Tom and I plotted in his office, and I just scrawled some notes down, because a lot of it was my idea. Once Tom typed it up, to him it was the same as anything else, but I actually penciled it off of my notes. We did it quite a bit, especially on Thunderstrike, once we were up and running.

TD: I always remember one issue of Thunderstrike— There were essentially two stories in that book: the battle against the robot and the Eric Masterson story. And for reasons that escape me now, I was more interested in one of those stories, and Ron was more interested in the other.

RF: I had plotted the Zero story as a solo “Code Blue” [NYPD members who deal with superhuman menaces.—DF] story where Eric just showed up at the end.

TD: Thematically they kind of paralleled each other, and Ron focused on the plot of one, I focused on the plot of the other.

RF: I actually penciled them separately.

TD: You penciled both 11-page stories separately. And when the artwork arrived, I basically laid out all 22 pages and figured out which order that they came in.

RF: He “shuffled the deck” and numbered the pages.

TD: I did that to figure out the best way to do the script so that we would cut from one scene to another and make it all flow. I think the way I dealt with the plot for Ralph is, I typed up the A story and the B story, and listed them, “A Story,” “B Story.” And I said, “There are these two stories in there that you’ll see are thematically related, and we’re going to somehow mush them all together.” And Ralph looked at it and said, “You guys are nuts, but, sure.”

RF: That issue ended up coming out pretty cool.

TD: Yeah! It was chosen as one of the best stories of the year in an editors’ poll and published in the Best of Marvel 1994 trade paperback.

DF: How did Thunderstrike come about?

TD: Kind of by accident.

RF: Like most of the stuff that happened in my career.

TD: Ron and I had done Spider-Man for a while.

Ultimately, after you had left the book as editor, things with Spider-Man went sour. Ron and I were taken off the book. At a certain point, our wounds had healed enough where we were going to take another shot at working together and go forward. When I say “wounded,” it wasn’t with each other, it was outside forces.

We had heard that Ralph was looking for a creative

Ron’s Thunderstrike #16 cover rough and the completed, obviously reconceived, cover.

Inks by Al Milgrom. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

team for Daredevil, and we decided to try to pitch for it. I went into Ralph’s office and I said, “Ron and I would like to work together again, and we know that you have a book open, and we’d really like to see if we can do Daredevil for you.”

Daredevil is a character that I’ve always loved. Ralph looked at me and said, “You know, you guys would be terrific for Daredevil. But I really have my back up against the wall. I need a Thor fill-in. Could A sketch of Eric (Thunderstrike) you do one for me?” And I Masterson by Ron. [© 2006 tell him, “Yeah, sure. We Marvel Characters, Inc.] can do a fill-in for anything.”

So Ron and I did a Thor fillin. Was the first one the future Thor, Ron? RF: No, the first one was the flashback to Secret Wars.

TD: The Secret Wars story, okay. And I didn’t really have any Thor ideas, so I tried something.

RF: We just padded the fight with villains and made it an Enchantress issue.

TD: Yeah, we did a fill-in story. Then Ralph said, “Okay, good, but this book is really late. Could you do another fill-in?” And we said, “Sure.” And we came up with the “future Thor” story.

RF: Which was also another fill-in. Didn’t affect continuity at all.

TD: Our goal was to stay away from continuity because we were just fill-in guys. And in the meantime, during all this, I kept talking to Ralph about my ideas for Daredevil, because I really wanted to do Daredevil. Then, as we finished the second Thor, Ralph said, “Listen. I think you guys really make a terrific team, and I think you guys are great, so I’d really like to have you work on a book.” And I said, “Great! When do we start Daredevil?” And he goes, “No, not Daredevil. I want you guys to do Thor.”

And I said, “We can’t do Thor. We don’t do ‘cosmic.’” And he goes, “You just did two issues!” “But they were fill-ins!

It’s a whole different thing. I don’t do cosmic, we do street level things!” And he goes, “I think you can do a cosmic story.” “I don’t think I can.” But we ended up coming up with that Celestial storyline, the three-issue “Alone Against the Celestials.” And then after that, it kind of looked like we could do cosmic, so we were on Thor.

DF: And where did Thunderstrike come from? Which was the original question. [laughs] RF: Early on in the run, Tom was addressing his “everyman” needs. That’s why he wasn’t sure he could do cosmic. He always related more to characters like the Thing and Peter Parker. But one of the things we thought Thor was about was that we felt we needed that human TOM DeFALCO/RON FRENZ | 23

connection. We didn’t want to go back to Don Blake, we wanted to move forward.

But we had come up with the concept of creating a new human identity for Thor.

And we considered a bunch of different options and set on the least offensive, being a willing merger of the two characters, and creating a full-blown character who actually had a past and a son, and so on.

DF: It’s so funny. What I really wanted to know, was who came up with what part of Thunderstrike? And you’re both saying, “We, we, we.” When you say “we,” is it because you don’t remember who did what, or because you philosophically consider yourselves one creative entity? Is the idea of which of you was the first one who said, “Gee, we wish we had a point-of-view character” lost in the mists?

RF: It starts out as a general conversation about, what do you think about Thor, and what do you like about Thor, and what do we think about Thor. You can come out of that conversation agreeing that the human contact is what’s important. So I might have said, “Do you want to bring back Don Blake?” And Tom might have said, “Well, storytelling-wise, it would be more profitable for us to move forward rather than going back.” And so on. I’m sure there were conversations like that. I was game to do something new, and there are sketches that I did originally of a guy with a cane that had a different name, and Tom and I collaborated on the name; “Eric sounds like a Viking.” Because I remember we wanted him to be human, so my first suggestion was, like, “Jake Masters.” Having forgot about Alicia Masters, you don’t want people to think he’s related, because in comics somebody always relates similar names. So, “Master’s son.” Hey, that makes sense. “Eric Masterson” rolls off the tongue. Don Blake was a doctor that juxtaposed Thor as a warrior. How about a builder? How about an architect? He’s a freelance architect, so he works at home.

All things that he and I can relate to. So the ball started rolling that way. We wanted the son because of the parallel. So it just started growing from there.

DF: I mean, it’s funny. What’s slightly frustrating for me as an interviewer, slightly frustrating, is what makes you guys such a great team. As you say there’s no ego. It’s wonderful that it’s, “We, we, we.” It’s just that,from my perspective as the interviewer/historian…

RF: You want to drive that wedge between us! I created Eric Masterson, and that f*ckin’ pr*ck stole it from me!” We got to the point where we were on the book for five or six years, and Tom wanted to do something radical. And he approached me—. [Danny laughs] Yes, he approached me with the idea of exiling Thor and having Eric and his personality take over as Thor. That was Tom’s idea. Because I remember going, “Really?” And he goes, “Yeah, we’ll do a new costume,” and all these other ideas.. And I went, “Oh, we will, will we?” I sat down, and Brett Breeding was at a table with me at one point, and I started throwing visual ideas around, and Brett made some suggestions, and I adapted them, and we played with it. And I actually came up with a more contemporary version of Thor’s costume that I liked. It wasn’t until that happened that I called Tom back and I said, “You know this idea about Eric taking over? Okay, I’m cool with it. Because I know what he looks like now, and I’m happy with it.”

TD: Are you sure I came up with that?

RF: Yes, I’m absolutely sure. But what Tom and I did, if you read that run, there is never a moment where the lead character is not centered on finding the real Thor. At no point do we suggest in any way that you are an idiot if you like the old Thor. I mean, how many times have you seen that in a revamp? You’re basically told that “anybody who liked the old version is an ass, and we’re showing you the way it should have been done.” Tom and I, in our cowardice and wisdom, decided that’s not the way to go.

Ron’s Thunderstrike issues shown here include issue #21’s homage to the cover of Avengers #1. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.] 24 | WRITE NOW

DF: “If you thought it was great before, wait’ll you see what’s comin’ up!”

RF: Exactly! I mean, it was definitely different. There was a contrast. We had a lot of fun with it. I loved having Eric as Thor, because—we loved doing the Asgardian stuff.

With all of Tom’s misgivings, I think we wrote the Asgardians really well. We had a lot of fun with the Asgardian characters. But now we had Eric, as us, walking into these situations and going, “You guys are out of your freakin’ mind!” And it was so much fun. Even people that wanted Thor back liked Eric. And I think we did that almost by virtue of not trying. I mean, we created a character that was equal parts Tom and me, our likable parts, and he was a good guy, a decent guy. And if you

remember, what was going on in comics at the time was the age of the anti-hero. So Tom and I were doing a traditional Marvel comic at a time when Wolverine was racking up a body count. And people were saying, “This thing you’re doing, with the subplots and supporting cast? That’s genius!” [laughter] We’re like, “Yeah, we know, what can we tell you.” But everybody loved Eric. So even as we got to the point where we were going to return Thor and everything, it was the ’90s, and everybody and his brother was getting a book. So they said, “How would you like to do Eric as his own character.”

DF: You do realize, Ron, that you just referred to the collective you as writing the Asgardians well. You really are the UniMind. But continue, men…

TD: As I remember it, from the beginning, we always figured that Eric was going to be in for the time of his life, but ultimately he wasn’t going to survive the experience.

RF: That’s true.

TD: In the storyline with Eric and Thor, they were going to ultimately be separated. And I forget how it was going to go, but our plan was that we were probably going to lose Eric at that point.

RF: A lot of it played out in a different form, because the way we had originally plotted the story was that Thor was going to come back, Eric was going to stay the fill-in Thor, Thor was going to become the king of Asgard, and it was going to be Loki killing Eric that brought Thor out of being king and saying, “Screw this, I gotta worry about Earth,” and give up the throne. And a lot of that ended up happening in different forms in various stages.

TD: As we were heading towards the resolution of this storyline, I spoke to the sales department. They said, “So we’re going to lose Eric?” “Well, yeah.”

But sales had kinda skyrocketed during the Eric period. During that period, Thor was one of the top-selling books.

RF: Well, we sold very well on the newsstands. God love the newsstand.

TD: We were selling, on the newsstand.

Thor was essentially the number one newsstand selling comic book that Marvel was doing at the time. At a certain point, members of the sales and marketing departments cornered me and said, “We think Eric should get his own book.” So I called Ron and said, “What would you think if we spun Eric off and he got his own book?” And I don’t think that you had too much of a problem with that.

RF: No, other than the traditional thinking that we would stay on Thor and somebody new would do the spin-off. But I don’t remember there

ever being any question that you and I were going to go do Thunderstrike.

TD: I think I was doing Fantastic Four at the time, and really debated giving up FF so I could do Thor and Thunderstrike. When I took it over, Fantastic Four was on the brink of going direct-only. But newsstand sales on FF were rising, too. I was afraid that if I pulled away from Fantastic Four, I would hurt its sales. So I ended up staying with Fantastic Four and going with Thunderstrike, and giving up Thor. When Thunderstrike came out, it actually replaced Thor in terms of topping newsstand sales. Thunderstrike, the truth is, was one of the most popular books that Marvel was doing, but when the marketing people took over, they said, “Well, you can’t have two guys running around with hammers.”

Thunderstrike #22, page 14. Pencils by Ron, inks by Sal. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.] TOM DeFALCO/RON FRENZ | 25

DF: That’d be like two guys with capes!

TD: Right. At the time Thunderstrike was canceled, the total sales of Thunderstrike, both newsstand and direct, were greater than the total sales of Avengers and Thor combined.

DF: Let’s talk about your current collaboration: Spider-Girl. The series is certainly a phenomenon. How did she come into being?

TD: You had gotten me back onto the Spider-Man books, Danny. And when we decided that Mary Jane would become pregnant, I just started thinking about, y’know, hey, if it’s a girl, a Spider-Girl… And I just thought about those ideas, never intending to do anything with them. At a certain point, when you had moved on to Byron Preiss and Visionary Media, I was eventually taken off the Spider-Man books. And [then editor-in-chief] Bob Harras said to me, “How would you like to do What If? You can do pretty much all the different characters, you can have some fun, you can bring more of a classical approach to What If?” The series was kind of bouncing around at that time. They’d kind of forgotten what the concept was, and were doing these weird imaginary stories, and sales were kind of falling. And they said, “It might work better if we have somebody who really takes a classical approach to the stuff.” I said, “Okay, great!” And the first idea I had was the Spider-Girl thing. And Ron and I, though we were no longer working together, were talking at least once a week anyway.

DF: Ron, were you still working on Superman at this point?

RF: I believe I was, yeah.

TD: We were still talking to each other on the phone at least once a week, probably a couple of times a week. I proposed the idea to Ron. I believe you liked it as a one-shot, and we ended up

collaborating the way we do with everything.

RF: Tom asked me if I was interested in joining him as the regular team on What If?, and that would have required major decisions about my career. But at this point, we just did two issues—the Spider-Girl and a Thor—and we went back to the things we knew the best. Now, with Spider-Girl, because we were essentially creating a whole different universe, Ron, who is always the consummate professional, designed the whole spectrum of characters. He re-envisioned what Mary Jane looks like, what the middle-aged Peter looks like, did a number of designs for Mayday. We knew that we were going to deal with the future Avengers for one or two panels, and the Fantastic Four. We decided to call them the Fantastic Five. And I always remember Ron saying, “Hey, how about I put HERBIE the Robot in there?” [laughter] [If you don’t know who HERBIE is... don’t worry about it. —DF] I’ve always loved alternate future stories. And, I always work things out in my head visually, and it wasn’t until I started playing with the idea—because I have to admit, when Tom first said “Spider-Girl,” I kind of “ouched” a little bit, and I went, “Isn’t Spider-Woman available?” And he went, “Yeah, but Spider-Woman has the stink of death on it. The character never had a successful series.” I remember that first Spider-Girl sketch I did. Tom’s original idea was just putting her in the traditional Spider-Man outfit, but I loved Ben Reilly’s costume. I thought it was genius, because a layman almost wouldn’t notice the difference, but it was so different and cool.

DF: Mark Bagley designed that costume when we were looking for the new look for Ben. RF: Right. And when I did the first shots of a woman in that outfit, it just really worked for the female figure. But the first thing I

Center: The Al Milgrom-inked cover to Thor #457. (Note the costume change from the pencils you saw on page 19.) On either side of the cover are Ron’s sketches of alternate-reality versions of Thor. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.] 26 | WRITE NOW

Covers from Spider-Girl #18 (penciled by Ron), #32 (penciled by Pat Olliffe), #42, and #47 (both penciled by Ron). [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

did with her, I was still so averse to the Spider-Girl idea, I did a sketch of her in the Ben Reilly outfit with “Spidey” under it, because I was so annoyed about the “Spider-Girl.”

But, again, Tom was so open to collaboration, and we just started spitballing [building one idea on another.—DF], like we do with everything. It just became a lot of fun, because, again, the way we entered the world was through what we knew and what we loved, which was through Pete and Mary Jane. So I started dealing with, “Okay, your two best friends in the world now have a kid.

And I’m Uncle Ron. Let’s do this! Let’s see what happens.” And I came up with a design for Mayday that was equal parts Pete and Mary Jane, and played with different elements. The older Peter Parker was always kind of based on Pat Olliffe. The goatee, and even the gray shock in the front was something that Pat had.

It became a lot of fun, because we knew we were just cramming all our Spider-Girl ideas into this one issue. The character that was terrific fun was Normie Osborn as the Green Goblin. At some point I had seen Scorsese’s remake of Cape Fear, so there’s a lot of the DeNiro character in that Normie, with the tattoos and stuff. “Let’s make him a friggin’ psycho.” We created a supporting cast. Tom credits me with the May’s nickname “Mayday,” and I’ll take it, because, h*ll, anybody can rip off Cheers. But we also started talking about the idea that Mayday was popular with the geeks and the jocks, and that she was almost too popular.

But one of the things that I love that comes out in that first story is that, because she’s popular, she has friends that are geeks and friends that are jocks, so she feels divided. When she’s with her geek friends, she has to deny her jock self. When she’s with her jock friends, she has to deny her geek friends, and it’s only as Spider-Girl that the two halves come together and she gets to use her brains and her physicality.

DF: You guys did an awful lot of thinking for a oneshot story.

RF: That’s one of the reasons why it stood out. Because What If? had kind of become “let’s kill everybody off every

issue.” And the two issues that we did were tied very much into the emotionality, the core of the characters, and dealing from that love of the characters. And, again, having that fun that we always strive to have when we’re doing it.

DF: I know that a lot of the ideas, say, of Peter losing the leg, and a lot of stuff like that, I remember Tom talking about that years ago, imagining the toll it would take on you just physically, never mind psychologically, to be a superhero.

RF: Well, losing the leg was my idea. In the original plot, Pete had just messed up his knee.

DF: I think Tom sees super-heroes in general as similar to professional athletes, in terms of what happens if you do this for 20 years, what kind of a toll it takes.

TD: I think that, because of DC and the Justice Society, people think that super-heroes are going to go on well into their sixties. And the truth is, they’re not. If there really were super-heroes out there, they would have careers that would not last as long as professional football players’, because with the amount of punishment their bodies would take, you’d be lucky if you got two or three years. One of the things that I loved about What If?, and I found it a challenge, is that each issue you essentially have to create a whole new world and deal with all-new concepts. And I really was looking forward to having that assignment and just playing around with that. With Spider-Girl, we created a whole world. And then, once we had finished that issue, we were already working on the next whole world, which was Thor’s.

So I was having a grand old time for myself with the Spider-Girl story. We envisioned this as a one-shot story. I think we say, at the end of the story, “Well, you know, there’s a possibility of doing a sequel.” In the history of What If?, there was maybe one story that had had a sequel. So we thought, “It’s possible for a sequel…” But we weren’t really thinking about it.

I was in the editor’s office, and I was trying to remind everybody what a loss the company had suffered when Ron had gone away to do Superman. And I pulled out all the additional sketches for Spider-Girl characters that TOM DeFALCO/RON FRENZ | 27

we didn’t get around to using. And I showed Ron’s sketches to Kelly Corvese, the editor, who said, “Hey, can I hold onto these for a little while?” “Sure.” The next time I showed up at the office, suddenly people were patting me on the back and saying, “Oh, man, that Spider-Girl What If? was terrific!” I hadn’t heard that kind of thing at the office in I don’t know how many years. I was figuring, “Oh, man, I guess I’m going to get fired now.” [Danny laughs] Then Bob Harras called me in and said, “Listen.

This Spider-Girl thing—I understand you want to do a series.” And I said, “Huh?” And he had Ron’s sketches. He said, “Well, I assumed this was a proposal for a series.” I go, “No.” And he said, “Well, I have this idea.

We’re trying to get distribution into the mass market. We want to set up a bagged comic book program which will go into the Wal-Marts and the K-Mart’s and that sort of thing, and most of the material we’re doing these days is just not suitable for that. So we’d like to get a couple of classical guys to do comics for that market.

Would you be interested in doing this?” And he asked me about packaging three titles which would all be in a bag. The plan was you’d come out with twelve issues of the three titles, and then in the second year you’d come out with twelve issues of three new titles.

DF: Where would they be sold?

TD: On the newsstand, and also in the bagged comic book program. The bagged comic book program needed to build up an inventory of, I think, six or nine months. So Harras said, “Why don’t you do three titles. You’ve got plenty of characters here. You could do The Avengers, you could do the Fantastic Five, or you could do this little Juggernaut character.” And I said, “Little Juggernaut?” In my mind, that had been the real Juggernaut.

RF: Well, in my pencils it was the real Juggernaut, too.

TD: And I said, “Oh, yeah! Little Juggernaut. Great!”

RF: Harras handed us that one, because he said, “Yeah, I especially love this ‘son of the Juggernaut’ character.”

TD: So I ended up calling Ron, and ultimately we were setting up the team for the line. Originally, I had assumed Ron would draw Spider-Girl and Pat Olliffe would draw the Avengers book, A-Next. But as soon as Ron heard that Thunderstrike’s son, Kevin 28 | WRITE NOW

Masterson, was going to be in A-Next…

RF: Well, see, I kind of became the unofficial art director of the line. Tom was going to edit it himself, so we started kicking ideas around. So I designed the lion’s share of the characters for the launch, even though we knew a lot of it was going to go to somebody else.

Initially, Pat wanted to do big strong guys breaking stuff, so after being on Untold Tales of Spider-Man, he would have been happy with A-Next or J2. Harras assumed that I was going to do Spider-Girl, which was very flattering, but, I had the design for Kevin Masterson that appears in A-Next #1 on my wall for years, because Eric had haunted me the way Spider-Girl had haunted Tom. DF: Was Pat on Spider-Girl from the first issue of the series?

RF: Yes. I did What if? #105, and he was on Spider-Girl from issue #1. I was on A-Next initially, and Ron Lim was hired to do J2.

And I knew that SpiderGirl was going to be in great shape with Pat on board. He was the perfect choice, coming off of Untold Tales of SpiderMan, because he really did a terrific job on Untold Tales, and had evolved and developed as a really good Spider-Man artist. He just knew the world and did the characters really well.

Of course, after twelve issues, I was very sorry I made that decision! ANext had been canceled after 12 issues, and I was kicking around the industry doing catch-ascatch-can freelance and, at some points, not doing anything in comics. But Tom was on the book with Pat for five or six A shot of the original art of Ron years. Then Pat moved on and Pat Olliffe’s cover to What If? for other reasons. One of #105—autographed by Tom, Ron, the times the book was and Pat—courtesy of Fred about to be canceled, DeBoom. (The story was later and Pat was offered reissued as Spider-Girl #0.) [© other, higher-profile work, 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.] and he took it.

TD: Well, we’ve got to give some other information. First off, Spider-Girl was supposed to be canceled with issue #12 and replaced.

We were going to do three new titles. Of the three new titles, we had run a contest, “Which characters would you like to see get their own books?” Fantastic Five and Wild

Thing were the winners. Those were going to be two of the titles, and the third title was going to be The Buzz.

And then Harras said, “Listen, why don’t we keep one of the first titles, just to show some continuity?” At that time A-Next and Spider-Girl were selling about the same.

And I thought, “if I keep Ron on A-Next, then I’ve got to get a new artist for The Buzz. So it’s easier to keep Spider-Girl going with Pat, and let Ron do The Buzz.”

What ultimately happened is, as we were working on our third or fourth issues of those books, they found out that the distribution deal that they were trying to get wasn’t

Ron’s pencils and Al Williamson’s inks for the cover of Spider-Girl #60. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

going to happen. And once it wasn’t going to happen, there was no longer any reason to do any of the titles.

RF: They were never designed for the direct market.

TD: They were designed for the mass market. Once they realized the distribution deal wasn’t going to happen, they decided to cancel the line. Now, it was ironic that they did, because at the time they were canceled Wild Thing and Fantastic Five were selling really well. And Spider-Girl was also scheduled to be canceled now with issue #17. And they decided it would be a double-sized issue. And then, I don’t remember at what point, they just looked at the sales of Spider-Girl and said, “Well, they’re not going down. We’re going to continue it for—” I don’t even remember how many issues.

DF: The book has been canceled four or five times, and reprieved four or five times. And now, of course, it’s a huge seller in the collected paperback.

TD: Oh, the digest books, they’re selling, like, 70,000 copies a digest. Every issue, except for one, that ends on a full-page splash was supposed to be our last issue.

Each time we were heading for what was supposedly our last issue, I always figured, “Let’s end on a nice pinup shot.” And the only exception, I think, was issue #60.

