Write Now! #12

INSIDE: HOW TO FIND YOUR STORY’S THEME! #

12 May 2006

$ 95

6

In the USA

M AG A ZI N E

18

EDITORS REVEAL:

HOW TO GET HIRED

STEVE ENGLEHART WRITING WEBCOMICS The The Magazine Magazine About About Writing Writing For For Comics, Comics, Animation, Animation, and and SCI-FI SCI-FI All characters TM & ©2006 DC Comics.

M AG AZ I N E Issue #12

May 2006

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

Mr. DC Interview with DC Comics President and Publisher Paul Levitz . . . . . . page 3

One From the ’Hart Interview with Steve Englehart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 19

Breaking and Entering Department You have great ideas and sensational writing samples—but what do you do then? How do you get someone in a decision-making position to decide whether or not they want to hire you to write for them? These three features will help you find the answers to that key question.

Writer, Know Thy Editor Paul Benjamin, former DC/Humanoids Managing Editor and current in-demand freelance writer, investigates what comics editors want to see— and brings back the information for you! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .page 43

Editors’ Preferences In handy, point-by-point fashion, a checklist of what 18 top editors want to see in your submission—and what they don’t! Compiled by Paul Benjamin . . .page 47

Breaking into Comics (and Staying In) for Writers From the horse’s mouth: what one top editor wants to see in your writing submissions, and his thoughts on what every editor wants to see from aspiring writers. Marvel editor Andy Schmidt talks in detail about the skills you need, how to network, the art of The Pitch, and much, much more . . . . . . .page 53

Writing Webcomics It’s a whole new world on the web for comics. Starting with the definition of “what is a webcomic, anyway,” webcomic expert (and writer) T Campbell explains what the world of webcomics is and why it might just be the place to showcase your ideas and maybe even generate some income . . . . . page 62

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

Nuts & Bolts Department

Conceived by DANNY FINGEROTH Editor-In-Chief Cover art by GEORGE PEREZ Associate Editor BOB BRODSKY Assistant Editor LIZ GEHRLEIN Designer RICH FOWLKS Transcriber STEVEN TICE Publisher JOHN MORROW

Special Thanks To:

THE 18 EDITORS!!

And… PAUL BENJAMIN ALISON BLAIRE BOB BRODSKY T CAMPBELL KIA CROSS STEVE ENGLEHART RICH FOWLKS LIZ GEHRLEIN GISELE LAGACE PAUL LEVITZ ERIC NOLENWEATHINGTON JOHN OSTRANDER ADAM PHILIPS CHRIS POWELL BEN REILLY JIM SALICRUP ANDY SCHMIDT STEVEN TICE VARDA STEINHARDT

Pitch to Arc Breakdown to Script: BATMAN: DARK DETECTIVE II Steve Englehart traces the evolution of 2005’s smash hit Batman: Dark Detective II mini-series/story arc. We see the pitch letter that sold the idea, his issue-by-issue outline for the story arc, and the first five pages of script and art for the first issue. Art by Marshall Rogers and Terry Austin . . . . . . . .page 32

Theme: The Heart of the Story John Ostrander sheds some light on the subject that is the essence of writing: having something to say! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .page 37

Script to Pencils to Finished Art: PENNY AND AGGIE Pages from the webcomic by T Campbell and Gisele Lagace . . . . .page 67

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: $9 Postpaid in the US ($11 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $24 US ($44 Canada, $48 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

I

t’s a new day and a new issue of Write Now! We kick off the proceedings with an in-depth interview with DC Comics President and Publisher, Paul Levitz. Paul started out as editor of The Comic Reader fanzine and eventually was hired to write letter columns for DC. That was followed quickly by a staff editorial gig, as well as much-acclaimed writing stints on books like Legion of Super-Heroes and Justice Society. Paul rose steadily in the business ranks at DC, and is, today, the head of the whole shebang. In this interview, Paul talks about his unusual career route, about his recent return to the writing trenches, while still serving as P & P of DC, and DC’s attitudes toward the issues affecting the creative community today. He doesn’t flinch from answering the hard questions.

We have an interview with the red-hot Steve Englehart, fresh from the triumph of his Batman: Dark Detective II. Bob Brodsky finds out how Steve’s work in TV, novels, and videogames relates to his comics work!

Then, we’ve got a new special section called Breaking and Entering.

It’s about how to get in—and stay in—the comics business as a writer.

Two of B & E’s three articles are by Paul Benjamin, former DC/Humanoids editor, and now red-hot freelance writer, who interviewed close to 20 editors to find out what they look for in submissions. In the first article, he summarizes general things to do (and not do) when pitching. In the second article, Paul gives a checklist of what each editor specifically does—and doesn’t—want to see in a pitch. In the third article in the section, Marvel editor Andy Schmidt takes the microscope in closer to give you his (and Marvel’s) thoughts on what and how to pitch them.

If you’re wondering what to put in those pitches you’re pitching, John Ostrander is back to give you another arrow in your quiver. This issue, John talks at length about theme and its role in writing comics (and everything else). It’s kind of important, y’know—theme is only WHAT YOUR STORY IS REALLY ABOUT! Feel confined by the world of print? Online guru T Campbell is here with an article explaining what the heck webcomics are and how you can use electronic media to get your creations out into the world.

In the Nuts & Bolts (How-To) department, we’ve got a couple of gems.

First we’ve got a bunch of pages from Steve Englehart’s Batman: Dark Detective II, issue #1. We see Steve’s amazing script pages, of course. And when you see how his words became Marshall Rogers and Terry Austin’s artwork, you’ll be thrilled, delighted—and educated.

Then we have a sampling of some of T Campbell’s webcomics work.

Of course, seeing it on paper isn’t the same as seeing it on your computer. You’d have to go to www.tcampbell.net to do that. But they read real good in old media, too.

And since many of you asked, since last issue’s awesome Professional Secrets section, about what my Professional Secrets are, they’re here in this issue, too.

As for next issue, we’ve got some treats for you in DFWN #13.

Behind a brand new Ron Lim-Al Milgrom cover featuring the X-Men in their movie costumes, we’ve got an issue focusing on adaptations— what happens when comics go to film or film to prose or Japanese comics to American translations.

Simon Kinberg, screenwriter of the movies X-Men 3: The Last Stand and Fantastic Four (as well as Mr. And Mrs. Smith and XXX: State of the Union) is interviewed.

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Then Dennis O’Neil, in an interview by Eric Fein, tells how he took the screenplay from the blockbuster Batman Begins movie and translated it into his top-selling prose novel.

Central park Media’s Stephen Pakula talks about what’s gained and what’s lost when manga are adapted from the original into English.

And Platinum Studios’ Lee Nordling gives his takes on adapting comics into film.

Want more? DFWN #13 also has: • Kurt Busiek’s words of wisdom on breaking into comics as a writer.

• Novelist Bill McCay on how to do research.

• Comedian/comics writer/novelist Marc Bilgrey on how his new comedy-fantasy novel And Don’t Forget to Rescue the Princess came to be.

• The legendary Mike Friedrich talks about the role (or lack thereof) of writers’ agents in the comics business.

And, of course, there’ll be lots of nifty Nuts and Bolts to help you make your writing the best it can be! Write Now! #13 is gonna be one you just can’t miss!

SHAMELESS PLUG DEPARTMENT: The How To Draw Comics From Script to Print DVD (based on the historic Write Now! #8-Draw!#9 Crossover that showed how a new character is created from initial idea to finished comic) is still available at comics shops or from the TwoMorrows website (www.twomorrows.com).

But the big news is the June debut of the trade paperback collection of the magazine crossover—with 30 NEW PAGES OF WRITING AND DRAWING TIPS! It’s called How to Create Comics from Script to Print. It should be pretty amazing.

In May, my YA novelization of X-Men 3 will be out from HarperCollins.

(I won’t have to keep the secrets anymore!) I also have a book about the X-Men phenomenon called The Story and History Behind the Creation of Action Heroes: X-Men, which will be coming out soon from Rosen Publishing. More on that when I know the on-sale date.

My book Superman On the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society (from Continuum) is still exciting a lot of attention! (At least at my house it is.)

My Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle episodes should be airing any day now.

I’ll be teaching an intensive one-week comics writing course at NYU (www.scps.nyu.edu/) this summer.

Finally—and this is very cool—on Thursday night, June 22, yours truly, as well as Dennis O’Neil, Michael Uslan (producer of the Batman movies), and Tom DeFalco will be presenting a panel about superheroes and why they’re important to our society at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. It promises to be an amazing night.

That’s more than enough from me. Time to check out the issue.

Write Away!

Mr. DC:

THE PAUL LEVITZ INTERVIEW

P

Conducted at DC Comics by Danny Fingeroth October 3, 2005 Transcribed by Steven Tice Copy-edited by Paul Levitz, Adam Philips and Danny Fingeroth

aul Levitz is the President and Publisher of DC Comics; as a writer, he is best known for his run on The Legion of Super-Heroes.

Levitz was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1956, and entered the comics industry in 1971 as the editor/publisher of The Comic Reader, the first mass-circulation fanzine devoted to comic news. He continued to publish TCR for three years, winning two consecutive annual Comic Art Fan Awards for Best Fanzine. His other fan activities include editing the program book for several of Phil Seuling's legendary New York Comic Art Conventions, and he worked briefly for Seuling at Sea Gate Distributors, the original direct distribution company.

Levitz is primarily known for his work for DC Comics, a company he's been associated with for over 30 years.

Beginning as a freelance writer of text features, he went on to write most of the classic DC characters, including Batman, Wonder Woman and the Superman newspaper strip. His most popular writing was his thirteen years of The Legion of Super-Heroes, including an eight-year uninterrupted run, one of the longest in super-hero comics history, and on Justice Society of America.

Levitz joined the editorial staff of DC in 1973 as an assistant editor, and became editor of the Batman titles before shifting from the editorial to business side in 1980. Since then, he has been the Manager of Business Affairs, Vice President— Operations, Executive Vice President, Executive Vice President & Publisher, and since 2002, the President and Publisher.

Levitz lives with his wife and three children in the hills of Westchester County, New York.

As one of the most important decision makers in comics today, and as someone who has deep experience as a comics editor and writer, it goes without saying that Paul would have much of significance to say to the Write Now! audience. His generosity with his time and insights are deeply appreciated.

[Special thanks to DC’s Adam Philips for helping make the whole process go smoothly.]

—DF DANNY FINGEROTH: Paul, you have a unique perspective.

You’re the guy that sets policy for DC. On the other hand, you’ve been in the trenches as a writer and editor. I’m interested in how and why you chose this path. To start with, can you tell me a little about your background?

PAUL LEVITZ: I’m a Brooklyn boy, and my dad worked at an industrial hardware place selling the nuts and

bolts and other objects that you need to hold a building together when you’re constructing it. Before she had kids, Mom had been a bookkeeper, and, off and on, other odd things, including, at one time heading a branch of the Drake Business Schools.

Neither of them had particularly touched real creative industries in their work, other than Mom having briefly been a bookkeeper at an ad agency. Pretty basic working class upbringing.

DF: When you were reading all these comic books, did they encourage it, discourage it, just think it was cute?

PL: Mom was afraid I would ruin my eyes, which was probably a fairly accurate conclusion. My father was, in his youth, quite an athletic man, and he had taught all the kids on the block how to play ball. He was rather confused by having a kid who wouldn’t come out from under the tree and put down whatever book I was reading at the moment. “Thanks, Dad. I’m glad you’re having fun running around out there. Can’t imagine why anyone would want to do it, but if it makes you happy, have fun.” They were PAUL LEVITZ | 3

both extremely supportive at some points where they made a tremendous difference, including running around an awful lot with me in the days of fanzines, taking the fanzines to the printer, things like that that. A 14-to-16-year-old is not extremely mobile. They were very tolerant of something that probably didn’t make a lot of sense to them.

DF: Were you always writing as a kid? Did you draw at all?

PL: I don’t know that it was writing per se. I guess I did a certain amount of that. It was more publishing that got me. My parents had been the co-editors of the PTA newsletter when I was in third grade. In those days you printed that on horrible little mimeographs with stencil fluid and manual typewriters. It was sort of one step forward from chiseling it out of stone, but only about one.

We did the newsletter on my dining room table. And, as best as I can kind of reconstruct these things in my own head, that’s where I began to be interested in the publishing process. And by a year or so after that, I was doing my own little magazine for school.

DF: Was that a magazine about comics, or a general magazine?

PL: It was a magazine about nothing much.

Sort of the equivalent of the school magazine, but if it were more exciting and more salacious. You could call it an “underground” version or an “unauthorized” version.

DF: What was the magazine called?

PL: Spotlight, I think.

I’ve never been a particularly great “namer” as a writer.

DF: How did the school feel about the magazine?

Some of Paul’s earliest writing and editing appeared in the anthology title Weird Mystery Tales. Here, the covers to two issues he worked on, #18 (by Ernie Chan) and #14 (by Luis Dominguez). [© 2006 DC Comics.]

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PL: My folks were running the PTA, so the school’s reaction was pretty well under control at that point. And there wasn’t anything objectionable in the magazine. It was just a strange little outcast off in the corner. That whole process of seeing things come together into a publication is something that got into my blood very, very early on, and more, even, than writing, that really is where my passion comes from.

DF: Were you writing fiction of any kind at this point, or did you pretty much see yourself as a journalist and publisher?

PL: I suppose I must have written some kid fiction at some point, but not a lot of it. I never saw myself as a writer of fiction in those years. There are those who say I’m still a novice.

DF: What did you think you would do when you grew up?

PL: At that point I wanted to be a chemical engineer, go off to MIT, work in a laboratory with things that would blow up in some interesting fashion.

DF: How did you go from chemical engineering to majoring in business?

PL: When I went off to high school, I was commuting into Manhattan, to Stuyvesant High School, one of those unique and wonderful insane asylums the city runs. [Stuyvesant is a highlyregarded public high school for which applicants must pass a rigorous test.— DF ] And in the high school years, I became involved in publishing both with DC and with my own fan magazines. At the same time I was experiencing what a chemical laboratory really smells like. That was a very convincing reason not to pursue that as a career. And the practical realities of family economics meant that I would have to go to college somewhere I could commute to from home, and somewhere I could continue to work in comics to pay for school. That pretty much added up to being New York University.

Columbia was too far uptown to reasonably commute to from Brooklyn.

NYU fit fairly well with my compromise: “Oh, maybe I’ll go into the business side of science, ultimately sell some high tech for IBM, or something like that.

DF: I guess all this time you were putting out The Comic Reader?

PL: I started doing some fanzines that nobody read in junior high school. The total circulation of those was probably outnumbered by the three people in this room. Certainly outnumbered by the number of contributors who did things for it. When I got into Stuyvesant, about six months after that, Paul Kupperberg and I started Etc., which turned into an incarnation of The Comic Reader, and I stuck with that through my whole time in high school.

DF: Was Paul a high school friend, or junior high school?

PL: Junior high school. We ran into each other in junior high, we discovered we both liked comics, and have been playing together ever since.

DF: And you actually started working at DC while you were still in high school, right?

PL: You have to bear in mind in all of this that the business was infinitely smaller then. We’re talking about the early 1970s. There probably were under two hundred people in the United States who made their living specifically in comics, whether writing, drawing, editing, being involved in production or publication, or even distribution—because there was no distinct distribution system for comics at that point. Probably at that point, there were a half dozen or so comic shops scattered around the country, something you would recognize as a comics shop today.

Virtually all of those comics industry people were in New York, and they were all fairly anonymous, even to each other. Artists would receive scripts without writers’ names on them. Many of the people had met informally over time, but there wasn’t a lot pulling the industry together.

There were a few early conventions in New York, and had been for a few years. But not a lot of infrastructure.

The Comic Reader was really the first “TV Guide” for the industry that actually gave credits and gave reasonably good information about what was coming out in the next month—varying from time-to time—with the co-operation of the companies. This brought me into contact with pretty much everyone in the publishing and editorial end of the business, and they were willing to put up with a snotty 14or 15-year-old wandering around their offices, because they’d be able to actually know when the stories they were working on would be coming out.“ As part of that process of collecting information, I was, I think, the first kid who wandered past [DC Editor] Joe Orlando’s office one afternoon after Marv Wolfman quit writing letter columns for him. Warren Publishing had just hired Marv to be the new editor-in-chief there, and he had to quit the DC assignment. So Joe called to me and said, “Here, want to do these letter columns?” “I’m not a writer, Joe.” “Ah, I’ve read your fanzine. You know how to write well enough to do a letter column.” So I found myself a freelancer at 16 years old.

It’s been an odd life. I’ve never applied for a job, never looked for a job. There’s something resembling a resume of mine on file in the HR department, because every now and then, someone in HR calls me and says, “We need one for the collection.”

DF: How did you start writing comics stories?

PL: I was working for Joe, I guess for about a year, at first freelance, doing text pieces, then as his assistant editor. It started when Michael Fleisher went on vacation. Michael never came back. It was a very nice vacation. He is still well, and will happily testify to the fact that I had nothing to do with the fact that he didn’t come back… he’s just left for Africa with a human rights group.

Part of being an assistant editor in those days, particularly working with someone like Joe, who had a tremendous number of anthology books in his workload, was a lot of rewrite work, including rewriting people I

probably had no business taking a blue pencil to. But the circumstances required sometimes—as I mentioned to your colleagues at Back Issue magazine—that I had to take Shelly Mayer stories and cut them apart, because we were changing Black Orchid from being in the front of Adventure Comics to a back-up in Phantom Stranger.

So I’d add pages and do bridges to connect different pieces of the stories and things like that. Shelly never killed me. We became friends over the years, so I guess I didn’t do it too badly. But, boy, I shouldn’t have been allowed to do that. At any rate, the process of working with Joe on editing scripts taught me a tremendous amount about writing. And, at a certain point, between my hubris and Joe’s open-mindedness, he just said, “Here, why don’t you try writing something?

DF: What was the first story you wrote?

PL: The first full scripts were for, I think, Tex Blaisdell, who was sort of an editor working in Joe’s orbit for a very brief time for Weird Mystery and Tales of Ghost Castle. Exciting stuff.

DF: And then you just became known around the company as a guy that could write, and more assignments came your way?

Adventure Comics #441. Aquaman story written by Paul, with art

by Jim Aparo. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

PAUL LEVITZ | 5

PL: I think I probably became known as a pest more than I became known as a guy who could write!

DF: There’s a fine line between the two.

PL: I think writing careers, even though many things have changed over the decades in this business, still go through pretty much the same stages. There’s a fairly long period when you’re on the outside looking in, desperately hoping someone will notice your smiling face and hand you an assignment.

Then there’s usually a period after that where you’re kind of waving the finished assignment around, saying, “See? I’m a working professional! You should give me more!”, and you pick up a few things.

Then, at some point in that process, you do something that people actually voluntarily read, and have some vague memory that, “Oh, the words were in the right order.” I think for me that was probably some of the Aquaman stories done with Jim Aparo, probably about a year into my writing career.

And then the next transitionary stage is when people actually are calling you offering you things. Then you inevitably take on far more than you ought to, screw up the majority of it because of that. If you’re lucky, you survive that and find a rhythm and a balance where you know how much you ought to be doing and you find the assignments that are actually right for you. I certainly went through a fair stage of that in the mid’70s, as well.

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DF: Now, at the same time, you continually had a staff job, and eventually you became the editor of the Batman line?

PL: Yeah. I was an assistant editor from ’73 to the beginning of ’76. Then the company started to change around a lot around the time Jenette Kahn got here as Publisher. It became much friendlier to young people in terms of career ambitions at that stage. She was, of course, only 28 when she got here. Shortly after she got here, Gerry Conway left to become, very, very briefly, the editorin-chief at Marvel. That opened up a tremendous amount of writing and editorial chores. At that point, I went from part-time to full-time and became both an editor and what we called in those days the editorial coordinator—sort of a traffic manager for the editorial department.

DF: What books were you editing?

PL: I edited about eight or ten titles a month, as was typical of the time. A lot of mystery books, a lot of war comics. Not too many things anybody remembers fondly, for the first few years there. And then, about the beginning of ’78, I guess, we went through another editorial staff juggling. I inherited all the Batman titles, and got to edit them for about three years, which was very cool.

DF: Who did you work with on Batman?