RF: Issue #60 was supposed to be one of the cancellation numbers that was final. There was no reprieve.

Pat had been offered other work that put him more on the radar of the powers-that-be at the time, and he double-checked and triple-checked and said, “If you’re serious that Spider-Girl’s gone for sure…”

“There’s no chance this time.” He goes, “Well, then, I’d be an idiot not to take this other work.” So he moved over to this other project. To my surprise, they brought me on to Spider-Girl, because I had a history with the character. I had done fill-ins, in addition to the What If? And issue #60 was a standalone, but it ended, again, with a splash page, and it was supposed to be the final issue. Tom had been told time and time again it was done. He had gone into the office and said his goodbyes.

TD: I had been told that this was the very last issue. I went into the office to have a final chat with everybody, because I had always been under the impression that, once Spider-Girl was gone, I was done at Marvel. I walked around and checked, and no one seemed to have any other work for me. So I walked around the office and said goodbye to everybody. I walked out of the place, convinced that the next time I showed up at Marvel, it would be just to have lunch with people. And then a week or two later, I got a call on—and I will always remember this—April 1st. It was Andy Schmidt, the editor on Spider-Girl. And he frantically says, “Tom, Tom, you’re not going to believe this, but Spider-Girl has been uncanceled again. Can you do a plot by Friday?” And I said, “Oh, you just need one? I can do four or five by Friday.” And I hung up on him. I knew it was a gag. And he calls me back and he says, “Listen, I’m serious.” And I say, “Andy! I created the bust. You can’t call me up on April Fool’s Day and tell me Spider-Girl’s uncanceled and think I’m going to buy it. Forget about it!”

So I hung up on him again. And he called back again and said, “No, no, I’m serious! I’m serious!”

TOM DeFALCO/RON FRENZ | 29

And I kept getting calls from other people, and I’m thinking, “Boy, they’re going to a lot of trouble to bust my chops about Spider-Girl.” I even called Joe Quesada’s office to say to Joe, “Listen, I got the joke already. You can tell the guys to lay off.” And the secretary said that Joe’s in a meeting. And I said, “Okay, can you ask him to call Tom DeFalco when he gets a chance?” And she says, “Tom DeFalco? Congratulations on Spider-Girl!” And I thought, “Man, they’ve got everybody in on this gag!”

Later on I called Ralph, and he goes, “Spider-Girl uncanceled? I haven’t heard anything about that. Trust me—if Spider-Girl is not canceled, I will tell you. Trust me. If I hear anything, I will call you up right away.” As soon as Ralph said, “Trust me,” I got off the phone and said, “I wonder if it really is uncanceled.” If Ralph had said, “It’s definitely back,” I never would have believed him. But, because he assured me… [laughter] RF: It was a weird ride. Those couple of days were insane. And, of course, Pat was kind of stuck in the position where he had accepted other work, and that work was still flowing. And I was shocked. I didn’t take anything for granted. They offered the book to me, and I said, “Well, what about Pat?” But Pat was on other projects, and it looked like they were going to last forever, and that was going to be a

great career move for him. Unfortunately, the same thing happened. His work dried up, and now I’m on SpiderGirl and he’s doing other work. And it’s an odd thing in comics. It’s this unspoken code, that if you’re hired to do a book, everybody else gives you their blessing, as much as it rankles. I was very jealous while Pat was doing Spider-Girl all those years with Tom, having done What If? #105. But now I feel guilty because I feel like it’s Pat’s book and I’m just sitting here until he comes back.

DF: Well, Pat’s doing okay.

RF: He’s doing okay. He’s doing work over at DC right now.

TD: And he did the Spider-Girl-Universe Last Hero

Ron’s Spider-Girl #73 cover pencils (above), and Sal’s inks (left). [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.] 30 | WRITE NOW

Standing limited series with me.

RF: Which sold better than Spider-Girl, and is real high-profile now.

TD: We’ll be doing a sequel next year.

DF: Excellent. So cut to, you’re going to hit a hundred issues, at least. Do you know if the series will be going past #100?

TD: We’ve been approved through all of 2006. Most of the time, they say “you’re good for another six issues.”

Our last renewal, we were good for, like, 14 issues.

They said, “You’re good at least to #100.” And I was taken aback, because that was the longest stretch I had ever had with SpiderGirl. Initially we were only going to do twelve, so I had never had so many issues ahead of us. I didn’t know what to do! We just got the word that #100 will actually be a hundred pages long. It’ll have some reprints, and we’re going to try to do a big story that both Pat and Ron can contribute to.

RF: I definitely want Pat to be involved, just out of respect. The good news is, they told us that due to the fact that the digests are selling so well, we would have to take a precipitous drop for them to cancel us, because they need material for the digests.

DF: So as long as it keeps going and they want you on it, are you guys going to stick with it?

RF: Absolutely.

DF: Of course, the fans have been, and still are, really involved in keeping Spider-Girl alive.

RF: We have a very vocal fanbase, and they’re rightfully proud of the role they’ve played over the years, keeping the book going.

DF: Did you cultivate the fan involvement, or did it spring up spontaneously?

RF: Tom has done some cultivation on that by getting involved on the message boards and things. You don’t want to piss off Tom, because he’s got a cult of blankeyed disciples who obey his every command.

TD: I sometimes feel like the biggest goofball in creation.

DF: Why, particularly?

TD: Because every time I was told Spider-Girl was canceled, my reaction was, “Well, it lasted a lot longer than I thought it would.” Y’see… the way I detach from a book is, I pack up my material on the published stuff, I put it in a box, and I drop it in the basement. And the unpublished stuff, since I’m not going to use it anymore, I put in the trash. I did that three times with Spider-Girl, and it took me three times to realize: don’t ever do that again.

DF: And your garbage man has sold it all on eBay, Tom. He’s quite wealthy today.

RF: You dumping your notes was a problem when Spider-Girl was uncanceled after #61, I said to Tom, “So, whaddaya got?” “I got nothin’.” [Danny laughs] I said, “What do you mean, you got nothin’?

Where were some of your other ideas?” “We wrapped them all up! I got nothin’.”

TD: I kept wrapping everything up!

RF: It really was a series of miniseries, because every time Tom thought it was going to be canceled, he tried to tie up all the major stuff. And it was amazing how quickly we did “Marked for Death,” because we really did do that one on the fly.

TD: Late on a Wednesday night, Brevoort called me up and said, “It’s 7:30, I’m still stuck in the office, and you’re the last person in the world I want to be talking to now. The book is not canceled. I know it’s April Fool’s Day, but it’s not canceled. I’m going to call Ron and Sal’s cover art for you tomorrow and remind Spider-Girl #81. (That bearded you of this. But we really guy on the lower left looks need a plot Friday. And trust awfully familiar…) [© 2006 me, you will be paid for Marvel Characters, Inc.] this. I need you to do this plot by Friday.” And I said, “You need a plot Friday, you’ll get a plot Friday.” And I hung up the phone, and I realized, “Holy sh*t. I guess it isn’t canceled.” Then I called you, Ron. You said to me, “What are you going to do?” And I said, “I’ve got no idea.”

RF: You said, “I threw my notes away. I have no ideas!” [laughter] TD: “I have no ideas. I’ll get up tomorrow morning and TOM DeFALCO/RON FRENZ | 31

I’ll see what I can come up with. The only thing I decided was that I was going to call the story “Marked for Death.”

I ultimately reverted to type and said, “I don’t know what to do, so I’m going to do a mystery story. I just sat down and—this is one of the few times where I can say “I”—I sat down and came up with the basic skeleton. Then I called you, Ron, and we finessed it.

RF: We flew on those, because I really did kind of just hang onto my chair and tried not to embarrass myself too much, because following Pat, I was very intimidated.

Pat’s become our regular fill-in guy and we try to keep him as involved as possible. I’ll bounce an idea off of him, and if he goes, “Nah, that doesn’t strike me as being that character,” I won’t even pitch it to Tom, because he knows the characters as well as anybody.

DF: Sal certainly is a part of the whole thing.

RF: Sal is so fantastic. We were so lucky. That last cancellation at #60, it was at the point where Al Williamson [legendary artist who had been inking Spider-Girl. —DF] decided to retire. Sal had been our regular fill-in guy, and he agreed to come on board as the regular inker. I was talking earlier about finding the inker that’s hand-inglove, and I’ve learned so much from Sal. It’s just amazing working with him.

TD: I’m ashamed that we haven’t mentioned Al Williamson before, but he was also an intimate member of the team. In the early days of Spider-Girl, I decided that I wanted the stories to be lettered on the boards, because that way the inker would know what the story was about and be able to get involved in it. And many a time Al would call me up and be reacting to things that happened in the story. I remember one time he had gotten a couple of pages, and read them, and called me up and said, “You’re not going to kill this character, are you?” “Relax, Al. This is Spider-Girl.

Nobody is ever going to die in this book.” Which ultimately proved to be a lie, but anyway…

RF: Al was very involved, and he and Pat spoke on the phone a lot.

TD: Another member of the team that we haven’t mentioned is our current editor, Molly Lazer, who has become a real collaborator, a real, functioning, part of the team. Ron and I discuss the stories in depth, as you know. Based on our conversations, I come up with a plot, I send it to Molly, and then she reacts to it, and often comes up with a lot of key criticisms, including good ideas, which we then incorporate into the plot.

RF: She’s a terrific editor in the mode of the old school, because she does stay involved. We’ve been really fortunate with editors on Spider-Girl.

Nicole Wiley, before Molly, was terrific, and Molly is one of the first editors in many, many years who has given me feedback on how I handle Mayday. I try to pay attention to teen fashions and everything, and she’ll call and say, “I was telling everybody, ‘look—Ron’s got her wearing shoes that an actual teenager would wear!’” That’s wonderfully gratifying. We sit in our own little rooms, in our little hovels and do this thing, cut off from humanity, so to get that kind of feedback is great.

She’s always on top of things, and she always has an opinion, and it’s always reasonable and rational. I’ve enjoyed the heck out of it. It’s a h*ll of a team, and we try to do everything we can to propagate that sense of family and team. We are all doing the type of book we want to do.

DF: Now, Ron, I’ve heard that you don’t have e-mail, but then I got something that seemed to be cc’ed to you, so maybe you do have an e-mail by now.

Do you guys ever work e-mail? Do you do an instant message thing? Like, if Tom is working on a plot, will you instant message Ron? RF: I don’t own a computer.

Father-daughter bonding, interrupted by the A-Next Avengers, in Spider-Girl #81. Unlettered art by Ron and Sal. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.] 32 | WRITE NOW

DF: So why did I see you cc’d on something?

RF: I have a guy that runs a website that I’m a part of, that’ll take messages for me, and most weekends, I’ll go up to visit my father and my sister. They have a computer, and I’ll log onto the message board.

DF: That’s where I saw it, on the Spider-Girl message board. I saw a message that seemed to be from you, or using your name.

RF: Yeah, occasionally I’ll post just to let them know I’m lurking out there.

DF: Easy with the high-tech lingo, Ron—you’re scaring me.

RF: I’m not a complete Luddite. I know how to move the cursor, that’s about it.

DF: Why won’t you buy one?

RF: I’ve never really felt the need.

DF: And is Mr. Right the main creator-owned thing that you’ve done together? Because, as I said, I’ve seen sketches for other stuff.

RF: We’ve talked about other things. The issue is, and Tom has just addressed it—it’s not just the 100% thing—it’s also that most of what we do is very massmarket oriented. We want to entertain as many people as possible, and I think part of the issue with the independent comics these days is, it’s very directmarket specific, and a lot of our stuff doesn’t cleave to that type of mentality.

DF: Is the creative process with your own stuff still similar, throwing ideas back and forth at each other, and so on?

RF: Yeah. And, Danny, I swear to God, there are moments where, literally, Tom and I have come up with the same idea simultaneously. With Thunderstrike, we

DF: What’s that website that you’re a part of?

RF: It’s catskillcomics.com. He reps my art, and also I do commissions through there.

TD: I’d also like to mention the Spider-Girl message board. It’s at www.comicboards.com/spidergirl.

Those are the people who have organized all the campaigns to save Spider-Girl. Every time Spider-Girl was canceled, I did nothing. I just assumed it was canceled. It was the fans who took it upon themselves, without any encouragement from me, to voice their disapproval.

DF: Well, I wouldn’t say you do nothing. You do respond to people’s questions and problems on the board. You’re not spending your whole life promoting every single one of your projects and so on, but you’re definitely there, and I think your fans appreciate that.

RF: They definitely feel a personal connection with Tom. TD: Well, I feel a personal connection with them.

DF: Moving along… For generations, it was the norm to do work-for-hire, something owned by Marvel or DC. But I know you guys have dipped your toes in the creator-owned area. Tom, with Ron Lim, you did Randy O’Donnell is the M@n.

And then, the flip side, literally, was yours and Ron Frenz’s Mr. Right. And I’ve seen sketches for other characters you guys have worked on. What’s your take on that? Do you focus much time and energy on that for the day when, after four or five regime changes at the different companies, you might need to do your own thing? What’s your thinking on all this?

TD: I’m going to give you a very boring answer.

Every project I approach, whatever project it is, I have to be able to put 100% of myself into it, and have a 100% commitment to it. I have the same commitment to a company-owned, work-for-hire thing that I do for something that I own, myself. I’ve heard creators say that, when you own it yourself, you can put more of yourself into it. It doesn’t work that way for me. I’m just giving all I got, guys!

Venom and Darkdevil spar in Spider-Girl #82. Art by Ron and Sal. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.] TOM DeFALCO/RON FRENZ | 33

were both wracking our brains trying to come up with a name for the character. Tom immediately goes to the logical, rational. He wants the book racked with Thor.

So he wanted the word “Thunder” to be in there somewhere And I had heard the AC/DC song “Thunderstruck,” and I’m thinking, “‘Thunderstrike’. Hey, that’s kind of cool.” And I remember calling Tom and going, “Tom, I think I’ve got a name for the guy!” And he goes, “I think I do, too.” And we said it simultaneously. I mean, it was weird.

And Mr. Right—I had done a sketch, when we were creating the world of MC2, a Daredevil athlete type of character with a utility vest and such, and I had christened him “Mr. Right,” because nobody’s ever used that name, and yet doesn’t it strike a neat chord?

DF: You might hear that name and think it was a romance book.

RF: That’s the whole point. You think of a romance book, but there’s “right” as far as justice, right and wrong, and you go with that one. So I had done this thing, and when we started kicking around ideas for a creator-owned thing, we were looking for something that was, quite frankly, marketable. And we knew we wanted to do a Captain America type of a guy, a super-athlete, like a Daredevil, because we both just love those types of characters. So that’s what we were thinking in terms of the visuals. But we both came up with the idea at the same time to make him digital, because we wanted him to be this kind of throwback type of a character, this retro type of a character, in a modern setting. So we were trying to come up with ways to do that, like whether he really came from a comic book or came from the past or whatever. And simultaneously, in a conversation, we both came up with the idea of making him digital. So some of this stuff, I don’t know whether it’s a stream of consciousness thing that we both start rowing, or whatever it is, but we often arrive at the same places. We may get there separately, but at some point in the conversation, we both end up at the same point. And that’s happened more than once in this collaboration.

34 | WRITE NOW

DF: And you say Mr. Right is being considered for TV? TD: It’s being considered for other media at this stage.

DF: Do you guys have agents or representatives repping it for you?

TD: Yeah. Nobody wants us talking to anybody.

DF: I’ve seen you in meetings, Tom. You’re very charming.

TD: I’ve always said that, left to my own devices, all I would do would be comic books, because I love comics. But, unfortunately—or maybe very fortunately—I’m not left to my own devices— DF: For which the world breathes a sigh of relief. [laughter] TD: —and I’m constantly dragged in a number of different directions, as is Ron. Ron does SpiderGirl. He does a feature every month for Outdoor Life Magazine. He does a number of custom comics for various publishers.

RF: There was a twoor three-year period where I wasn’t getting regular work from comics, and had developed relationships with some subcontractors and I was doing freelance work for them. I try to keep those relationships alive, even when I have A commission pencil drawing by regular comics work, Ron of Spider-Girl and her own so that they might version of the black spider-suit. still be there when I [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.] need them.

TD: And I’ve got a couple of other fulltime careers that I’m dealing with.

DF: Well, aside from the male modeling, what?

TD: Aside from the modeling, I’m also doing a line of books for DK Publishing. These are books that sell in the hundreds of thousands. Hoo-hah!

DF: More than the comics of the characters they document.

TD: My first publishing statement from DK indicated that my $25 Hulk book sold 125,000 copies, which is

about three times what the comic book sells. The three-dollar comic book as opposed to the $25 book, which should sell more?

RF: That’s what tells me that the mass market would welcome us if we could play with format and get back into it. We just need to get out there and get in front of as many people as possible.

DF: When you say “play with format,” what do you mean?

RF: Well, I’m not sure that the 22-page, or the whatever-it-is, pamphlet is necessarily going to survive.

That’s one of the reasons that it was easy for comics to leave the mass market—because a lot of other magazines had gone up in price around them, and a retail displayer could make more money on a higherticket item than on a comic book. But it behooves us to remember that comics left willingly. They didn’t get thrown out. Comics left at the scent of a better deal with specialty stores, with no returnables and all that. But I think the super-hero movies have proven, I think the sales of books like Tom’s has proven, that the interest is there. It’s just getting the product to the people that want to see it, and quit expecting them to find us.

itself. And I know you guys have both worked in fun collaborations with other people, but certainly you’ve done the most work with each other, and keep coming back together. Is that just chemistry?

RF: For me, it’s really knowing what I can expect. I mean, I seek to work with Tom whenever possible. I’ve had wonderful collaborations. I really enjoy working with Roger Stern. We worked together on the Hobgoblin Lives miniseries and on the story “The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man.” I like and respect Rog as a craftsman, because he’s another craft writer. You know where he’s coming from, so you can respect the choices he makes.

So I’ve had a lot of other successful collaborations, but with Tom, you just know where you stand.

I’ve talked a few times about those third party voices that catch my ear, and a lot of people have told me, “DeFalco’s an anchor. You need to start working with other people, you need to show people that you want to work with other people, you need to show

DF: We have to start doing manga.

TD: Well, manga is a whole other discussion.

Because, while I believe that the aggregate sales of manga are significant, the individual sales are not.

RF: But Spider-Girl is another example, putting it into digest form and putting it out through Scholastic, and letting people see that there is a Spider-Girl. They check it, and it leads to 70,000 copies of the digest being sold. But Spider-Girl is a mass market concept, in the same way that Supergirl and Batgirl were. If you have Batman and it’s selling well, you create Batgirl, and you’ve increased your demographic.

TD: I think that right now the comic book industry has discovered bookstores, and real publishers have discovered the comic book industry, and a lot of people are going out there, and they’re all producing the wrong kind of material. And I think it’s a shame, because they’re going to destroy their opportunity before it has a chance to manifest itself. I think that there are certain people who can sell to the mass market, and certain people who sell to a direct market. And I look at the comic book sales today, they are using direct market creators in bookstores, and they’re selling direct market numbers. And I think if they used mass market creators, they would be selling mass market numbers. And I think that the industry is getting the sales that they deserve.

DF: I know, Ron, you’ve mentioned that some of the collaborators you’ve worked with, aside from Tom, were just bad chemistry, and that speaks for

Unlettered page 14 from Spider-Girl #86. Art by Ron and Sal. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.] TOM DeFALCO/RON FRENZ | 35

people that you can work with other people, and you need to find somebody that’s doing more contemporary work,” and all this kind of jazz. And Tom and I have had a couple of conversations about the fact that he refuses to preach to the choir. Tom, remember there was a couple of months there where we literally made, like, 12 pitches to Marvel? And I was begging him to just turn towards the choir once in a while.

DF: What do you mean, “turn towards the choir?”

RF: So much of what’s being done in comics today is

preaching to the forty-year-olds that have read comics all their lives, and that is a very different thing from what Tom writes. Tom wants to include everybody, and that’s a rational, sane, sales-oriented thing to do, but he and I have had conversations where, “Tom, the reality of it is…” And God love him, he will not bend on this. He wants his material to be accessible to everybody. His guts are just arranged in such a way that he’s a mass market kind of guy.

TD: I’m a commercial, y’know…

TD & RF: Whore.

Ron’s thumbnail sketches, and the final cover (inked by Bob McLeod), for Webspinners #17. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

36 | WRITE NOW

DF: But that kind of stuff shouldn’t alienate the choir.

RF: Yeah, but Tom and I refuse to apologize for what we see as being the way that things should be done. Comics have always, in my opinion, had the tendency to hamstring itself with this attitude, where, if anybody likes us, we will rush to them and say, “Like us, please. Love us.” And that’s why we were unable to resist the collector frenzy, even though they had just destroyed trading cards like locusts. We could not stop, even when there were voices screaming in the wilderness, “Look what just happened in cards. Why are we letting this happen?” We could not stop, because we are attention whores. Period.

DF: Uh… Tom, do you have anything to say about my original question. That was: you guys always come back together. What makes the chemistry so compelling?

TD: I like Ron as a person, and I respect him as a craftsman, and I just enjoy the h*ll out of him as a collaborator, because he is constantly challenging me, and constantly challenging himself. In general, the first ideas we come up with are always shot down, because we’re constantly looking for something better, and we’re constantly challenging ourselves to do something better, and we come up with, like, the fifth idea, which we stick in the plot.

DF: The ideas were “shot down” by one or the other of you, not by an editor.

TD: Not by the editor. I mean, we’re shooting down things long before they get to the editor.

DF: That’s the equivalent of the layers of whiteout on the plots.

TD: Yes. Those layers of whiteout still exist, but in a different way. And even after the plot is accepted, I’ve always said, “Come on, think of the plot as a first draft.” Even though, by the time Ron gets it, it’s probably the tenth draft. And after he’s drawing, a lot of times he says, “Hey! How about, instead of this, we do this?” And a lot of times I go, “Yeah, great!” And I get on the phone and call the editor. And now I want to go on one of my tirades.

DF: Tirade away.

TD: I think decompressed storytelling is killing the comics industry. Right now, in all other forms of entertainment, everything is speeding up. Action films, music videos, children’s books. Everything is getting more frenetic, faster, and more compelling.

Boom boom boom boom boom! Except for comics, which is slooooowing dowwwwn. And things that used to occur in a two-page sequence now take an entire issue. People eat a hot dog in one issue, and they belch in the next. But the problem for the mass market is, the comics come out, if we’re lucky, once a month. So there are thirty days between this slow chapter and the next slow chapter.

RF: Yeah. Even if you see something like Lost as being decompressed, which I don’t, it’s on weekly.

And, frankly, I don’t see Lost as decompressed,

Tom suits up as Dr. Doom and Odin for two 1990s collections of Marvel staff trading cards. What—you don’t have a set? Pencil art by Ron. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.] TOM DeFALCO/RON FRENZ | 37

because every hour is so chock full of ideas and characters that there’s more in one episode of Lost than there is in a year of a regular comic. And that would be only two story arcs.

DF: 24 is the blueprint for that.

RF: There you go, there’s another one.

TD: Yeah. And that’s where the rest of entertainment is headed, except for comics, which keeps slowing down. Ron and I stick a lot of stuff in a comic book, and I still think we’re moving too slow.

RF: I know it’s going to be a good issue if I read the plot and go, “How the f*ck am I going to fit all this in?” Because that means we’re back to Spider-Man days. Every time a Spider-Man plot by Tom showed up, I went, “He’s out of his mind!” But we always managed to make it work.

Next summer will be Comic Creators on X-Men. I think Avengers: The Ultimate Guide will be out around the time this interview is printed. And those Ultimate Guides are not for the hardcore collectors. These are for civilians that you want to hook on the hobby.

RF: Or freelancers hungry for ideas. [laughter] Those are great reference volumes, Dan, because I swear to God, when I couldn’t find my copies of something, I would flip through Tom’s Spider-Man: The Ultimate Guide book and go, “Oh my God, here’s the Kingpin’s wife,” when I needed reference on the character.

TD: The Avengers Guide is 144 pages, and almost no villains got pages because we’ve got so many Avengers! [laughs] There were so many fabulous Avengers villains, but there are just too many Avengers to get many of the villains in.

DF: Any other things to plug, or any last words of wisdom for the Write Now! readers?

DF: And it always looked great.

TD: Well, I think the reason why TD: Ron says I won’t bend Ron and I work so well together is, with the marketplace. And, we both come from the same point y’know, I would love to of view, which is that the bend with the marketplace. story is the most important But I believe a comic has thing. Anything that we do to be worth the price of in service to the story is a admission. And I believe good thing, and our goal is that it’s our job to reach to come out with the best out to the audience, not for story that we can come out the audience to reach out with. We check our egos at to us. the door, because our egos are not serving the story.

DF: Does the phrase RF: I completely agree with “complete unit of enterthat. I mean, under that tainment” fit in here heading of “serving the somewhere? story” is check your egos at TD: “Complete unit of enterthe door. There have been tainment.” You’ve heard me plenty of times where I just say that a million times. learned to trust Tom. Even if an idea sounded to me like Spider-Man: The Ultimate Guide, Comics Creators on the Fantastic Four, and The Avengers: The Ultimate Guide, all DF: Did you make that up, or it was pretty goofy—Spiderwritten by Tom. The Ultimate Guides are published by DK, Mark Gruenwald?

Kid comes to mind, the one Creators by Titan Books. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.] TD: I believe that was me, we did in Spider-Man. Tom but I’ll give Gruenwald the pitched it to me, and it was nod, because Mark was much smarter than I was. one of these things like, “Spider-Kid?” Is Tom’s Archie Maybe he did come up with it. But I’m a lucky guy in Comics background coming up to haunt him or that I still do work in comics, which I love, but I also something? And I ended up really loving that issue, get to deal with mass market publishers who are because it had a lot of heart. So as far as our delighted that I think in terms of the mass market, partnership, it springs from trust. It springs from and consequently sell a lot of books that keep the knowing where the other one’s coming from, and rent paid. serving the story.

DF: This segues into my last question, which is: what’s coming up that you guys want to plug, individually or as a team?

RF: Well, Tom, you’re the one that’s doing other work, right?

TD: Yeah, Comic Creators on Fantastic Four is out.

38 | WRITE NOW

DF: Well, that seems as good a place to wrap up as any. Thanks, gentlemen. This was really great.

TD: Thanks, Danny. And thanks for being there, everybody!

RF: Danny, working with you was always a pleasure, and this was an honor.

THE END

Here’s the plot that Tom wrote for Ron to pencil for What If? #105, the story that would end up launching the Spider-Girl series, as well as Marvel’s MC2 line of comics. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Tom DeFalco What IF #inv had a SPIDER-GIRL?” “What If SPIDER-MAN es pag 26 Plot for Submitted: July 7, 1997 (Hi, Ron! Needless to say

ibility and destiny.) , this story is about respons

Page 1

Hills, Midtown High in Forest h an establishing shot of wit y an stor that ng this n ifyi ope sign , We (Indicia): ts are on in the school o’clock at night. The ligh Queens. It’s about eight event is in progress. ers are high its conclusion. The play all game which is nearing s to race. ketb ard bas ’s reg in girl a is bow nt rain eve the The ning rteen to sixteen, and run scene, fou this in from g beg gin we ran As . en, school freshm bleachers are fairly packed the d ting ...an visi gym the ’s ool from sch ball The game is in the ker as she steals the rteen-something May Par called MAYDAY by ’s she , way the the crowd is cheering fou (By the Midtown High basket. team, and charges toward es.) mat team her -w will light half her face rt, a spider-sense like glo glow cou this the n, n (Ro dow s ket. race bas y the Ma ard Even as onents--as she moves tow opp on her see id ally avo usu and we se ch allowing her to sen half-spider face whi erent from the traditional should look somewhat diff Pete.) spid Instinctively allowing her

May heads toward the er-like sense to lead her,

Page 2 rfor (Story Title--Credits): --Pe ning basket.

America) to sink the win

ms a spectacular leap (wo

basket, and--

rthy of a Daredevil or a

Captain

Pages 3-4

her on the swarm around her, patting wild and her teammates Even as the crowd goes amazing leap-back, complimenting her ker. The h Peter and Mary Jane Par where we see a thirty-ninis guiltily. May er oth h eac at cing --We cut to the bleachers glan seen, used by what they’ve just Parkers are less than enth

As always with plot first (aka Marvel style) comics writing, and especially with longtime collaborators like Tom and Ron, the penciler decided where he thought visual emphasis needed to be and where characters would need more or less room for dialogue.

Since Tom and Ron generally discuss stories before they get to plot stage, it’s likely that they had agreed on many such decisions before the plot was even typed up. Of course, the editor (in this case, Kelly Corvese) would also be involved in decisions about the story. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

TOM DeFALCO/RON FRENZ | 39

Since this story establishes a character and her world, there’s more detail here than you would generally see in a plot. This way, everybody involved in story direction—writer, penciler, editor—will be clear how the story and the characters will develop. Bill Sienkiewicz’s inks enhance the power and mood of the story. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Tom DeFalco What IF #inv “What If SPIDER-MAN had a SPIDER-GIRL?” Plot for 26 pages Submitted: July 7, 1997

(Hi, Ron! Needless to say, this story is about responsibility and destiny.)

Page 1 (Indicia): We open this story with an establishing shot of Midtown High in Forest Hills, Queens. It’s about eight o’clock at night. The lights are on in the school, signifying that an event is in progress.

The event is a girl’s basketball game which is nearing its conclusion. The players are high school freshmen, ranging from fourteen to sixteen, and running the rainbow in regards to race.

The game is in the school’s gym...and the bleachers are fairly packed. As we begin this scene, the crowd is cheering fourteen-something May Parker as she steals the ball from the visiting team, and charges toward the Midtown High basket. (By the way, she’s called MAYDAY by her teammates.)

Even as May races down the court, a spider-sense like glow will light half her face-allowing her to sense and avoid her opponents--as she moves toward the basket. (Ron, this glow should look somewhat different from the traditional half-spider face which we usually see on Pete.)

Instinctively allowing her spider-like sense to lead her, May heads toward the basket, and--

Page 2 (Story Title--Credits): --Performs a spectacular leap (worthy of a Daredevil or a Captain America) to sink the winning basket.

Pages 3-4 Even as the crowd goes wild and her teammates swarm around her, patting her on the back, complimenting her amazing leap---We cut to the bleachers where we see a thirty-ninish Peter and Mary Jane Parker. The Parkers are less than enthused by what they’ve just seen, glancing at each other guiltily. May

40 | WRITE NOW

Welcome to modern society, where superhero culture has become the METAPHORICAL prism through which we see--and live--our lives.

& Cover art by Mark Bagley

Scott Hanna.

What is it about superheroes that speaks to us, that cuts across boundaries of nationality, race and gender to entrance us?

Fingeroth; Copyright ©2004 by Danny Lee Stan Foreword ©2004 by

“Danny Fingeroth has produced a readable and socially insightful consideration of the superhero. His analysis of society’s solution to its dissatisfaction with the protection provided by standard law-and-order systems makes it important and current. Stan Lee’s ‘excelsorial’ foreword is an enjoyable addition.”

—Will Eisner

paperback

$19.95 available now

“In Superman on the Couch, you’ll explore subjects that may make you reconsider preconceived notions and perhaps bring you greater appreciation of the superhero stories.”

— From the foreword by Stan Lee

In Superman on the Couch, DANNY FINGEROTH, longtime Marvel Comics writer and editor, and editor-in-chief of Write Now! Magazine, digs deep into our cultural psyche to explore just what we see reflected back when we look at superheroes.

“…With humor and a touch of comic book hyperbole, the author capably mines the genre’s cultural morphologies and the societal changes it reflects - a subject largely overlooked by contemporary pop psychologists and academics…”

— Publishers Weekly

SEE A COMIC CREATED FROM SCRATCH!

y

ON SALE In JANUARY!

e Manle

TwoMorrows. Bringing New Life To Comics Fandom.

TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Dr. • Raleigh, NC 27614 • 919/449-0344 • FAX 919/449-0327 • e-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com

th & Mik Fingero

It starts in WRITE NOW! #8, when comics industry pros DANNY FINGEROTH and MIKE MANLEY document the steps they take to create an all-new comic, as ideas are proposed, tried out, and modified, until a character’s look and origins are arrived at! Then in DRAW! #9, the creative process continues, as storylines are ironed out and Mike and Danny produce an adventure starring their new creation! The result of their labors is a pullout, full-color, printed comic inserted into DRAW! #9! PLUS: Mike and Danny show you how it’s done in the feature-filled How To Draw Comics, From Script To Print DVD! See a new character created from scratch, and watch a story drawn from roughs, to pencils, inks, and coloring—even lettering! It’s 120 minutes of “how-to” tips, tricks, and tools of the pros, plus Bonus Features!

MAGAZINES: $8 EACH US • COMPANION DVD: $34 US

ny 004 Dan Time ©2 Thief of

Get the GROUNDBREAKING CROSSOVER in WRITE NOW! #8 and DRAW! #9, and the COMPANION DVD!

DEPARTMENT

Creating Characters

by John ostrander

J

ohn Ostrander has been a comic book writer for over 20 years. A Chicago native, John broke into comics from professional theater, where he spent several years as an actor, playwright, director, and producer. John’s numerous published comic book credits include JLA: Incarnations, The Kents, GrimJack, Blaze of Glory, Star Wars, and many others. John has also taught comics writing at the Joe Kubert School and, with Dennis O’Neil, at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

Last issue, John shared his thoughts on story structure. This time around, we’re lucky enough to have him tell us his ideas on creating characters—turning names and images on a page into real people.

—DF

Once upon a time, I let a fan at a convention tell me about this great new character he had dreamed up, after which I felt constrained to point out that Marvel had this book called The X-Men and the fan’s character was almost identical to an X-Man called Cyclops. “No, they’re entirely different,” the fan angrily told me. “Cyclops shoots red eyebeams; my character shoots green ones!”

Friends and neighbors, different colored eyebeams do not an original character make.

Nor for that matter does a flashy name, skintight costume, or a cool superpower. Powers in themselves don’t define a character. Foibles, tics, mannerisms, and catch phrases do not make a character either.

When we talk about a character, just what are we talking about? Simple definition: it’s a person in a story or play. We also talk about people “having character,” by which we usually mean they have an individual or unique set of traits. For me, it’s that combination of positive and negative traits that defines any individual, real or literary.

I’d go so far as to say that contradictions define a character.

Let’s play a game. Make a list of positive traits in a character. List the following: friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, honest, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. A real boy scout.

Now, next to them, list the opposite of each of those traits. One rule: you can’t use words starting with “dis-” or “un-”. In other words, the opposite of honest, in this case, is not dishonest. It could, however, be deceitful. Make the words your choices.

Done? Okay. Here’s my point: if what you say on one side of

the line is true about the character, then somewhere in that character’s life the opposite will also be true in some way. Let me explain. For example: Superman is the Big Blue Boy Scout, according to some. Given that’s he is honest, how is he then deceitful? Well, his Clark Kent identity is a deceit. Its purpose is to make you think he’s not Superman. (Or you could look at it the other way around—Superman is the deceit, designed to hide the fact that our man is Clark Kent.)

My late wife Kimberly Yale had a lot of friends and they still remember all her wonderful traits. So do I. But I also remember all her foibles, all the little things that she did that made her so human, so real and alive to me still. I’ve reflected often that I value her faults more than some other person’s virtues. It’s the contradictions, therefore, that fascinate me most. I think it’s the contradictions that make all of us human, and that is what I value most in real and fictional characters.

Don’t try to reconcile or explain away the contradictions. We may be honest one moment and then lie the next. We just switch, often without thinking about it. The change may be brought on by a change in circumstance or by who we’re with. This is one of the big purposes of a story’s supporting cast—to bring out different facets of a Tim Truman’s cover to his and central character.

John’s Legend of GrimJack #5.

We all have different [© and TM Nightsky GrimJack sides; we’re like diamonds.

Rights And Production Vehicle Turn the stone around and a (Four Wheel Drive Model) LLC.] different facet may reveal something new of the fire within it. We similarly change according to who we’re with. Do you act the same around cops as you do around your friends? Are you the same around males as you are around females? The purpose of everyone in a story, including, and especially, the antagonist/villain, is to bring out different JOHN OSTRANDER | 43

sides of the protagonist/hero. Each character besides the protagonist/hero should have his or her own background, wants, needs, and story. But their main purpose is to let us see the protagonist in different lights.

Characters are also defined by what they do. Think of your own experience. What is more important to you—what a person says or what a person does? In most cases, it’s what a person does that defines them, and the same therefore must be true of fictional characters. What they say may be justification, rationalization, or outright lies. We judge a person by how they act. From those actions we may see patterns of behavior that will allow us to deduce motivation.

When we create a character, we’re allowed to decide what their motivation is. But we must be certain that their pattern of behavior fits what we have decided.

So how do we build a character? Let’s start with some basic writing tips. One of the most oft-given pieces of writing advice: “Write what you know.” But what do you know?

Usually, a lot more than you might think. What’s important is not just the experiences you’ve had, but what you’ve learned from those experiences.

You meet a lot of people in your life. Which ones did you want to get to know better and why? The same rule holds true for fictional characters. You get an idea for a character to want to

Interior art and cover to John’s The Kents graphic novel. Art by Timothy Truman, Tom Mandrake and Michael Bair. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

44 | WRITE NOW

write about. Then you must decide what traits would make us a readers want to know more about your character? What you know to be true from real life should also hold true in your fiction.

That creates a corollary to the first rule of writing what you know: Write what is true. Write what you have experienced to be true as opposed to what you have been taught is true. No matter how fantastic the setting or the premise, you’re still looking for something real to anchor it. The best fantasy is that which has one foot firmly set in reality. This is absolutely true for your characters.

Which leads me to my third rule of thumb: Nothing that is human is alien to me. I am capable of finding something in the character that I can find in myself. This must especially be true of the “villains.”

Of course, this doesn’t mean that you have to have had literally had the same experiences as your characters. For example, I don’t have to kill someone to know how a killer might feel. Not all killers react the same way to their actions. Have you ever killed a mosquito? What did you feel about it? Any remorse or guilt? Maybe your killer character feels that way.

On the other hand, have you ever said or done something that has wounded or killed a relationship? Have you ever done something or said something that, as soon as you’ve done or said it, you wished you could take it back—but you couldn’t? Did you break something beyond fixing, something that mattered to you?

Everyone I’ve ever asked that question of has said yes. Perhaps that’s how your killer feels. It’s a matter of transposing one experience into another. The circumstances are less important than the emotional reality you experienced—and can use.

So let’s get down to some of the nuts and bolts of creating a character. You have a vague idea for a character. What now?

You need to define the character. I’m talking basics and specifics here. What sex are they? How old are they? What is their height, weight, body type?

(I often use famous people— actors, athletes, politicians, celebrities, whoever—as a shorthand to help me get an image of my character in my mind. The artist may change all that, but I need something I can picture to start.) Hair color, skin color, eye color?

Distinguishing marks? They got a scar? How’d they get it?

What is their name? I try to give even henchmen a name.

Are they rich, poor, middle class? What religion are they?

Even within “Christian” you have a dizzying variety of choices, from Unitarian to Fundamental Evangelicals. It doesn’t matter if the character no longer practices that religion; if they were born and raised in it, then it still molds and affects the way that character thinks. I’m currently something of an agnostic (although I’m not dogmatic about it) but I was raised a Roman Catholic and I realize I am very

do the same: one emotion at a time; one action per panel. They specifically an RC agnostic. So when you create a character, can flip and feel a completely opposite emotion in the very next give them a backstory—a biography. This may help generate panel but they do one thing at a time. If you can’t describe supporting characters or even whole storylines. what’s going on in a panel at a given moment in a simple It’s part of what I call the iceberg theory. sentence, you’ve overly complicated that About 90% of any iceberg is under water; only panel. It’s the same with your characters’ 10% shows. The submerged 90% has to be wants and needs. We all put up blocks to there, however, in order for that 10% to show. getting what we want, but that’s not the As a writer, you have to know a lot more essential question. That question is: “What do about the character than you’re telling: what they want?” And the answer should be pretty side, which aspect of the character you simple and straightforward. choose to reveal will depend on a given story.

People are passionate about different How a person acts in, or reacts to, a given kinds of things, not just about other situation depends on their motivations—what people. In college, a girl I was dating told drives them on a primal level. I’m not talking me that if I had to choose between her and namby-pamby likes and dislikes. I’m talking a double chocolate cake, I’d have to think about: What do they want? What do they hard. “Nonsense, my dear,” I replied. “You’re need? What do they love? What do they exaggerating. I’d always choose you… with hate? What do they lust for? What do they infinite regret for having lost that cake.” My fear? These are all primal drives on a relationship with that girl sputtered out, but conscious or subconscious level. Nobody as anyone who has seen me can tell you, feels just one thing about anything. my relationship with chocolate cake What they love they may also hate obviously has not. as well. Stories should strip their Make choices with your characters. You can characters down to that primal, always change them. There are reasons why naked level. When the going gets we don’t chisel this stuff into stone. tough, when the going gets impossible, what keeps your And write it down. It’s not real until you write it characters fixed on their goals? down. What may seem like a great idea in your Why do they have these needs? head may wind up looking banal and mundane What events shaped these desires? Your when you actually have to incarnate it into words. bad guy wants to rule the world. Why? That’s what we’re really doing: incarnation.

And no equivocating! Do they love this Taking what was an idea, a thought, an impulse, person, this thing, this idea? Don’t tell a feeling, and putting it into a form using words. me, “I guess so.” Or “They could.” Or Creating a character is an act of incarnation.

“Kinda.” Not good enough! What is the Avoid the cliché. Sometimes I’ll take character passionate about? Don’t tell me an initial impulse and then ask myself that they’re emotionless; that’s a rock and what happens if I “invert” it? What if I I’m not interested in stories about rocks. make the male character a female?

Not even rocks with green eyebeams.

What happens if the white character is (And really, even being “emotionless” is a instead black or Latino or Asian? Does it way of dealing with one’s emotions.) make things more interesting?

Make positive, interesting choices about your I once had an Asian male character characters. In a previous incarnation, when I was who couldn’t do martial arts. He an acting coach, I would ask the actors resented it when people assumed he rehearsing a scene if their character loved the could. Another example: when Kim and other character. Unless it was written in the I created the Reverend Richard Craemer script, the actor or actress would usually tell me for Suicide Squad, we drew upon a variation of “no.” They couldn’t tell me what religious people we knew. Her father their characters did love, but they were certain was an Episcopal minister; my aunt was of what they didn’t love, until I challenged an RC nun. In fact, the character took his them to make the opposite choice, and tell me first name from Kim’s father and his last what their character hates. All of a sudden, the name from my aunt. At the time, it scene would come to life! Suddenly, there was seemed that every priest in comics was a something at stake. Any long-term couple can hypocrite or sexually repressed or tell you: intensely felt battles can be fought otherwise screwed up. Neither of us over leaving the toilet seat up or down.

Covers to John’s JLA: Incarnations #s denied that sort existed, but by making Why? Dig deeper and the issue is really 5, 6, and 7. Art by Val Semeiks and Father Craemer someone who was about control, but it manifests as a battle Prentis Rollins. [© 2006 DC Comics.] genuinely good, by drawing upon two over something as trivial as the toilet seat. people we actually knew who had active ministries, we Define the characters by the strongest feelings they can have. made Father Craemer different and in many ways more Above all, simplify. As a rule, people take the simplest and real, and very memorable, to many readers. most direct means to achieve their aims. Your characters should

JOHN OSTRANDER | 45

We all also have our secrets. Some things we know about a person or character—just from looking at them: age, sex, race and so on. However, unless they’re wearing a nametag, you don’t know their name. That’s the first level of secrets. Usually it isn’t hard to find out someone’s name. Next level—not so easy. This is basic stuff like address, phone number, social security number. You’re not going to give that out to just anyone, not unless you want your identity stolen.

We all have a circle of acquaintances—co-workers, fellow students, people we’ve just met. We’ll share some things about ourselves with them, but not as much as with our circle of friends—people we’ve chosen to let in closer. We do things with friends, we’ve had shared experiences. They know stuff about us, but perhaps not as much as the circle of family.

They knew us when we were small, know things about us including the stuff we don’t want your friends knowing. I’ve said before that the reason our parents may know how to push our buttons is that they installed the wiring.

But even that circle of family may not know us as well as the circle of close friends—those we’ve let in really close.

Usually there are only a few people in this ring—people who have earned that right over a long time. Closer to the core is that one person, that partner, that mate, that significant other—the one who knows us better than anyone. Yet, even from them, there is that core of secrets, that side of ourselves that we don’t share for whatever reason. Finally, there are the secrets we keep even from ourselves, that you haven’t been able to face or just don’t see. Not yet, anyway.

The thing about secrets is that they want to be told. A lot of stories revolve around who the characters choose to share those secrets with—when, why, and how—and whether or not doing so was a good idea. As writers, we can take readers to that deepest core of a character and let them see the secrets that the character hides from him—or herself that maybe the readers hide from themselves as well.

Dialogue is obviously another a major way of defining a character. However, I think dialogue can simultaneously be defined as action. No one ever “just talks” in a story. They confirm, they deny, they attack, they defend, they inquire, they demand, and so on. Yes, they may even “banter”—if that’s appropriate to the character and the story. How they do all these things helps define that character.

There’s a phrase I’ve heard over the years that is applied to writing: “kill your darlings.” I understand that injunction to refer to any situation, or any bit of dialogue or action in your story that you’re in love with because it’s so cool or so well written. It usually means that with that element you’re drawing attention to yourself and how talented or clever you are as a writer. My litmus test is: does the bit really serve the character, does it drive the story forward, does it tell us something we don’t know about the character or situation? If not, I delete or rewrite it.

This leads me to another rule of thumb: When in doubt, cut it out. If you can cut the line of dialogue or the character or the bit of business and not really affect the story, then get rid of it. It’s excess baggage.

Covers to DC’s Wasteland horror anthology title that John wrote for, often with Del Close. Art by (top) George Freeman, (lower left) David Lloyd, and (lower right) Don Simpson. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

46 | WRITE NOW

One of the ways we differentiate between characters is in how they talk, how they consciously or subconsciously express themselves through what they say. We “hear” the lines in our mind’s ear. If the characters all “talk” (i.e. read) the same way, then it’s boring.

How a character expresses him/herself is a revelation and extension of their character. Some use short sentences. Some go on at great length (if you let them). Some talk to cover up nerves.