PL: The primary writers were Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Denny O’Neil. On the art, Irv Novick, Don Newton, who was probably at his peak at that point. And Jim Aparo, of course. A lot of interesting guys would submit stories.

DF: How and why did you segue into the business end of things?

PL: Most of the old comic book companies had kind of a vacuum on the business side after the families who started them sold the companies. At DC and Marvel, the families sold out in the late ’60s. Within a couple of years after they had sold, generally the family people who had stayed on as the business managers of the companies began to leave, or in DC’s case to rise up into the parent corporation. Jack Leibowitz [one of DC’s founders] came on to Warner’s board for a long time. In Marvel’s case, it took a little longer for [founder and publisher] Martin Goodman to depart, but I think, even there, by about ’73 or ’74, he had left.

Neither company had really much of a cadre of experienced business people, and there weren’t a lot of experienced business people out there in the real world saying, “Gee, I wish I could work for a comic book company.” So, as a young person who was interested in business and, obviously, interested in comics, I started to get projects or assignments thrown at me, from very early on in my career, that kind of straddled the business and creative areas, working on fashioning the right kind of contracts for writers and artists. I had the privilege of helping put together the first standard form contracts used in the industry for talent, in the mid-’70s, when the copyright law changed, and DC, at least, felt the need and the opportunity to formalize the process and make it a little more decent.

That career shift became an evolutionary process and at the end of 1980, beginning of 1981, we went through the next evolution of DC as a company. DC President Sol Harrison,

who’d been here for many years, was retiring and I moved purely over to the business side, taking on responsibility for most of the business departments.

Dick Giordano came in as an editor to pick up the titles I had been doing. And I began a long stretch on the other side of the company.

DF: You wrote The Legion of Super-Heroes for 13 years, which is pretty close to a record. Maybe Claremont wrote The X-Men longer…

PL: I think Chris has more consecutive issues.

And there’re a few other people who have long runs like that.

DF: How did you keep it fresh for yourself, and what was the appeal of staying with it?

PL: I wrote Legion in two stretches, first from ’76 to ’78, and then I came back on it in ’80 or ’81, and stayed for eight or nine years after that. So it’s not an unbroken 13 years. It was a good long run.

I think group books, team books, are much easier to stay on longer and keep fresh than single characters. You have so much more opportunity to evolve, more characters’ lives to play with, and when you’re dealing with something like The Legion, where you not only have the almost ridiculous multiplicity of characters to work with, but you have an entire science-fiction universe to explore. So you could always bring in a fresh alien race, a new dimensional menace, a monster that ate planets. There were just so many good toys to work with, it was relatively easy to keep going. I have no doubt that I could have stayed much, much longer if my life had gone in different directions, and continued to do things at least I found interesting. Whether it would have entertained the audience is another question.

Two more Adventure Comics issues Paul wrote for. Issue #437 (cover art by Jim Aparo) has his Aquaman tale.

Issue #477 (cover art by Ross Andru and Dick Giordano) has his Starman story. The #477 cover is shot from the original art, as set up for printing in the 1970s, including trim marks and reversed out type which would be printed as a light color on a darker color. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

DF: You’d been writing while having a day job for quite a while. What made you drop the writing?

PL: My kids had come along. The history of comics, in the old days, had been that staffers were all expected to freelance for the company, as well. We were paid kind of modest wages for our staff jobs with the assumption that we’d scrounge around enough freelance that we’d be able to eat fairly decently. That always worked fine for me, because I was a fairly fast writer, so it was not an unreasonable burden.

But by the mid-’80s I had two kids. I was doing well professionally with the day job, so I no longer needed the extra work for the sake of extra money.

And when my first two kids were about four and two, respectively, and I was still doing The Legion, I said to myself: “It takes three Sundays a month to get an issue done. I want that time to be with the guys, whether it’s going to be taking them out to the soccer field, or just watching what goes on with them in school.” Commuting to the suburban lifestyle and wanting to raise the kids and have some time with them just wasn’t very compatible with the freelance burden.

PAUL LEVITZ | 7

Covers to three Paul-written issues of Superboy and The Legion of SuperHeroes. Issues #225, #226 and #228. All three drawn by Mike Grell. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

DF: I wanted to jump ahead and ask you about some things that would be of interest to aspiring and established writers. Here’s the first. You’ve been involved in controversies over certain issues that affect the freelance community. For instance, Alan Moore is famously at odds with DC over how he feels he’s been treated, especially regarding League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and V for Vendetta. A little bit of that, I think, spills over into Constantine and Watchmen. Do you have any comment on Alan, or on how his situation impacts other freelancers’ relationship with DC? PL: I don’t want to comment so much on Alan’s specific situation, which is very unusual. A lot of his frustration with the projects you listed is that he’s rather clearly decided that he would not like his comic book writing to be adapted into film. And, when you make that decision after you’ve written a story, and after you’ve sold the rights to have it adapted into film, that’s a recipe for unhappiness.

Dilemmas between companies and creative people tend to divide very, very sharply into creative content issues, and issues of control of the work. When you’re talking about the control issues, this is an industry that has a long history of freelancers feeling like they were not able to negotiate the deals that they wanted. It took 8 | WRITE NOW

us a long time to evolve to the point of solid written contracts, as well as some creative people using agents and lawyers. It’s always unfortunate when people change their mind afterwards and decide, “I wish I hadn’t sold that right.” It’s particularly unfortunate when it’s someone as extraordinarily talented as Alan.

But it’s a very hard business problem to solve.

The challenge is to try to—as a writer—recognize always what it is you want to be selling in a given situation, and to decide whether it’s worth your while not to sell at all if you can’t make a deal that includes the rights you want to preserve. DC is not the right publisher for everyone, for every project.

We have a variety of different deals available. They’re right for an awful lot of people in an awful lot of circumstances. But we don’t presume they’re right for everybody in every circumstance. You hope the sides can come to an effective meeting of minds and enjoy that for many years to come. And with much of our creative talent, there’s been a very happy relationship for very long periods of time.

But sometimes people don’t view the future clearly when they’re doing their deals. Or there are questions of interpretation back and forth between the parties, and it gets frustrating.

On the creative side, in most of the dilemmas that I’ve witnessed, whether DC’s been involved, or other publishers, the real challenge is when in the process the creative disagreement occurs. If an editor or publisher and a writer disagree early on, it almost always gets itself solved pretty painlessly. If the disagreement comes after scripts are written, after art is drawn, when the book is ready to go to bed, then the publishing company people blew it. There may be instances where the publisher has to say, “We’re not publishing this. We’ll pay you for it, but we’re not going to put it out.” But if it comes to that, the publishing company has definitely lost control of the process. It becomes more acrimonious and painful. The writer and the artist have so much invested emotionally in the project at that point, you very rarely can get a happy resolution.

DF: Does everything now, at least at DC, have a separate contract? If someone comes on and writes an issue of The Flash or something, is there a separate negotiated contract?

PL: The vast majority of work is done under fairly simple form contracts. They’re a couple of pages long, preprinted forms, listing the basic terms of the deal. What royalties you’re entitled to, if any, what you’re entitled to if your work is reprinted, and, of course, all the transference of the rights that’s involved, which is different case-by-case. The contracts scale upwards from there to 20 or 30 page agreements for more complex arrangements for new books that are being created, and multiyear exclusives, and things like that.

Obviously the more complex the subject matter of the project, the more likely the deal is to be more fully negotiated between the parties. Nobody is going to spend the same energy negotiating a $2,000 writing assignment as they will something they’re expecting to spend the next ten years of their life on. It just wouldn’t make sense for

either side. We like to think that the deals we do on all of those levels, though, are reasonable representations of the interests of the parties and fair in a way that the majority of the talent in the business is happy working under.

DF: From time to time, there are controversies over the issue of labeling. It’s odd in our culture. Some things are labeled and some things are not. And I know that you’ve been at the center of storms over this, and have some strong feelings about what should be labeled and how, and so on. Can you talk about the issue a little?

PL: I wouldn’t describe it as my having strong feelings. It’s specific to what I think makes sense for different companies and people. In the dynamic of comics in the last 20 years, we find that we are a medium that a certain percentage of the population still thinks is just for kids. It’s one of our business problems. A lot of the labeling schemes go back to that assumption. There’s the Comics Code, which was originally intended to say: “Hey, Mom, this comic is safe for your children. It will not show a picture of somebody putting a knife in someone’s eye.”

Then there’s our “Suggested for Mature Readers” label, which was a method of stepping away from the kid’s world and saying to consumers, “Just because this is a comic, it’s not necessarily for children.”

For DC it makes sense to use a system of labeling for several basic reasons. One, we put out a very diverse line of publications, so you can’t simply say, “If it came from this company, then it’s for me.” The label provides an added sort of information to tell you whether it’s appropriate for your particular situation.

Second, we know that a lot of our projects are sold through the independent comic book retailers. The dynamic of that marketplace is such that the retailer has literally seconds to decide whether to sell a comic he hasn’t read to a customer coming to his store. And we’ve had catastrophic cases where local law enforcement people have set up retailers, or taken advantage of that situation, to try and get a headline, and they end up destroying a retailer’s life in the process. I serve on the board of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund partly because of my sympathy for that issue, as well. Again, from

DC’s position in the marketplace, it makes an awful lot of sense to be able to give the retailer a very simple, “Yes, you can judge this much about the book by the cover.”

DF: What, exactly, is the coding system DC uses?

PL: There’s the Comics Code seal on the one hand, Suggested for Mature Readers on another, and things that are in between.

DF: What’s the “in between”?

PL: Books that carry no label, but also don’t carry the code. This is for items that are not necessarily fit for every young child everywhere in the world, but they’re not something where we feel the content is strong enough that it requires a warning label.

DF: Wouldn’t the absence of a label be a little confusing to a consumer and a retailer?

PL: It’s a system that’s existed now for twenty years and hasn’t seemed to have caused a lot of problems out there.

The other aspect of it is: an awful lot of entertainment, particularly visual entertainment, is sold in a rated fashion.

Movies, television, video games. About the only thing that’s managed to keep really free from it is books, and books, in part, have kept free by being sold in a retail environment that very, very energetically separates, “This is for children, this is for grown-ups.” These are the ‘dirty’ books over here, these are the mystery books here.”

Comics don’t fit well with that. The graphic novel section, as it exists right now in bookstores, includes everything from the sweetest, gentlest little-kiddie stuff on up through challenging material for kids, like Bone, straight up through some of the manga that have genres named after the sexual practices they feature. The major chain bookstores are very anxious to have that material labeled appropriately.

DF: Are you labeling your graphic novels as well as individual comic books?

PL: We have been for twenty years. And I can’t say that our labeling system is perfect, or completely objective any more than any of them are. But hopefully, over time, it provides a consistent kind of guidance to both the

Covers to Stalker #s 1-4, written by Paul. Art by Steve Ditko and Wally Wood. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

PAUL LEVITZ | 9

retailer and the purchaser. There are a lot of people out there, and probably more today than we’ve had for the last decade, who are relatively new to graphic novels.

They’re trying to figure out their way around, and we’re trying to do what we can to help them in that process.

DF: To bring it to the writer’s perspective, is there anything a writer can learn from DC’s labeling process?

PL: Well, I think you start from the things that make you decide, as a writer, whether you want to be someplace or not. There are writers who have a philosophical objection to the concept of labeling. Not a lot of them in our business, but there are still a few. They probably wouldn’t want to do material aimed at a more adult audience for a company that uses labels. Or, at least, they’d want to have a long talk with the company about how that works.

Cover and interior page from Showcase #97, featuring the origin of Power Girl. Paul wrote the story, and the art was by Joe Staton and Joe Orlando. [ © 2006 DC Comics.]

DF: But if they want to play with the icons in the business, they do have to deal with the major companies, and therefore with their work being labeled.

PL: Well, that’s a tradeoff in life. If you want to play with somebody else’s toys, they may have some rules for how you get to play with them. I may really like playing with Superman and Batman. But I don’t have the free right to play with them any way I want.

By the same token, I really like playing with a lot of the newer things that have been created for the company in the last twenty years, but DC can’t play with those any way that they want, because we probably have more restrictive deals with our creators than we have with characters who were created 40 or 50 years ago.

Everything has its complexities attached to it. My first advice to writers wanting to sell us something, wanting to know which editor to talk to, is: “Look at the books we publish.

Paul wrote the lead features in these three comics. The All-Star Comics #64 cover was drawn by Wally Wood, and #68’s is by Al Milgrom. The Legion of Super-Heroes #17 cover is by Greg LaRocque and Larry Mahlstedt. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

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What would you see yourself fitting well with?” There are very few projects that I think a writer can reasonably say would fit equally well in the DC line, the Vertigo line, and the WildStorm line. I’m not saying create with the intention to publish at any specific place. If you’re creating something from a blank piece of paper, follow your personal passions.

But once you have begun that process of creation, step back from it and say, “Where does this fit?”

DF: That sounds like good advice. So, speaking of that diversity, clearly DC puts out a range of topics that no one person could love or even like. How do you manage to greenlight projects that you may not have an affinity for, or that you may actively dislike? What’s your personal way of evaluating, and separating Paul’s personal taste from DC as a publisher and what they could or should be putting out?

PL: The starting point is that the company’s not about my personal taste. It never really has been, nor was it Jenette’s before me. There’s been no point when I’ve been the editor-in-chief of the line. It’s a title I chose not to use at any point, and early on in my career course, certainly couldn’t have chosen.

We have very strong editorial leaders for the different imprints that we’ve got, and they’re supposed to represent the creative point of view of those people. The WildStorm books are things that Jim Lee really wants to publish. Vertigo is the things that Karen believes in. DC Universe is larger and more varied, but what’s been added to it and what’s become of it in the last couple of years is representative of Dan DiDio’s view of what that business could be. Mad Magazine is John Ficarra’s world. My role in the process is to look at what they want to do, and help build the intelligent mechanism for it, and help keep us on track of what these visions are.

“Can we do a deal that is compatible with that vision?

Can we publish this profitably? Can we make this work?”

But the basic choices about the material really come from the editorial leaders, not from me.

hour telling him it wouldn’t work and what I felt was wrong with it. And he might have paid some attention to a couple of things I said, but basically he drove it in a way he believed in and had passion for. I said, “Okay, if you think that you could make that work, do it.”

Part of the purpose in having somebody new in that job, like Dan, is to have someone who doesn’t feel bound by the past and has the courage to try and find a new solution for problems. Obviously, that was an incredibly successful project for us. There are other cases where the business problem is large enough that it does make the project go away. “Okay, we’ll publish that, but we’ll only publish it if we can acquire certain rights in the process.” If the creator doesn’t want to sell those rights, it doesn’t look like the publishing alone will generate enough money to make this a sensible investment for us, we’d have to walk away. But there are far more things that we have proceeded with over my reservations than things that I’ve spiked over the years.

DF: Are kids, at all, the target audience of DC’s superhero comics? More broadly, is there a children’s comics market? Can there be again, or is that something that’s gone forever, despite the popularity of manga?

PL: Comics for young kids is a very tiny slice of the American market today, and probably will stay Cover to Wonder Woman #29, an issue plotted by Paul.

Cover art by Ross Andru and Dick Giordano. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

DF: Without being specific, have things come your way where you’ve said: “No,” or “We have to modify it?” I don’t mean individual stories, but a publishing initiative or editorial direction. Or do you basically just get the right people, put them in place, and let them go?

PL: There’s always a series of conversations, and it goes across the spectrum. It ranges from Dan bringing in that multiple-miniseries approach that he used this past year, led by The OMAC Project. I probably spent a half Two-page spread from Wonder Woman #293. Plot by Paul, script by Roy Thomas. (“Special thanks” credit to Marv Wolfman.) Art by Gene Colan and Frank McLaughlin. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

PAUL LEVITZ | 11

that way for a while. Bookstores allow us some access to young kids, but graphic novels and manga both basically connect with teenagers and older readers.

DF: Does Warner Corporate ever get involved with what DC puts out, or is DC pretty much autonomous?

PL: Not autonomous, but these aren’t decisions it makes any sense for anybody north of us to make.

We’ve got a large and complicated publishing program to run, and Warner Bros., from a corporate standpoint, wants us to hit targets for running our business, and to maintain a certain quality standard and prestige standard in our industry. But they’re not comic book editors, they’re not comic book readers, generally speaking—although there are a few scattered throughout the corporate family. They rely on us to do our job. And if they feel we’re not doing it, they’ll talk to us about it in aggregate. But the decision about whether or not to greenlight an OMAC Project is way too small for them. It’s expensive enough to have me spending the time on it. They can’t afford to crowd all the Warner Bros. team into the process.

DF: You have Dan, who’s Senior VP-Executive Editor, DCU, running editorial. And you also have guys like Geoff Johns and Grant Morrison involved in editorial direction. What’s their role, and how is that different from a line editor or other group editors in general?

PL: Part of what’s gone on recently in the DC Universe group stems, again, from Dan’s peculiar combination of knowledge and ignorance. He’s a longtime comic book fan, he knows and loves the characters deeply. He knows and loves the process of creative management, from animation and other fields that he’s been in. But he’s not ever been in the trenches of comic book editorial before coming in to run that group.

And, as he settled in and he looked at the whole process of what it takes to keep, literally, a universe of characters rolling, he said, “There’s some stuff I do well. There’s some stuff I know less well.” So he reached out, and Two-page spread (shot from the original art) from Legion of SuperHeroes vol. 2, #45.

Written by Paul, with art

by Greg LaRocque, Mike DeCarlo and Arne Starr. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

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he’s done unusually-structured deals with people like Geoff Johns, and Grant Morrison, and George Pérez, to try and create a balance in some of the areas where someone who spent their life as a comic book editor might feel more comfortable. So Geoff’s able to work with him on kind of the macro-fiction [a term Denny O’Neil coined for the story elements that link across titles and characters — DF] stories of the DC Universe, and George is working with him on visual design elements to run across the DC Universe, and Brad Meltzer is bringing some of his fertile imagination to any number of character re-creations and specific projects.

DF: Now, in the past, people brought in for those kinds of things would have been brought on as staff editors.

These arrangements seem different than that. Do you think it’s the future of the industry, or just something for a specific time period at DC? PL: The comics biz was one of the first fields to get the idea of a “virtual business.” We moved away from having the 1940s bullpens of guys sitting all lined up, passing the script to the penciler, to the inker, to the letterer, to the colorist, sweatshop style, and began saying, “Hey, we use people all over the world. Maybe they can do more interesting combinations of work than limiting ourselves to local people.” And I think, with technology having empowered that so much in the last few years—the ease of a conference call, the ease of a video conference, the ease of digitally sending artwork and script around—I think we’re going to see all those permutations just increase.

DF: A lot of the smaller companies really are pretty much totally virtual.

PL: I think the difference is that, that was more of an act of necessity or desperation ten years ago for a small publisher, and now it’s an entirely practical strategy.

You’re avoiding a lot of the bricks and mortar and overhead and legacy systems…

DF: “Legacy systems,” meaning…?

PL: Meaning that, one of the challenges of being the oldest company in a business, like DC is, is that you build things according to the logic of their time, and they survive past that logic. Many of our systems were built when we were fundamentally a magazinedistributed periodical publisher. To adjust over the years for the portion of our business that’s now driven by book formats, for example, has been a radical challenge that wouldn’t be faced by a younger company. When you look at an entrepreneurial business of the last few years, like a TokyoPop or a Viz, they came into being in a time when the book side of the business was important. They could build their structures for that from the ground up, whereas we’ve had to rebuild on top of “Troy 12, Troy 13,” on top of—to use the archaeologist Schliemann’s terms—to try and get the modern sewer systems put in.

Pretty much since the beginning of the field, and I suspect until the end of it, the idea of spending a lifetime writing only comics is an unattainable goal. It may also not be a worthwhile goal. As a writer, you should be able to move back and forth between different media, different kinds of execution, to keep yourself fresh, to tell different kinds of stories and deal with different kinds of challenges.

Few, if any, of us will have the kind of fertility that a Neil Gaiman has, to go from being a journalist to being a children’s book writer to being a comic book writer to being a horror and a mystery and a science-fiction/fantasy writer and win awards at all of it. It’s just a disgusting monopolization of the glory of the field.

Most of the people I know who have spent their lives happily writing, and it is a wonderful way to spend your life, have either been only serially monogamous to

DF: We will need a footnote for the Schliemann reference.