Personally, I usually try to find the rhythm of how the person speaks, no matter who they are. It’s what’s also known as cadence. I’ve got an actor’s ear for mimicry so that helps me a lot in writing character-distinctive dialogue, but not everyone does. You can get all mechanical about this rhythm business, but I like a more natural style. It helps with the flow of the story, both when I’m writing it and when someone reads it. So I sometimes use “vocal casting.” I ask myself who would have the right speaking voice for this character if it

were made into a cartoon. It can be anyone, living or dead— an actor, a politician, a friend, a family member—anyone. If I can “hear” that voice in my head as I write the dialogue, and can “channel” the way that person expresses him/herself, the dialogue is more likely to feel alive and natural.

When writing comics dialogue, you also have to figure out which words to emphasize.

When you read a comic, certain words will be in bold and/or italics.

These visual cues help express both the meaning of a sentence and its rhythm. Actors do this with their voices—for that matter, we all do it when we speak. Take the line “What am I doing here?” and say it out loud five times, putting the emphasis on a different word each time. Hear the difference?

Some writers are known to recite their dialogue out loud, even if no one else is in the room, just to get a sense of whether it sounds right when spoken. Legend has it that Robert Kanigher, when he was writing Sgt. Rock at the DC offices, would jump on top of his desk and shout the dialogue out.

That was his test.

The theater is a great training ground for writers.

You get exposed to great dialogue (in some cases), you experience dramatic structure by putting it into practice, and you learn how dialogue reveals character.

At the very least, an aspiring comics writer should study plays or movie scripts more than other comic books or novels.

Finally, I have learned to listen to my characters.

This is going to sound just plain weird, but I know a story is working really well when the characters take over. Each character is a part or an extension of the writer. I’ve written stories that I’ve plotted to go in one direction, but then the characters within took over

and wanted the story to go in another, entirely different, direction. When I’m smart, I go with them.

One of the most difficult GrimJack stories I ever scripted was when I ignored what the Gaunt character wanted and forced the story to go where I had planned. It was as if Gaunt just clammed up. I couldn’t get the guy to say anything! It was hard work getting that story scripted.

On the other hand, when I recently returned to GrimJack for the first time in 13 years, it was like I’d never left. The character was there, talking to me, and it all just flowed.

You need to be careful with some characters, though, lest they take over the story completely! In the Star Wars stories I’ve been doing with Jan Duursema, we have a rogue type character named Villie who had disappeared from the series for a long time. He’s a supporting character, but very popular with the fans, and they’ve been asking for him. The truth is— every time we put him in a story, he just started taking it over, even when it wasn’t supposed to be his story! So we’re leaving him out until we can find a story where he can fit.

Ultimately, all your characters are to some degree you. They represent different sides of your own personality, as they should. A good story is essentially a writer talking to him/herself.

All your strengths, all your weaknesses, your good sides and your bad sides—are incarnated in your characters. What you ultimately have to offer your reader, aside from your talents and skills, is you.

If you do that, if you make the connection, the reader will believe you’re writing about them and will wonder how you could know them so well. That’s the magic and the reality and the truth of good writing and of memorable characters.

Covers to some of John’s Star Wars comics. [ © 2006 Lucasfilm Ltd & TM. All rights reserved.]

THE END

JOHN OSTRANDER | 47

RE-IMAGINING A CLASSIC:

NANCY DREW

P

apercutz, the brainchild of NBM founder and publisher Terry Nantier, is a new comics publisher creating graphic novels for tweens and teens. Terry’s partner in Papercutz is Editor-in-Chief Jim Salicrup, erstwhile writer/editor for Marvel Comics, Topps Comics and Stan Lee Media, and infrequent contributor to Danny Fingeroth’s Write Now! magazine. Jim was kind enough to tell us a little about how the Nancy Drew comics in general came about, and, specifically, about the story behind the Nancy Drew script and art pages he provided.

—DF

It was my former assistant editor on the Spider-Man titles, Glen Herdling, who reminded me that I had wanted to adapt the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew to comics over a decade ago, Well, once Terry and I started Papercutz, we were lucky enough to get those rights. And frankly, the timing is better now to publish such material than it was back then. Bookstores are far more receptive to graphic novels than ever before.

With Nancy Drew, I was thrilled to once again work with Stefan Petrucha. If our readers enjoy Stefan’s scripts as much as I do, then I’m positive we have a hit. The fact that our first Nancy Drew graphic novel is currently in its third printing may indicate that’s exactly what’s happening. Stefan is able to totally capture all the charm and personality that has made Nancy Drew an icon for 75 years. Of course, Stefan is creating all-new stories, but he has kept all the classic elements, while writing a Nancy Drew that’s totally contemporary.

Unlike standard comicbooks, Nancy Drew, and all the other Papercutz graphic novels, are published at a 5" x 71⁄2" size, similar to most manga books, and not unlike The X-Files digest comics Stefan wrote for Topps Comics. We both loved that pocket-sized format, and are thrilled to be working that way again. Because the pages are smaller than a standard comic, Stefan rarely writes a page with more than four panels, with three panels being the average. At first we were concerned about that. We were worried that we wouldn’t be perceived as a good value, but the reality is that most standard-sized comics today rarely feature more panels per page than we do!

Much has been made about Papercutz trying to imitate manga. That’s not entirely true. For example, Stefan is writing the stories in the traditional American style of storytelling, partly because that’s how he prefers to write, and partly because we’re publishing less pages per book than most manga titles. We want to get as much story in as possible, and 48 | WRITE NOW

by Jim Salicrup

can’t afford the leisurely pace of most manga titles. The point here is that we’re not imitating or trying to fool anyone into thinking that we’re “authentic manga.” We certainly wouldn’t be doing our books in color, if that were the case. We could do that if we wanted to, but we’re choosing not to, and instead are selectively incorporating elements from both Americanstyle comics and manga to create something new.

As to why we chose to have our titles illustrated in a manga-like style, well, to many (Left to right: ) Jim Salicrup, young kids today, manga is Marvel editor-in-chief Joe simply the most contemporary Quesada, and Danny Fingeroth in style. This approach just seems 2005 at The Museum of Comic much better suited to nonand Cartoon Art (MoCCA). superpowered characters, such as Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. Certainly it’s more naturalistic, and aside from the stylized faces, less exaggerated than most super-hero drawing styles.

It’s funny. It seems people are always saying there should be more comics for girls. A whole organization—Friends of Lulu— was created to help achieve that goal. But back when Stefan was writing The X-Files, over half our readers were female.

And now, almost all our Nancy Drew readers are female. While certain other companies seem to continually struggle with this concept, Stefan and I keep successfully finding a way to actually pull it off. And hey, that’s yet another reason why Nancy Drew is drawn the way it is. Manga has a mostly female following.

We’re extremely lucky to have Sho Murase as our Nancy Drew artist, working with CG 3-D artist Rachel Ito and colorist Carlos Jose Guzman. Unfortunately, you’re only able to see their work here in black-and-white. You really need to see it in fullcolor to fully appreciate what a great job they’re doing. The finished graphic novels look as if we’re publishing still from an animated Nancy Drew movie—but we’re not. It’s just that Sho is an animator and her work has that anime feeling even in print.

So, while I hope seeing Nancy Drew presented (in the section that follows this article) in the Nuts & Bolts format will be informative, I also hope that you may actually want to pick up one of our Nancy Drew graphic novels. While Stefan makes sure his stories appeal to our tween/teen target audience, I think their appeal extends beyond that. As I said, I really enjoy these stories as much as almost any other comic being published today. So, whether you want to pick it up for your daughter, sister, or even for yourself, I think you won’t be disappointed.

THE END

n't Ther ND #3: The Gir l Who Was

e

tity has been changed to “ Iden graphic novel with this title (Note – the Hardy Boys Theft.” ) , Nancy r sans George or Bess's help to fix her home compute i, Indi a. The two find they Delh 1. Whi le valiantly trying New in on pers Kalpana, a tech officer and meets, via phone support, s. Kalpana's dad's a poli ce including a love of mysterie a case. have much in common, s even helping her dad on She' . ctive dete a cy) Nan she fancies herself (like one night, a and phone calls. But late touch, and swap emails in stay to de . Nancy tries to reach the dead The girls deci goes line The . help begs for her pani cked Kalpana calls and doesn't get very far. poli ce in New Delhi, but to Indi a, ywood client, Nancy flies on's plans to meet a Boll trail of clues based on her a ws Taking advantage of Cars follo cy Nan e, When they arriv er. bringing Bess and George. know the girl or her fath lana, but no one seems to correspondence with Kap for ana mentioned. He works han - a troubled boy Kalp at Nancy's descripti on of Finally, Nancy finds Dars Darshan's eyes go wide re. figu e ana crim d Kalp nize s Sahadev, a local orga rtain terms - then claim off this "case" in no unce Kalpana, and he warns her doesn't exist! on the back.

Kalpana with an address e, and finds a picture of ana's bedroom Kalp es gniz reco Nancy tails Darshan hom cy Nan address is abandoned, but manages to The modest home at the ana's secret diary, Nancy wing the location of Kalp from the descripti on. Kno in Hindi! find it. Only, it's written only to to contact the local poli ce, and George, Nancy tries and some of his man hand t righ Leaving the diary with Bess 's adev strongman Vari ya, Saah be spotted by the scarred cy is kidnapped. thugs. After a chase, Nan s diary, cy and translate Kalpana' go crazy trying to find Nan dev demands to 2. Whi le Bess and George eon. A threatening Saha dung a be to s seem t wha ana, he our heroine wakes up in ains she's looking for Kalp ng around. When she expl believe her. n't does know why Nancy's poki he but , truth cy tells him the wants to know why - Nan s Kalpana A few cells away, she find manages to escape easi ly. er was undercover in Alone in her cell, Nancy dev learned that her fath Saha n whe d of appe kidn who expl ains she was her because they're terri fied locals won't acknowledge hopes his crime organization. The her among the dead. Sahadev is holding her in the ider will be Sahadev, and already cons come forward, their lives up - but if her father does her father will give himself forfeit!

Nancy Drew editor Jim Salicrup talks about the story and art pages he sent us: “Here’s the chapter-by-chapter story outline by Stefan Petrucha for Nancy Drew graphic novel #4 ‘The Girl Who Wasn’t There.’ It’s numbered #3, because that’s what it was originally scheduled for. But when we realized that in order to get our special 75th Anniversary Nancy Drew story, ‘The Haunted Dollhouse,’ actually published during said anniversary (2005), we’d have to switch it with graphic novel #3, so we did.

ND #3: The Gir l Who Wasn't Ther

e

(Note – the Hardy Boys graphi c novel with this title has been changed to “ Identi ty Theft.” ) 1. While valiantly trying to fix her home computer sans George or Bess's help, Nancy meets, via phone support, Kalpana, a tech person in New Delhi, India. The two find they have much in common, including a love of mysteries. Kalpana's dad's a police officer and she fancies hersel f (like Nancy) a detect ive. She's even helping her dad on a case.

The girls decide to stay in touch, and swap emails and phone calls. But late one night, a panicked Kalpana calls and begs for her help. The line goes dead. Nancy tries to reach the police in New Delhi, but doesn't get very far.

Taking advantage of Carson's plans to meet a Bollywood client, Nancy flies to India, bringi ng Bess and George. When they arrive, Nancy follows a trail of clues based on her correspondence with Kaplana, but no one seems to know the girl or her father .

Finall y, Nancy finds Darshan - a troubl ed boy Kalpana mentioned. He works for Sahadev, a local organi zed crime figure . Darshan's eyes go wide at Nancy's descri ption of Kalpana, and he warns her off this "case" in no uncertain terms - then claims Kalpa doesn't exist! na Nancy tails Darshan home, and finds a picture of Kalpana with an address on the back.

The modest home at the address is aband oned, but Nancy recognizes Kalpana's bedroom from the descri ption. Knowing the locatio n of Kalpana's secret diary, Nancy manag find it. Only, it's written in Hindi! es to Leaving the diary with Bess and Georg e, Nancy tries to contact the local police , only to be spotted by the scarred strongman Variya, Saahadev's right hand man and some of his thugs. After a chase, Nancy is kidnap ped.

2. While Bess and George go crazy trying to find Nancy and translate Kalpa na's diary, our heroine wakes up in what seems to be a dungeon. A threatening Sahad ev demands to know why Nancy's poking around. When she explai ns she's looking for Kalpa na, he wants to know why - Nancy tells him the truth, but he doesn't believe her.

Alone in her cell, Nancy manages to escape easily. A few cells away, she finds Kalpana who explai ns she was kidnapped when Sahadev learned that her father was undercover in his crime organi zation. The locals won't acknowledge her because they're terrifie d of Sahadev, and already consider her among the dead. Sahadev is holding her in the hopes her father will give himself up - but if her father does come forward, their lives will be forfeit!

“The line referring to a Hardy Boys graphic novel, also titled ‘The Girl Who Wasn’t There,’ was to let Simon and Schuster (the wonderful folks we license Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys from) know that we had changed the Hardy Boys title to ‘Identity Theft.’ (The outline is what we give to S&S for approvals. It’s not what the artist will draw the story from.)

NANCY DREW | 49

“This is some script and the resulting art for the Nancy Drew story ‘The Girl Who Wasn’t There.’ It corresponds to the last paragraph of the outline for chapter one. In this particular sequence, Nancy and her friends George and Bess are in a scary neighborhood in New Delhi, having failed to find Nancy Drew’s lost friend Kalpana. (The Girl Who Wasn’t There wasn’t there!) As Bess repairs the auto-rickshaw they arrived in, Nancy decides to keep looking for clues.

Panel 2: alley.

Nancy gasps as Darshan and a large

hairy thug steps out from a deep, dark

NANCY CAPTION me to find her.

And her kidnappers might not want DARSHAN you didn't I told you you'd be better of pretending know her.

NANCY -gaspPanel 3:

Tight shot as Nancy whirls, ready to

run in the other directi on.

NANCY CAPTION manage to I'm pretty fast on my feet, and I usually nis says I'm just get away. Back home Chief McGin like a rabbit in a briar patch.

Panel 4:

Nancy stops short. Two more thugs

stand there, blocki ng her path.

NANCY CAPTION briar patches That may be true, but I didn't see any tr ouble. more here. Only Page Twenty-seven Panel 1:

Nancy swiftly kicks Darshan in the shins.

NANCY CAPTION So I had to impr ovise.

DARSHAN Aghhh!

Nancy runs past him into other the DAR g Darshan into SHA N thug, Pushing the howlin Panel 2: Aghhh! the alley they emerged from.

Panel 2: Pushing the how ION ling Dars Y CAPT han into the other thug, the alley they emergedNANC Nancy runs past him into from. into the alley, figuring I headed as fast as I could the that even if these goons knew the area, NANCY even.

CAPTION make us more dar kness would I headed as fast as I coul d into the alley, figuess. that even h the pitch blackn ring throug if she thesruns e as goon ng s sweati knew face 's the area, the Nancy Panel 3: dar kness would make us more even.

Panel 3: Nancy's face sweating as she runs through the pitch blackness.

Panel 2: Nancy gasps as Darshan and a large hairy thug step alley. s out from a deep, dark NANCY CAPTION And her kidnappers migh t not want me to find her.

DARSHA N I told you you'd be bette r of pretending you didn 't know her.

-gasp-

NANCY

Panel 3:

Tight shot as Nancy whir ls, ready to run in the othe r direction.

NANCY CAPTION I'm pretty fast on my feet, and I usually manage to get away. Back home Chie f McGinnis says I'm just like a rabbit in a briar patc h.

Panel 4:

Nancy stops short. Two mor

50 | WRITE NOW

e thugs stand there, bloc king her path.

NANCY CAPTION That may be true, but I didn 't see any briar patches here. Only more tr ouble.

Page Twenty-seven Panel 1:

Nancy swif tly kicks Dars han

in the shins.

NANCY CAPTION So I had to impr ovise.

Aghhh!

DARSHA N

Panel 2: Pushing the how the alley they emerged from ling Darshan into the other thug, Nancy runs past him into .

Panel 3:

Panel 2: alley.

NANCY CAPTION I headed as fast as I coul d into the alley, figuring that even if these goons knew the area, the dar kness would make us more even.

Nancy's face sweating as she runs through the pitch blackness.

NANCY CAPTION Nancy gasps as Darshan and

a large hairy thug steps out

from a deep, dark

NANCY CAPTION And her kidnappers migh t not want me to find her.

DARSHA N I told you you'd be bette r of pretending you didn 't know her.

-gaspPanel 3:

NANCY

Tight shot as Nancy whir ls, ready to run in the othe r direction.

NANCY CAPTION

NANCY CAPTION manage to I'm pretty fast on my feet, and I usually nis says I'm just get away. Back home Chief McGin like a rabbit in a briar patch.

Nancy stops short. Two more thugs

Panel 4:

stand there, blocki ng her path.

NANCY CAPTION briar patches That may be true, but I didn't see any here. Only more tr ouble.

Page Twenty-seven Panel 1:

Nancy swiftly kicks Darshan in the shins.

NANCY CAPTION So I had to impr ovise.

DARSHAN

“Nancy’s line regarding monkeys is a reference to an earlier scene in which she and her friends were startled to find Kalpana’s apartment taken over by monkeys.

NANCY DREW | 51

“Once the script has been approved by S&S, it’s sent on to artist Sho Murase. Unlike the old days back at Marvel, I never, ever touch an actual page of original art! Sho draws directly on the computer. She then sends me low-res JPEGs (such as the art for page 27 of the story at the top of the previous page) to approve her layouts. After the pages are approved, Sho, working with CG 3-D artist Rachel Ito and colorist Carlos Jose Guzman, completes the artwork, while letterer Bryan Senka digitally letters the pages from the low-res JPEGs.

NANCY CAPTION manage to I'm pretty fast on my feet, and I usually nis says I'm just get away. Back home Chief McGin like a rabbit in a briar patch.

Panel 4:

Nancy stops short. Two more thugs

stand there, blocki ng her path.

NANCY CAPTION briar patches That may be true, but I didn't see any here. Only more tr ouble.

Page Twenty-seven Panel 1:

Nancy swiftly kicks Darshan in the shins.

NANCY CAPTION So I had to impr ovise.

DARSHAN Aghhh!

other thug, Nancy Pushing the howling Darshan into the Panel 2: the alley they emerged from.

NANCY CAPTION figuring I headed as fast as I could into the alley, the that even if these goons knew the area, dar kness would make us more even.

Panel 3:

Panel 2: alley.

h Nancy's face sweati ng as she runs throug

runs past him into

the pitch blackness.

NANCY CAPTION hairy thug steps out from a deep, dark

Nancy gasps as Darshan and a large

NANCY CAPTION me to find her.

And her kidnappers might not want DARSHAN you didn't I told you you'd be better of pretending know her.

NANCY

“You can see different stages of page 29 of the story here. The version on the top is the low res JPEG, and at the bottom is a black-and-white reproduction of the finished, colored pages.

“Note that Sho broke what had been planned as one page (page 28) into two pages. She felt—and Stefan and I agreed—that the scene needed more room to achieve its full dramatic potential.”

52 | WRITE NOW

SAME / NOT THE SAME

One man’s reflections on writing for film and comics by robert tinnell

R

obert Tinnell has worked in the film industry for 20 years as a writer, producer, and director.

Beginning his film career as production assistant for legendary cult film impresario George Romero, Bob’s film credits to date include the ACEnominated Kids of the Roundtable, Airspeed, and Frankenstein and Me. Primarily a maker of “family films,” Bob is one of a select few in Hollywood who truly does make films for the entire family. Forgoing fuzzy animals, Bob’s films are well known for their creative overlay of stimulating concepts with true-to-life characters.

A life-long comics fan, Bob recently wrote the popular graphic novels The Black Forest and The Wicked West for Image Comics. Both books revel in Bob’s love and appreciation for old-time horror stories.

Here, Bob gives those insights as to how a screenwriter’s approach to his or her craft compares with that of the comic book writer. Bob should know. He’s shown creative passion, and respect, for both mediums.

—DF

Hollywood runs on clichés. I don’t mean that as a knock, necessarily. In his novel, QBVII, Leon Uris had a character say something to the effect that “the world revolves on a half-dozen clichés.” A favorite cliché spouted by most everybody in Tinseltown (particularly someone’s who just had a script rejected) is one from celebrated screenwriter William Goldman’s book Adventures in the Screen Trade: “Nobody knows anything.” It’s a big-time cliché and a cheap pacifier. It’s also the truth. I tell you this because a lot of times I’ll read an essay by someone pontificating on the business of the movies or comics or both, and I end up walking away shaking my head. I find their experience is generally nothing like what I perceive as reality (Brian Bendis’s Fortune and Glory excepted—that one gets it perfect). But now that I’m in the hot seat, pontificating away right here in public, I’m getting a little uncomfortable. Because I can guarantee you there’s going to be someone out there whose experience was totally different than mine who will think I’m a lying idiot. But that’s okay.

After all, “nobody knows anything.” Including me.

But I do have some opinions on movies, on comics, and on how they relate to each other.

I can remember hearing about guys who make a good living writing movies that never get made. I couldn’t imagine such a thing. Then one day I woke up and I was that guy. I’m doing well writing screenplays that may never shoot. (Before that, I made a nice living making movies that you probably never saw.) It’s a strange business. In any case, I figure this life experience, coupled with my relatively recent sojourn in comics gives me at least the patina of authority to weigh in on movies and comics and the writing business in general.

First, I want to talk about to illusions. One that was fun to buy into— or that was at least soothing—was the notion that Hollywood is filled with brilliant un-produced screenplays. It isn’t. The truth is, if you have a modicum of talent, and you don’t quit, chances are good that work and that talent will be recognized. If you’re good, you just have to hold out. It’s a war of attrition. I have this friend who’s a big-time director, and I was telling him I felt like the film business was a version of trench warfare. In the beginning of your career, you climb out of the trenches with thousands of others, and you’re running towards the enemy’s machine guns. Next thing you know, it’s 15 years later, and you look around, and maybe one or two of the people you started with are still running—and the rest are behind you— broken, bloodied corpses littering the landscape. And my friend said, “Yeah, but what sucks is, they’re still firing at you.”