PL: I’ll trust you to annotate it appropriately.

DF: I will annotate it appropriately. [And I have: here’s a web link to more than anyone could possibly want to know about Schliemann: http://earth-history.com/ Greece/Myths/mckenzie-04.htm] PL: My children occasionally accuse me of needing footnotes.

DF: Let’s move on to another topic of interest to writers. DC officially has a policy of “no unsolicited samples” from writers. How would somebody who wants to write comics for DC get to do so? What’s the way to become someone who is solicited, so to speak?

PL: It’s an enormously challenging process.

It’s certainly far more challenging to become a writer than it is to become an artist. Artists have this advantage that their samples speak for themselves with two seconds of examination.

Writers need more attention paid to their samples to see how good they are.

I’d offer the following thoughts. One, don’t try to become a comics writer. Try and become a writer who happens to write comics as one of many things that they do.

Last page of Legion of Super-Heroes vol. 1, #292, written by Paul. The art’s by Keith Giffen and Larry Mahlstedt. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

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comics? I think you start out trying desperately to get published. You do some stuff that’s either free or near-free. You start at some of the small publishing houses. You complete a portfolio that you can show of published material, comics and non-comics material, and you try to get that in front of any editor who will listen to you, especially any editor who seems to publish things that you believe you’d be proud to be a part of. And over some period of time, you try to be there the day the editor has a problem. I firmly believe that far more creative people get work by solving editors’ problems than they do because an editor has explored their work and decided, “This is an incredible person. I must find an opportunity to work with them.” It goes back to that story about my first assignment for the text pages.

I’ve gotten many more assignments because an editor needed somebody to do something than because they were sitting there saying, “I wish I could use that Levitz kid.”

DF: I guess the trick is how to make yourself known and available without stalking.

PL: Without a restraining order. Up to the point where it gets counterproductive and you’re convinced that the next time the editor sees you, they’re going to want never to see you again. In the old days, commenting on the books by writing letters to the editors was a part of it. These days, I think conventions are a part of it, online is a part of it.

There’s lots going on in this page from Legion of Super-Heroes vol.

1, #296. It’s co-plotted by Paul and Keith Giffen, with script by Paul and art by Keith and Larry Mahlstedt. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

different fields—comics writer for a certain number of years, then a movie writer or an animation writer for a certain number of years—or have been completely philanderous and played with 15 different kinds of writing at the same time. It’s pretty much a necessity, I think, as a commercial writer.

There are a few people who manage to kind of step aside from the economics and either keep a day job—be a teacher their whole life and write on the side—and then can choose the one kind of writing that they have the passion for, and do as much of that as time and energy permits. But if you want to make a living writing, you’re going to write a lot of different stuff. So I think that’s a first goal to keep in mind.

The second goal is, how do you get to be a regularlypublished comics writer, how to make money writing 14 | WRITE NOW

DF: But let’s say someone has a great idea for, say, a Superman story, and they’re very cordial, friendly, polite, professional. They send in the idea and no one will read it, because it’s unsolicited. So how do you get to be asked to submit? Or is that up to the ingenuity of the writer?

PL: In the best of my memory, in the 20 years before we had a “no unsolicited manuscript” policy, I think we bought one, maybe two, Superman stories that were unsolicited. It’s not likely to happen that way very often.

First of all, when you’re dealing with the major characters, there’s always some kind of macro plan (story arcs, continuity changes, stunts, whatever) going on, and plans for what kind of style we’re doing, what’s going to change with the character, and so on.

Secondly, people have those assignments already.

When I was on my run on Legion, we’d inevitably get one or two unsolicited Legion proposals hitting the editor’s desk in the course of a year, when I had been the only writer writing Legion for seven or eight years in a row. That’s not bright. When you’re writing something speculative, don’t write something speculative that only has one potential customer, and when there’s every possible sign in the window of that store saying, “We’re not buying anything, not now, not anytime soon! Go away!”

DF: I was thinking more of a case where it wouldn’t be a case of an aspiring writer saying “I’m going to take the regular guy’s job,” but more a situation where the idea would be for someone to show you: “Here’s how I might handle a DC character. What do you think of how I did it? I’ll be happy to do a five-page backup.” But it sounds like the door, even for someone like that, is closed.

PL: A submission like that’s not going to get read, because that’s not going to solve an editor’s problem. I might read your writing sample if it’s a published sample, but I’m not going to read a five-page story that I can’t use. I don’t mean editors are lazy. Some are, but certainly not all. But they read all day. That’s what they do. And when you suggest that they read something to consider whether or not they might want to read or buy it, that’s not a salable proposition. You have to provide a volume of material that says, “I’m good with words. I’m good with story. When you need something, when you’re open to something, let’s keep that dialogue going.”

We’ll go back to Alan Moore for a moment. I have a very vivid memory of returning to my apartment in the Village to a letter from a kid in England announcing that he was England’s best comic book writer, based on his stories published in 2000 AD, and if we were ever going to do something with the Martian Manhunter, please consider him for it. That was at the very beginning of Alan’s career. And I happened to be a fan of British comics, so we had some mutual friends, and I read his Skizz stories at the time and thought, “Yeah, this guy’s not bad.” I suggested him for some work shortly thereafter. Len Wein had a very similar experience with Alan.

We’re not sure which of us made the suggestion of using him first. Our memories conflict.

But that’s really still the way in.

DF: So being solicited is not a formal process. Could it be you meet an editor, you talk, and you, the writer, say, “I’ve got some interesting ideas,” or, “I’ve got something I wrote and published myself,” and if the editor says, “Oh, sure, send them to me,” then your work has now been “solicited”?

PL: Yeah. The magic words are, “Let me hear your ideas.”

You don’t have 800 page forms to fill out before you send in your ideas, but you have to have an editor willing to look at it.

DF: Fair enough. Moving along, what do you enjoy reading? What kind of TV shows are you a fan of, movies both past and present? Give us a general “Paul cultural tour.”

PL: My reading tends to split into mystery and sciencefiction on the one hand, and history and biography for the more serious stuff. I’m not a great reader of literary

Levitz-LaRocque-Mahlstedt page from Legion of Super-Heroes vol. 2 #18. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

novels. Perhaps some people who’ve read my work can guess that. Clearly, as you can see in the body of things like The Legion, I was a tremendous fan of the Golden Age science-fiction writers. They had a tremendous influence on me that shows through in my body of work.

As a writer, all of this stuff is grist and is meat and it’s wonderful. I got the ideas for my Starman series out of the history of the Ottoman Empire. I launched a series in the back of one of my war comics inspired by Philip Knightly’s history of war journalism, in which he expands on the idea that in war journalism, truth is the first casualty. [For more details on Knightly’s book, see: http://journalism.nyu.edu/portfolio/books/book54.html] I’m always looking for stuff that provokes thought and leads your mind places. Best books of this summer: Friedman’s The World Is Flat and Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains (which is a great biography of a real super-hero).

PAUL LEVITZ | 15

I’m much less of a movie buff. Television is kind of hard for me to get on a regular schedule with, given the way my life’s organized now. West Wing is probably my most recent appointment television, as was a lot of Steven Bochco’s material in the years prior to that. You can see there’s a commonality of that material with the type of writing I like to do, as well.

In comics, I drop in and out of all the different series. I’m enjoying a lot of the stuff that’s being done today on some of the old characters I used to write, Geoff Johns on JSA, Mark Waid on Legion. I think both guys have really interesting takes on the material, so it’s been fun visiting with old friends there. A number of Vertigo titles over the last few years have been fun. There’s not one I’m particularly passionate about at this moment.

Transmetropolitan, I think, is the last one I was fully involved with.

Again, it was a series touching science-fiction, set in a future world, and that explored some of the issues that have interested me in politics.

Frank McCourt. He’d always been Frank McCourt, but now it was in all capital letters. Frank became a Pulitzer prize-winning author of great stature at 63. Many of his students would have cheerfully told you that the man had a writer within him. He was an extraordinary storyteller. But if he can do that at 63, it provides some hope for the rest of us.

DF: Is there anything being published by other publishers that you’re finding interesting?

PL: For old comfort food, I loved the redo of Stan and Jack’s Avengers run that Marvel did about a year ago, and PVP by Kurtz always makes me smile.

DF: Do you have any plans to return to writing, or is that a fantasy for when you’re on to the next phase of life, whatever that may be?

PL: Writing on a serious basis is hopefully not a fantasy, but an ambition for the next phase of life. I had the good fortune to have the living lesson of my high school English teacher, who was quite a raconteur. I sent him my Legion: Great Darkness trade paperback when it was published in the ’90s. I got a note back that said: “Imaginative stuff. Not the sort of thing that I like, but good to see you doing well, boy. Me, I’m working on my memoirs. Not quite sure if anyone’ll read them.

Keep an eye out. Thanks!” And a couple of years later, the next thing I saw of him was on the front Cover to the trade paperback collection of Legion of Super-Heroes: The Great Darkness Saga.

The stories (which originally appeared in LSH #s 287, 290-294, and Annual #3, were written by page of the New York Times Book Paul. TPB cover by Keith and Larry. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

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DF: Was he writing all along while teaching?

PL: Not that we were aware of, certainly. And, to the best of my knowledge, his serious writing of Angela’s Ashes was all done after he retired.

DF: Raymond Chandler supposedly didn’t start writing seriously until he was past 40, but this is an even better story.

PL: It’s an extreme case. At any rate, serious writing’s going to wait until the desk job is done. However, Dan has managed to somehow scam me into writing a few issues of Justice Society this year. I’m filling in for Geoff because I helped provoke the “52*” project. I guess ”provoke” is the fair word for it.

DF: How did you do that?

PL: Again, a lot of what I do in the editorial process is, well, I use the example of Queen Victoria’s rules. “The right to be consulted, the right to advise, and the right to warn,”

was how she defined constitutional monarchy. So Dan was developing the Infinite Crisis project, and he wanted to do the “one year forward leap” stuff. And I had to exercise my right to say, “I’m not suuuure.” As you know, that’s been done before. It’s not a bad idea, but it’s a tough idea to execute well, to make credible and exciting, in something as broad as the DC Universe. So he was in my office with Geoff and Greg Rucka to flesh out what they wanted to do in Infinite Crisis, and to get my sign-off on all kinds of changes in the characters and other things where I have to be involved, not so much from an editorial perspective, but the business perspective, as far as how those characters are used in our toys and TV shows and the rest of the business.

And I brought up my concern once again and said, “If you’re going to do something like that, you really have to pay it off. You have to make that year important.” And I suggested that a way to do it was to do something like “52*.” And they were foolish enough to say, “Oh, boy! It would be fun to poke our eyes out with sticks! You mean we could work harder than anybody ever has before? Oooh! Wives? We don’t need to see our wives ever again!” And they transformed that raw idea, which is not a very complicated or rich idea, into an extraordinarily rich project, with their masochism and their vision. I sat there sort of feeling guilty and said, particularly to Geoff, who looked like he was taking the burden of it, “Well, you know, if this is going to screw you up that badly, I’ll try to help a little.” And somehow Dan, in his best used car salesman fashion, managed to transform that into my writing six issues of Justice Society.

DF: That sounds very cool. I can’t wait to see it.

As we wrap up, is there anything we haven’t discussed that you’d like to talk about? Any upcoming projects you’d like to give people a heads-up on?

PL: Well, given that I’m one of the writers from the era when people used to write letters to the editor, I’ve always enjoyed people’s comments on my work. By spring, the Justice Society stuff will be out.

Please, anybody who’s out there reading this, let me know what you think. I’m curious to see whether it’s viewed as an interesting traffic accident of somebody overage trying to drive, or whether anybody looks at the stories and says, “Oh, that’s an interesting mix of the old and new.” Because part of a writer’s adaptive process is to try to look at how the medium has changed, and to see if I can adapt the traditional writing tricks that I used to use to the way the medium is now. But at the same time, I also feel like some of the tricks that were more common in my generation are kind of positive surprises in the world we’re dealing with now. I’ll be very curious to see whether anybody shares those thoughts.

The cover from issue #84 of Paul’s current run on JSA. The art’s by George Pérez. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

DF: Thank you very much for your time, Paul. This was great.

PL: Thanks for putting up with the footnotes.

THE END PAUL LEVITZ | 17

One From the ’Hart:

THE STEVE ENGLEHART INTERVIEW Conducted by Bob Brodsky via phone and e-mail 2004-2006 Copy-edited by Bob Brodsky, Danny Fingeroth and Steve Englehart

F

rom his vital recasting of the terminally un-hip Captain America in the early 1970s, through 2005’s acclaimed revival of his Batman: Dark Detective, Steve Englehart stands as one of the most important writers in modern comics.

The son of a respected newspaper journalist, the Indiana-born Englehart began his career in comics in 1969 as an art assistant to Neal Adams. The apprenticeship with Adams soon led to other artistic assignments, including various chores at DC Comics and Warren Publishing, as well as two little-known (and quite good!) penciled romance stories for Marvel Comics.

In 1971, a chance writing assignment pivoted Englehart to a staff writing and editing position with Marvel Comics.

By late 1972—the beginning of Roy Thomas’ run as Stan Lee’s editorial successor—Englehart was writing three Marvel titles: The Avengers, “The Beast” in Amazing Adventures, and Captain America. Englehart attacked these assignments with a creative ferocity far beyond any possible expectations for a young writer.

Steve’s creative resume includes stints at DC, including a memorable run on Batman in Detective Comics; an excellent prose novel, The Point Man; a slew of creator-owned projects including Scorpio Rose and The Night Man (which became a live-action television series); and various animation projects.

In the 1980s, Steve was an early designer of video games, doing pioneering work for companies like Atari and Sega and in the ’90s was one of the writers of the online and CD “Multipath Movie”: Superman: Menace of Metallo.

Most recently, Steve, often in tandem with his wife Terry, has written various fiction and non-fiction prose books, including the DNAgers adventure series and Countdown to Flight, a biography of the Wright Brothers (selected by NASA as the basis for their lesson plan on the invention of the airplane).

2005 brought Steve back to Batman, via his creative reunion with penciler Marshall Rogers, inker Terry Austin, and letterer John Workman on Batman: Dark Detective. Together, Steve and his collaborators maintained the spirit of their original late 1970s Detective Comics run, while succeeding in making their stories relevant to today’s reader.

The following interview with Steve was conducted via a series of telephone conversations during late spring and early summer 2004, with e-mail updates added in early 2006.

–Bob Brodsky

BOB BRODSKY: What were you reading in the ’50s, Steve?

Before the Marvel Age? STEVE ENGLEHART: I read Batman, Superman. I don’t recall really reading the Timely stuff. I was too late to catch EC. At a certain point, I’d kind of “outgrown” comics. So I missed the Silver Age revival, and came back into it later, when I was in college.

BB: That would have been in the ’60s?

SE: Right. The ’60s was an incredible super-hero time. We had Kennedy, we had people going to the moon, we had Martin Luther King, we had civil rights, we had Vietnam. The Avengers [the TV series featuring the adventures of Steed and Peel] was on TV, Batman was on TV. Without going totally sappy about the whole thing, the ’60s was really a time of heroes and villains. We had larger-than-life heroes, we had larger-than-life villains—in real life. I think that’s what Stan and Jack tapped into. They’d been doing comics for years, and all of a sudden, in 1961, it took off. They did it by relating it to the real world, and the real world was very colorful. I mean, if you look at ’60s movies, they’re all very colorful. It was an optimistic, comic-book-colored time on a kind of subliminal level. It was a time when not only were comics starting to really sell and make a point, but they could reprint the Doc Savage, they could reprint the pulp-character the Avenger, they could reprint The Shadow. So all these heroes of the past were now reappearing for our perusal. So I read all that stuff. I was a complete comic book guy, but I also read mysteries—the classic stuff, Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen—and the pulp stuff like Shell Scott, Perry Mason.

STEVE ENGLEHART | 19

BB: Did you start reading comics again because other college students were reading the Marvel books?

SE: Yeah. It was at the end of my freshman year, in the spring of ’66. A roommate came up to me—and I had no comic book predilection at all—and he said, “You’ve got to read this.”

It was Spider-Man #30, by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. And I really liked it. I thought, “Oh, is this cool.” I have no idea why that guy showed me the book. Maybe he showed it to everybody in the dorm. But I read it and I liked it. This was the mid-’60s, and Marvel as we know it was only three or four years old at that point. Stan’s columns were already filled with how cool Marvel was, and college students were into them, and so on and so forth. So he sold me. I started hunting up other Marvel titles, then other DC titles, and then Gold Key and all the other stuff that was available in those days. There were a lot of different companies, and comics were a dime, or twelve cents. It wasn’t a mind-boggling concept to be able to buy and read everything that was out there.

Now, of course, it’s a totally mind-blowing concept.

I was able to read the entire range of comics. Good comics, bad comics. And so I developed critical faculties about what’s good, what’s bad, what do I like, what don’t I like. It gradually came to me that I might like to do this myself. I do think one thing that’s changed as comics have become a smaller and smaller market is that it used to be when you got into comics, there was some gravitas to the whole thing. There was a

feeling that this was a field, and you not only needed to know who Spider-Man was, but you needed to know who Will Eisner was, you needed to know about the Ray, and you needed to know about the EC comics, you needed to know about this, that, and the other thing. And everybody else did, so you could talk to other people in the business about, y’know, the Fawcett comics from the ’40s, or whatever. Now, I think, because it’s all gotten so small, there isn’t that sense that you need to know that stuff, or that it’s important. It’s like that stuff’s all ancient history and the h*ll with it, the only thing you can really follow is all the X-books or whatever it is that you’re doing. That doesn’t breed people who have much of a sense of history when they try to do comics.

I’m painting with a broad brush. There are certainly good people now and there were bad people then. But I don’t think that the range of knowledge to draw upon is there. And that’s even aside from the often-made point that a lot of people who do comics now, the only thing they know is comics. They don’t have much contact with things beyond comics. But in those days, it was not only the comic book field, but it was part of the larger world of pop culture. So all of us coming into comics in those days were not only comics fans.

BB: You were digging The Avengers, which you mentioned.

What about and James Bond and Star Trek and all that?

SE: Oh, yeah. Sure. Absolutely.

BB: How about genre, Steve? Did you read romance comics? War comics?

SE: I read ‘em all. The stuff was available and I was interested. I can’t say that every eight-page story about “I Loved My Boss and Lost” riveted me, but what I liked was the serials. DC had a couple of ongoing soap operas in their romance books. And even though they were girls’ soap operas, they were characters, they were ongoing storylines, and I liked that.

BB: You were a real student of the craft. Were you thinking at all about a career in comics in this period?

SE: I don’t think so. When I thought, “Gee, I’d really like to do this,” I was in college, and I was pursuing my degree, which was psychology. This was Vietnam times, so when I graduated college, I went into the Army. And it wasn’t until I got out of the Army that I was even able to think about, “What am I going to do?” But in that time period, while I was in the Army, I had gone to see Neal Adams and shown him some of my work. And he had taken me on as an assistant. I was still in the Army, but I was going to New York on weekends and working with Neal.

Most fans are probably unaware that Steve broke into comics as a romance artist. Here we see the splash page to Our Love Story #15.

Written by Gerry Conway, pencils by Steve Englehart, inks by Jack Abel. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.] 20 | WRITE NOW

BB: Steve, having known you mostly as a writer for so long, I was really knocked out by your artwork, the Our Love Story and My Love stuff. Did you ever consider becoming a full-time comics artist?

SE: Well, thank you. Maybe if I’d kept at it, I would be a fabulous artist today, but it didn’t seem like that was where it was going. I enjoyed doing it. I enjoyed the process of breaking the story down and figuring out how to tell it in art, which then later became the same process of how to tell a story in words. But I didn’t think that the final pencils were totally there yet. I had an option to go a different way, as a scripter, so I went that way.

BB: Do you use your art in plotting? Do you do storyboards, draw things out at all?

SE: Every once in a while. Not as a main thing. I do have it in my brain when I’m breaking down a story in panels and stuff, how it’s going to look on the page. I think I still have the ability to maybe do a little better job of that than people who haven’t tried drawing, because I do think, “All right, if this was going to appear on a page, how would it work?” But that’s mostly in my head. Every once in a while, if I have in mind some strange arrangement of panels, I’ll sketch that out, but mostly just the arrangement, not what’s in them.

BB: Do you think being an artist helps, in terms of the visual sense of the story?