A new illusion I’ve encountered is the idea that if you write a graphic novel or comic, it’s going to be made into a movie. It’s going to get optioned, and you’re going to get big bucks. In fact, I actually read on the Internet somewhere how Todd Livingston and I had cynically turned our story The Black Forest into a graphic novel to revitalize the screenplay as we didn’t previously have the juice (aka clout) to get the movie going. Yup, they’ve seen right through us. Forget the fact there was no way The Black Forest was going to be a movie once Van Helsing was announced—period. The truth of the matter is, hard as it may seem to believe, we just dig comics, and the thought of Neil Vokes rendering our story in all his black-and-white glory was a thrill. Not very lucrative, but a thrill. Coming from movies, a business where you may wait decades to see your vision realized, we basked in the immediacy of the comics medium’s near-instant ROBERT TINNELL | 53

get to use “bushwhacked” in a sentence). gratification. It’s certainly one of several core reasons, in my case Another reason for the failure of the material could be the anyway, to write comics. I’ll get back to this idea in a bit. I want to creators’ inexperience or impatience. Let’s face it, while you may finish up on this whole option thing first, starting with the illneed to be a trust-fund baby to finance your own movie, it conceived notion that there’s all this big option takes a h*ll of a lot less to get your comic (or, money to be had. Sure, the occasional project if you prefer, your graphic novel) going. Many gets a major hit of cash—key word being small comics I come across have great ideas occasional. The reality of the matter is that I’ve that are rather poorly executed. Which is a been shocked at some of the option amounts shame because having that good idea, that I’ve heard people got for their comics—shocked solid concept, is the thing. Execution is because they were so low. something you can work on improving. It’s one I suspect one of the reasons for low of those pesky clichés, but good writing means option prices is that much of the material re-writing. If you’re going to take the time and hasn’t been properly developed. To be effort put out a comic—and some poor bastard honest, I didn’t come up with this theory on is going to spend weeks, if not months, drawing my own. After Comic-Con 2004, I went up it—why not polish the h*ll out of it? Why rush it? to L.A. for a round of meetings, one of which Here’s a response you’ll encounter to the was with an exec on the Warners lot who above: “If a producer ‘gets the material,’ he’ll buy has become a good friend. He’s a major it anyway. Then they’ll rework it in develcomics geek and was bemoaning what he opment.” That’s true—sometimes. But the truer saw at the Con. “Why don’t they spend truth these days is that all that free-and-easy more time developing their ideas?” he development money is not so free and easy asked. “99% of what I saw was crap.” anymore. Lots of folks with output deals or first I’m in no position to give a definitive look deals (i.e., they are getting some level of answer—but as usual, I have some financial assurance or commitment from a opinions. Part of it may be the gold-rush Cover to The Black Forest graphic studio or other funding source) want you to mentality—just haul ass up the mountain novel by Todd Livinston, Robert come in with a finished script, not just a “high and you’ll come down rich. Unless, of Tinnell, and Neil Vokes. [© 2006 concept”—a simple, powerful idea. (For course, you freeze to death or get Todd Livinston, Robert Tinnell, and example, the premise for 30 Days of Night, bushwhacked by claim jumpers (finally, I Neil Vokes. All rights reserved.]

Neil Vokes convention print art for The Black Forest. [© 2006 Todd Livingston, Robert Tinnell and Neil Vokes. All rights reserved.]

54 | WRITE NOW

the graphic novel by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith, that became a movie, is as elegant as you get: vampires in Alaska in winter when the sun never rises. It’s just awesome.)

And as long as we’re on the subject of “high concept,“ I’ll take the opportunity to point out another misconception: the idea that “high-concept” is somehow intellectually suspect. In reality, when properly executed, “high-concept” is inspired writing. Romeo and Juliet is high-concept, for crying out loud. “Kids from two warring families fall in love.” Of course, in some circles it’s hip to bag on clean, high-concept storytelling, and I’m not saying that critics who want comics to explode beyond the confines of the three-act structure and who desire departures from Aristotelian dictates are wrong.

They aren’t—unless you, the writer are (a) looking to make a movie deal or (b) far too lacking in talent to attempt groundbreaking adventures in the deconstructed narrative.

Let’s return to the problem of comics that seem like they were rushed, skipping thoughtful development. I can’t help but wonder if perhaps some creators have a little bit of condescension towards comics themselves. For the majority of their existence, comics were relatively cheap and, as such, a disposable form of entertainment. Might that mind-set have extended to the creators themselves in some instances? Well, sure it did. Could it still be around? I think so. As a result, could their subconscious be saying, “Screw it. It’s good enough for a comic”? Unlike spec feature-film (or spec comics) writing, comics that have a deadline do force a writer to, at some point, throw in the towel and turn in the manuscript. Not so the enterprising author of an original graphic novel that doesn’t even have a publisher yet. Today’s technology gives us the ability to make improvements to a story even after a comic has been lettered. The pity is I’m not sure everybody’s making the effort to make their comic as good as it could be.

It’s funny, but the question I’m most often asked by aspiring writers is, “What software should I get for screenplays?” Seriously, that is the number-one question. Sure, formatting is important.

Poorly formatted scripts are routinely rejected. But you get faceto-face with a working screenwriter and that’s question one? (By the way, my answer is usually, “Try Movie Magic Screenwriter,” or, if I’m in a particularly foul mood, “Google it and figure it out.”)

Good writing on cocktail napkins beats perfectly formatted crap on linen paper any day. I actually do have some pieces of advice that could, I think, make a difference to an aspiring writer. For example, try reading your stuff out loud. It’s amazing the errors you discover that you’d otherwise miss by only reading silently.

Reading aloud is especially helpful with dialogue. Okay, I didn’t just cure cancer, but for those of you who haven’t tried this, I can promise you it’ll improve your writing.

Let me explode another myth for you. “Hollywood is peopled by lawyers-turned-executives who don’t understand story, have no taste, and don’t care that they make bad movies.” Nobody, within the studio system at least, sets out to make a bad movie. Many of the executives I meet and work with studied English Lit and/or went to film school. They love film and read ten or more scripts a week. “Passionate” does not begin to describe them or their commitment to their jobs.

As far as lawyers messing things up is concerned, let’s get real— they aren’t the ones lining up to watch crap. Maybe as a society we’re just devolving into some post-literate state. In fact, I’m tempted to remove the word “maybe.” Still, I concede that many scripts get messed up. Chalk it up to “too-many-chefs” syndrome or ego-boosting on the part of “hands-on” producers

or a director who just misunderstood the material. But to be fair, the fact is that some material falls apart once it is interpreted for the screen.

In my experience, however, most really good scripts seem to survive. Lost in Translation, Sexy Beast, Ghost World, American Splendor, Sideways—there’s great, great writing in every one of these (and hey—two of them are adapted from comics). You want to get more commercial? Lord of the Rings (hardly a slave to the three-act structure, but damned highconcept), Spider-Man 1 & 2, and The Incredibles are all well written. Most likely well re-written, to be accurate.

Writing well doesn’t necessarily mean working on something for a long period of time. Often, when you’re working on something that taps into things you’ve internalized, the writing can go very quickly. Fast or slow, writing is almost always improved by perspective.

Perspective is hard to come by, difficult to accept once you’ve got it, and almost impossible to do to outstanding work without. But when you’re working on a tight deadline, you do the best you can. As it happens, I thrive on tight schedules (I do not consider this a strength, by the way. Instead, I see it as a lack of character). But, if you do have the luxury of locking that manuscript in a drawer and walking away—even if only for a week—my God, what a gift. You’ll find yourself getting surgical

Here’s some of Todd and Robert’s script for “The Wicked West: Road to Javers,” along with some of Neil’s thumbnails for the pages described. The story appeared as a back-up in The Black Forest #2, from Image Comics. [© 2006 Todd Livingston, Robert Tinnell and Neil Vokes. All rights reserved.]

ROBERT TINNELL | 55

on the script. Dead weight will suddenly become apparent and you can perform the necessary lipo-suction. For me, I always discover over-writing. Sometimes I tend to make the same point more than once in a scene. That’s not necessary. Really.

It’s not necessary. It’s not. I’m not kidding.

When it comes to writing comics, I approach things fundamentally the same as I do a screenplay, with slight modifications. It’s far too late to get me to break the three-act habit. It’s who I am, the way I think. So the story’s going to progress in the “arc” structure of a movie, even if the reader isn’t (and hopefully, he or she isn’t) aware of it. However, the beauty

Neil’s advanced thumbnails for page 6 of “The Wicked West: The Road to Javers.” [©2006 Todd Livingston, Robert Tinnell and Neil Vokes. All rights reserved.] and strength of the comics medium is that it allows for exploration—it gives me a chance to “stop-and-smell-the-roses,” so to speak. Film does that as well, of course. Lost in Translation is a fine example. It’s a movie that’s not very dense in incident (that is, the plot is fairly simple), but is very rich in character development. In comics, I can go even further, if I choose, and it’s okay because the reader is conditioned to allow the occasional straying from the narrative path, so long as the detour is rewarding and relates back to the story’s central themes.

For me, the struggle with “exploration” is ongoing. I recently read issue #33 of Tomb of Dracula in the Essentials reprint (ToD is my all-time favorite comic, incidentally). Issue #33 is amazing. Dracula really deepens as a character. We learn 56 | WRITE NOW

through a powerful flashback just how and why the hatred between him and his arch-enemy, Quincy Harker, is so strong.

There is a ton of emotion, lots of tension, a real epic sense, and the story has one moment of breathtaking dramatic power. Lots of stuff happening here—and all in 18 pages. On the other hand, I don’t mind the move towards “decompression” (more leisurely-paced storytelling) in comics. I mean, sometimes reading Powers, for instance, you get into the slower pacing, and your resulting emotional response, just like in a—gasp!— movie, precisely because of the way Bendis and Mike Oeming have crafted the storytelling. Again, they explore character and emotion through a slower unraveling of a story. They’re doing some of the best storytelling in comics today.

On the other hand, I really don’t enjoy reading a 22-page story, getting to the end, and saying to myself, “That’s it?”

There’s got to be a happy medium, particularly in horror comics. If you want to deliver a real jolt, it’s often necessary to open up a bit and let a moment unfold slowly, drawing the reader in.

Writing for comics should be an exercise in economy. Sure, as I said above, there are times to slow stuff down and let events unfold at a pace that guarantees maximum impact.

Other times, however, it really does just take one panel and a caption to explain we’ve traveled from Boise to the mysterious eastern country of Katmandishu. Knowing when to tighten your pacing and when to expand it is critical. You gain that knowledge three ways: tapping into your innate talent, practicing, and my favorite, imitating the masters. Marv Wolfman, for example, has infected much if not all of my writing. When I watch an episode of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, I see echoes of Marv (and no, we’ve never met—I’m just trying to be cool) that the writers of the series might well have picked up on from reading his comics; they may not even consciously know they’re there. Marv’s sensibilities became my sensibilities—as well as that of many others writers, I’ll wager—at an early age, just by exposure. Thank God he was good. These days I try to build on that sensibility.

I read, and not just the new stuff. Last year Comic Book Marketplace did a Milton Caniff issue that reproduced the last Terry and the Pirates page he ever did. I know I’m given to the hyperbolic, but I swear to God you can learn just about everything you need to know about telling a story via sequential art from that one page. So I tend to drown myself whenever possible in the authors and artists I like (much as I did with film as a student and as a young filmmaker). I still have a lot to learn. Take “page turns,” for example. They are so critical to good comics writing. If you’re writing full script, you dictate what the last thing on a page will be, the thing that will make the reader have to turn it to see what happens next. But if you’re working in some variant of “plot first,” then you must trust your artist to break down the pages in a way that will make that reader want to turn the page. In both cases, you’d be best off if whatever that turns out to be is scary or exciting or funny or—you get the idea. This is just one example of how I like to polish my craft. And I need to polish my craft—I’m nowhere near good enough yet.

I hope you found some of my reflections informative. As a parting thought, I’ll just say that both movies and comics are image driven. That’s obvious. And sometimes that’s enough.

But, for me, when the words aspire to be worthy of the images, that’s when things get interesting.

For the writer and the audience.

THE END

On these pages we see Robert Tinnell’s script for the first few pages of “Vengeance is Mine: A Terry Sharp Story,” as well as the artwork by Adrian Salmon. [© 2006 Robert Tinnell and Adrian Salmon. All rights reserved.]

in adjoining graveyard English church and ugh the 1.1 - A beautiful the country. It's daytime, tho the clouds a small village in sky, shafts of light penetrating the ground. sun is low in the e - dappling light and shadow on surrounds think Gustave Dor ked outside the stone wall that etery.

Terry's car is par re's someone standing in the cem the churchyard. The don?" the way back to Lon I make a stop on Caption: "Mind if all."

Caption: "Not at RY SHARP STORY TITLE CARD: A TER 1922-1959" reads "JOHN SHARP 1.2 - A tombstone . the tombstone. Sad Terry stands over "Hello..."

Balloon off panel: distance. s on a bench in the 1.3 - A vicar sit a while...

VICAR: It's been ar. Vicar is a bit t of Terry and Vic er see one side of his sho 1.4 - Wide two least we nev at .. or see to ming as possible. difficult make this as unassu face. But try to . e.. lat busy of . I've been rather TERRY: Yes, it has n for church?

VICAR: Too busy eve 1.5 CU Terry .

TERRY: Ah, church thing?

ser, that sort of Keep my enemies clo

in BG. back to us, Terry eground with his 1.6 - Vicar in for Terry. is not your enemy, Vicar: The church s, as the church goe far not my enemy. As Terry: No, God is out... the jury is still ar in b.g. shoulder, wide, vic 2.1 Over Terry's Lord... is mine, sayeth the Vicar: Vengeance 2.2 - CU Terry.

le Perform unspeakab ds worship Satan. my family apart. They n Terry: These bastar tor e y'v trol and nts. The rituals on innoce all of England is under their con won't rest until they'll be satisfied. bt dou I even then d, only Vicar in foregroun king up at Terry, 2.3 Low angle loo partially seen.

The story first appeared in Frankenstein Mobster #6, from Image Comics. (You may recall Mark Wheatley’s article about how he created the Frankenstein Mobster in WN #7.) [© 2006 Robert Tinnell and Adrian Salmon. All rights reserved.]

ROBERT TINNELL | 57

2.1 Over Terry's shoulder , wide, vicar in b.g.

Vicar: Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord...

2.2 - CU Terry.

Terry: These bastards wors hip Satan. Perform unspeaka rituals on innocents. They 've torn my family apart. ble won't rest until all of Engl and is under their control They even then I doubt they'll and be satisfied.

1.1 - A beautiful English church and adjoining grav a small village in the coun eyard in sun is low in the sky, shaf try. It's daytime, though the think Gustave Dore - dapp ts of light penetrating the clouds ling light and shadow on Terry's car is parked outs the ide the stone wall that surr ground. the churchyard. There's some ounds one standing in the cemetery .

Caption: "Mind if I make a stop on the way back to London?"

Caption: "Not at all."

TITLE CARD: A TERRY SHARP STORY 1.2 - A tombstone reads "JOH N SHARP 1922-1959" Terry stands over the tomb stone. Sad. Balloon off panel: "Hello.. ."

1.3 - A vicar sits on a benc h in the distance.

VICAR: It's been a while...

1.4 - Wide two shot of Terr y and Vicar. Vicar is a difficult to see - or at bit least we never see one side face. But try to make this as unassuming as possible of his ...

TERRY: Yes, it has. I've been rather busy of late...

VICAR: Too busy even for church?

1.5 CU Terry TERRY: Ah, church. thing?

Keep my enemies closer, that

sort of

1.6 - Vicar in foreground with his back to us, Terr y in BG. Vicar: The church is not your enemy, Terry.

Terry: No, God is not my the jury is still out... enemy. As far as the church goes, 2.1 Over Terry's shoulder , wide, vicar in b.g.

Vicar: Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord...

2 2 CU Terry

58 | WRITE NOW

ar. Vicar is a bit t of Terry and Vic er see one side of his 1.4 - Wide two sho we nev st lea at or le... difficult to see make this as unassuming as possib face. But try to busy of late... . I've been rather TERRY: Yes, it has n VICAR: Too busy eve 1.5 CU Terry .

TERRY: Ah, church thing?

for church? ser, that sort of Keep my enemies clo

in BG. back to us, Terry eground with his 1.6 - Vicar in for Terry. is not your enemy, Vicar: The church goes, far as the church not my enemy. As Terry: No, God is out... the jury is still ar in b.g. shoulder, wide, vic 2.1 Over Terry's Lord... is mine, sayeth the Vicar: Vengeance 2.2 - CU Terry.

le Perform unspeakab ds worship Satan. my family apart. They Terry: These bastar e torn y'v The and l . tro nts con oce under their rituals on inn all of England is won't rest until they'll be satisfied. even then I doubt d, only Vicar in foregroun king up at Terry, 2.3 Low angle loo partially seen. in adjoining graveyard English church and ugh the 1.1 - A beautiful the country. It's daytime, tho the clouds in ng e ht penetrati a small villag sky, shafts of lig the ground. sun is low in the e - dappling light and shadow on surrounds think Gustave Dor ked outside the stone wall that etery.

Terry's car is par re's someone standing in the cem the churchyard. The don?" the way back to Lon I make a stop on Caption: "Mind if all."

Caption: "Not at RY SHARP STORY TITLE CARD: A TER 1922-1959" reads "JOHN SHARP 1.2 - A tombstone .

Sad the tombstone.

Terry stands over "Hello..."

Balloon off panel: distance. s on a bench in the 1.3 - A vicar sit a while...

VICAR: It's been ar. Vicar is a bit t of Terry and Vic er see one side of his 1.4 - Wide two sho st we nev lea at .. or see ming as possible. difficult to make this as unassu face. But try to

THE END ROBERT TINNELL | 59

[SECRETS continues from page 10.]

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: The late, great Alfred Bester once wrote, “Among professionals, the job is boss.” Good observation and a good basis for advice to comic book creators.

Translated (and elaborated) it might go something like this: While you’re working on a story, focus on that and nothing else. Later, you can dislocate your elbow patting yourself on the back, congratulating yourself for creating a masterpiece or, if you’re the insecure type, whacking yourself around the head and shoulders as punishment for perpetrating such an egregious piece of crud. That’s for later—for now, there’s just the story.

None of us has as much control over our careers as we’d like and not much more control over any individual piece after it leaves our workplace to be delivered into the not-always-gentle ministrations of collaborators, editors, printers—the whole chain of folk who take it from us to the reader. Nor, alas, can we predict with certainty whether or not that reader will enjoy it. There’s really a lot we can’t control.

But here’s what we can do. While we’re doing the job, just do it as well as we can, given all the limitations of time, genre, talent—whatever.

Then let it go, and get on to the next one. We can take our satisfaction from doing our best and let the rest take care of itself. Or not.

mics. © 2006 DC Co

DENNIS O’NEIL

Denny O’Neil’s numerous creative accomplishments include returning Batman to his dark avenger roots in the late 1960s, writing the legendary Green Lantern/Green Arrow series of the early 1970s, successfully reviving The Question for a 1980s audience, and, for many years, heading the Batman line as Group Editor. His Del Rey novelization of Batman Begins recently appeared to great reviews.

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: Regarding the matter of “career” (forgive the quotation marks): I’m tempted to advise that beginners look at what I did and then do the opposite. As a career manager, I’m kind of a bust, maybe because I never thought of myself as having a (here come those dratted quotes again) “career,” just a series of jobs, many, if not most, of which I liked. When I wrote my first comics, there was no career path in the business; it was work for people who, for whatever reason, weren’t thinking in career terms.

Having blathered all that… I can, with clear conscience, suggest that you all pay attention to those annoyances we don’t like to bother with, such as keeping at least minimal records and—this is a biggie—paying taxes on time. You might skate for a year or two, but eventually the feds will catch up with you and then life becomes complicated. As far as government employees are concerned, you’re not this brilliantly creative whiz, you’re just another small businessman and you have to play by the rules or they’ll do their best to make you rue it.

P ET E R DAV I D © 2006 Marvel Characte rs, Inc.

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: Don’t take rejection personally.

Peter David’s writing credits include memorable runs on The Incredible Hulk and Supergirl as well as dozens of best-selling prose novels, including those featuring his creation, Sir Apropos of Nothing. Peter’s new Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man series is on many a must-read list.

60 | WRITE NOW

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: Hire a good accountant.

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: Remember what you’re writing. This is a comic book—not a movie—not a TV show. A surprise in panel four is not a surprise because the reader sees the page in its entirety. Pace your comics so that a reader has to turn the page for a payoff—and don’t telegraph your blows. Don’t cut off dialogue mid-sentence in the last panel of a page if there’s going to be a surprise on the next page. Nobody ever cuts off dialogue mid-sentence and picks it up on the following page when there isn’t a surprise. Know your medium and its advantages and disadvantages.

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: Get it in writing first—and do that before the book gets solicited. You don’t want to look like the bad guy because your publisher decides to pull a fast one.

© 2006 Erik Larsen.

ERIK LARSEN

Prior to co-founding Image Comics in the early 1990s, writer/artist Erik Larsen produced work for DC, Eclipse, and most prominently, Marvel where he wrote and drew comics for the Spider-Man line. Erik became Image’s Publisher in 2004, and continues to produce his creation, The Savage Dragon, for them.

© 2006 DC Com

ics.

MIKE CARLIN

Mike Carlin began his comics career at Marvel in the 1980s, moving in short order from Assistant Editor to Editor, and also finding time to succeed Bruce Jones as writer of Ka-Zar. He joined DC in 1986 and has been a prime mover of its editorial department ever since, currently serving as Senior Group Editor.

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: Don’t take it personally. And “it” is anything!

There are a zillion factors that go into every decision of creating a story for commercial consumption... whether it’s a comic book, TV show, movie, video game—anything… and 99.9% of the time producers, directors and editors are simply trying to provide a solid project for the reader/viewer/player, not looking to hurt any creator’s feelings.

Personally speaking I have six to eight assignments available a month... and hundreds of qualified folks (and thousands of hopeful folks) who aren’t called/selected for any given job. This is not a personal call... it’s a real and honest limitation. There are only so many jobs. And the directors/producers/editors don’t always make the right call in that selection... but they’re doing what they thought best at any given time. Not once does it enter their mind (in fact, it can’t) that they’re destroying someone’s hopes and dreams.

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: Be as close to a businessman as well as an artist as you can be. Pay attention to billing and pay schedules (and your own production in relation to those areas). None of this is as fun as writing or drawing or creating something from nothing... but if your income becomes nothing... it will be harder to create.

PROFESSIONAL SECRETS | 61

© 2006 Simon & Schuster, Inc. and

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: Creatively, the best advice I have to offer the would-be comics writer is to not be afraid to be yourself. Write what excites you, what best expresses your worldview, what you feel is your best work. Never write something you’re not crazy about, thinking that it’s what the editor wants. Nor should you emulate another writer or strive to fit into a company style. Instead, be aware of what your editor wants, and try to find a way to accomplish it in your own unique way. If you’re ever to succeed as a writer, it will be because of whatever you, and you alone, are able to present as being identifiably your work. You need to establish your own identity through your work. The last thing you want to become is a generic comic book writer—there’s already way too many of ’em.

Papercutz

JIM SALICRUP

Jim Salicrup is Editor-in-Chief of Papercutz (www.papercutz.com), publishers of graphic novels for tweens and teens, a comics columnist for Buzzscope.com, and a Trustee for the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (www.moccany.org). Jim was also an editor and writer for Marvel, Topps Comics, and Stan Lee Media.

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: As far as business advice, I suggest observing how many of today’s most successful writers are able to cultivate a following.

Writers such as Neil Gaiman, Warren Ellis, Mark Millar, and others know not only how to write well, but how to maintain constant communication with their fans. Remember, it all starts with just one reader enjoying your work. Chances are what appeals to that one reader may appeal to thousands more. Your real creative challenge is figure out ways to grow your audience in the way that works best for you. Whether it’s through convention appearances, a blog, an e-mail newsletter, a message board, or something completely different, that’s what you need to figure out. But when publishers know that you’ve developed a loyal following of over 20,000 fans, they’ll be begging you to write for them.

© 2006 Trina Rob bins and Anne Tim mons

TRI NA ROBBI NS

Award-winning writer/herstorian Trina Robbins has been writing comics and books for girls and women for over 30 years. Her subjects range from women cartoonists, dark goddesses, women who kill, and Irish women, to teenage super-heroines and shojo manga.

Currently she ís writing a series of educational graphic novels for classrooms, providing English language rewrites for shojo manga graphic novels published by Viz, and writing her own series in manga format, GoGirl!