SE: Definitely. In every story that I write, I know exactly what it would look like if I were drawing. My actual pencils might not be able to keep up with what my brain sees, but I can visualize the story as a comic book while I’m writing the plot. Then it’s always a surprise when I get it back from an actual artist to see how he envisioned it.

BB: You succeeded Gary Friedrich as an assistant at Marvel, and did some well-documented, terrific work on the Beast in Amazing Adventures, and of course, on Captain America. [See Bob’s interview with Steve in Comic Book Artist, volume 1, #2, Summer 1998 for more on Steve’s legendary tenures on these titles.—DF] Then, you voluntarily left Captain America, and you started to

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Cover to the Steve-written Amazing Adventures #12. Art by Gil Kane. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

move to some other titles, not all of them successful, in my opinion. Some of them were pretty short-lived. What was the reason? Why did you go to something like Skull the Slayer?

SE: Skull the Slayer was just because I had a hole in my schedule. Something else had closed down, and Marv Wolfman, who had created that series, was leaving it for whatever reason. They handed it to me, and I had no interest in it. That’s just part of being a working writer. If you’ve worked your way up to where you’re going to do four books a month, at some point or another one of those books is going to go away, and you’re going to look around and go, “Well, the only thing I have to plug in here is this one.”

Those were the days when, if they said, “We want you to do The Hulk,” you’d say, “Okay, fine, I’ll do The Hulk.”

And you certainly didn’t say, “And I want somebody particular to draw it.” This was all back in the day when you took your assignment and you went with it. I mean, you might say, “Gee, I’d really like to get my hands on such-and-such a book,” and it might come that way, but very rarely in those days did you pick the book, the artist, or anything. It was just kind of whatever was available, and you were glad to get it.

STEVE ENGLEHART | 21

BB: Do you think that, during your first run at Marvel, you tended to do better with books that had more longestablished histories rather than newer books like Skull?

SE: Maybe. I loved that part about the Marvel Universe, that it was all a single universe, and that Daredevil met the Fantastic Four in FF #39, and that was something that could be referred to by either of them thereafter.

That was a real fun part of the early Marvel Universe.

And it’s worth remembering that, when I got there, we were still in about Year Eight of the Marvel Universe. It was still a point in time where it wasn’t all that far back to FF #1 and Spidey #1.

But all Marvel books were run like that, so whether I was taking over The Avengers after 104 issues, or whether I was taking over Luke Cage after four, you just, in all cases, paid attention to the continuity. I wanted to do the characters and have them resonate the same way I wanted to do the definitive Batman, meaning the one that really was true to what felt right for Batman. I wanted to do the definitive Hawkeye, I wanted to do the definitive Luke Cage, I wanted to do the definitive Hulk.

That’s not indicating that other people didn’t do equally good stuff, but when it came to my turn, I wanted to

make sure I didn’t let the readers down. I didn’t want a book to drop off from that point. In fact, I wanted to take things even farther, because that still was part of the Marvel Universe in those days, that things were growing and getting better all the time. That was one of the really cool parts about the Marvel Universe, that if a book wasn’t doing very well, you could pretty much figure that somebody was going to rescue it, like Jim Steranko was going to show up and turn SHIELD into a classic book. Gene Colan was going to start drawing Sub-Mariner. Every day, in every way, things were getting better over there. And if they stagnated for a while, they didn’t stagnate for very long. Somebody would come along and make it even better. There was no sense of maintaining. We hadn’t gotten to the point of, “These are all world-famous brand names, and now we have to just make sure that they can be marketed well,” which happened later. We were still creating, we were still expanding and getting better.

So here I am, walking in the door with no track record at that point, and I’m saying to myself, “I want Captain America to get back up to its best days, and then I want to go even farther.” That was my attitude with everything. So the more I knew about a character, the more resonance I could have with what I thought was the essence of the character and what I could do with it. With The Avengers, I had a hundred more issues to work with than I did with Luke Cage, but my approach was the same.

BB: Have you ever had a day job since you quit being Roy Thomas’s “right hand,” or have you always supported yourself as a writer since you got your start at Marvel? If the latter, do you always find yourself working in several media at once—say, working on a comics script at the same time as a video game and a novel or something?

SE: I’ve had a few day jobs at Atari, Activision, and games.com in two different eras. All games companies, as it happens. I’ll tell you later about how I got my first games job—at Atari—because that ties in with my first novel, which I know you want to discuss.

I got the Activision job when I was recruited to work for Sierra Online—a very hot company at the time, but On the left is a shot of the original art of the splash page to Captain America #153 (the first issue of Steve’s Cap run), featuring the return of the 1950s Cap and Bucky. Pencils by Sal Buscema, inks by Jim Mooney. On the right is the issue’s cover, with art by Buscema and John Verpoorten. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

22 | WRITE NOW

one situated in the, um, Sierras, which are inland mountains.

Beautiful countryside but far removed from urban pleasures like baseball games and opera. And S.O. insisted that its people live up there. So I started calling around saying “I’m being offered a great job with great money. Can you save me from that?” Activision came through. I did a hybrid thing there: game design and Documentation Manager. The first games.com job I went after, because it sounded like fun and it was practically in my backyard—and then it turned out they were comics fans. I was the Web Site Editor there. The second one, I was again recruited, as Creative Director, but it turned out the new boss had very large ideas and a very small bank account, which led to games.com being taken back by the previous owners.

As anyone knows who works 9-to-5, it’s tough to go home and then do something creative before bedtime. But now and again I’d get an outside offer and have to squeeze it in.

BB: How did it feel going from Marvel to DC? Was there any culture shock?

SE: I was very much interested in tackling that new slew of icons. Jenette Kahn brought me over to revamp Justice League, to turn all the JLA into basically Marvel-style characters and just give them personalities, write better stories, all that kind of stuff. I was very much up for that. And then I said, “I want to do The Batman in and of itself,” and that was that. But as far as culture shock: absolutely, because DC was moribund at that point.

They had lost the race to Marvel, and that’s why they wanted me. So it was kind of my job to put them back into the race, and there really wasn’t anybody else. If I may say it, there was nobody who loomed as large on the landscape as me, at that point. So I had this job of fixing the company. And, of course, looking back on it, I think, “Why was I doing that as a work-for-hire?” [laughs] But that was the way it was done, and I didn’t think about it much.

It was the first of several times this happened to me, where basically I’m brought in to work with people who it was felt that I needed to improve what they were doing. So I had to not piss people off in the process. I couldn’t just say, “Well, I’ll just go along with anything,” because my job was to fix things. But I couldn’t just say,

“Well, I’m going to change everything,” because I had to work with a group of people who had been there for a while. So it was kind of a balancing act. And I’ve always said how wonderfully Julie handled it, because he didn’t have the superstar people of the industry working for him anymore, and yet he was the guy who had been in control of them.

Jenette, who had just been hired herself not too long before, said to him: “I just hired this guy away from Marvel and I want him to revamp the entire Justice League, and he’s going to do Batman.” What was Julie going to do about all that? He just went with it. He said, “Okay.” I couldn’t tell you, and nobody can tell us now, whether he knew what I could do before I came in. But he said, “Go for it,” and gave me the chance to do it. That’s where the definitive Batman came from. I did what I did, but I also had the ability to do it, I had the opportunity to do it. And I think we can lay most of that back to Julie and Jenette for setting it up.

But it was a very different company. It was not nearly as energetic as it had been in the early ’70s. It was much more corporate, much more staid, much more ten-yearsbehind where Marvel was at that point.

Cover and splash page to the Englehart-written The Avengers #137. Cover by John Romita, Sr. Splash penciled by George Tuska and inked by Vince Colletta. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

STEVE ENGLEHART | 23

Covers to a quartet of late 1970s Englehart-authored DC Comics. Justice League of America #139 was drawn by Neal Adams, #143 by Dick Dillon and Jack Abel, Mister Miracle #22 by Marshall Rogers, and Starfire #7 by Mike Vosburg and Vince Colletta. [c 2006 DC Comics.]

BB: Were you in Oakland at the time, or did you move back to New York?

SE: No, out here in California. It was Berkeley. Back in those days, and on into the ’80s, whichever company I was working for, and when I was working for both of them, each of them would fly me back to New York four to six times a year, probably three or four days each time. So I was very interconnected to the group of people I was working with.

But, yeah, DC was a culture shock. And I was the only one like me there. It wasn’t as if a whole bunch of us had come over, it was just me on the one side, and the whole DC establishment on the other side. Jenette wanted me to do stuff that they weren’t doing. So there were all sorts of dynamics going on, but fortunately I was facilitated. They may have been cursing my name in New York, I don’t know. But as far as doing it, as far as figuring out what needed to be done and then getting it done, I had great cooperation all the time.

BB: Steve, I’ve always been a little bit confused about your exit from DC and your trip to Europe, where I assume you wrote The Point Man. Can you clarify that for me a little bit?

SE: When DC contacted me, I said, “I’m just going to be here for a year, then I’m going to Europe.” And they said, “Fine.” So I revamped the Justice League, I revamped Batman, I did whatever I did with Mister Miracle. I wrote Starfire, which I enjoyed.

I had my year and then left. There was no animosity with DC. I told them going in, “This is what I’m going to do,” and they said ‘fine,” and they got a year of me and I turned all those things around. And then I went. My idea was, “That’s it for comics. I’m done with comics. I’m going to do other stuff.”

So we went to Europe and traveled around. We got a van, had a wonderful time. I just pursued my own interests and geared up to write this novel. We settled in Majorca for the winter. And I started writing the novel.

Then I came back to America in the spring, got myself an agent, my agent got me a publisher, I got the contract, and then I finished the novel.

24 | WRITE NOW

My only experience in writing up to that point had been in comics, where things were very fast. You wrote a story one week, and three months after you wrote it, you were getting feedback. This was before the Internet, obviously, but three months then was a pretty quick turnover. Writing comics under those circumstances was wonderful training for a writer, because you were really encouraged to be as creative as possible. You got feedback, found out what worked and what didn’t work.

You were trying to do things. All that stuff was good.

Then, suddenly, after writing one story—the novel—for a year, and then waiting a year for it to be published, it was very much, in a sense, like coming to the end of the People Mover at the airport. “Whoa, this is really slow compared to what I’m used to.” I went ahead and proposed the second book and got a contract for it.

BB: Was it a sequel to The Point Man? SE: No, it was a totally different book. It was set in Silicon Valley, which was a hot new concept in the early ’80s. I called up a friend of mine who worked at Atari to ask a few questions about the computer industry, and he said, “I don’t know the answer to any of that, but come and work for us.”

I said, “No, I’m writing a novel.” He said, “Oh, but we’ll give you a computer.” So I called up Dell Publishing and I said, “I’m going to give you the money back and I’m going to not write that book right now.” And I went off to do the computer thing. It turned out to be good in that it got me into that field early and opened up another field for me. If I had just dedicated myself to writing novels, had adjusted to that slower speed and just turned them out, I would have 20 novels by now, and I’d be a totally different person.

BB: It sounds like you were a little frustrated by the pace of the novel experience.

SE: I was. I mean, I really liked the novel. I’m very happy with The Point Man. I was getting good feedback on it at the time. I tend to go by, “Did I actually do what I was supposed to do?” And I think I did on The Point Man. I wrote a good novel, if I can say so. But at the time, I just thought, “Oh, man, it takes so long to do this compared to

Four covers by Marshall Rogers and Terry Austin from the original 1970s Englehart-Rogers-Austin Batman stories featured in Detective Comics. Shown here are the covers to issues #471, 474, 475 and 476. [c 2006 DC Comics.]

what I’m used to.” So I liked the idea of getting into computers, that being fun and fast.

Then, when Atari got sold and we all got fired, I ended up going back to Marvel and DC, so I was doing comics again. Life had gone on, and I found different things to do.

But that was the deal. I was basically done with comics, and I was going to write novels. It’s just that at the point that I started writing a novel, I hadn’t done this before, and there were parts of it I didn’t like so much.

BB: Steve, I did want to talk about one of your creator-owned projects, Night Man, and the way that you took this character and broke it out of comics and it went into a television series.

SE: I didn’t do it. Malibu did it. Night Man was part of the Malibu Ultraverse.

BB: What was the Ultraverse? Did it have potential to open up the possibilities of ownership (or participation) for creators?

SE: The Ultraverse was the only thing equivalent to classic Marvel that I’ve seen since classic Marvel, in terms of creator freedom. Six of us—me, Mike Barr, Steve Gerber, Jim Hudnall, Gerry Jones, and Len Strazewski—plus the Malibu editors, created the entire Ultraverse and all our characters within it, then went and did them as we saw fit. It was the most successful launch ever, but the collapse of the industry took it down in the end. For doing what we did, we did participate in the profits, and I’m sure, if it had continued, that that would have spread to others as the line expanded.

It is, seriously, a tragedy that Malibu’s no longer with us.

BB: But Night Man was your character. I’m wondering if you’d have any advice for current comic book writers as to how to perhaps get their creator-owned projects onto the boob tube or the big screen.

SE: Probably not, because, again, I didn’t do that, so I’m not exactly sure how it’s done. I know that Malibu liked Night Man quite a bit and was hawking it, but they were hawking other things, too. Night Man is the one that Glen Larson bit on. When Mike Friedrich—my agent—and I did the contract with Malibu, we tried to be very forwardlooking. There were some things in the Malibu contract

that we had changed to provide better for my heirs, if anything came of all that. But it didn’t occur to us at all to think about the comic going into other media.

So there was nothing in the contract that said, “If Night Man becomes a television show, you get to work on it.” I mean, it did say, “You get money, you get paid. Any time Night Man is used, you get paid.” But they could have done that entire series and never talked to me at all. It’s only because I said, “I really should be involved in this,” that I got my literary agent to push on that. That eventually got me a meeting, and that eventually got me a script, and that eventually got me more scripts, and so on and so forth.

BB: So you need a different agent for different media?

SE: Over the years I’ve had a comics agent (Mike Friedrich), a book agent in New York now (Henry Morrison), a book agent in New York in the 1980s (Steve Axelrod), a children’s book agent in the Bay Area (Kendra Marcus of Bookstop), a children’s book agent in New York (Renée Cho of McIntosh & Otis), a movie agent in New York (Evva Prior of McIntosh & Otis), and a movie agent in LA (Maggie Field of Field-Cech). If a medium requires an agent, it’s just part of doing business. Comics didn’t used to, and don’t now, I believe, but books and movies always have.

BB: I get it. Getting back to Night Man—you wrote three episodes for that show, didn’t you?

SE: Yes. And that was actually a pretty good number, because Glen Larson wrote a number of them himself, and his wife wrote some, and his kids wrote some, and his partner wrote some. It’s sort of a family business when Glen does a thing. So there were very few scripts left over at any given time. I got three over two years, which was actually pretty good. People in Hollywood are impressed by that. But that was all, I had to go in and prove that I could do it. The adaptation of Night Man was very close to the comic, but it wasn’t exactly the same thing. So I had to write his Night Man. I wanted it to be his Night Man, not my Night Man. It was his show.

So the only advice I would have to people, and it probably wouldn’t even be necessary now, is if you come up with STEVE ENGLEHART | 25

something like that, make sure that any deal you sign says that you’re a part of it—whatever happens, you’re a part of it.

BB: Was it a gas to see your character on the little screen?

SE: Yeah! And even more so to see him in real life, because I went to the set. The first story that I wrote was filmed in San Diego, so I was able to go down to the set.

There was a good-looking guy who looked like Night Man, wearing a Night Man costume, with the red eye and the whole thing. That was very cool. I was a total Hollywood geek at that point. [Bob laughs] BB: That must have been a thrill. Do you have any desire to revisit Hollywood?

SE: Oh, sure. I did like being down there. I’ve spent a reasonable amount of time in Hollywood for somebody who doesn’t live there.

But the connection between somebody saying, “I really liked your character, story, whatever,” and “We’re going to put it on the screen,” well, that hasn’t happened. I’ve come close a couple of times, but everybody in Hollywood’s come close a couple of times.

I liked learning the rules of Hollywood. One thing that I didn’t understand was, if you want to write a comic book story about Spidey fighting his way through 53 gang dens, no problem. But if you want to do a TV show about Spidey fighting his way through 53 gang dens, you have to build 53 gang dens. And you have to populate them with 53 groups of actors, which you have to pay for. It’s totally obvious, but I had never had to consider it before. When you’re writing stories for television, you start thinking about, “What’s the minimum number of sets I can use?

What’s the minimum number of actors I have to hire?”

That kind of stuff. I found that fun, because it was a new challenge. “Okay, I gotta do it under these circumstances. Now how would that work?”

At this time I have a large body of work, and some people like some of it, and it would be nice if it ever went somewhere, but it’s not really up to me. My agent keeps an eye out for people to connect me to—if there’s interest we do a meeting—if there’s still interest, the people go looking for money, a star, and so on. If it all keeps moving forward, I start getting involved more completely, but at the early stages I do the meeting and go home. Moving forward is up to the people I meet with.

BB: I’d like to know a little more about your videogame work. I know you did the early Atari stuff, and the Superman: Menace of Metallo “multipath movie” in the late 1990s, but what other types of videogame material did you work on? Are you doing any such work now? How did your comics career prepare you for it?

SE: The last thing I did in 2003 was the storyline for Tron 2.0 and the storyline for a proposed Tron 3.0, from Disney’s Buena Vista. I’ve worked for maybe a dozen companies over the years, mostly freelance— though, as I mentioned, I held down a few day jobs.

The thing with many pure game designers, like pure comics writers, or pure anything else, is that they tend not to think outside their own box. I generally come in with wider vistas, shall we say, because of the comics, and the TV, and the books. But unlike my comics situation, where I at least tried to be an artist before I started working with artists, I’ve never been a nuts-and-bolts programmer. It all leads to my asking for things that can’t be done, and having to be educated… but it leads to my asking for things the programmers never thought of that can be done, too. It turns out to be very productive if people really want to go outside the box.

The cover to Detective Comics #472 displayed Rogers’ and Austin’s striking portrayal of the Batman. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

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BB: Now you’re back at DC and have Dark Detective under your belt. Can you talk a little about how you approached the story?

SE: DC came and said, “We’d like you to do this.”

So I came up with a number of ideas. (A) I wanted to do a good Batman. (B) I wanted to do a

Batman that would not look secondary when compared to our first run. (C) It can’t just be the same stuff regurgitated.

And (D) okay, where is Batman now in the DC Universe?

And how will I do what I want to do that’ll work well with what I did, but won’t conflict with what other people are doing? I built myself a ballpark before I figured out what I was going to play in there. I knew what I had to get done.

And then, when I had that structure set up, I started thinking about specifically what would happen. It would be six issues, not a graphic album. It has six beginnings and six endings, rather than one long narrative. I’d say, “Okay, I want to do something with Batman and Silver. So where do they go next? What do I do next?” And I’ll work out that plot as far as I can, just on them.

And then I’ll say, “Okay, I’ve got to do the Joker. Now, what would I do with the Joker that I didn’t do last time that would be good?”

So I start working on a Joker plot. And then I think, “Well, I’d like to do other villains this time.

Who would I like to do?”

And in this case it’s Two-Face. What’s a good Two-Face plot?

Somewhere in the back of my brain, I remember what the other characters’ plots are when I start to try to work on a third character. Eventually I’ll end up with two or three separate storylines.

Then comes the phase of melding those together to come up with one continuous storyline that involves all these different situations.

BB: You certainly have a lot of balls in the air during this planning process.

SE: When you’re writing, you put some here and you put some there, and then you have to fill in a little bit up in the middle. Then for balance you need to come in with some more plot. It’s like cutting a diamond, where you just keep cutting it until it comes out the way you want it to. Back when I was doing a book a week, and a new story had to come out every week, obviously those were ongoing concepts. I was living in all four of those worlds. So when it came around to do The Avengers, I would have half a dozen ideas that just sort of had been burbling in the back of my brain, and I didn’t have any problem coming up with a complete story for the particular book that I was doing—writing it, getting it out, and going on to doing the next book the following week.

BB: And you had creative momentum.

SE: Exactly. I would feel like I was rolling a rock. First you define the rock and you kind of get it moving, and then, as each issue comes along, you’ve got ongoing concepts.

You don’t have to define everything all over again. You can start playing off of them and seeing what happens as the rock turns over and over and over and things go on. It’s kind of fun. Me, personally, I would rather have an ongoing series than a limited series. Limited series are in vogue, so when they come and say, “We want you to do six issues of Batman,” that’s what I’m going to do: beginning, middle, and end. But I prefer unlimited series, because you can let things play out rather than say, “Well, I can’t go there, because I don’t have enough room.” It’s all organic, it’s diamond cut.

BB: How did you and Marshall feel about revisiting these characters 27 years later?

SE: We were really excited about it. It is 27 years. Take a quick diversion. I learned early on that there are two types of people in comics: there are people who are childlike, and there are people who are childish. Then there might be some people who

The Rogers-Austin covers from issues #1, #2, and 6 of 2005’s six-issue Batman: Dark Detective mini-series. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

STEVE ENGLEHART | 27

[Left] Actor Matt McColm as the title character in the Glen Larson produced1997-1998 Night Man TV series, based on Steve’s Malibu Ultraverse character. [© 2006 Larson Entertainment and Marvel Characters, Inc.] [Below] Darick Robertson’s cover to the Night Man #1 comic. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

story up sometime after the first one. Silver has found a fiancé. Batman is basically in the current DC reality. I’m not connecting to anything specifically. But the fact that the Gotham Police Force is now against him, and so on, that’s all there. It’s “Chapter Two,” I’ll put it that way. It’s another meeting of these same people after a certain amount of time. But, except for the fact that Bruce and Silver were once in love, there’s no reliance on the first one.

BB: So the series is basically a continuation, in that you’ve got some of the main characters, but you’re taking it somewhere else.

SE: Exactly. But it’s a totally different story, although clearly the relationship between Bruce and Silver is something that people hopefully want to see played out, extended. Where does it go from where it was last time? But it’s a different story. We didn’t want to make it a requirement that you had to have read the first one, because I understand that it was a while ago. So you can pick up the second one, and once you accept the fact that they once knew each other, you don’t have to know anything else about it.

have no child in them at all, but most people fall into one or the other of those categorizes. But it’s the childlike thing that always intrigues me.

I was always struck by the fact that Julie Schwartz never got any older. He was 88 when he died, but he never got older, he was always young in a sense. And Stan Lee never gets old. Stan’s in his eighties and he’s still the same guy as before. I admire that and hoped to emulate it. I think that’s the case with both Marshall and me. When this was first broached to us, we talked about it and said, “We’re going to have to measure up, here. We can’t come across as old guys who can’t do this anymore.” Within two minutes we were both clear that we were both not in that situation. I’m totally excited about writing it, he’s totally excited about drawing it. We got Terry Austin doing the inks. John Workman is going to do the lettering.

BB: Do you see Dark Detective as a sequel, or a continuation of the original work?

SE: I’m not sure what the difference is.

BB: I guess I’m asking, are you going to be using plot threads from the original series and carrying them over?

SE: No, except for the Bruce and Silver relationship. The Joker is always against the Batman, but there’s no particular tie-in to his last appearance. We’re picking the 28 | WRITE NOW

BB: Did you find yourself influenced by the Batmans that came after the first series? Frank Miller’s, for example?

SE: Not really. I mean, I’m not disrespectful about what other people have done. Actually, I get upbraided sometimes for paying too much attention to continuity, so I didn’t want to do anything that would conflict with any of that sort of stuff. I’m very happy with the Batman that I’ve got.

When I sat down the first time, I tried to figure out who I really thought Batman was, and I think I did.

I haven’t had much occasion to change my mind since then. So, again, it’s not disrespectful to anybody else, but I like the Batman that I’ve got.

BB: Following up on this idea, Steve, that you kind of get into the characters’ heads. Do you do that with every book you write? Do you step back a little bit? How do you approach being given a new book, an ongoing book, and you’re the guy?

SE: Well, kind of like what I was saying before about Batman, only maybe more so. I would sit down and read the last X number of years of a series. Maybe ten years. I don’t have a problem with doing research. But I would just start reading about a character and see what I thought worked and what I thought didn’t work, what sounded right and what didn’t. And over time I would build a structure, a feeling in my own head as to who this particular person was. “It’s gotta be good, it’s gotta be different, it’s gotta fit in with wherever I picked it up, it’s gotta go where I think it ought to go,” all those different things. Then I start working out plotlines trying to satisfy all these different ideas.

But, yeah, I do the research. If it’s a new character, if it is Scorpio Rose or Coyote or whatever, that I’m creating, I do the research on whatever the character might be.

For Scorpio Rose, I read up on gypsies and the middle ages and got a sense for what I wanted to do with that character before I sat down to write her. That’s the part,

again, that I was talking about, the unlimited aspect, particularly in a situation like that. You get a sense of who this character is, then you sit down to write her, and pretty soon she’s doing things. Mantis was the first one like that, but pretty soon the characters are doing things that you didn’t think out in advance. “Under the circumstances, this is what she would do.” Having done it changes the circumstances, so things start to go off in their own directions. And that’s the fun of it to me. I love that, where you start really exploring and finding new things to do.

But comics, as somebody pointed out, are basically written to have a climax at the bottom of every page.

Comics are nothing but continuous cliffhangers and climaxes. Stories vary, not all stories fit exactly that definition, but there’s a lot of that, of something new, something new, something new.

So you want to keep finding new things to do, new ways to keep a story rolling and surprising people page after page and issue after issue. I’d rather be exploring right along with you, setting up something that I feel is workable and then running with it, rather than the modern approach of having to give an editor a plot for all six issues of a story arc or limited series, telling what you’re going to do. I’d rather not know what I’m going to do, just trust myself to do something and then see what it is.

I really don’t feel any sort of thing like, “Oh, stuff was better in the old days.” Time has passed, and things have changed, and I’ll work under the circumstances that exist. But if you’re asking me, I’d prefer to be able to run with it.

BB: The Dark Detective was a big hit.

Any thoughts on it now that it’s done?

SE: Everything I said about how much fun it was going to be turned out to be true. The only thing I can add from the “now that it’s done” side is, it turned out to be a pleasure working with Marshall and Terry and John when I knew going in I would be, as opposed to the first time, when I famously had no idea who my collaborators would be on any given issue. Knowing what I could count on for the art and lettering really deepened the experience this time. And it was also extremely pleasurable to hit as many cons as I did and meet as many fans.

I’m very aware that if the

fans didn’t want me, I wouldn’t be here. Starting in Detroit just after the first issue came out, and on through the summer and fall, I got to see just how much the Batman that once upon a time only I knew about, down in my gut, has come to mean to so many people, including all those who’d never seen it before. I truly never thought I’d see that again.

BB: Any advice on how to break into comics as a writer these days?

SE: Well, back in the ’70s, you went to New York, because all the companies were there, and you showed them what you can do. If they told you there’s any hope at all, you’d go sleep on some friend’s floor, and within a month or two, they’d call you up.

There’d be some book among the many that they were doing on which somebody was going to miss a deadline, and they’d call you up and say, “Come in and do an issue of this.”

And if it worked out, then you’d get more, and that’s how you got into comics.

None of that really applies anymore, y’know?

Now, you show them your stuff at some convention, and I really don’t know what happens after that,

[Above] Covers to issues #11 and #1 of Steve’s Epic Comics Coyote series. Art to #11 is by Chas Truog and to #1 by Steve Leialoha. [© 2006 Steve Englehart.] [Left] Covers to issues #1 and #2 of Steve’s Eclipse Scorpio Rose series. Art by Marshall Rogers and Tom Palmer. [© 2006 Steve Englehart.]

STEVE ENGLEHART | 29

how they would decide to let somebody in the door. Certainly Marvel’s whole theory is, if you’ve written a movie, you can come in the door. If you’ve written a novel, you can come in the door. But I couldn’t tell you.

Clearly, you’ve got to somehow contact an editor and make it clear that this is what you want to do, and show them what you can do. I would think that the process would be the same as it used to be, in that you want to show them five pages of script, or five pages of art, or something like that.

They probably also still want you to show them their character. That’s probably still true. The Marvel guy doesn’t want to look at your Green Lantern samples, and so on. But once you enter their consciousness, I have no idea what happens after that, how it works these days.

BB: You’ve made returns to comics in the 1980s and now in the 2000s. Why do you think even popular, acclaimed creators like yourself seem to have to come and go from the industry? Did you originally leave comics to write The Point Man as a type of career strategy?

SE: I’ve never had a career strategy beyond “try to do something memorable every time,” in whatever field I happened to be in at the time.

I’ve mostly followed my nose, going wherever I found something interesting to do. I left to write The Point Man because I was sick of comics and wanted to do something else; I honestly had no intention of doing them again, let alone trying to enhance my career in them. But as it turned out, I like comics, and when the opportunities have come around since then, I’ve done them if I could.

BB: What are you working on these days, aside from Dark Detective?

SE: Well, Dark Detective II (the ’70s run is now called Dark Detective I) sold two-and-a-half times as much as DC had projected, so we’re doing DD III—this time with the Penguin, my old friend Deadshot, Killer Moth, and Dala the vampire.

I’m doing a seven-part run through both JLA Classified and JSA Classified with Tom Derenick and Mark Farmer. Marshall and I are doing a one-shot Black Rider, which we hope and trust will become a very strange series at Marvel.

BB: Will the complete Dark Detective team of you, Marshall Rogers, Terry Austin, and John Workman all work on both Dark Detective III and Black Rider?

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SE: Aside from Marshall and me, Marvel has other people lined up for Black Rider. It’s ostensibly part of a “Western Month” with a unified look, though our Western is actually a very different sort of animal.

But with Dark Detective, that will always be me and Marshall and Terry and John—PTB willing.

In addition to all that, I’m doing a short prose story about the pulp icon The Spider, as part of an upcoming anthology. And I’ve sold a sequel to The Point Man, which I’m calling The Long Man— which will be published

by Tor Books, probably in 2007. No trip to Majorca this time, though.

But speaking of which, there’s a Majorca thing, a movie script that I wrote Two examples of coming out of my time in Steve’s videogame Majorca way back when, work: Superman: but it’s a fantasy. It’s a Menace of Metallo psychosexual thriller, so [© 2006 Brilliant I’m sorry to say I did not Digital Entertainment actually live through it. and DC Comics.] and [Bob laughs] That was a Tron 2.0 [© 2006 movie script that I wrote The Walt Disney in hopes of selling it. That Company]. hasn’t happened yet. JeanMarc L’Officier of Black Coat Press has put together a book of movie scripts by comics writers that didn’t sell, but that people might spend money on to read.

Me and Marv Wolfman and Mike Baron and people like that are in it. That is being published as a book, but in movie script format. My script is called, uh, Majorca.

And I’m really excited about the Coyote trade paperbacks that Image is putting out. That’s a series that was way ahead of its time, and in many ways still is, plus we get to recolor where necessary, fix typos, etc. These TPBs are the closest you get in comics to a director’s cut.

BB: What’s your new novel about?

SE: It’s about the hero of my first book, Max August, who, when the first book ended, was going to be taught serious magick by Cornelius Agrippa before Agrippa died five years down the line. Well, that happened, and Max himself became immortal in 1985—so now he’s 20 years into his immortality. But I have to be clear: he’s immortal in terms of not dying from old age, or aging at all, but he can still be killed. The standard take on immortal characters is that they’re five hundred years old, and they played cribbage with Napoleon, and they remember Jenny Lind, that kind of stuff. This guy is just starting out, and five hundred years

from now he’ll be able to say, “I was there when George Bush was president,” or whatever. But in the meantime, he’s just at the point where his friends are beginning to age, and he’s not, and he’s beginning to look at this great boon of being immortal from the standpoint of, “You know, I’ve got a long time ahead of me, and I’m going to keep losing people.” He’s looking at it from the beginning of the process rather than the end of the process, and I found that kind of interesting. So he’s still a DJ at heart, he has serious power, he’s living in a world of neocons and thinking beyond them.

He’s an interesting character to write. Maybe it’s been done 50 times, but I’m not aware of it, if it has.

BB: I wanted to cover your children’s books, such as Countdown to Flight, Countdown to the Moon, The DNAgers. Has that been a fun experience?

SE: Very much. You can ask me about almost anything and I’ll usually say, “Yeah, I had a good time.” Because even when I’m complaining about restrictions, I try to have a good time. I got hooked up with a great editor at Avon, Gwen Montgomery, and a great agent, Renée Cho, so we were doing a series of things. Then the editor left, and that signaled a change in the whole structure at Avon, and life went on from there. I liked the Countdown stuff. I found that I liked writing history for kids. I like telling stories, and I like telling true stories, and I like telling them to kids so they can learn something.

The DNAgers was fiction. It’s about 13-year-old twins, a boy and a girl, who find a way to go back in time and become their own ancestors (thus the DNA part). There’re lots of time travel stories. I tried to find a new way to do them. I can’t say that fifty other people haven’t done something just like it, but I’m not aware of any other series where the heroes become their own ancestors and have to live their own ancestors’ lives. It was history

adventures for kids. I’d be doing them today if Avon hadn’t changed their mind about what they wanted to do.

BB: Are you continuing to do children’s books? If so, can you tell us a little about them?

SE: I’m not. I wish I were, because I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Countdown to Flight opened a lot of doors, and the DNAgers with my wife was a treat. But once the thread at Avon was broken, I found other things to do and haven’t gotten back to that. One thing about having six careers—if I’m doing one or two things, I’m not doing four or five others.

BB: We could go on forever, Steve, but you’ve been more than generous with your time. It’s been great to talk with you. Thanks for the privilege.

SE: My pleasure.

Bob Brodsky edits The O’Neil Observer, a fanzine focused on the storytelling of Denny O’Neil and the craft of comic book writing. He is proud to announce a summer 2006 launch for his newest ‘zine, The Yancy Street Gazette, dedicated to the Marvel Age of Comics, 1961-1975. For further info please e-mail Bob at: brodskybob@comcast.net.

THE END

Some examples of Steve’s prose work. At the top, his Avon Countdown to… books. [© 2006 the copyright holder.]

Bottom left is his novel, The Point Man [© 2006 Steve Englehart]. Next to that is Steve’s as-yetunproduced Majorca screenplay. [© 2006 Steve Englehart] And on the right are two titles in the DNAgers series, written by Steve and his wife Terry. [© 2006 Steve and Terry Englehart.]

STEVE ENGLEHART | 31

Here’s Steve’s original proposal for what came to be called Batman: Dark Detective II. Note that, while many details need to be filled in, Steve knows where he wants the storyline to start and where he wants it to end, and what he wants to accomplish along the way. [Proposal © 2006 Steve Englehart.

Referenced characters © 2006 DC Comics.]

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Once the proposal was approved, Steve broke the storyline down into six 22-page issues. As he recalls the process: “Here’s my original brainstorming breakdown of the plot for the six issues of DDII, where many differences may be seen from how the actual issues turned out. I knew I had enough for six strong issues, so I laid that down as my base and continued to improve from there in my head.

“The 6-panel layout works like this: I have some ideas about what I want to do in the series. I start blocking them out, seeing where I need more material. I eventually get to the point where I have enough to make up an acceptable storyline, which is what this document represents. Then, I keep worrying away at that, seeing what feels out of place, or what's not strong enough, and when I find something like that, I make it better. But now, every time I add something, I have to subtract something else, because I had enough to start with. This process makes the whole structure stronger, and thus we move past acceptable. But those changes generally don't cause me to make a new document; I just scribble notes to myself and move into the actual scripting.

“So, in this 6-segment overview, we find a subplot involving Professor Radium and Doctor Phosphorus that went to the cutting room floor, and so on.” [Storyline breakdown © 2006 Steve Englehart. Referenced characters © 2006 DC Comics.]

STEVE ENGLEHART | 33

And now, here are the first five pages of Dark Detective II, issue #1. We see Steve’s script (done full-script style; that is, with panel-by-panel art descriptions written at the same time as the balloons, captions, and sound-effects) and the resulting artwork by Marshall and Terry. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

Note that, while the general story points are similar to the ones in the grid-outline you just saw, the details of the scenes, starting with this first scene, are different than, and/or fleshed-out from, the ones suggested in the outline. (Also, the “Joey” referred to in the note in the script is editor Joey Cavalieri.) [© 2006 DC Comics.]

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DARK DETECTIVE TWO — 2 1) [half-page: the city of Gotham

lies before us; we’re at rooftop

level; and almost but not

op water fluttering out from behind a rooft L (which is still a luxury a fabulous 30s-era luxury HOTE tank. Batman is on the roof of Batman. Also visible on city, and in the shadows is the hotel). The point is: here’s the ered rifle (for security).] the roof is a cop with a high-pow

Batcape quite lost in the cityscape is the

of Gotham City — BLURB: Night — on the rooves

In this collaboration, since Steve and Marshall have worked together and know each other’s creative process, Steve’s art instructions are relatively open, giving detail mostly when new characters or locales are introduced, giving Marshall plenty of oppor-

d

tunity to interpret how he wants to draw

built like, but we don’t Scarecrow, so that’s what he’s (Cop2). This cop is actually the of him.]

It appears Batman is unaware know who he is till next issue. did know. Bat and Bat s; , Cop2 swings at Bat, who duck 3) [as Cop2 gets near Bat’s cape he’s not the instigator] but he has to be attacked first; Gotham’s cops are on the outs

the story. Steve emphasizes what’s most

2) [Bat watches cop with rifle

ing up on him from behin (Cop1) — but another cop is creep

important in each panel and leaves the rest to Marshall. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

] 4) [Bat comes up slugging Cop2 SFX: WHUMP!

DARK DETECTIVE TWO — 3 1) [Cop1, the one with the rifle, grabs Bat from behind with free

hand as Cop2 slugs Bat]

COP1: It’s the Batman!

COP1: I got ’im!

2) [Bat hurls Cop1 into Cop 2; rifle goes flying] SFX: PUNK! 3) [Bat runs for the roof as Cop1 yells at him] COP1: Stop where you are! Police!

COP1: We’re on the same side, Batman!

Steve Englehart 4) [Bat pulls © 2/8/06 Batrope #1 : utility TWO his TIVEfrom belt as he runs. Bullet whistles DARK DETEC

past him.]

OFF: We just want to bring you in — !

SFX: BLAM! 5) [Bat swings over the edge, rope attached to something. Another

bullet comes close.]

SFX: BLAM!

STEVE ENGLEHART | 35

DARK DETECTIVE TWO — 4 1) [Cop1 looks down side of hotel and sees cape disappearing

into some window far below

(but we can’t tell which floor from this extreme angle). On the

back of the cop falls the

shadow of the actual Scarecrow.]

COP: Damn! I was that close to a promotion!

COP: …But I thought I was the only cop up here…

2) [in empty, dark hotel ballroom, wind blowing curtains inward

at open window, Bat strips

off his costume] BAT (thot): Well, I wanted to check their security, and I guess

it’s fine…

BAT (thot): Evan Gregory’s made a lot of enemies, but so have

I.

3) [naked, he stashes it in hidden compartment in the wall of

the room]

BRUCE (thot): All the more reason to keep hidden compartm ents in public buildings throughout Gotham.

BRUCE (thot): Since I was coming to this hotel anyway, I could

be prepared —

BRUCE (thot): —so unlike Gregory, I can vanish.

4) [and removes exquisitely-tailored suit] BRUCE (thot): The cops would protect him, I believe, but somewher real enemy — the survivors of the Thorne cabal. With Gregory

e above them is the

running for governor,

he’s more of a threat to them than I am.

BRUCE (thot): I’ve never met the man, but already I like him.

5) [he dresses as Bruce Wayne] BRUCE (thot): And even if I didn’t like him, I’d make sure he survived his time in my city.

BRUCE (thot): He’s a public figure, pinned in the limelight, but I can work the shadows — BRUCE (thot): — when I’m not disguised.

DARK DETECTIVE TWO — 5 1) [quick little panel as he goes

down a darkened corridor towar

d a lighted doorway]

y fundraiser party is being om in the hotel where a high-societ 2) [big: he enters a fancy ballro the old big-stuff T MASKS of all descriptions — GIANDETECTIVE held. The decorations include DARK TWO #1 : © 2/8/06 Steve Englehart FOR ORY decoration. A banner says GREG motif done as high society party — the kind mask o n in the crowd is wearing a domin GOVERNOR! Every other perso all fancifully are s mask the Lone Ranger’s — and the that covers forehead to nose, like would be a props the of a masked ball. I also think none decorated. Y’know, I think it’s that. avoid to s want — who did the decorations — Bat mask, since as we’ll see Silver The butler looks like Julie.] ballrooms of Gotham City — BLURB: Night — in the glittering e.