62 | WRITE NOW

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: In the long term, if you really believe in your idea/concept, don’t give up. And never throw away a good idea, even if it’s been rejected. I spent at least 20 years trying to sell girls’ comic scripts to the mainstream, only to be told again and again, “That’s nice, but girls don’t read comics.” As a grownup girl who read comics when she was young (as did all my girlfriends) I knew this was untrue, that girls would read comics when there were comics they wanted to read. The arrival of manga (Japanese comics) to America’s shores has finally proven me right, and all those editors wrong. Girls are reading shojo manga (Japanese girls’ comics) by the droves, and publishers (though not the mainstream yet, not really) are recognizing the value of girl-oriented graphic novels. The result is that since the beginning of Summer ‘05, I’ve been kept busy writing graphic novels for girls (and boys, too!) for two different book publishers (and recycling some of those ideas that were rejected in the ’80s and ’90s because “girls don’t read comics”), and before that I spent about two years providing English language rewrites for shojo manga published by Viz, one of the two largest manga publishers in America.

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: Hmmm. I’d say keep track of who’s paid you and when. If you’re working for multiple companies, you might not notice that one of the publishers has not paid you for months. And of course, no matter how excited you may be about getting a contract, never blindly sign a contract immediately without reading it and having at least one savvy person go over it, too. I’ve had to return several contracts with a regretful note saying that I really would love to take on the project, but that it was impossible on the terms in the contract. In at least one case, we were able to work out a contract I felt better about.

JOE CASEY © 2006 Joe Casey

and Tom Scioli

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: That’s an easy one. As you’re living your “internal life” as a writer, where you stretch your imagination, come up with ideas, build worlds, solve story problems, etc... make damn sure you’re living a real life at the same time. Don’t shut yourself off from the rest of the world because being a writer—in any medium—is about living and absorbing the world around you. If you don’t, you’ll end up having nothing to write about.

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: Be flexible. The business is changing and evolving all the time so Joe Casey began his comics writing career at Marvel if you’re formulating a plan to break in next year based on last during the mid-1990s, scoring an immediate hit with year’s industry, you’ll soon discover that the business has moved his revamp of Cable. He’s worked on The Adventures past you and the last thing you want is to be seen as behind the of Superman and Wildcats 3.0. Image launched curve. As a writer, your job is to be ahead of the curve and that Joe’s new ongoing series, Godland, in June 2005. includes your approach to the business. Make sure you stay on top of the trends, editorial shifts and even sales charts. Knowing all these things won’t make you a better writer, but they will acclimate you to the business and when you’re talking with editors and other pros in the field, your understanding of the industry will help you in being seen as a peer, not just a rookie.

© 2006 Batton Lash and Exhibit A

Press

B AT T O N L A S H

Batton Lash is the writer and artist of Tales of Supernatural Law—a unique mix of humor and the macabre published by his own Exhibit A Press. He also writes Bongo’s hilarious Radioactive Man series. Find out more about Batton at www.exhibitapress.com, and read the new SLaw online series at www.supernaturallaw.com.

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: Don’t dismiss people, places and things that you think are boring or don’t consider “cool.” There are stories everywhere. I believe a good writer can make just about any subject matter interesting, and use any experience as a springboard. (I think an inventive writer can write a story about standing on line at the DMV interesting.) Chances are that if you have an active imagination, you’ll find a nice hook to a story or a premise for a series in something that you might have always considered mundane... and make it cool. (Of course, it should go without saying that one should read as much as possible, especially nonfiction. It really is good for you—you can’t be too rich, too thin, or too well read, I say!)

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: Never give a free option. If someone wants to turn your creation into a film, TV show, or video game, that’s great. But let them give you option money to do so. Paying for an option gives the option holder an incentive to do the best pitch of your property in order for them to recoup their investment.

PROFESSIONAL SECRETS | 63

CH UCK DIXON

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: Think long term. There’s a window of opportunity in this business and one day those laurels will stop showering down and the phone will not ring as often. That’s why it’s important, when you’re hot, to negotiate for a piece of everything you create. Stay away from work-for-hire unless the page rates are huge. Even a small percentage of participation in your stories and creations will pay out over time. And who knows? Something you had a part in could be the Next Big Thing.

© 2006 DC Comics.

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: Stay ahead of deadline. This is an absolute must from a pragmatic and a creative standpoint. Realistically, you have to impress your editors and publishers with your reliability early and then maintain it. That’s pretty obvious. But it also helps the imagination to have a rest now and then. If you stay well ahead of your deadlines you’ll never have to bash something out at the last minute. Then, if you hit a dry spell you can take some time off to re-charge.

One of the most important DC writers during the 1990s and early 2000s, Chuck Dixon brought a new vitality to the company’s Batman line. Chuck has also done extensive work for Marvel and CrossGen Comics.

Currently he’s working on Wyatt Earp: Dodge City for Moonstone Comics.

STAN BERKOWITZ © 2006 Warner Bro thers. TV Animation

[Note: Stan chose to answer the business question first.]

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: My first job after film school was on the crew of a Russ Meyer film.

No glamour, lots of lifting and very long hours. One day after the work was done and I needed to get back home and pack for the trip to our next location, Russ and the guy who was going to give me a ride got into a seemingly endless discussion about which drug store to go to for batteries for his tape recorder. I needed to leave, but didn’t say anything. Kept looking at my watch and rolling my eyes, though.

Russ finally noticed and blew up at me. “What’s with the rolling eyes?

This is important,” he bellowed. Actually, it wasn’t, and if I found A veteran TV writer and producer, Stan Berkowitz myself working for someone like that now, I’d quit. But I needed the has written many scripts for such animated series as money, and so I tried to learn something from the experience. What I Spider-Man, Batman Beyond, Static Shock, and learned was, when you work in show business, all your time belongs Justice League Unlimited. to whomever you’re working for. From the time you wake up ‘til you go to sleep. This, by the way, is why there seems to be a prejudice against older writers; they have spouses, children, money in the bank, and they’re not so willing to work ‘til two in the morning every day.

When I finally went off to that next location with Russ, I left my wristwatch at home. But it wasn’t like in Easy Rider, when they threw their watches away, and suddenly they were free; for me, it was an acknowledgement that all my time belonged to my employer.

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: A few years after working for Russ, I was a freelance journalist (easier hours, less pay), and I was doing a piece for Esquire about one of Glen Larson’s (many) TV series. I asked Larson the single most stupid question I’ve ever asked anyone: “How do you write for television?”

It’s a stupid question because people spend years in graduate schools and thousands of dollars for seminars to learn that very thing, and here I was, expecting a simple answer. To his credit, Larson didn’t ridicule the question, and, instead, gave his best answer: “Interesting collisions,” I recall him saying, meaning that he sets several characters in motion, all wanting the same thing, and then has them collide with one another. A smart, simple formula, and one which I used successfully a few years later when I wrote an episode of one of his shows. All I would add to his advice is that when you’re stuck and don’t know how to provoke the next collision, just sit back and let your characters take over. They know what they want; just let them do it.

64 | WRITE NOW

JAM ES STU RM

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: No one owes you a career or is obligated to like your stuff.

Be humble.

racters, Inc. © 2006 Marvel Cha

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: When starting out don’t get too hung up on trying to sell your work or figure out how it fits into the marketplace. Learn to write clearly and how to structure a story. Be patient. It is likely that much of what you initially produce won’t be very good. Your chances of improving will increase drastically if you put in the time and effort and keep writing. Write regularly, in a disciplined manner (not just when you are in the mood).

James Strum is the Director of The Center for Cartoon Studies, a two-year visual arts school located in White River Junction, Vermont. A uniquely talented artist and illustrator, James’ graphic novels include The Golem’s Mighty Swing, and Unstable Molecules.

© 2006 DC Comics.

STUART MOORE

Stuart Moore joined DC’s Vertigo imprint as an editor in 1990. He left DC/Vertigo for Marvel in 2001 to become editor of the groundbreaking “Marvel Knights” line. Now a freelance writer, Stuart’s credits include Zendra for Penny-Farthing Press and DC’s Firestorm.

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: It’s a total cliché, but: Expose yourself to all different kinds of influences, not just the same comics and movies everyone in the field reads and sees. Challenge yourself with something difficult—a stream-of-consciousness novel or a foreign film. The more obscure your influences, the less likely other people are treading the same ground.

And, at the same time: Get out and listen to people. Cities are great for that because people are packed in so tightly. I can walk down the street in New York and hear the craziest stuff. (One time I heard a woman say sweetly to a toddler, in a sing-song voice: “First we’re going to pick up some beer.

Then we’re going to pick up some meat.”) The final scene in Firestorm #18 happened to me on my birthday last year.

Well, except for the part about turning into a nuclear-powered super-hero.

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: This is similar: Spread yourself around. Especially when you’re starting out, it’s good to get yourself as much exposure as possible. That doesn’t mean to take assignments you don’t feel any connection to at all; it just means keep your mind open to a variety of different projects. Comics artists get a lot more immediate attention than writers do, but as a writer, you have one great advantage over them: You can take on more than one or two jobs at a time. Use it.

Of course, the flipside of that is: You have to be professional and realistic about deadlines. Right now, as I type this, contractors are ripping the windows out of my house all around me—yet I’m very careful not to let it interfere with G*DD*MN WHAT WAS THAT CRASH?? FU -- *

PROFESSIONAL SECRETS | 65

reserved.

LEE NORDLING © 1995 by Lee Nordling. All rights

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: Two for the price of one: 1) Creators need to recognize the most salable aspects of their stories, then lead with those aspects in their pitches. In the first of my three articles on pitching (which are posted in the submissions area of the platinumstudios.com website), I write about writers needing to give away the “good part,” which should be the most clever conceit in their stories, whether it’s the set-up, whatever’s in the middle, or the surprise ending. Being writers, their natural tendency is to Currently Executive Editor of Platinum Studios’ Comic save the “good part” for last, to make it the punchline to their Book Development Department, Lee Nordling is also pitches, but too often, editors have already lost interest about a talented writer, artist, and licensing professional, Lee why they should even care about the stories. Giving away the has worked in a creative capacity on such diverse “good part”/planting the hook at the onset of the pitch properties as Superman and Mickey Mouse. His ensures that editors will have the best opportunity to care book Your Career in the Comics (Andrews McMeel about the rest of the story.

Publishing) is widely considered the book on working 2) Never ever save the good writing for later. Don’t in the comic strip industry. imagine that somebody will be able to imagine just how wonderful your story will be if they don’t already know you’re a great writer. Don’t imagine they’ll think, “Hey, this is a pretty good concept, even if the pitch is flatly written, but I’m sure he/she will improve when the writing really counts.” Editors want to be sold on you from the first pitch, during the treatment and all the way to the last draft of the script. Writers need to put down their best use of language for pitches and treatments, or any stage of writing that precedes the writing of the script. This said, most writers aren’t schooled at writing pitches or treatments, so working hard to establish your quality of writing here will pay off in huge dividends with editors who want to like what they review.

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: Don’t assume that because a particular genre or mix of genres is successful as a comic or appeals to that market that it will automatically appeal to editors, producers or fans in different media. As writers, a large part of your job is to know what sells to whom and why. In my article on comics-to-film (that appeared in a previous issue of this magazine), I detailed the reasons Hollywood has come knocking on the door of the comics industry... and those reasons have nothing to do with a love fest with the super-hero genre because that love fest for super-heroes doesn’t exist in the film industry.

Sure, somebody in Hollywood is always going to be willing to produce a super-hero property that comes with presold mainstream awareness, such as Spider-Man, Superman and Batman, and they’ll be willing to sample uniquely conceived spins on the genre, such as Sky High, especially when the budgets can be kept lowish, as in that example, but they aren’t going to be willing to produce a film based on a super-hero property just because it sits squarely in the super-hero sandbox, and they’re certainly going to be leery of getting involved in a film or TV show in the super-hero genre that’s too close to something else that’s already been produced or aired.

A popular genre in Hollywood is something that’s milked so thoroughly that they don’t stop until well after the last drop has been wrung from it. A genre that’s not perceived as innately popular needs other support to get made, such as a unique spin, great script, and/or a big star or director as its advocate.

The reasons for making movies based on comics have more to do with acquiring previously produced intellectual properties that are ripe for adaptation, Road To Perdition, Ghost World, and A History of Violence being three pretty good examples of this. Conversely, just because properties like Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter films are successful, that doesn’t necessarily indicate that the film industry is particularly interested in the high fantasy genre, either. It’s not. All these two specific examples support is the idea that films made on properties that already exist in the culture—like Batman, Superman, and Charlie’s Angels—have a previously established market they can reach. Another foible is to presume that if there are a million vampire, serial killer or zombie movies out there that Hollywood must be craving more, when the likelihood is that that market is fed up with vampires, serial killers and zombies. I mention these examples of assumptions-gone-wrong by creators so that you will put your best foot forward by pitching projects that have the best chance of being what someone is looking for.

66 | WRITE NOW

R . S I K O R YA K

© 2006 R. Sikoryak.

© 2006 R. Sikoryak.

The most important creative advice and the most important business advice for an aspiring writer: Take as much work as you can, and then know when to say no.

R. Sikoryak has drawn comics adaptations of classic literature for Drawn & Quarterly and Raw. His work has appeared on the cover of The New Yorker, in Nickelodeon Magazine, and on The Daily Show. He contributed to Marvel’s Unstable Molecules and DC’s second Bizarro anthology.

The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: Don’t be emotional. If I’ve read your one-pager, or am listening to you pitch me at a convention, and I’ve decided to pass, it could be for myriad reasons, some of which I can share, others of which I can’t. It often has nothing to do with the quality or lack of quality in the pitch. If you want me to consider you to be a professional, please do the courtesy of regarding me as a professional as well, and let’s keep it cordial and nice. I might like you a tremendous amount personally, but publishing a comic book is an endeavor that can cost me the same price as buying an expensive new car, so it’s not a decision I’ll make lightly. Often I’ll make a decision to listen to a pitch or make myself open to a writer strictly based off of how well I think they’ll be able to deal with rejection—you could have the greatest concept in the world, but if listening to it makes me feel awkward, alienated, or the recipient of anger, I won’t open myself up to it. It’s just not worth it. Be aware of how you present yourself—if I say yes, we’ll be working together on something that could take as long as a year, so I’ll be spending a great chunk of my day dealing with you day in and day out. If you appear to be someone who’s difficult to communicate with, or chaotic and unstable, I’m not going to want to invest my time and energy, no matter what the concept is.

tteis. en and J. M. DeMa © 2006 Keith Giff

ROSS RICHIE

Ross Richie spent the last ten years in feature film development, producing Matt Wagner’s comic book Mage, Troy Nixey’s comic book Trout, and working on Kringle with Oscar-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman. He started publishing comics via Boom!

Studios in 2005 with Zombie Tales. Upcoming titles include Keith Giffen and Alan Grant’s creation Jeremiah Harm and Steve Niles’ werewolf comic In the Blood.

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: I’ll speak to comics, because I know that very specifically—get published. Break in with one of the smaller companies. Write some stuff for free. Establish your credentials. Build a fanbase via the web and the Internet forums. Show me you can do great work and have a fanbase, and I’ll sign on. But to pull that off, you’ll have to do a certain amount of work. You’ve got to be willing to invest that amount of time and energy to get me to take you seriously as a creator who can deliver the goods.

Everyone else in the business did it at one time or another—no one was “too big” or “too cool” to not gut it out and do some free and hard work, so we’re all ready to see you put the elbow grease in there, too. It’s a rough business, so getting a body of work under your belt is a good way to show us that you’ve got the capability to swim with the sharks.

PROFESSIONAL SECRETS | 67

© 2006 Todd Livi ngston, Robert Tin nell and Neil Vokes. All Rig hts reserved.

ROBERT TINNELL The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: The single most important fight in the creative process is that against censorship. I’m not referring to assaults on the first amendment. I’m talking the most insidious type of censorship—the kind we inflict on ourselves.

Of course, it’s good to be tough on ourselves and our work. A glance at any one of a hundred comics or films alone proves the point that there is a lot of bad writing going on out there. That being said, many a worthy idea dies before ever being fully explored. “It won’t work.” “It’s In recent years, noted writer/director Robert not good enough.” “It won’t sell.” All of which may be true.

Tinnell has successfully made the creative transition But if you find yourself giving up on every story before you’ve from film to comics. Bob has recently scripted the finished it, well, you may want to reexamine what’s happening well-received graphic novels, The Black Forest and inside your own head. Maybe you’re hearing the echoes of all The Wicked West, for Image Comics. the nay-sayers you’ve encountered in your life. You know the ones—the parent or teacher or girlfriend/boyfriend who argue that you must live in the “real” word and be more “practical.”

This sort of criticism festers inside of us, feeding our insecurities (and vice versa). Beyond that we worry: “What if no one likes it?” “What if it doesn’t sell?” “What if I get bad reviews?” All are valid questions to a point. But the only thing you can really know for sure is that if you don’t get it on the page and out there to be seen and read and judged then you will never really know if it was worth doing. As far as trying to write what you think others will like—now there is a losing proposition and also a form of censorship. Write something you want to read. Period. Chances are there are plenty of folks who want to read about the same thing. You aren’t out of the woods yet, of course.

There’s still all that pesky business about talent and craft to overcome. But they don’t mean a thing if you aren’t willing to kill your inner censors and get the ball rolling.

E

S

L

S

68 | WRITE NOW

O

S FES ION A

PR

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: Resist placing arbitrary values and deadlines on your work. “I’m not working for free.” Cool. You’ll most likely never be published or produced—which leaves more room for the rest of us. To my mind, I never work for free. I work for the love of writing. And the funny thing is this: the more I write for the love of it the more I sell. Just do the work. If you have talent and have refined your craft, the money will follow. Do that self-published comic—show the world what you can accomplish. Spec a screenplay. Just finishing something does wonders for your mental state in regards to writing and it demonstrates professionalism. Self-imposed, meaningless deadlines are equally deadly. “If I’m not published by 25 then I’m quitting.” Save us all the trouble. Quit now. Meeting professional deadlines is an essential quality to have. Setting deadlines for completion of work is a good idea, too, as it helps to build good work habits. But setting ridiculously arbitrary deadlines, like the one mentioned above, is counterproductive. I knew a guy who said if you didn’t direct a film before you were thirty you were a loser and it wasn’t going to happen. He accepted his fate and is a non-working director. Good thing David Lean didn’t feel that way (he started at 36). Accept the old adage—it’s the journey, not the destination. You’ll get where you’re going—in the meantime, enjoy the ride.

C R E T

THE END

NEXT ISSUE:

#

12

M AG AZ I N E

More solid information about comics and animation writing!

• A special WRITE NOW! SURVEY: WHAT DO EDITORS WANT? Editors from Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse tell how to get them to hire you!

• An interview with STEVE ENGLEHART! Steve Talks about his amazing career (Batman in two eras, Captain America, Coyote) and about writing for today’s market!

Plus:

©2006 DC Comics.

• An interview with DC Comics President and Publisher PAUL LEVITZ—who started out as a writer and editor!

Featuring an amazing JUSTICE SOCIETY cover

by GEORGE PÉREZ!!!

• Marvel Editor ANDY SCHMIDT tells you how to break in and stay in the comics writing game!

• JOHN OSTRANDER returns with another great writing lesson. This time the topic is: THEME. • T. CAMPBELL tells you all about the world of webcomics!

• Eye-opening Nuts & Bolts writing examples from top comics creators. ©2006 DC Comics.

• And much, much more!

SUBSCRIBE TODAY!

WRITE NOW! SUBSCRIPTIONS: 4 issues: $20 Standard, $32 First Class (Canada: $40, Elsewhere: $44 Surface, $60 Airmail).

TwoMorrows. Bringing New Life To Comics Fandom.

TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Dr. • Raleigh, NC 27614 • 919/449-0344 • FAX 919/449-0327 • e-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com

Feedback Letters from our readers Hi, Danny, Write Now! #10 was another great issue. Thanks! I particularly enjoyed the interviews with Dwayne McDuffie and Gerry Conway, and John Ostrander’s article about structure. That article got me thinking about something I haven’t seen yet in Write Now! From reading the journeys of many of the writers you’ve featured, it seems to me that a number of them began their careers by writing short stories. Yet I’ve not seen any advice on the creation of the E.C. Comics/House of Mystery/Tales of Suspense style of self-contained short story. (Of course WN #8 gave us a tremendous look into the creation of the open-ended short story with your and Mike Manley’s “Thief of Time.”) Tips regarding quick establishment of characters, working within a compressed act structure, and the various types of resolutions used by short story writers would be of tremendous value to newer writers trying to break into the business, and would complement the useful suggestions Write Now! already provides regarding full-issue comics, story arcs, graphic novels, etc...

Looking forward to #11, Chris Murrin Via the Internet Hope you enjoyed this issue, too, Chris. Good point about short comics stories. While the big two don’t seem to be printing that many of them these days, the form is in wide use in the indy world. Short stories are a great way to learn craft.

Don’t be surprised to see an article about that very topic turning up soon in Write Now! Dear Danny, Write Now! #8 (the crossover with DRAW! Magazine) is the first issue I’ve ever read—and did I ever pick a good time to start! I hope to one day become a comic book artist/writer, and this particular issue has inspired me to work even harder!

Your mini-writing-lessons in the issue are invaluable. They— along with WN’s many script samples and panel-artwork as visual aids—have given me much insight into both plotting and penciling. (I will definitely pick up issue #9 of DRAW! to see the second half of the crossover.) I know I won’t get rich doing comic book work, but at least one day I will be doing the job that I love.

Sincerely, Steve Parks Via the Internet

70 | WRITE NOW

Thanks, Steve. Glad the how-to-create-a-new-character crossover was helpful to you. In case you missed the multiple ads and plugs for it across the TwoMorrows line, there’s a companion DVD to the crossover. It’s called “How to Draw Comics from Script to Print.” DRAW!’s editor-in-chief Mike Manley and I did it with Sputnik Studios, TwoMorrows publishes it, and many aspiring comics artists and writers have told us how much they’ve gotten out of it. You can find it in your local comics shop or at the TwoMorrows online store: www.twomorrows.com.

Of course, I’m beyond eager to know what you thought of this special Professional Secrets issue. I still can’t believe how much great stuff is in it! But it’s your opinion that counts! Share it with me and your fellow readers—and with the pros themselves! And hey, want to know what my Professional Secrets are? Then ask me via e-mail at WriteNowDF@aol.com or via regular mail, at: Danny Fingeroth, Write Now!, c/o TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Road, Raleigh, NC 27614. You can send any other comments or questions to those addresses, too, of course.

Seeya next issue for Paul Levitz. Steve Englehart, the Editors’ Survey, and so much more!