Wayn BUTLER: Good evening, Mr. But apparently I’m late, eh? well. look BRUCE: Hello, Julius. You ing in about five minutes. speak be BUTLER: Not at all, sir. He’ll for no mask. He , goes by laughing, twitting him mask a ng 3) [beautiful society girl, weari t.] es into his inside breast pocke grins his manly grin as he reach a mask!

GIRL: Bruce! You’ve got to wear Caroline. ks, Than BRUCE: Oh right, I forgot. beautiful than ever. more you s BRUCE: Your mask make from a Batmask as possible] far as tiger; 4) [Puts on his mask: a white 5) [he notes the giant props] BRUCE (thot): Those decoration

s…something about them…

Look! Thought balloons! In an era where hardly anyone uses this most elegant of comic book tools, Steve has dared to bring them back. Could this be the start of an industry-wide trend where this important narrative device in the comic-makers’ tool chest returns to respectability? One can only hope so. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

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THE END

DEPARTMENT

THEME: THE HEART OF THE STORY

by John Ostrander or the past couple of issues, John Ostrander’s been sharing his important insights on key elements of writing. In DFWN #10 he shed light on story structure. Last issue, he told us all about creating characters. This issue, John expounds on one of the trickiest writing topics of all: theme. It’s what your story is really about. Read on and see what Mr. O has to say…

—DF

F

Earnest Inquiry: “What is your story about?”

Smartypants Answer: “Oh, about 22 pages.”

Badump-bump. But seriously, folks…

Seriously, the topic we’re considering here is theme and theme is different than plot. Plot is what happens in a story, the structuring of events through conflict leading to a resolution or climax. Theme is what your story is about— the unifying topic or subject of your story. It is the ethical, moral, and true emotional heart of your story. It can reaffirm existing values or question them. It is the gateway into the writer’s soul, yet it must resonate with the reader.

It’s both personal and universal at the same time.

It should be mentioned from the start that not every story has a theme or needs one and not every theme is necessarily a deep or profound one. In the comic strip Li’l Abner, Mammy Yokum used to say, “Good is better’n evil ‘cause it’s nicer.” Capp was a satirist, so you can question whether or not he meant that as a theme, but it is an example of a statement of theme, albeit one that’s as shallow as a rain puddle.

To my mind, a theme is not the same as a moral. A moral is usually attached to a fairytale or fable and is designed to teach a certain social or even religious value. Indeed, the entire story in that case is meant to convey a certain message about social values. The moral is that message. It’s using story as a teaching device, making a given story more like propaganda.

(We’ll talk more about propaganda in a moment.)

Morals are usually simplistic and, frankly, obvious. They are usually baldly stated just to make sure you don’t miss them.

Themes, on the other hand, are often interwoven into the fabric of the story and ask more complex questions, sometimes providing answers some would consider amoral or even immoral.

I also think themes are very personal. They require a point of view, a perspective, on the part of the author. When you receive the perennial (and sage) writing advice of “Write what you know,” I maintain it refers to this as much as practical knowledge. It’s the difference between what you were taught to believe and what your experience has taught you to be true. You may wind up with the same belief but, through questions, thought, and meditation, you’ve made it your own.

Experience teaches each of us different things. Your truth may wind up being different than my truth. People who have the same or similar experiences may learn completely different lessons from it. It’s also not a matter of how much experience we have had but what we have learned from it. We all know people who seem to never learn from what happens to them. On the other hand, some people, such as the poet Emily Dickinson, can distill a lot of wisdom from what seems like a very small amount of experience.

We bring (or should bring) to our writing all the experiences and lessons learned from the past. What’s important to realize that is that while you have your truth it is not THE truth. There is no one universal answer for most of the questions facing us—there is our answer. Others can be equally valid to other people.

To understand lessons learned from your experiences, I think you need a certain amount of distance or detachment from those experiences. It’s hard to write about things happening to you right now because you’re still going through them. To write cogently of your experiences, you need to have some perspective— JOHN OSTRANDER | 37

you need to see the experience in the context of the rest of your life, and even the lives of others. Do you listen to the world around you? Do you hear views contrary to your own and work them into your vision and understanding of the world?

When my late wife Kimberly Yale was diagnosed with breast cancer, I went through a whole roller coaster of emotions and experiences as she fought the disease. I went through more with her death, her memorial services, and the mourning period that followed.

Nothing in my life prepared me for experiences and emotions like those; nothing could. I had to get past that moment before I could gain perspective on it.

This is what they talk about with the phrase, “Can’t see the forest for the trees.” When you’re in amongst the trees, you can be lost—all you can see are the trees, the path (if there is one), the undergrowth, and so on.

You have to surrender to what’s happening, fully experience it, and come out the other side. Only then can you really make sense of it.

It’s not important to come up with answers to the questions raised when dealing with theme. I believe it

Cover and interior page to Batman: Seduction of the Gun. Written by John. Art by Vince Giarrano. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

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is more important to explore the questions and let the readers come up with their own answers. In that way, I may be using the term theme more in the musical sense, in which theme is a musical phrase on which the composer then does variations. A writer will take an idea or a question and then embody variations on that theme through a story’s characters.

While the theme needs to draw from a personal view, it should also resonate on a universal level. I once was a guest lecturer at a college writing class. I asked the students how many of them wanted to become writers because they felt they had something important to say. A good many hands went up. I then shocked them (and, I think, infuriated some) by saying, “Who cares?”

I never assume readers are coming to me because I have something important to say. I think that’s condescending to them. I think they are looking for a voice to articulate what they themselves have to say. Have you ever had the experience of reading something and come across a sentence and said to yourself, “Yes, that’s it. That’s exactly right!” Of course, you must write honestly of your own thoughts and feelings, but can you do it in such a way that resonates with readers? You’re creating a dialogue with them in which you are saying, “Have you ever thought this? Have you ever felt this way?” One of the big things we ask of story is to help us make sense of the world, of life, of our experiences. We’re not just looking for what happens; we’re looking for why. I heard German film director Werner Herzog on National Public Radio talking about his documentaries. He said that he wasn’t interested in facts; he was interested in what was true. A camera set in one place will record what happens in its field of view; it gives us what is. “Just the facts, ma’am.” It doesn’t, however, provide us with much insight. It’s like reading notes on a sheet of music. Individual notes by themselves really mean nothing.

It’s only when they are taken together and played or sung that they become music. As dots on a page, they represent what the music is but are not, themselves, the music.

I’m not interested in dogma—either mine or anybody else’s—in a story. One of my rules is—if you want to preach, get a pulpit.

Dogma states that: “This is the truth; no more questions are allowed.” As it applies to theme, dogma will leave you with a message that’s even more narrow and directive than a moral.

It will also generally

leave you with a much less interesting finished work than will a theme that allows for contradiction.

Dogma is effective and, despite what many might tell you, very popular. Why? Because it provides a definitive answer to whatever question is being asked. That provides certainty in what is increasingly an uncertain world. That’s very seductive and can make you very popular with some editors and some readers.

The greatest works of art, however, have an ambiguity about them. The reason they survive and continue to have meaning for generation after generation is because what they say can be interpreted in many ways and find a resonance with each new generation. People continue to say that something “speaks” to them—whether it is a play, a novel, a painting, a piece of music or a film, or a comic book or comic book character. Any long-running character must be re-interpreted for new generations of readers. The Superman of the ’30s is different from the Superman of the ’50s, who is different from the Superman of today—which is how it should be.

We don’t chisel these things into stone despite what some continuity fans might prefer.

Propaganda is not the same as dogma, although dogma will often use propaganda. Propaganda is a one-sided argument. The writer has a specific agenda in mind, a conclusion or desired end that he wishes the reader to reach. It advocates a specific point of view or course of action. It’s not the same as theme; it’s closer to moral. There are those who feel that all propaganda is

Another page from John and Vince’s Batman: Seduction of the Gun. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

insidious, but I think it’s just a tool. The difference between good and bad propaganda is that bad propaganda promotes causes and viewpoints I don’t like; good propaganda supports the same causes I do.

Advertising is really propaganda. Michael Moore’s documentaries are propaganda. I’ve written propaganda, notably in Batman: Seduction of the Gun, which is a book I’m very proud to have done. Its genesis was with the senseless death by gunfire of the son of one of Warner Brothers top executives. DC felt it should do something, say something, and so a special prestige book was planned. It was decided that Batman was the most logical character to confront the matter since he deals primarily with real-world level violence, and so the then-Batman Group editor (and one of the all-time great writers in comics) Dennis O’Neil, got the assignment to edit the project. He knew I had earlier been involved with a gun control group and, since I already knew something about the subject, felt I would be the right person to write this book.

Denny told me something at the onset that I’ve since made one of my cardinal rules: “You can say anything you want but first you must tell a story.” The reader, when buying a comic, first and foremost has the right to expect a well-crafted and engaging story with a strong emotional core and characters with whom they can identify. That is our primary job. What JOHN OSTRANDER | 39

we were trying to say with the gun story could be woven into that, but story was the first concern.

For Seduction of the Gun, I did research on guns and their easy availability, especially to street gangs, and made that part of the story. I’d come across a news article about how New York street gangs were traveling to other states (Virginia in this case) where guns laws were lax or nonexistent in order to buy cases of guns through an intermediary. They then brought the guns back up north to resell or use on the streets of New York. I simply exchanged Gotham for New York and used those facts to tell my story.

I was not exploring a theme in this story; I was writing one side of an argument. I had friends (heck, I had my own twin brother) who, being pro-gun, were not pleased, and frequently took me aside and explained to me how wrong and/or unfair the story was. That wasn’t the point; I was making a specific argument. I was writing propaganda and it ended up having at least one clear effect in the real world (beyond annoying some of my friends and relatives). It gave the then-Governor of Virginia a tool with which to get gun control legislation passed. Propaganda often does work.

Covers to three of John’s Hawkworld issues, all drawn by Timothy Truman. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

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However, I still find theme to be more interesting to write. I usually try to pose theme as a question and then, through the story, explore possible answers or different aspects of the question. Just as different characters have different functions in the plot, so also can they voice or embody different viewpoints of the question raised.

For example, you may choose to explore the theme in the classic dialectical manner—the protagonist voices the thesis (the initial idea) and the antagonist voices the antithesis (the opposite argument or view) and the resolution of your story, the climax, may provide a synthesis—a reconciliation of the two views.

You may flip the roles—maybe it’s the antagonist who voices the thesis and the protagonist who provides the antithesis.

Not every line your characters say will be what you yourself think or believe. If you do your job correctly, if you’re truly exploring the theme, then you must also honestly voice the opposite of what you think or believe.

If you do your job very well, the reader may not be able to tell what your beliefs actually are.

Back when I was doing Hawkworld for DC, I created a villain named The White Dragon. The White Dragon was posing as a super-hero but was, in fact, a racist who was more interested in creating a race war. To write him correctly, I felt I had to confront that in me which was racist. The character had to truly believe in what he was doing; he had to speak with conviction things to which I was ardently opposed. When the letters came in on the issue, I was shocked to see a small number of people agreeing with him. “Oh,” they said, “he went too far but he was not entirely wrong.”

I finally accepted that it meant I had, in fact, done my job correctly. I had explored and honestly voiced the question from both sides, which meant some readers were going to identify with the villain. You cannot control how people react to your work; you cannot dictate those reactions.

In your story, you want to avoid what we call straw men. These are characters that exist to espouse and embody the beliefs contrary to the conclusion that you want the reader to reach. They are usually over the top, dyed-in-the-wool, way-beyond-redemption, bad guys— simplistic and shallow. Their purpose is to fall right over at the might of your hero and your hero’s convictions— which is why they’re called “straw men.” They’re also examples of bad writing.

The Antagonist is not simply “the villain.” Just as you must invest the protagonist with believable character traits, you must do the same for the antagonist. You must just as honestly and convincingly write his thoughts, opinions, and convictions, even if they are diametrically opposite your own.

George Bernard Shaw was a brilliant playwright. His politics may not resonate with the modern reader, but his skill with characters and language make sure his plays are almost constantly performed. To me, it seems that he reserved some of his best language and arguments for the characters who, at least on the surface, would seem to be the antithesis of what he believed. He always gave the Devil his due.

One of the big writing tricks I learned in studying Shakespeare was that theme should be tied to plot— woven into it. The questions and issues raised are part of the action. Important issues are discussed and debated and dramatized in Shakespeare but only because, given the plot, it is appropriate and even vital for these questions to be raised. They are necessary to advance the plot. Hamlet’s interior debates must be resolved before he can take action.

The famous speech that starts, “To be or not to be…” is really about Hamlet trying to decide if he should commit suicide or not. There is nothing less at stake than his own continued existence. He is torn both ways; his grief over his father’s death is at odds with his own fear of death. Hamlet is pitted against himself.

Shakespeare argues both sides brilliantly to the point that it’s almost impossible to tell where his own true feelings lie. If you ask me, I would say the theme of that speech, perhaps of the entire play, is that

Timothy Truman’s spectacular cover to the Ostrander-written Hawkworld #32. [© 2006 DC Comics.]

existence is painful and confusing. Since this is Shakespeare, however, you can get any number of people telling you what they think the theme is—what the story is all about—and they would all be right. In that ambiguity lies Shakespeare’s brilliance and the reason he is still performed somewhere on this earth every day.

I find that amazing. A man who has been dead for 400 years still engages us in a dialogue, asking questions, making us ask questions and explore possible answers, making us think and feel and even laugh. How many flesh-and-blood people do you know who can be consistently counted on to do that? Shakespeare’s plots sometimes wobble, but his language is always superb.

However, for me it is the questions he explores—his themes—that make him truly great.

Is theme something that you start with or is it something you discover along the way? For me, it’s gone both ways. There may be something on my mind and, for me, the best way to explore it is with words. Incarnate it. Look at it. What do I think about the topic? What do I feel about it? (Often they’re not the same.) I’ll try to put it into a story structure. What sort of character would think this way? What sort of character would feel that way? How do I embody the conflict between the ideas?

What’s at stake? I don’t get into who is right or wrong. Sometimes, I’ll try switching the characters. No person or character is all one thing or the other, anyway. As I do all this, a story may gradually come into focus.

Just as often, however, I’ll be writing a story and not know what the theme is. I wait to see if one emerges. Sometimes, when I’m having a plot problem or a character is not speaking authentically, I’ll find it’s because either the theme is unfocused or I have no idea what it is.

Then I have to do some more thinking to clarify for myself what values are at stake.

For me, the “unifying idea” is literally that—it knits the whole thing together. It tells me which scenes to keep and which ones to drop. It pulls the whole story into focus. Theme is not just some vague concept, but a useful tool that permits me to do better work.

John 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.

THE END

JOHN OSTRANDER | 41

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-andorder 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

Breaking and Entering, Part 1:

WRITER, KNOW THY EDITOR Paul Benjamin

S

ometimes, trying to break into comics—or anywhere, really—as a writer feels like screaming into the wind. You may have come up with what you think is a great new property, or a unique take on an established character. But then what do you do with it?

Paul Benjamin has been on both sides of the desk, as an editor at Humanoids Publishing, and in his current incarnation, as a freelance writer. From this informed perspective, Paul spoke to a slew of comics editors and asked them what they want to see in a proposal. What he learned is extremely enlightening.

Read on (and be sure to check out the Editors’ Preferences sidebars, too) and find out what Paul did.

by

—DF Once you’ve polished your comics pitch and you’re certain that it’s the best it can be, you send it off to a publisher, hoping that an editor there will see your story’s amazing potential. Imagine a submissions editor, sitting at a desk every day from 9 to 5, reading proposal after proposal, writing responses and dropping them into the self-addressed stamped envelopes included with each pitch. That doesn’t sound like such a bad job. Certainly there’s no reason for that editor to fail to get back to you, right?

Wrong.

The submissions editor as described above is about as real as an alien infant rocketed to Earth from a dying planet. Most companies don’t even have a dedicated submissions editor, in which case a book’s editor has to find time to read submissions while staying on top of the primary job: getting a high quality book out the door on time. Look at Marvel Senior Editor Tom Brevoort. He has to juggle 20 books per month. That means he’s essentially getting a book off to the printer every single weekday.

When you write a proposal, your mission should be to present a concise and effective representation of your story. When the frustrated editor takes a five minute break to scarf down a sandwich before getting back to the mountain of work piled high on the desk, he or she just might grab a couple of submissions to see if any are worthy of attention. This is not an ideal situation, but it is a realistic one. Your job is to make sure you’ve given that editor exactly what he or she needs to decide whether or not your story is The Next Big Thing.

This is where knowing what an editor wants comes in handy. Every editor is unique. They have different backgrounds, different philosophies towards writing and different editorial goals. In late 2005, I spoke with a wide

variety of editors from different companies about specifically what they look for in a pitch. They took the time to tell me what they want so that Write Now! could share their preferences with you; proving that editors want to find new talent and they want to read strong pitches!

I interviewed editors from publishers large and small to get a broad overview of the comics publishing industry. I couldn’t talk to everyone, but this cross section of excellent editors has a great deal of useful insight. I talked to Larry Young of AiT/Planet Lar, Mike Carriglitto and Diana Schutz at Dark Horse Comics, Joe Pruett of Desperado Publishing and Chris Ryall from IDW Publishing. From Marvel, I spoke with Axel Alonso, Tom Brevoort, Ruwan Jayatilleke, Mike Marts, Mark Paniccia, Andy Schmidt and Warren Simons. I interviewed Michelle Harman at Penny Farthing Press, Lee Nordling at Platinum Studios, Chris Beranek of Silent Devil Productions, Paul Morrissey at TokyoPop, Jim McLauchlin at Top Cow (whose policies remain the same, despite Jim’s recent departure from his staff gig), Chris Staros of Top Shelf Productions and Jesse Garza at Viper Comics. DC Comics declined to participate, as they do not accept any unsolicited submissions. [For elaboration on what this means in practice, see the interview with DC Publisher and President Paul Levitz elsewhere in this issue. —DF ] Read on and see—in this article and in the accompanying “Editors’ Preferences” section—what the responding editors had to say. —PB PAUL BENJAMIN | 43

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Step One: Use your (and the editor’s) time wisely. Know who will read your proposal.

When I asked editors who could send them a pitch, the answers varied based on company policy. Be sure to read the submission guidelines on publishers’ websites. For example, Ruwan Jayatilleke, Marvel’s Director of Development, Publishing, is the guy who oversees the process for reviewing written proposals addressed to Marvel’s “Submissions Editor.” Jayatilleke says, “Any sentient being (humans preferred) can send a query letter to Marvel in regards to sending a pitch. Based on that query letter, a request or a decline for a pitch will be sent. Marvel is looking for writers who have a command of the craft and the ability to pen a compelling story.”

Marvel Senior Editor Tom Brevoort points out that he can only read a proposal if the writer has signed the release form available on the Marvel website. Without that release form, he can’t even look at the proposal and it will simply go in the trash. Marvel has that release form to provide the company with the legal protection that is necessary in this day and age. Respect policies like this. They are there for a reason and you won’t gain an editor’s trust by trying to get around them.

So if a company says they don’t accept unsolicited submissions, how do you get them to solicit your submission? The best advice here comes from Andy Schmidt at Marvel: get to know the editor. Meet them at a convention and hang out a little. Strike up an e-mail dialogue. If you want to build a relationship, be respectful and courteous, don’t be a nuisance. Once you develop a rapport, then you can ask one simple question: “Would you mind if I send you a proposal?” Once an editor says yes, voila, your submission has now been solicited. [For much more detail on Andy Schmidt’s opinions, see his article “Breaking into Comics (and Staying In) for Writers,” elsewhere in this issue. —DF] As you approach an editor to chat, do so wisely. If you want to pitch a Spider-Man story, it’s not the most effective use of your time to get to know the X-Men editor, although that editor may help you make contact with the editor you do need to meet. Also, odds are that you’ll never be presenting a pitch directly to the Editor-in-Chief or someone at that level in a large company. Usually an editor will be championing your proposal to them.