—Danny Fingeroth

ROMITAMAN ORIGINAL COMIC ART IF YOU LOVE COMICBOOKS, THEN YOU “MUST” CHECK OUT ONE OF THE LARGEST INTERNET WEBSITES FOR COMIC BOOK ART AND COMIC STRIP ART EVER PRODUCED! THIS MAY BE YOUR BEST ARTWORK INTERNET SOURCE! CHECK OUT OVER 1000+ “PICTURED” PIECES OF COMICBOOK AND COMIC STRIP ART FOR SALE OR TRADE. ALSO CHECK OUT THE WORLD’S “LARGEST” SPIDER-MAN ORIGINAL ART GALLERY! I BUY/SELL/AND TRADE “ALL” COMICBOOK/ STRIP ARTWORK FROM THE 1930S TO PRESENT. SO LET ME KNOW YOUR WANTS, OR WHAT YOU HAVE FOR SALE OR TRADE!

www.romitaman.com

HOW-TO BOOKS & DVDs

WORKING METHODS: COMIC CREATORS DETAIL THEIR STORYTELLING & CREATIVE PROCESSES Art professor JOHN LOWE puts the minds of comic artists under the microscope, highlighting the intricacies of the creative process step-by-step. For this book, three short scripts are each interpreted in different ways by professional comic artists to illustrate the varied ways in which they “see” and “solve” the problem of making a script succeed in comic form. It documents the creative and technical choices MARK SCHULTZ, TIM LEVINS, JIM MAHFOOD, SCOTT HAMPTON, KELSEY SHANNON, CHRIS BRUNNER, SEAN MURPHY, and PAT QUINN make as they tell a story, allowing comic fans, artists, instructors, and students into a world rarely explored. Hundreds of illustrated examples document the artists’ processes, and interviews clarify their individual approaches regarding storytelling and layout choices. The exercise may be simple, but the results are profoundly complex!

(176-page trade paperback with COLOR) $21.95 ISBN: 9781893905733 Diamond Order Code: MAR073747

HOW TO CREATE COMICS FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT

HOW TO DRAW COMICS FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT DVD

REDESIGNED and EXPANDED version of the groundbreaking WRITE NOW!/ DRAW! crossover! DANNY FINGEROTH and MIKE MANLEY show step-bystep how to develop a new comic, from script and roughs to pencils, inks, colors, lettering—it even guides you through printing and distribution, and the finished 8-page color comic is included, so you can see their end result!

PLUS: over 30 pages of ALL-NEW material, including “full” and “Marvelstyle” scripts, a critique of their new character and comic from an editor’s point of view, new tips on coloring, new expanded writing lessons, and more!

Documents two top professionals creating a comic book, from initial idea to finished art! In this feature-filled DVD, WRITE NOW! magazine editor DANNY (Spider-Man) FINGEROTH and DRAW! magazine editor MIKE (Batman) MANLEY show you how a new character evolves from scratch! Watch the creative process, as a story is created from concepts and roughs to pencils, inks, and coloring—even lettering! Packed with “how-to” tips and tricks, it’s the perfect companion to the HOW TO CREATE COMICS FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT book, or stands alone as an invaluable tool for amateur and professional comics creators alike!

(108-page trade paperback with COLOR) $13.95 ISBN: 9781893905603 Diamond Order Code: APR063422

(120-minute DVD) $29.95 ISBN: 9781893905399 Diamond Order Code: AUG043204

BUNDLE THE BOOK & DVD TOGETHER FOR JUST $35.95 (SAVE $8)

NEW FOR 2008

FREE! FREE!

COMICS 101: HOW-TO & HISTORY LESSONS TwoMorrows has tapped the combined knowledge of its editors to assemble How-To and History lessons including: “Figure Drawing” and “How To Break Down A Story” from DRAW!’s MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS, “Writing Tips” from WRITE NOW!’s DANNY FINGEROTH, plus ROUGH STUFF’s BOB McLEOD provides “Art Critiques” of promising newcomers! There’s even a “Comics History Crash-Course”, assembled

by ALTER EGO’s ROY THOMAS and BACK ISSUE’s MICHAEL EURY! (32-page comic book) FREE! (shipping charge applies) • Diamond Order Code: FEB070050

COMICS GO HOLLYWOOD TwoMorrows unveils secrets behind your FAVORITE ON-SCREEN HEROES, and what’s involved in taking a character from the comics page to the big screen! It includes: Storyboards from DC’s animated hit “THE NEW FRONTIER” (courtesy of DRAW! magazine)! JEPH LOEB on writing for both Marvel Comics and the Heroes TV show (courtesy of WRITE NOW! magazine)! Details on the unseen X-Men movie (courtesy of ALTER EGO magazine)! A history of the Joker from his 1940s origins to his upcoming appearance in the Dark Knight film (courtesy of BACK ISSUE! magazine)! And a look at Marvel Universe co-creator JACK KIRBY’s Hollywood career, with extensive Kirby art! So before you head to your local cineplex this summer, make sure you pick up your FREE copy of this must-have item from your local retailer on May 3, 2008!

(32-page comic book) FREE! (shipping applies) or FREE at your local comics retailer on May 3, 2008

BEST OF DRAW! VOL. 1

BEST OF DRAW! VOL. 2

Compiles tutorials, interviews, and demonstrations from DRAW! #1-2, by DAVE GIBBONS (layout and drawing on the computer), BRET BLEVINS (figure drawing), JERRY ORDWAY (detailing his working methods), KLAUS JANSON and RICARDO VILLAGRAN (inking techniques), GENNDY TARTAKOVSKY (on animation and Samurai Jack), STEVE CONLEY (creating web comics and cartoons), PHIL HESTER and ANDE PARKS (penciling and inking), and more! Cover by BRET BLEVINS!

Compiles tutorials and interviews from issues #3-4 of DRAW!, with ERIK LARSEN (savage penciling), DICK GIORDANO (inking techniques), BRET BLEVINS (drawing the figure in action, and figure composition), KEVIN NOWLAN (penciling & inking), MIKE MANLEY (how-to demo on Web Comics), DAVE COOPER (digital coloring tutorial), and more! Each artist presents their work STEP-BY-STEP, so both beginning and experienced artists can learn valuable tips and tricks along the way! Cover by KEVIN NOWLAN.

(200-page trade paperback with COLOR) $24.95 ISBN: 9781893905412 Diamond Order Code: AUG078141

(156-page trade paperback with COLOR) $17.95 ISBN: 9781893905580 Diamond Order Code: APR063421

NEW FOR 2008

COMICS ABOVE GROUND

SEE HOW YOUR FAVORITE ARTISTS MAKE A LIVING OUTSIDE COMICS

BEST OF WRITE NOW! Whether you’re looking to break into the world of comics writing, or missed key issues of DANNY FINGEROTH’S WRITE NOW—the premier magazine about writing for comics and related fields—this is the book for you! THE BEST OF WRITE NOW features highlights from the acclaimed magazine, including in-depth interviews about writing from top talents, like: BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS, WILL EISNER, JEPH LOEB, STAN LEE, J. M. STRACZYNSKI, MARK WAID, GEOFF JOHNS, TODD McFARLANE, PAUL LEVITZ, AXEL ALONSO, and others! There’s also “NUTS & BOLTS” tutorials, featuring scripts from landmark comics and the pencil art that was drawn from them, including: CIVIL WAR #1 (MILLAR & McNIVEN), BATMAN: HUSH #1 (LOEB & LEE), ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #47 (BENDIS & BAGLEY), AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #539 (STRACZYNSKI & GARNEY), SPAWN #52 (McFARLANE & CAPULO), GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH #1 (JOHNS & VAN SCRIVER), and more! Also: How-to articles by the best comics writers and editors around, like JOHN OSTRANDER, DENNIS O’NEIL, KURT BUSIEK, STEVEN GRANT, and JOEY CAVALIERI. Professional secrets of top comics pros including NEIL GAIMAN, MARK WAID, TRINA ROBBINS, PETER DAVID, and STAN LEE! Top editors telling exactly what it takes to get hired by them! Plus more great tips to help you prepare for your big break, or simply appreciate comics on a new level, and an introduction by STAN LEE! Edited by Spider-Man writer DANNY FINGEROTH.

COMICS ABOVE GROUND features comics pros discussing their inspirations and training, and how they apply it in “Mainstream Media,” including Conceptual Illustration, Video Game Development, Children’s Books, Novels, Design, Illustration, Fine Art, Storyboards, Animation, Movies and more! Written by DURWIN TALON (author of the top-selling book PANEL DISCUSSIONS), this book features creators sharing their perspectives and their work in comics and their “other professions,” with career overviews, never-before-seen art, and interviews! Featuring: • BRUCE TIMM • BERNIE WRIGHTSON • ADAM HUGHES • JEPH LOEB

• LOUISE SIMONSON • DAVE DORMAN • GREG RUCKA AND OTHERS!

(168-page trade paperback) $19.95 ISBN: 9781893905313 Diamond Order Code: FEB042700

(160-page trade paperback with COLOR) $19.95 ISBN: 9781893905926 Diamond Order Code: FEB084082

NEW FOR 2008

NEW FOR 2008

PANEL DISCUSSIONS

TOP ARTISTS DISCUSS THE DESIGN OF COMICS

BEST OF DRAW! VOL. 3

BEST OF DRAW! VOL. 4

Compiles more of the best tutorials and interviews from DRAW! #5-7, including: Penciling by MIKE WIERINGO! Illustration by DAN BRERETON! Design

by PAUL RIVOCHE! Drawing Hands, Lighting the Figure, and Sketching by BRET BLEVINS! Cartooning

by BILL WRAY! Inking by MIKE MANLEY! Comics & Animation by STEPHEN DeSTEFANO! Digital Illustration by CELIA CALLE and ALBERTO RUIZ! Caricature by ZACH TRENHOLM, and much more!

Cover by DAN BRERETON!

More tutorials and interviews from DRAW! #8-10, spotlighting: From comics to video games with artist MATT HALEY! Character design with TOM BANCROFT and ROB CORLEY! Adobe Illustrator tips with ALBERTO RUIZ! Draping the human figure by BRET BLEVINS! Penciling with RON GARNEY! Breaking into comic strips

by GRAHAM NOLAN! Lettering by TODD KLEIN! International cartoonist JOSÉ LUIS AGREDA! Interviews with PvP’s SCOTT KURTZ and Banana Tail’s MARK McKENNA, and more! Cover by MATT HALEY!

(256-page trade paperback with COLOR) $29.95 ISBN: 9781893905917 Diamond Order Code: JAN083936

(216-page trade paperback with COLOR) $24.95 ISBN: 9781605490007 Ships May 2008

Art professor DURWIN TALON gets top creators to discuss all aspects of the DESIGN of comics, from panel and page layout, to use of color and lettering: • WILL EISNER • SCOTT HAMPTON • MIKE WIERINGO • WALT SIMONSON • MIKE MIGNOLA • MARK SCHULTZ • DAVID MAZZUCCHELLI • MIKE CARLIN • DICK GIORDANO • BRIAN STELFREEZE • CHRIS MOELLER • MARK CHIARELLO If you’re serious about creating effective, innovative comics, or just enjoying them from the creator’s perspective, this guide is must-reading!

(208-page trade paperback with COLOR) $24.95 ISBN: 9781893905146 Diamond Order Code: MAY073781

WRITE NOW! (edited by Spider-Man writer DANNY FINGEROTH), the magazine for writers of comics, animation, and sci-fi, puts you in the minds of today’s top writers and editors. Each issue features WRITING TIPS from pros on both sides of the desk, INTERVIEWS, SAMPLE SCRIPTS, REVIEWS, exclusive NUTS & BOLTS tutorials, and more!

Go online for an ULTIMATE BUNDLE, with all the issues at HALF-PRICE! 4-ISSUE SUBSCRIPTIONS: $26 US Postpaid by Media Mail ($36 First Class, $44 Canada, $60 Surface, $72 Airmail).

WRITE NOW! #1

WRITE NOW! #2

WRITE NOW! #3

Get practical advice and tips on writing from top pros on BOTH SIDES of the desk!

MARK BAGLEY cover and interview, BRIAN BENDIS & STAN LEE interviews, JOE QUESADA on what editors really want, TOM DeFALCO, J.M. DeMATTEIS, and more!

ERIK LARSEN cover and interview, writers STAN BERKOWITZ (JLA cartoon), TODD ALCOTT (“ANTZ”), LEE NORDLING (Platinum Studios), ANNE D. BERNSTEIN (MTV’s “Daria”), step-by-step on scripting Spider-Girl, 10 rules for writers, and more!

BRUCE JONES on writing The Hulk, AXEL ALONSO on state-of-the-art editing, DENNY O’NEIL offers tips for comics writers, KURT BUSIEK shows how he scripts, plus JIMMY PALMIOTTI, JOEY CAVALIERI, and more! New MIKE DEODATO cover!

(88-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY022406

(96-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: AUG022441

(80-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: NOV022869

WRITE NOW! #4

WRITE NOW! #5

WRITE NOW! #6

WRITE NOW! #7

WRITE NOW! #8

HOWARD CHAYKIN on writing for comics and TV, PAUL DINI on animated writing, DENNY O’NEIL offers more tips for comics writers, KURT BUSIEK shows how he scripts, plus FABIAN NICIEZA, DeFALCO & FRENZ, and more! New CHAYKIN cover!

WILL EISNER discusses his comics writing, J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI on Hollywood writing, BOB SCHRECK details his work on Batman, DENNY O’NEIL’s notes from his writing classes, FABIAN NICIEZA, PAUL DINI, and more! CASTILLO/RAMOS cover!

BRIAN BENDIS and MICHAEL AVON OEMING in-depth on making an issue of Powers, MARK WAID on writing Fantastic Four, BOB SCHRECK’s interview continues from last issue, DIANA SCHUTZ, SCOTT M. ROSENBERG, & more! OEMING cover!

JEPH LOEB and CHUCK DIXON give indepth interviews (with plenty of rare and unseen art), JOHN JACKSON MILLER discusses writing, MARK WHEATLEY on his new Image series, & more NUTS & BOLTS how-to’s on writing! TIM SALE cover!

Part One of “how-to”crossover with DRAW! #9, as DANNY FINGEROTH and MIKE MANLEY create an all-new character and ideas are proposed and modified to get a character’s look & origins! Plus interviews with DON McGREGOR & STUART MOORE!

(80-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: FEB032284

(80-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY032566

(80-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: AUG032628

(80-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JAN042904

(80-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY043069

DIEGDITITIOANL ONLY!

DIEGDITITIOANL

DIEGDITITIOANL BL AVAILA

E

ONLY!

WRITE NOW! #9

WRITE NOW! #10

WRITE NOW! #11

WRITE NOW! #12

WRITE NOW! #13

NEAL ADAMS discusses his own writing (with rare art and a NEW ADAMS COVER), GEOFF JOHNS discusses writing for comics, a feature on the secrets of PITCHING COMICS IDEAS, MICHAEL OEMING and BATTON LASH on writing, plus more NUTS & BOLTS how-to’s on writing and sample scripts!

Interviews and lessons by Justice League Unlimited’s DWAYNE McDUFFIE, interview with Hate’s PETER BAGGE conducted by JOEY CAVALIERI, comics scripter/editor GERRY CONWAY, writer/editor PAUL BENJAMIN, plus more NUTS & BOLTS how-to’s on writing and sample scripts, and a JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED cover!

STAN LEE, NEIL GAIMAN, MARK WAID, PETER DAVID, J.M. DeMATTEIS, TOM DeFALCO, DENNY O’NEIL, and 18 others reveal PROFESSIONAL WRITING SECRETS, plus DeFALCO and RON FRENZ on working together, JOHN OSTRANDER on creating characters, and an all-new SPIDER-GIRL cover by FRENZ and SAL BUSCEMA!

DC Comics president PAUL LEVITZ on the art, craft and business of comics writing, STEVE ENGLEHART’s thoughts on writing for today’s market, survey of TOP COMICS EDITORS on how to submit work to them, Marvel Editor ANDY SCHMIDT on how to break in, T. CAMPBELL on writing for webcomics, plus a new GEORGE PÉREZ cover!

X-MEN 3 screenwriter SIMON KINBERG interviewed, DENNIS O’NEIL on translating BATMAN BEGINS into a novel, Central Park Media’s STEPHEN PAKULA discusses manga writing, KURT BUSIEK on breaking into comics, MIKE FRIEDRICH on writers’ agents, script samples, new RON LIM /AL MILGROM cover, and more!

(80-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: SEP043062

(88-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: MAR053355

(80-page magazine) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: AUG053354

(80-page magazine) SOLD OUT (80-page Digital Edition) $2.95

(80-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY063519

WRITE NOW! #17

DIEGDITITIOANL BL AVAILA

E

DIEGDITITIOANL BL AVAILA

E

DIEGDITITIOANL

DIEGDITITIOANL BL AVAILA

HEROES ISSUE featuring series creator/ writer TIM KRING, writer JEPH LOEB, and others, interviews with DC Comics’ DAN DiDIO and Marvel’s DAN BUCKLEY, PETER DAVID on writing STEPHEN KING’S DARK TOWER COMIC, MICHAEL TEITELBAUM, C.B. CEBULSKI, DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF, Nuts & Bolts script and art examples, and more!

E

BL AVAILA

E

(80-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: AUG074138

WRITE NOW! #14

WRITE NOW! #15

WRITE NOW! #16

BRIAN BENDIS interview, STAN LEE, TODD McFARLANE, PETER DAVID and others on writing Spider-Man, pencil art and script from MARVEL CIVIL WAR #1 by MILLAR and McNIVEN, JIM STARLIN on Captain Comet and The Weird, LEE NORDLING on Comics in Hollywood, and a new ALEX MALEEV cover!

J.M. DeMATTEIS interview on Abadazad with MIKE PLOOG, DC’s 52 series scripting how-to by RUCKA/JOHNS/MORRISON/ WAID, KEITH GIFFEN breakdowns, pencil art by JOE BENNETT, JOHN OSTRANDER on writing, STAR TREK novelist BILL McCAY on dealing with editors, samples of scripts and art, and more, plus a FREE ROUGH STUFF #4 PREVIEW!

Interview with Spawn’s TODD McFARLANE, Silver Surfer writers roundtable, script and pencil art from BRIAN BENDIS and FRANK CHO’s MIGHTY AVENGERS and from DAN SLOTT’s AVENGERS: THE INITIATIVE, an interview, script and art by DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF on his acclaimed graphic novel TESTAMENT, cover by MIKE ZECK, plus a FREE DRAW #14 PREVIEW!

(80-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: JAN074011

(80-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY073903

(80-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: AUG063716

WRITE NOW! #19 WRITE NOW! #18

DIEGDITITIOANL BL AVAILA

E

Celebration of STAN LEE’s 85th birthday, including rare examples of comics, TV, and movie scripts from the Stan Lee Archives, tributes by JOHN ROMITA, SR., JOE QUESADA, ROY THOMAS, DENNIS O’NEIL, JIMMY PALMIOTTI, JIM SALICRUP, TODD McFARLANE, LOUISE SIMONSON, MARK EVANIER, and others, plus art by KIRBY, DITKO, ROMITA, and more!

(80-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: FEB084191

DARK KNIGHT and SPIRIT executive producer MICHAEL USLAN on the writing process for films, Dennis O’Neil on adapting THE DARK KNIGHT movie to novel form, BRIAN BENDIS script and LEINIL YU pencils from Marvel’s SECRET INVASION #1, mystery and comics writer MAX ALAN COLLINS discusses his career and upcoming projects, MARK MILLAR script and BRYAN HITCH pencils from their upcoming run on FF, DAN SLOTT script and STEVE McNIVEN pencils from Spider-Man’s BRAND NEW DAY, inside info on DC’s online ZUDA COMICS imprint from RON PERAZZA, ALEX GRECIAN talks about the making of his Image series PROOF!, and more!

(80-page magazine) $6.95 Ships July 2008

DIEGDITITIOANL BL AVAILA

E

Annual Membership with one of $ these posters: 40 In The US

Captain America 23” x 29”

1941 Captain America 14” x 23”

Strange Tales 23” x 29”

Super Powers 17” x 22” color

Annual Membership with one of $ these posters: 50 In The US The Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center is organized exclusively for educational purposes; more specifically, to promote and encourage the study, understanding, preservation and appreciation of the work of Jack Kirby by: • illustrating the scope of Kirby's multi-faceted career • communicating the stories, inspirations and influences of Jack Kirby • celebrating the life of Jack Kirby and his creations • building understanding of comic books and comic book creators To this end, the Museum will sponsor and otherwise support study, teaching, conferences, discussion groups, exhibitions, displays, publications and cinematic, theatrical or multimedia productions.

Marvel 14” x 23”

Galactic Head 18” x 20” color

Incan Visitation 24” x 18” color

JOIN THE JACK KIRBY MUSEUM: www.kirbymuseum.org Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center • PO Box 5236 • Hoboken, NJ 07030 USA • Telephone: (201) 963-4383

MODERN MASTERS SERIES Edited by ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON, these trade paperbacks and DVDs are devoted to the BEST OF TODAY’S COMICS ARTISTS! Each book contains RARE AND UNSEEN ARTWORK direct from the artist’s files, plus a COMPREHENSIVE INTERVIEW (including influences and their views on graphic storytelling), DELUXE SKETCHBOOK SECTIONS, and more! And don’t miss our companion DVDs, showing the artists at work in their studios!

MODERN MASTERS: IN THE STUDIO WITH GEORGE PÉREZ DVD

MODERN MASTERS: IN THE STUDIO WITH MICHAEL GOLDEN DVD

Get a PERSONAL TOUR of George’s studio, and watch STEP-BY-STEP as the fan-favorite artist illustrates a special issue of TOP COW’s WITCHBLADE! Also, see George as he sketches for fans at conventions, and hear his peers and colleagues—including MARV WOLFMAN and RON MARZ—share their anecdotes and personal insights along the way!

Go behind the scenes and into Michael Golden’s studio for a LOOK INTO THE CREATIVE MIND of one of comics' greats. Witness a modern master in action as this 90-minute DVD provides an exclusive look at the ARTIST AT WORK, as he DISCUSSES THE PROCESSES he undertakes to create a new comics series.

(120-minute Standard Format DVD) $29.95 ISBN: 9781893905511 Diamond Order Code: JUN053276

(90-minute Standard Format DVD) $29.95 ISBN: 9781893905771 Diamond Order Code: MAY073780

Volume 1: ALAN DAVIS

Volume 2: GEORGE PÉREZ

Volume 3: BRUCE TIMM

Volume 4: KEVIN NOWLAN

by Eric Nolen-Weathington (128-page trade paperback) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905191 Diamond Order Code: JAN073903

by Eric Nolen-Weathington (128-page trade paperback) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905252 Diamond Order Code: JAN073904

by Eric Nolen-Weathington (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905306 Diamond Order Code: APR042954

by Eric Nolen-Weathington (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905382 Diamond Order Code: SEP042971

Volume 5: GARCÍA-LÓPEZ

Volume 6: ARTHUR ADAMS

Volume 7: JOHN BYRNE

Volume 8: WALTER SIMONSON

by Eric Nolen-Weathington (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905443 Diamond Order Code: APR053191

by George Khoury & Eric Nolen-Weathington (128-page trade paperback) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905542 Diamond Order Code: DEC053309

by Jon B. Cooke & Eric Nolen-Weathington (128-page trade paperback) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905566 Diamond Order Code: FEB063354

by Roger Ash & Eric Nolen-Weathington (128-page trade paperback) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905641 Diamond Order Code: MAY063444

Volume 9: MIKE WIERINGO

Volume 10: KEVIN MAGUIRE

Volume 11: CHARLES VESS

Volume 12: MICHAEL GOLDEN

by Todd DeZago & Eric Nolen-Weathington (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905658 Diamond Order Code: AUG063626

by George Khoury & Eric Nolen-Weathington (128-page trade paperback) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905665 Diamond Order Code: OCT063722

by Christopher Irving & Eric Nolen-Weathington (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905696 Diamond Order Code: DEC063948

by Eric Nolen-Weathington (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905740 Diamond Order Code: APR074023

NEW FOR 2008

NEW FOR 2008

Volume 13: JERRY ORDWAY

Volume 14: FRANK CHO

Volume 15: MARK SCHULTZ

Volume 16: MIKE ALLRED

by Eric Nolen-Weathington (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905795 Diamond Order Code: JUN073926

by Eric Nolen-Weathington (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905849 Diamond Order Code: AUG074034

by Fred Perry & Eric Nolen-Weathington (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905856 Diamond Order Code: OCT073846

by Eric Nolen-Weathington (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905863 Diamond Order Code: JAN083937

MODERN MASTERS BUNDLES

NEW FOR 2008

NEW FOR 2008

Volume 17: LEE WEEKS

Volume 18: JOHN ROMITA JR.

by Tom Field & Eric Nolen-Weathington (128-page trade paperback) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905948 Ships May 2008

by George Khoury & Eric Nolen-Weathington (128-page trade paperback) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905955 Ships July 2008

BUNDLE THE GEORGE PÉREZ VOLUME & DVD TOGETHER, OR THE MICHAEL GOLDEN VOLUME & DVD TOGETHER

ONLY $37.95 EACH (SAVE $7 PER BUNDLE)

MODERN MASTERS VOLUMES ON MIKE PLOOG AND CHRIS SPROUSE ARE COMING IN FALL 2008 SEE OUR SUMMER CATALOG UPDATE!