However, in smaller companies, you might have a chance to go directly to the person who makes the final decision. Conversely, never overlook the potential of a relationship with an editor’s assistant or intern. Getting to know them may be just as useful as schmoozing an editor. If they like your work, they can champion you to their boss. It can be a feather in their cap if they bring comics’ next hot writer in the door.

Even if you get a chance to pitch someone, there’s a much better chance they will say “no” than “yes.”

Chris Staros at Top Shelf only ends up publishing 1 or 2 of the 1,000 blind submissions he receives each year. “If you want to improve your odds,” says Marvel’s Warren Simons, “it helps to have already

been published.” Diana Schutz at Dark Horse is a big fan of the self-published, even well-photocopied, mini-comic as an easy guide to how well someone can write and handle the mechanics of telling a story.

Don’t stop with one mini-comic. The more you write, the more your craft will improve and the easier it will be to get an editor’s attention.

Step Two: Talk to the hand. Written vs. verbal pitches.

The next time you see an editor at a convention and think about going over and telling them about your fantastic story, think again. Every one of the editors I talked to said that they want a pitch in writing. Top Cow’s Jim McLauchlin says, “Until it’s written, it doesn’t exist,” and points out another important reason to have a pitch in writing. If there’s a written document, he can show it to his co-workers if he wants a second opinion. Most editors don’t work in a vacuum. They aren’t usually the person who pays the printing bills and odds are that they need to get someone else to give a project final approval. A written document improves the odds of your undiluted message reaching beyond an individual editor. Beyond that, It’s proof to all parties of what you submitted and when you submitted it.

Step Three: Living in a material world. Pitch stories that match a company’s needs.

Different publishers want different material. Don’t waste an editor’s time with material that is useless to them. For example, Michelle Harman of Penny Farthing Press says, “Writers should pitch stories for original Cover to Spider-Man properties that exhibit strong Unlimited #14. Art by David writing and characterization Finch. [© 2006 Marvel and a sense of uniqueness.

Characters, Inc.] We develop companyowned properties in-house, but are currently very interested in outside work.”

Therefore, it’s not a good idea to send Harman pitches featuring characters owned by Penny Farthing Press. If she’s impressed with your original ideas or body of work, then she may tap you to work on an in-house project.

Harman is looking for mystery and children’s titles right now, and is not interested in material that features gratuitous violence or sexual subject matter. Even if you’ve come up with an incredibly scary story that could be the most profitable horror spatter-fest of all time, don’t send it to Harman. Send her your mystery story featuring a ten-yearold protagonist instead. You only get so many shots with an editor before they decide that you aren’t going to bring them material they can use. Don’t waste a single one.

44 | WRITE NOW

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If you’re looking to present ideas featuring companyowned characters, that’s exactly what Marvel most wants to see. Axel Alonso says, “If you’re an aspiring writer, then the odds that we’ll assign you Amazing Spider-Man or X-Men are slim to none. Far better for you to think about impressing us with a fresh take on a second- or third-tier character, or a nifty idea for a short story for one of our anthologies—Spider-Man Unlimited or X-Men Unlimited.

Me, I love to take a look at the characters in the dustbins, the ones who nobody’s clamoring for especially. So if you’ve got a brilliant take on Spider-Ham, fire away.”

Step Four: Size does matter. How long should a pitch be?

While preferences of how long an initial proposal should be varied from three sentences to a single paragraph to a single page to “as long as it takes to get your idea across,” the bottom line here is: THE SHORTER THE BETTER. Andy Schmidt says, “If you can’t describe your story in one sentence you probably don’t know what it is and I’m not going to pitch it to a room full of people who will make fun of me.” Andy’s “perfect pitch” is a mere three sentences long: one sentence tells what the story is about, one tells him about the character and his/her/its motivation, and one sentence tells him about the hook that makes this a story he’s got to read. Of course, Andy’s okay with a few more sentences to add a little flavor, but most pitches can be boiled down to three sentences. If he reads the three-sentence pitch and digs it, he’ll ask for more. At least he’ll know what the story is before the writer does a lot of work on a longer pitch. In any case, if you want Andy to stand up in an editorial meeting and stick his neck out for you, you’d better give him a great proposal that is short and to the point.

Step Five: Recipe for success. Essential ingredients for setting up your concept.

• The Hook: Now that you’re thinking about how to fit your entire story into something between a paragraph and a page, you’ve got to figure out what key elements of your story should go into your initial proposal. Many editors want to read the “hook” as early as possible. What is the hook? Ideally it is a single sentence that tells the editor why they should read the rest of the proposal. Marvel’s Mike Marts loves a hook sentence that tells him why this story is cool and different. “Show me you can do something with the X-Men that has never been done before.” When established comics writer Joe Casey pitched AiT/Planet Lar’s Larry Young Full Moon Fever, what hooked Larry was an evocative title and a brief description that told him exactly what to expect. “It’s called Full Moon Fever. It’s about werewolves, on the moon. Where they’re always werewolves, because it’s always a full moon on the moon.” Larry loved the concept and found Casey an artist within an hour. Also, the hook for a story isn’t necessarily a description of the story. Sometimes it can be a strong movie-style tagline.

For example, the marketing tagline that got Silent Devil’s Chris Beranek interested in Dracula vs. King Arthur was, “Evil Meets Medieval.”

Some editors aren’t necessarily looking for a single line that summarizes the entire book. “I don’t need the writer to think too hard about this,” says Paul Morrissey. “If I can’t tell what the project’s hook is when I read the pitch, then it’s probably not a very good story.” But whether an editor is looking for a hook in the opening sentence or not, you should know what makes your story a singularly interesting tale and the editor should know the same thing by the time they’re done reading.

For more tips on creating your hook, check out Lee Nordling’s article on the subject in the “submissions” area of the Platinum Studios website: http://platinumstudios.com/submissions/index.php.

• The “Hollywood logline”: Don’t get the hook of your story confused with a Hollywood style logline. Writers often resort to shorthand popularized in Hollywood in which they compare their idea to two existing properties to give an editor the general “feel” for their story. For example, one could describe Bendis & Oeming’s Powers as Law & Order meets Superman. (Which is not to say that Bendis and Oeming necessarily ever made this analogy.)

Some editors find a good logline useful. “For me the logline is very important,” says Mark Paniccia, “because it gives me a tool with which to sell it to the powers-that-be.

It is the best, fastest way to get a huge idea across.”

But be warned, many editors are turned off by this kind of sales tool. Axel Alonso hates them, joking about how bad they can be, “Star Wars meets Deep Throat.” However, while Alonso is wary of the hackneyed Hollywood logline, he stresses that your pitch doesn’t need to exist in a vacuum. “It can’t hurt to position your pitch in relation to other comics projects, trends in pop culture, or events in the real world,” he says. “Marketing plays a big role in the success of any project, so be aware of that.”

• Genre: Many writers feel the need to describe the genre or milieu in their proposal, telling the editor that it’s a “Medieval Western” or some such. While this may be an important element of your story, Viper’s Jesse Garza perfectly summed up the feelings of most editors when he said, “I should be able to figure out the genre from reading about the story.” Therefore, there’s no need to waste space spelling out the genre in its own line of text. It should be readily apparent to whoever reads the pitch.

• Cliffhangers: This can be a tricky element in a pitch. On the one hand, you might want to leave an editor with a feeling of suspense. Then again, you want to impress the editor with a great story. So, should you include a cliffhanger in your pitch? In a word: No. The last person you want to keep in suspense is the editor. Marvel’s Mark Paniccia sums up most of the editors’ thoughts on this one well, saying “Don’t write the pitch until you know what the ‘mind blowing’ ending is so that it can… blow our minds.”

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created for your story. Perhaps you’ve even created a Tolkeinesque map of your fantasy world. Generally this is far more detail than an editor wants to see. “A brief approach is best,” says Penny Farthing’s Michelle Harman. “The submissions that catch our attention are the ones that efficiently incorporate plot, character, and setting into a concise idea.” In other words, any important information here should be revealed naturally in the course of the story overview, it doesn’t need to be spelled out. If the protagonist is fighting in a trench, it’s pretty clear that this is a WWI story.

Step Six: Plotting your course. How much plot is too much?

Assuming you’ve gotten an editor’s attention and he or she is excited about your overall concept, what’s next? At some point, you’ve got to tell them what happens in your story. Mark Paniccia says, “I want to see how the arc is going to work out through the series. I want to see how important events play out later. I want to see that you know this story inside and out and you’ve thought about what will work and what won’t. And I want it brief.”

So the question is, what is “brief”? Well, some editors want a single paragraph while others will read a few pages. Platinum’s Lee Nordling, who feels that a good pitch can be done in two pages, has an especially helpful rule of thumb. “If a character is described as committing a specific action—walking, talking, pulling a trigger, flying, collapsing onto the urinespattered concrete floor of his dingy cell—it’s probably too much. That level of detail should be saved for later because it throws things off balance” in a pitch.

Step Seven: Character studies. What do I need to reveal about the character(s)?

Cover to Top Shelf ’s Tricked When you’re working with #1, by Alex Robinson. [© 2006 limited space, there’s only so by the copyright holder.] much you can say about your characters. If you’re writing a good story then odds are that you have a pretty good idea of who your characters are and where they come from. But how much of that information actually needs to be spelled out in your pitch? Like many of the editors I interviewed, Axel Alonso finds character write-ups to be generally useless. “To me, characters are defined by their actions in a story, not the adjectives that the writer uses to describe them, or the traits he assures us they have. If you introduce your protagonist in a scene where he’s clubbing a baby seal, then I’m going to figure that he’s not the nicest guy. I won’t need a paragraph telling me that. If the character’s got a complicated history, then tell me about it—not about him.”

For Warren Simons, a writer should clearly explain a character’s motivations in the pitch. “You’d be surprised how many pitches I get where the characters are fighting because they really, really hate each other, and this time, the fight really matters. Avoid that. Clearly explain the character’s motivation. What obstacle is in Spider-Man’s way? What’s the Black Cat after? Revenge? A diamond?

Whatever it is, what’s important is that the motivation is compelling, and that it’s conveyed in the pitch. Don’t just choreograph a fight scene.”

Whether you describe your characters in a separate section or simply incorporate their attributes into your story, “The writer must know the characters’ motivations,” says Andy Schmidt. “Everything in the story comes from that. At their core, a character wants something. If you can’t write what direction the character is going in and what is in their way, then you don’t know the character.

Know what your characters want and follow their lead.”

Step Eight: Artistic License. Should I pitch my story with an artist attached?

Unless Jim Lee is dying to draw your story, pitching a project with an artist already committed to illustrate it can be risky. Some editors are glad to have an artist “attached” while others would prefer to find the artist themselves. For Mike Marts, having an artist attached only complicates matters. “There are so many variables involved in finding an artist that having the wrong artist attached could kill an otherwise viable pitch.”

Then again, there are some publishers out there who welcome an artist attachment. Dark Horse’s Mike Carriglitto’s advice is that “a compelling piece of artwork will grab an editor’s attention quicker than any page of text.” Desperado’s Joe Pruett is a perfect example of this. “I can look at an artist’s work for 10 seconds and know if I like his/her work or not. I have to read a looong script to decide if I like a writer’s work or not.” For Pruett, a good artist can move a pitch from the “I’ll get to it when I have a day to kill” stack to the “projects to consider” stack.

If you’re worried now because you have an artist friend with whom you’ve been developing a story, Axel Alonso has some excellent advice. “If the artist is an unknown talent, then it can be either a plus of a minus, depending on the level of talent. Bottom line: if the editor thinks they enhance the project, they might help tip the scales in your favor. So be flexible. Suggest the artist, but don’t demand the artist.” If your artist is willing to walk away without a grudge should the editor choose the publish the story with a different artist attached, then bringing that artist in as a “suggestion” can give you the best of both worlds. However, always keep in mind the time and energy your artist friend is committing with the knowledge that the project could go on without them. If you take your artist for granted, everyone could end up unhappy. (By the same token, your artist-friend could end up getting work, while your proposal is rejected.)

Step Nine: The big finish. Once the proposal is done, should I send it right in?

If you want some very practical, well-rounded advice as you put the finishing touches on your proposal, consider

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the words of Marvel’s Mark Paniccia who is both a writer and editor: “It’s absolutely key to live by the ‘less is more’ mantra. I didn’t understand that early in my career, and I look back on proposals of mine that languished on editors’ desks because the concept got lost in the minutia.

It’s not a bad idea to give the pitch to someone not familiar with comics and ask them to highlight or redline the things that don’t make sense to them. Chances are, if they get lost, an editor might too. Not every editor knows everything that’s happened in a character’s history, or knows exactly what’s in your mind when it comes to the overall plot and how certain incidents fit. An impartial party can help you pinpoint these things and really whittle it down to what’s important and spotlight what’s missing.”

Step Ten: Timing is everything. Does it matter when I send in my pitch?

Chris Staros shared some interesting statistics that may help you decide when to send your pitch to publishers.

Top Shelf receives around 1,000 pitches per year. The vast majority of those arrive between June and August, most likely because many aspiring creators set a goal of having their pitches done in time for convention season.

Staros likes to take a few minutes every morning to read proposals and respond to creators. However, he doesn’t have time to do that when he’s traveling. Of course, the summer is his heaviest traveling season because he’s going to all the conventions.

Staros’ advice is to send your proposals between October and April, when he’s more likely to have time to get to them. This advice might not apply to every editor out there, but it is something to keep in mind. After all, Top Shelf is not the largest publisher in the business; so if Staros is getting 1,000 proposals a year, imagine how many Ruwan Jayatilleke sees at Marvel! And when you’re finally ready to send out that pitch, IDW Publishing’s Chris Ryall has a key piece of advice: if you’ve got e-mail, use it!

“The days of having time to open, read through, and then type and print and mail a reply, even with an S.A.S.E., are pretty well gone for the smaller publishers.”

The bottom line on pitches is: there is no bottom line.

Every editor is unique and has a different measurement for what makes a good pitch. However, if you look closely at their differing viewpoints, there are a few common elements. Most importantly, it’s clear that editors want a pitch to be short and to the point, communicating a strong sense of what will happen in the story, how those events will affect the main characters and why those main characters are dealing with these events in the first place. So keep it short. The shorter the better. Don’t go on and on about something. Just make your point and then stop. Don’t use more than one sentence if it’s not necessary, otherwise you’re just belaboring the point. In fact, don’t use more than one word if it’s not necessary. Like I said: Brevity.

THE END

Breaking and Entering, Part 2:

by Paul Benjamin Want to know what specific editors want? I’ve compiled a summary of the editors’ answers to my interview questions so you can tailor your next proposal to their preferences.

—PB First, a few definitions: Material: What to submit—company-owned characters or original characters you’ve created?

Format: Does the editor want a written or verbal pitch? If written, e-mail or snail mail?

Hook: A single sentence that grabs the editor’s attention and shows why this story is unique and exciting.

“Hollywood pitch-style” Logline: A shorthand popularized in Hollywood in which you compare your idea to two existing properties to give an editor the general “feel” for the story. For example, one could describe Bendis & Oeming’s Powers as “Law & Order” meets “Superman.” [This is not to say that’s how Bendis and Oeming pitched it.]

Genre: Type of story. Some examples are: Western, romance, action, superhero. There can be genre hybrids. For example, Star Trek incorporates elements of the Western genre and the science-fiction genre.

Cliffhanger: An unresolved ending that should make the editor desperate to find out what happens next.

Setting/Milieu: The surroundings/environment in which the story takes place. Each setting or milieu has rules unique to that world.

Artist Attachment: Having an artist who is committed to illustrating the story you are proposing.

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LARRY YOUNG [Writer/Publisher] AiT/Planet Lar 1. WHO CAN SEND PITCHES: Young discourages pitches. AiT/Planet Lar only publishes 14-16 books a year. If you send a pitch, the odds of acceptance are very low.

2. FORMAT: Newer writers should send written pitches. Established writers can give written or verbal pitches.

3. LENGTH: Whatever serves your story. Young has published books from one-sentence pitches (from established writers) to completed graphic novels sent via mail.

4. MATERIAL: Original graphic novels.

5. SETTING UP YOUR CONCEPT: Hook: Yes. Young likes to know the marketing tagline and wants some idea where the story is going. An evocative title is also a plus.

“Hollywood pitch style” Logline: No preference.

Genre: No preference.

Cliffhanger: No Setting/milieu: No need to describe; it should be evident from the context.

6. PLOT: Writers new to Young should include three paragraphs, each detailing a separate “act” of the story. The three-act structure is most common in film and includes Act I (the conflict), Act II (escalating complications), and Act III (the resolution).

7. CHARACTERS: There is no need for a separate section of character descriptions.

8. ARTIST ATTACHMENT: The approval process goes faster when a team is involved.

DIANA SCHUTZ [Senior Editor] and MIKE CARRIGLITTO [Associate Editor] Dark Horse Comics Please visit www.darkhorse.com to learn about the Dark Horse New Recruits program.

JOE PRUETT [Publisher] Desperado Publishing 1. WHO CAN SEND PITCHES: Anyone can send a proposal, but remember that Desperado is a small company with limited resources. The NEGATIVE BURN short story anthology is a great venue for new talent.

2. FORMAT: Written 3. LENGTH: 1 to 2 pages.

4. MATERIAL: Original graphic novels (or licensed properties with the rights already secured).

5. SETTING UP YOUR CONCEPT: Hook: Yes “Hollywood pitch style” Logline: Yes Genre: No preference.

Cliffhanger: No Setting/milieu: If it’s a world you’ve created, then a brief overview is useful.

6. PLOT: A brief overview is enough.

7. CHARACTERS: A simple paragraph on each main character is best.

8. ARTIST ATTACHMENT: An artist always helps, especially if it is an established artist.

CHRIS RYALL [Publisher/Editor-in-Chief] IDW Publishing 1. WHO CAN SEND PITCHES: Please don’t submit stories at this time. IDW’s slate is full until at least late 2006. Publish as many stories as possible (including mini-comics, self-publishing, and web comics) between now and then to improve your chances.

2. FORMAT: Written, preferably sent via e-mail.

3. LENGTH: No more than 1 page.

4. MATERIAL: Original graphic novels (usually published as 22-page comics then collected). For pitches based on IDW’s licensed properties, please start with an e-mail inquiry as those books are planned far in advance.

5. SETTING UP YOUR CONCEPT: Hook: Yes “Hollywood pitch style” Logline: Yes, but make it simple and relevant.

Genre: This should be evident from the story.

Cliffhanger: No Setting/milieu: If the environment is germane to the story, tell him about it briefly.

6. PLOT: A brief paragraph should describe the story.

Also, tell how many issues this story will fill.

7. CHARACTERS: A few brief paragraphs regarding the most essential elements of the main characters can be useful.

8. ARTIST ATTACHMENT: It can help, but it can also hurt. An artist is not essential. If submitting with an artist, be sure to include pin-ups of characters and pages of sequential art. The pages can feature elements from the story you’re proposing or from other properties, but should ideally show off your ability to tell the kinds of stories IDW Publishing produces.

AXEL ALONSO [Executive Editor] Marvel Entertainment 1. WHO CAN SEND PITCHES: Anyone who signs the Marvel online submission agreement can send in a pitch. Be sure to check the website for updates.

2. FORMAT: Written 3. LENGTH: 1 to 2 pages.

4. MATERIAL: Use existing company-owned characters.

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Pitches can be for a story of any length, but it’s most practical to pitch stories that can be told in an arc (3 to 5 issues, for example) or a one-shot. All of this is predicated, of course, on the availability of a character, etc. Alonso especially enjoys stories featuring “dustbin” characters (characters who have been cast aside, such as Peter Porker/Spider-Ham).

Aspiring writers should focus on mini-series ideas or short stories for anthologies such as Spider-Man Unlimited or X-Men Unlimited.

5. SETTING UP YOUR CONCEPT: Hook: Yes “Hollywood pitch style” Logline: No Genre: This should be evident from the story.

Cliffhanger: He’ll accept it, but you’d better pull it off!

Setting/milieu: This should be evident from the story.

6. PLOT: A brief overview is enough.

7. CHARACTERS: No need for a section on character descriptions. The characters should be defined by their actions.

8. ARTIST ATTACHMENT: Be flexible. Feel free to suggest an artist, but don’t demand one.

TOM BREVOORT [Executive Editor] Marvel Entertainment 1. WHO CAN SEND PITCHES: Anyone who signs the Marvel online submission agreement can send in a pitch. Strong writing credentials improve your chances.