THE ULTIMATE MAGAZINE FOR LEGOTM ENTHUSIASTS OF ALL AGES!

NEXT ISSUE IN JUNE:

COMING IN MAY:

BRICKJOURNAL COMPENDIUM 1

DIEGDITITIOANL BLE AVAILA

BRICKJOURNAL #2 (VOL. 2) Our second FULL-COLOR print issue celebrates the summer by spotlighting blockbuster summer movies, LEGO style! The LEGO Group will be releasing new sets for BATMAN and INDIANA JONES, and BrickJournal looks behind the scenes at their creation! There’s also articles on events in the US and Europe, and spotlights on new models, including an SR-71 SPYPLANE and a LEGO CONSTRUCTED CITY. For builders, there are INSTRUCTIONS & MINIFIGURE CUSTOMIZATIONS. Plus, there’s a feature on the ONLINE LEGO FACTORY, showing how an online model becomes a custom set, and a look at how the LEGO Group monitors its quality!

(80-page magazine) $11 US POSTPAID ($14 Canada, $20 Elsewhere) (80-page Digital Edition) $3.95 (or FREE to print subscribers) • Ships June 2008

4-ISSUE SUBSCRIPTIONS: $32 US Postpaid by Media Mail ($42 First Class, $50 Canada • Elsewhere: $66 Surface, $78 Airmail)

PRINT SUBSCRIBERS GET THE DIGITAL EDITION FREE, BEFORE THE PRINT ISSUE HITS STORES!

VOLUME 1 features interviews with LEGO car builder ZACHARY SWEIGART (showing his version of the timetraveling Delorean from the movie Back to the Future), JØRGEN VIG KNUDSTORP (CEO of LEGO Systems, Inc.), Mecha builders BRYCE McLONE and JEFF RANJO, paraplegic LEGO builder SCOTT WARFIELD, BOB CARNEY (LEGO castle builder extraordinaire) and RALPH SAVELSBURG (LEGO plane builder), REVEREND BRENDAN POWELL SMITH (author of the LEGO version of the Bible), NASA Astronaut Trainer KIETH JOHNSON, JAKE McKEE (Global Community Director for The LEGO Group), builder JASON ALLEMANN on recreating the spacecraft from 2001: A Space Odyssey and 2010: The Year We Make Contact, features on the BIONICLE universe, how to make your own custom bricks, plus instructions and techniques, and more!

Reprints Digital Editions #1-3 (below).

(256-page FULL-COLOR trade paperback) $44 US POSTPAID ($51 Canada, $61 Elsewhere) ISBN: 978-1-893905-97-9 • Ships May 2008

GET DIGITAL EDITIONS OF VOLUME 1, #1-9: The first nine issues shown below comprise Volume One, and were released from 2005-2007 as Digital Editions only, averaging more than 100,000 downloads each.

They’re available for downloading now for $3.95 EACH, and issue #9 is FREE!

DOWNLOAD A FREE DIGITAL EDITION OF VOL. 1, #9 NOW AT www.twomorrows.com

“HOW-TO” MAGAZINES Spinning off from the pages of BACK ISSUE! magazine comes ROUGH STUFF, celebrating the ART of creating comics! Edited by famed inker BOB McLEOD, each issue spotlights NEVER-BEFORE PUBLISHED penciled pages, preliminary sketches, detailed layouts, and even unused inked versions from artists throughout comics history. Included is commentary on the art, discussing what went right and wrong with it, and background information to put it all into historical perspective. Plus, before-and-after comparisons let you see firsthand how an image changes from initial concept to published version. So don’t miss this amazing magazine, featuring galleries of NEVER-BEFORE SEEN art, from some of your favorite series of all time, and the top pros in the industry!

DIEGDITITIOANL

DIEGDITITIOANL BL AVAILA

BL AVAILA

E

DIEGDITITIOANL BL AVAILA

E

ROUGH STUFF #1 Our debut issue features galleries of UNSEEN ART by a who’s who of Modern Masters including: ALAN DAVIS, GEORGE PÉREZ, BRUCE TIMM, KEVIN NOWLAN, JOSÉ LUIS GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, ARTHUR ADAMS, JOHN BYRNE, and WALTER SIMONSON, plus a KEVIN NOWLAN interview, art critiques, and a new BRUCE TIMM COVER!

BL AVAILA

E

E

ROUGH STUFF #2

ROUGH STUFF #3

ROUGH STUFF #4

The follow-up to our smash first issue features more galleries of UNSEEN ART by top industry professionals, including: BRIAN APTHORP, FRANK BRUNNER, PAUL GULACY, JERRY ORDWAY, ALEX TOTH, and MATT WAGNER, plus a PAUL GULACY interview, a look at art of the pros BEFORE they were pros, and a new GULACY “HEX” COVER!

Still more galleries of UNPUBLISHED ART

by MIKE ALLRED, JOHN BUSCEMA, YANICK PAQUETTE, JOHN ROMITA JR., P. CRAIG RUSSELL, and LEE WEEKS, plus a JOHN ROMITA JR. interview, looks at the process of creating a cover (with BILL SIENKIEWICZ and JOHN ROMITA JR.), and a new ROMITA JR. COVER, plus a FREE DRAW #13 PREVIEW!

More NEVER-PUBLISHED galleries (with detailed artist commentaries) by MICHAEL KALUTA, ANDREW “Starman” ROBINSON, GENE COLAN, HOWARD CHAYKIN, and STEVE BISSETTE, plus interview and art by JOHN TOTLEBEN, a look at the Wonder Woman Day charity auction (with rare art), art critiques, before-&-after art comparisons, and a FREE WRITE NOW #15 PREVIEW!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: AUG063714

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: NOV064024

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: FEB073911

(116-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: APR063497

ROUGH STUFF #5

DIGITITIOANL

DIEGDITITIOANL

ROUGH STUFF #6

NEVER-BEFORE-PUBLISHED galleries (complete with extensive commentaries by the artists) by PAUL SMITH, GIL KANE, CULLY HAMNER, DALE KEOWN, and ASHLEY WOOD, plus a feature interview and art by STEVE RUDE, an examination of JOHN ALBANO and TONY DeZUNIGA’s work on Jonah Hex, new STEVE RUDE COVER, plus a FREE BACK ISSUE #23 PREVIEW!

Features a new interview and cover by BRIAN STELFREEZE, interview with BUTCH GUICE, extensive art galleries/commentary by IAN CHURCHILL, DAVE COCKRUM, and COLLEEN DORAN, MIKE GAGNON looks at independent comics, with art and comments by ANDREW BARR, BRANDON GRAHAM, and ASAF HANUKA! Includes a FREE ALTER EGO #73 PREVIEW!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY073902

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: AUG074137

ED BLE AVAILA

ROUGH STUFF #7

DIEGDITITIOANL E

BL AVAILA

Features an in-depth interview and cover by TIM TOWNSEND, CRAIG HAMILTON, DAN JURGENS, and HOWARD PORTER offer preliminary art and commentaries, MARIE SEVERIN career retrospective, graphic novels feature with art and comments by DAWN BROWN, TOMER HANUKA, BEN TEMPLESMITH, and LANCE TOOKS, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: NOV073966

DIEGDITITIOANL BL AVAILA

E

ROUGH STUFF #9

DIEGDITITIOANL BLE AVAILA

ROUGH STUFF #8 Features an in-depth interview and cover painting by the extraordinary MIKE MAYHEW, preliminary and unpublished art

by ALEX HORLEY, TONY DeZUNIGA, NICK CARDY, and RAFAEL KAYANAN (including commentary by each artist), a look at the great Belgian comic book artists, a “Rough Critique” of MIKE MURDOCK’s work, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: FEB084188

Editor and pro inker BOB McLEOD features four interviews this issue: ROB HAYNES (interviewed by fellow professional TIM TOWNSEND), JOE JUSKO, MEL RUBI, and SCOTT WILLIAMS, with a new painted cover by JUSKO, and an article by McLEOD examining "Inkers: Who needs ’em?" along with other features, including a Rough Critique of RUDY VASQUEZ! (100-page magazine) $6.95 Ships Summer 2008

4-ISSUE SUBSCRIPTIONS: $26 US Postpaid by Media Mail ($36 First Class, $44 Canada, $60 Surface, $72 Airmail).

DIEGDITITIOANL BL AVAILA

E

DRAW! (edited by top comics artist MIKE MANLEY) is the professional “HOW-TO” magazine on comics, cartooning, and animation. Each issue features in-depth INTERVIEWS and STEP-BY-STEP DEMOS from top comics pros on all aspects of graphic storytelling. NOTE: Contains nudity for purposes of figure drawing. INTENDED FOR MATURE READERS. TWO-TIME EISNER AWARD NOMINEE for Best Comics-Related Periodical.

4-ISSUE SUBSCRIPTIONS: $26 US Postpaid by Media Mail ($36 First Class, $44 Canada, $60 Surface, $72 Airmail).

DRAW! #4

DRAW! #5

DRAW! #6

Features an interview and step-by-step demonstration from Savage Dragon’s ERIK LARSEN, KEVIN NOWLAN on drawing and inking techniques, DAVE COOPER demonstrates coloring techniques in Photoshop, BRET BLEVINS tutorial on Figure Composition, PAUL RIVOCHE on the Design Process, reviews of comics drawing papers, and more!

Interview and sketchbook by MIKE WIERINGO, BRIAN BENDIS and MIKE OEMING show how they create the series “Powers”, BRET BLEVINS shows “How to draw great hands”, “The illusion of depth in design” by PAUL RIVOCHE, must-have art books reviewed by TERRY BEATTY, plus reviews of the best art supplies, links, a color section and more! OEMING cover!

Interview, cover, and demo with BILL WRAY, STEPHEN DeSTEFANO interview and demo on cartooning and animation, BRET BLEVINS shows “How to draw the human figure in light and shadow,” a step-by-step Photo-shop tutorial by CELIA CALLE, expert inking tips by MIKE MANLEY, plus reviews of the best art supplies, links, a color section and more!

(88-page magazine with COLOR) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JAN022757

(88-page magazine with COLOR) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: APR022633

(96-page magazine with COLOR) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: FEB032281

DIEGDITITIOANL

DIEGDITITIOANL BLE AVAILA

ONLY!

DIEGDITITIOANL BL AVAILA

E

DRAW! #8

DRAW! #10

DRAW! #11

DRAW! #12

DRAW! #13

From comics to video games: an interview, cover, and demo with MATT HALEY, TOM BANCROFT & ROB CORLEY on character design, “Drawing In Adobe Illustrator” step-by-step demo by ALBERTO RUIZ, “Draping The Human Figure” by BRET BLEVINS, a new COMICS SECTION, International Spotlight on JOSÉ LOUIS AGREDA, a color section and more!

RON GARNEY interview, step-by-step demo, and cover, GRAHAM NOLAN on creating newspaper strips, TODD KLEIN and other pros discuss lettering, “Draping The Human Figure, Part Two” by BRET BLEVINS, ALBERTO RUIZ with more Adobe Illustrator tips, interview with Banana Tail creator MARK McKENNA, links, a color section and more!

STEVE RUDE demonstrates his approach to comics & drawing, ROQUE BALLESTEROS on Flash animation, political cartoonist JIM BORGMAN on his daily comic strip Zits, plus DRAW!’s regular instructors BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY on “Drawing On LIfe”, more Adobe Illustrator tips with ALBERTO RUIZ, links, a color section and more! New RUDE cover!

KYLE BAKER reveals his working methods and step-by-step processes on merging his traditional and digital art, Machine Teen’s MIKE HAWTHORNE on his work, “Making Perspective Work For You” by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY, Photoshop techniques with ALBERTO RUIZ, Adult Swim’s THE VENTURE BROTHERS, links, a color section and more! New BAKER cover!

Step-by-step demo of painting methods by cover artist ALEX HORLEY (Heavy Metal, Vertigo, DC, Wizards of the Coast), plus interviews and demos by Banana Sundays’ COLLEEN COOVER, behind-the-scenes on Adult Swim’s MINORITEAM, regular features on drawing by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY, links, color section and more, plus a FREE ROUGH STUFF #3 PREVIEW!

(96-page magazine with COLOR) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: DEC032848

(104-page magazine with COLOR) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: DEC043007

(112-page magazine with COLOR) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY053188

(96-page magazine) SOLD OUT (96-page Digital Edition) $2.95

(88-page magazine with COLOR) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: OCT063824

DRAW! #16

DIEGDITITIOANL BL AVAILA

E

DIEGDITITIOANL BL AVAILA

E

DRAW! #14

DRAW! #15

Features in-depth interviews and demos with DC Comics artist DOUG MAHNKE, OVI NEDELCU (Pigtale, WB Animation), STEVE PURCELL (Sam and Max), plus Part 3 of editor MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ COMIC ART BOOTCAMP on “Using Black to Power up Your Pages”, product reviews, a new MAHNKE cover, and a FREE ALTER EGO #70 PREVIEW!

BACK TO SCHOOL ISSUE, covering major schools offering comic art as part of their curriculum, featuring faculty, student, and graduate interviews in an ultimate overview of collegiate-level comic art classes! Plus, a “how-to” demo/ interview with B.P.R.D.’S GUY DAVIS, MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ COMIC ART BOOTCAMP series, a FREE WRITE NOW #17 PREVIEW, and more!

(80-page magazine with COLOR) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY073896

(80-page magazine with COLOR) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: AUG074131

Features an in-depth interview and coverage of the creative process of HOWARD CHAYKIN. From the early ’70s at DC, STAR WARS, and HEAVY METAL, to AMERICAN FLAGG and now WOLVERINE, we catch up with one of comics most innovative artist/storytellers! Also, we go behind the drawing board and animation desk with JAY STEPHENS, from JET CAT and TUTENSTEIN to his new Cartoon Network show, SECRET SATURDAYS! Then there's more COMIC ART BOOTCAMP, this time focusing on HOW TO USE REFERENCE, and WORKING FROM PHOTOS by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY. Plus, reviews, resources and more!

(80-page magazine with COLOR) $6.95 Ships Summer 2008

Don’t miss our BEST OF DRAW volumes, reprinting the SOLD OUT ISSUES!

DIEGDITITIOANL BL AVAILA

E

NEW STUFF FROM TWOMORROWS!

ALTER EGO #77

BACK ISSUE #28

WRITE NOW! #18

DRAW! #15

BRICKJOURNAL #1 (V2)

ST. JOHN ISSUE! Golden Age Tor cover by JOE KUBERT, KEN QUATTRO relates the full legend of St. John Publishing, art by KUBERT, NORMAN MAURER, MATT BAKER, LILY RENEE, BOB LUBBERS, RUBEN MOREIRA, RALPH MAYO, AL FAGO, special reminiscences of ARNOLD DRAKE, Golden Age artist TOM SAWYER interviewed, and more!

“Heroes Behaving Badly!” Hulk vs. Thing tirades with RON WILSON, HERB TRIMPE, and JIM SHOOTER; CARY BATES and CARMINE INFANTINO on “Trial of the Flash”; JOHN BYRNE’s heroes who cross the line; Teen Titan Terra, Kid Miracleman, Mark Shaw Manhunter, and others who went bad, featuring LAYTON, MICHELINIE, WOLFMAN, and PÉREZ, and more! New cover by DARWYN COOKE!

Celebration of STAN LEE’s 85th birthday, including rare examples of comics, TV, and movie scripts from the Stan Lee Archives, tributes by JOHN ROMITA, SR., JOE QUESADA, ROY THOMAS, DENNIS O’NEIL, JIMMY PALMIOTTI, JIM SALICRUP, TODD McFARLANE, LOUISE SIMONSON, MARK EVANIER, and others, plus art by KIRBY, DITKO, ROMITA, and more!

BACK TO SCHOOL ISSUE, covering major schools offering comic art as part of their curriculum, featuring faculty, student, and graduate interviews in an ultimate overview of collegiate-level comic art classes! Plus, a “how-to” demo/ interview with artist BILL REINHOLD, MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ COMIC ART BOOTCAMP series, a FREE WRITE NOW #17 PREVIEW, and more!

The ultimate resource for LEGO enthusiasts of all ages, showcasing events, people, and models! #1 features an interview with set designer and LEGO Certified Professional NATHAN SAWAYA, plus step-by-step building instructions and techniques for all skill levels, new set reviews, on-the-scene reports from LEGO community events, and other surprises! Edited by JOE MENO.

(80-page magazine) $6.95 Now Shipping Diamond Order Code: FEB084191

(80-page magazine with COLOR) $6.95 Now Shipping Diamond Order Code: AUG074131

(80-page FULL COLOR magazine) $8.95 Now Shipping Diamond Order Code: FEB088010

ALL- STAR COMPANION V. 3

MODERN MASTERS VOLUME 15: MARK SCHULTZ

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Ships May 2008 Diamond Order Code: MAR084108

KIRBY FIVE-OH! (JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #50) The regular columnists from THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR magazine celebrate the best of everything from Jack Kirby’s 50-year career, spotlighting: The BEST KIRBY STORIES & COVERS from 19381987! Jack’s 50 BEST UNUSED PIECES OF ART! His 50 BEST CHARACTER DESIGNS! Interviews with the 50 PEOPLE MOST INFLUENCED BY KIRBY’S WORK! A 50PAGE KIRBY PENCIL ART GALLERY and DELUXE COLOR SECTION! Kirby cover inked by DARWYN COOKE, and an introduction by MARK EVANIER, making this the ultimate retrospective on the career of the “King” of comics! Edited by JOHN MORROW. (168-page tabloid-size trade paperback) $19.95 ISBN: 9781893905894 Diamond Order Code: JUL078147 Now Shipping

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: MAR084109

SILVER AGE ALTER EGO: BEST SCI-FI COMPANION OF THE LEGENDARY COMICS FANZINE In the Silver Age of Comics, space was the place, and this book summarizes, critiques and lovingly recalls the classic science-fiction series edited by JULIUS SCHWARTZ and written by GARDNER FOX and JOHN BROOME! The pages of DC’s science-fiction magazines of the 1960s, STRANGE ADVENTURES and MYSTERY IN SPACE, are opened for you, including story-bystory reviews of complete series such as ADAM STRANGE, ATOMIC KNIGHTS, SPACE MUSEUM, STAR ROVERS, STAR HAWKINS and others! Writer/editor MIKE W. BARR tells you which series crossed over with each other, behind-the-scenes secrets, and more, including writer and artist credits for every story! Features rare art by CARMINE INFANTINO, MURPHY ANDERSON, GIL KANE, SID GREENE, MIKE SEKOWSKY, and many others, plus a glorious new cover by ALAN DAVIS and PAUL NEARY!

Go to www.twomorrows.com for FULL-COLOR downloadable PDF versions of our magazines for only $2.95! Subscribers to the print edition get the digital edition FREE, weeks before it hits stores!

(144-page trade paperback) $19.95 ISBN: 9781893905818 Diamond Order Code: JUL073885

In 1961, JERRY BAILS and ROY THOMAS launched ALTER EGO, the first fanzine devoted to comic book history. This book, first published in low distribution in 1997, collects the original 11 issues of A/E from 1961-78, with creative and artistic contributions by JACK KIRBY, STEVE DITKO, WALLY WOOD, JOHN BUSCEMA, MARIE SEVERIN, BILL EVERETT, RUSS MANNING, CURT SWAN, & others—and important, illustrated interviews with GIL KANE, BILL EVERETT, & JOE KUBERT! See where a generation first learned about the Golden Age of Comics—while the Silver Age was in full flower—with major articles on the JUSTICE SOCIETY, the MARVEL FAMILY, the MLJ HEROES, and more! Edited by ROY THOMAS & BILL SCHELLY with an introduction by the late JULIUS SCHWARTZ.

More amazing secrets behind the 194051 ALL-STAR COMICS—and illustrated speculation about how other Golden Age super-teams might have been assembled!

Also, an issue-by-issue survey of the JLAJSA TEAM-UPS of 1963-85, the 1970s JSA REVIVAL, and the 1980s series THE YOUNG ALL-STARS and SECRET ORIGINS, with commentary by the artists and writers! Plus rare, often unseen art by KUBERT, INFANTINO, ADAMS, ORDWAY, ANDERSON, TOTH, CARDY, GIL KANE, COLAN, SEKOWSKY, DILLIN, STATON, REINMAN, McLEOD, GRINDBERG, PAUL SMITH, RON HARRIS, MARSHALL ROGERS, WAYNE BORING, GEORGE FREEMAN, DON HECK, GEORGE TUSKA, TONY DeZUNIGA, H.G. PETER, DON SIMPSON, and many others! Compiled and edited by ROY THOMAS, with a new cover by GEORGE PÉREZ!

(192-page trade paperback) $21.95 ISBN: 9781893905887 Diamond Order Code: DEC073946

(224-page trade paperback) $26.95 ISBN: 9781893905801 Diamond Order Code: MAY078045

(10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION)

SUBSCRIPTIONS:

Surface

Airmail

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR (4 issues)

$44

US

1st Class Canada $56

$64

$76

$120

BACK ISSUE! (6 issues)

$40

$54

$66

$90

$108

DRAW!, WRITE NOW!, ROUGH STUFF (4 issues)

$26

$36

$44

$60

$72

ALTER EGO (12 issues) Six-issue subs are half-price!

$78

$108

$132

$180

$216

BRICKJOURNAL (4 issues)

$32

$42

$50

$66

$78

Features an extensive, career-spanning interview lavishly illustrated with rare art from Mark’s files, plus huge sketchbook section, including unseen and unused art!

By ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON. (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905856 Diamond Order Code: OCT073846

MODERN MASTERS: MICHAEL GOLDEN DVD Shows the artist at work, discussing his art and career!

(120-minute Std. Format DVD) $29.95 ISBN: 9781893905771 Diamond Order Code: MAY073780

For the latest news from TwoMorrows Publishing, log on to www.twomorrows.com/tnt

TwoMorrows. Celebrating The Art & History Of Comics.

TwoMorrows • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 • E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com