2. FORMAT: Written 3. LENGTH: Whatever it takes to get the point across.

The longer the pitch, the more compelling it needs to be. Your story can be anything from an 11-page backup to a 12-issue mini-series, but for your pitch, brevity is always your friend.

4. MATERIAL: Use existing company-owned characters, but give your story a spin that makes it different.

Brevoort doesn’t need another Avengers book.

5. SETTING UP YOUR CONCEPT: Hook: Yes, get it into the pitch as soon as possible.

“Hollywood pitch style” Logline: No preference.

Genre: This should be evident from the story.

Cliffhanger: No Setting/milieu: Only spell this out if he needs specific information to understand the hook.

6. PLOT: A brief overview is enough. Brevity is best for newer writers.

7. CHARACTERS: Less is more. Just give him enough to understand a character’s hook in the context of the story. Who is he, what does he do and why?

8. ARTIST ATTACHMENT: This is not a necessity. A brilliant artist is useful, but a new artist or even an established journeyman artist could be a detriment as well as a benefit. If you do include art, include only as much as is necessary to convey your idea.

RUWAN JAYATILLEKE [Director of Development, Publishing] Marvel Entertainment 1. WHO CAN SEND PITCHES: Anyone can send a query letter to Marvel in regards to sending a pitch. Based on that query letter, a request or a decline for a pitch will be sent. Any pitch must include a signed Marvel submission agreement.

2. FORMAT: Send written pitches via snail mail. The worst way to go is calling or e-mailing editors blindly at Marvel.

3. LENGTH: 1 to 2 pages.

4. MATERIAL: Use existing company-owned characters.

Original concepts will be considered, but Marvel primarily publishes stories featuring company-owned characters. No preference as to the length of the story for which you pitch. Just make sure the pitch itself is concise.

5. SETTING UP YOUR CONCEPT: Hook: No need, just tell the story.

“Hollywood pitch style” Logline: No Genre: This should be evident from the story.

Cliffhanger: No Setting/milieu: If something about the rules for the world is relevant to the story, tell him about it.

6. PLOT: A brief overview is sufficient.

7. CHARACTERS: A brief set up of the characters is useful.

8. ARTIST ATTACHMENT: No. The story should be able to stand on its own before any visual talent gets involved.

MIKE MARTS [Senior Editor] Marvel Entertainment 1. WHO CAN SEND PITCHES: Marts prefers established writers. He can’t remember buying a story from anyone who had not already established themselves as a writer in some media.

2. FORMAT: Written 3. LENGTH: The shorter, the better. No more than 4 pages.

He won’t read more and neither will his bosses.

4. MATERIAL: Use company-owned, X-MEN related characters. Show him you can do something different and exciting with the X-Men. 5. SETTING UP YOUR CONCEPT: Hook: Yes “Hollywood pitch style” Logline: Yes Genre: Keep it simple. For example: “a Western in outer space.”

Cliffhanger: If you’re pitching a story over several issues, you can tell him the cliffhangers but he needs to know how they are resolved.

Setting/milieu: A sentence or two works. No need for details.

6. PLOT: A brief overview is enough.

7. CHARACTERS: What’s their arc? Tell him their highs and lows in the story.

8. ARTIST ATTACHMENT: There are so many variables that an artist could be a detriment. However, it is good to suggest possible artists to give a sense of the tone you have in mind.

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MARK PANICCIA [Senior Editor] Marvel Entertainment 1. WHO CAN SEND PITCHES: Paniccia takes pitches from established writers and sends invitations for pitches to newer writers if he likes their sensibilities for a project. Paniccia often does “bake-offs” in which he chooses four or five writers and gives them a set of targeted guidelines for a character. He and the editorial team then pick the writer whose proposal hits the most targets. A signed Marvel submission agreement is always required.

2. FORMAT: Written 3. LENGTH: One paragraph. If he’s interested in the concept, he’ll ask for more.

4. MATERIAL: Paniccia usually selects the material and approaches writers. When people approach him, the material he chooses varies based on his needs at the time. His general preference is for a 4- to 5-issue miniseries or a story told in a single 22-page issue.

5. SETTING UP YOUR CONCEPT: Hook: Yes “Hollywood pitch style” Logline: Absolutely. It is a useful tool in selling the concept to his bosses.

Genre: Not necessary to specify.

Cliffhanger: No Setting/milieu: Not necessary to specify.

6. PLOT: Briefly communicate the overall arc of the story.

7. CHARACTERS: In the initial pitch, just give him the basics (gender, age, abilities).

8. ARTIST ATTACHMENT: Paniccia generally wants to be free to attach whichever artist he feels is best for a project.

ANDY SCHMIDT [Associate Editor] Marvel Entertainment 1. WHO CAN SEND PITCHES: Schmidt is interested in finding unique voices. He has taken pitches from people he’s met on the street (literally), but he’d prefer to get to know people and their work before taking their pitches. Of course, don’t forget that Marvel Submission Agreement.

2. FORMAT: Written 3. LENGTH: 3 sentences: 1 on the story, 1 on the character’s motivation and 1 on the hook. He’ll accept a few more sentences for flavor, but make those main ones strong.

4. MATERIAL: Use existing company-owned characters.

Stories for existing series are easier to navigate through the approval process. For the novice writer, short stories are your best bet.

5. SETTING UP YOUR CONCEPT: Hook: For Schmidt, the “hook” should tell him what the story is about (which may not necessarily be a sentence that shows why this story is unique and exciting).

“Hollywood pitch style” Logline: Don’t force one, he rarely finds them useful.

Genre: One sentence is acceptable.

Cliffhanger: No Setting/milieu: Don’t spell it out unless it’s necessary to understand the story.

6. PLOT: A brief overview is enough.

7. CHARACTERS: Schmidt MUST know the characters’ motivations. Everything in the story comes from what the characters want.

8. ARTIST ATTACHMENT: Schmidt has never had a case where an artist attachment didn’t cause a problem. The right artist for a story usually isn’t the one attached.

WARREN SIMONS [Associate Editor] Marvel Entertainment 1. WHO CAN SEND PITCHES: Anyone who signs the Marvel submission agreement can send in a pitch, but it helps to be published. Even a mini-comic is useful.

2. FORMAT: Written 3. LENGTH: One paragraph per story. For X-Men Unlimited, send 4 or 5 separate story ideas, each one in a single paragraph. If Simons likes the concept, he’ll ask for more.

4. MATERIAL: Company-owned characters or new characters in the Marvel Universe are acceptable as long as the story is something Simons has never seen before.

5. SETTING UP YOUR CONCEPT: Hook: No preference.

“Hollywood pitch style” Logline: No preference.

Genre: This should be evident from the story.

Cliffhanger: No Setting/milieu: This should be evident from the story.

6. PLOT: An overview in your single paragraph is enough.

7. CHARACTERS: Telling him the characters’ motivations is essential.

8. ARTIST ATTACHMENT: Nail the story first, then let him find an artist. Simons rarely hires a team that comes in together.

MICHELLE HARMAN [Senior Editor] Penny Farthing Press 1. WHO CAN SEND PITCHES: Penny Farthing Press recently began accepting proposals from anyone familiar with their line of books.

2. FORMAT: Written 3. LENGTH: The ideal pitch to PFP consists of a 1 sentence hook, a 1 page summary and up to 5 pages of the writer’s written sequential pages for the story. No more than that, please.

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4. MATERIAL: Original properties that exhibit strong writing and characterization and a sense of uniqueness. No gratuitous violence or sexual material. At this time PFP is interested in mystery and children’s titles.

5. SETTING UP YOUR CONCEPT: Hook: Yes “Hollywood pitch style” Logline: Acceptable as long as the work maintains it own identity.

Genre: Yes Cliffhanger: No Setting/milieu: Make this clear in your brief plot overview.

6. PLOT: A brief overview of the entire story arc is useful.

7. CHARACTERS: Please give a brief overview of the character development and how it relates to the plot.

8. ARTIST ATTACHMENT: Good stories can stand alone, but it is also exciting to discover a good writer/artist team.

If you send art, please include five pages of sequential art to be read alongside the script.

LEE NORDLING [Executive Editor] Platinum Studios 1. WHO CAN SEND PITCHES: Anyone who has filled out their submission form can pitch Platinum. Visit www.platinumstudios.com for further instructions.

2. FORMAT: Written 3. LENGTH: Keep it short and make it dramatic—no more than 2 pages. For more details, Nordling has written several articles on pitching which you can find on the Platinum website.

4. MATERIAL: Platinum Studios is only interested in original properties with strong high concepts that are adaptable into mainstream (not indy) feature film, TV and animation.

5. SETTING UP YOUR CONCEPT: Hook: Yes “Hollywood pitch style” Logline: Yes Genre: Not necessary to specify.

Cliffhanger: No Setting/milieu: Not necessary to specify.

6. PLOT: Give an overall sense of the story’s three-act structure. The three-act structure is most common in film and, boiled down to its basics, includes: Act I (the conflict), Act II (escalating complications), and Act III (the resolution). Show how the goals and motivations of the protagonist and antagonist come into conflict all the way to the end.

7. CHARACTERS: A few adjectives go a long way.

“Incompetent clod” gives a concise sense of a character and his history. If he “suddenly starts doing everything right and misses the days when everyone had low expectations,” we know his arc.

8. ARTIST ATTACHMENT: Since Platinum is most interested in the quality of a concept, creators are generally better off without an artist attached.

CHRIS BERANEK [Editor-in-Chief] Silent Devil Productions 1. WHO CAN SEND PITCHES: Established (in any media) writers only. Also, Silent Devil does not review unsolicited submissions, so even established writers should inquire about pitching before sending in a submission.

2. FORMAT: Written pitches are preferable. Succinct verbal pitches are okay if you can win him over in just 3 sentences.

3. LENGTH: No more than 5 pages.

4. MATERIAL: Original mini-series or one-shot graphic novel concepts across the board: Sci-fi, Western, gangster, horror, Viking, etc.

5. SETTING UP YOUR CONCEPT: Hook: Yes “Hollywood pitch style” Logline: No preference Genre: Yes. A good tagline is key.

Cliffhanger: No Setting/milieu: This should be evident from the story.

6. PLOT: Please give a brief but effective overview of the story.

7. CHARACTERS: Describe the personality traits of 3 to 5 main characters in a single paragraph per character.

8. ARTIST ATTACHMENT: An artist attachment can be very helpful, especially in conjunction with unproven writers.

Provide 1 to 2 pages of sequential art based on the story.

PAUL MORRISSEY [Editor] TokyoPop 1. WHO CAN SEND PITCHES: Anyone can send in a pitch. For details, check out www.tokyopop.com/aboutus/submissions.php.

2. FORMAT: A verbal pitch is a fine way to start, but Morrissey will need it in writing to make it official.

3. LENGTH: As long as it takes. TokyoPop’s Original English Language manga books are 160 pages long and are usually standalone stories that build on each other over a series of 3 books. Please provide a detailed beat sheet [essentially a list of the major events in the story] describing how the story will unfold over the course of the first 160-page volume. Summarize volumes 2 and 3 in 2 paragraphs per volume.

4. MATERIAL: TokyoPop only wants original ideas. Don’t send pitches based on existing TokyoPop properties.

5. SETTING UP YOUR CONCEPT: Hook: No. If Morrissey can’t tell what the hook is when he reads the pitch, it’s probably not a great story.

“Hollywood pitch style” Logline: Yes Genre: This should be evident from the story.

Cliffhanger: No Setting/milieu: Yes. Fleshing out the world and its rules early on can avoid problems later.

6. PLOT: Please see #3 above.

7. CHARACTERS: The characters and their motivations/arcs drive the story so provide as much on them as possible, including backstory that might never be fully seen in the actual series.

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8. ARTIST ATTACHMENT: A writer can approach TokyoPop alone or with an artist. If you attach an artist, please provide 4 to 5 character sketches and 4 to 5 pages of sequential art based on your story.

JIM MCLAUCHLIN [Editor-in-Chief] Top Cow 1. WHO CAN SEND PITCHES: Anyone can send in a pitch. Check out the Top Cow website (www.topcow.com) for their submission form.

2. FORMAT: Written 3. LENGTH: 2 to 3 pages.

4. MATERIAL: Original concepts or existing companyowned characters.

5. SETTING UP YOUR CONCEPT: Hook: No. McLaughlin can figure this out to fit his purposes as he pitches the story to his colleagues.

“Hollywood pitch style” Logline: No Genre/milieu: This should be evident from the story.

Cliffhanger: No Setting: Only spell this out if it is integral.

6. PLOT: Please provide a plot overview for a 6-issue [22 pages per issue] story arc.

7. CHARACTERS: Provide a brief overview of the characters’ motivations, arcs, abilities/powers and physical appearance (if important). Knowing their motivations is vital.

8. ARTIST ATTACHMENT: Great art is useful, bad art is a negative. The safe bet is no art, but if you have an artist attached, please provide a couple of his or her character designs.

CHRIS STAROS [Publisher] Top Shelf Productions 1. WHO CAN SEND PITCHES: Anyone can send in a pitch, but writers who are not illustrators should partner with an artist. There’s no paperwork to fill out.

2. FORMAT: Written 3. LENGTH: A 1-page synopsis is ideal. However, they cannot accept scripts or plot synopses unless they are accompanied by a minimum of 10-20 fully inked and lettered comic book pages.

4. MATERIAL: Original graphic novels only; generally stories with a lot of heart and subtext done in a somewhat cartoony style.

5. SETTING UP YOUR CONCEPT: Hook: Yes “Hollywood pitch style” Logline: No preference.

Genre: Top Shelf is generally slice-of-life, so no big Sci-Fi/Action/Superhero stories, please.

Cliffhanger: Sometimes these can make him curious to read more.

Setting/milieu: This should be evident from the story.

6. PLOT: Please provide a plot overview for a single graphic novel.

7. CHARACTERS: They should be fleshed out through the story. Characters must be captivating and believable and grow over the course of the story.

8. ARTIST ATTACHMENT: In addition to the written pitch, please provide 10 to 20 completely inked and lettered pages from the story so Staros can see it in full form. If he already knows the artist’s work, Staros does not need to see sample pages.

JESSE GARZA [President] Viper Comics 1. WHO CAN SEND PITCHES: Viper Comics does not accept unsolicited submissions. However, most of their creators are not yet established in the industry, so be articulate and show determination in your attempts to get Viper to solicit your submission.

2. FORMAT: Written, preferably via email.

3. LENGTH: Summarize the whole series in 1 paragraph, then provide a short paragraph on each issue.

4. MATERIAL: Original stories, ideally told over 4 to 6 issues of 22 pages of story each. Originality is key. Any genre is acceptable, but it must stand out from stories that have been told before.

5. SETTING UP YOUR CONCEPT: Hook: No preference.

Just be creative.

“Hollywood pitch style” Logline: No preference. Just be creative.

Genre: No preference. Just be creative.

Cliffhanger: No preference. Just be creative.

Setting/milieu: This should be evident from the story.

6. PLOT: Please see #3 above.

7. CHARACTERS: If the story overview is strong, then anything important about the characters will be revealed there.

8. ARTIST ATTACHMENT: A good and reliable artist can be a plus, especially if you have worked together before and have an established rhythm. Please don’t attach an artist who may not be reliable.

Paul Benjamin has worked in the comics and comicsto-film industry for 10 years. He worked for Malibu Comics, then Platinum Studios where he developed Jeremiah, the J. Michael Straczynski series for Showtime. As Managing Editor for the DC Comics/Humanoids line, Paul paired talent from the American comics industry with writers and artists from around the world, editing books such as I Am Legion with John Cassaday, Olympus with Geoff Johns, Kris Grimminger, and Butch Guice and Redhand with Kurt Busiek. Paul is now a full-time writer whose credits include The Wolverine Encyclopedia and Metal Hurlant.

A few of his forthcoming projects are Pantheon High for TokyoPop and the best titled book in comics, Monkey in a Wagon Vs. Lemur on a Big Wheel.

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Breaking and Entering, Part 3:

BREAKING INTO COMICS (AND STAYING IN) FOR WRITERSAndy Schmidt by

E

verybody wants inside info. Well, here it is—direct from a guy whose job involves evaluating writers and commissioning paying work for a major comics publisher. Things being what they are, some of this information may have a limited shelf life. But 90% of it is stuff you have to know no matter when or how or from whom you’re looking to get writing work.

So without further ado—here’s Marvel Comics editor Andy Schmidt to tell you how things are. Take it away, Mr. S. —DF

Y

ou’re reading this because you want to break into the comics industry. I’m going to try to help you gain the tools you’ll need to have a fighting chance. But, there are a few things you should know:

1. This article can only serve as a guide. There are no hard and fast rules on this subject. What works for one person will not necessarily work for another.

2. I can’t make your writing any better. I’m working on the assumption that you are talented. I can give you advice and a few tools and hints to getting better, but no matter what, you will have to do the work.

3. Following my every step won’t guarantee you success, I’ll give you notes on form and networking, but it’s up to the working professional to actually pull this off with a great story.

Okay, so who am I and why should you care about what I say?

My name is Andy Schmidt. I’m an associate editor at Marvel Comics. Some of my series are (from my first project to my most current) Spider-Girl, Captain Marvel, Madrox, Secret War, Alias, The Pulse, Defenders, Drax, The Destroyer, Ms. Marvel and X-Factor series. Assisting on about 15 other titles at the same time has given me a wealth of experience with creators that I’m hoping to pass on to you. I think I’m good at what I do, but I always want to learn more and hone my skills. I’ve taught courses on aesthetics and visual storytelling, so I’m comfortable when it comes to art as well.

We’ll focus a lot of our attention on communication, because communicating with your editor, your artist, your colorist, etc., is possibly the single most important thing you can learn from this article. I hope you’ll take everything I say here with a grain of salt. Not everything I say is law and it won’t work exactly the way I lay it out for everyone, but these are the most efficient ways to get into the biz. So, ultimately, good luck, and I hope this helps.

The road ahead of you: The comic book business landscape is a harsh one. There are many talented writers out there who want to do the same thing as you—and twice as badly. Only a few attributes will separate prospective writers from one another—talent, persistence, and luck. You can effect change on the first two, and thereby affect the odds of the third. It takes at least two of these attributes to break into comics, so no one can say you were just lucky.

That being said, yeah, you’ve got to hone your three fundamental attributes in order to get your shot at the title.

We’ll talk about these attributes first, then we’ll roll into how to network and pitch, and lastly, we’ll deal with how to stay around once you’re in the biz.

I. The Tools You Need Talent You’ve got to have skills and prove it. Here’s the thing: you may have a great story idea, but that doesn’t mean you’re a great storyteller. You have talent, maybe a little, maybe a lot, but ANDY SCHMIDT | 53

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you’ve got some—all of us do. You want to present yourself in a manner that shows off your strengths and down plays your weaknesses. But before you get to that, you need to know what your strengths and weaknesses are and how to build them up. It’s not okay as a writer to accept that you’re poor with dialogue or that your action sequences are rocky. Once you’ve spotted a shortcoming, you have to work on it until you’re confident you write the sharpest dialogue and most intense action sequences the world has ever seen.

So how do you do that? First, like all good writers, you research. If you haven’t read Story by Robert McKee, go buy it right now. Put down this article and go get it. No, seriously. Go. You’re back? You got the book? Great. Now read it.

All done with it? Awesome, then let’s move on.

In McKee’s book, you’ll find out how a story works, what parts make up a story and hopefully, what skills you possess. Personally, I’ve found that in person, I’m good for a funny story, but on the written page, my dry sarcasm loses something (namely, all cleverness—check out my text page in the back of the recent Defenders #1 if you don’t believe me; it doesn’t work because you can’t “read” the tone of my voice). You’ll figure out where your talents are (there are books, such as The Screenwriter’s Bible or any screenwriting book by Syd Field, that can help you do this as well), and from there, you’ll need to work on your weaknesses.

For my own writing, I have trouble giving my characters different voices.

I struggle with it.

Fortunately, I’m not writing stories for a living nor do I desire to do so. I might go insane if I did.

So look honestly at what you do well and what you need to work on. Then build your skills. On top of that, always remember, when you get frustrated with yourself, that you do have skills and can learn new ones. So don’t listen to someone who says you “just don’t have what it takes.” That may be true for the moment, but you can learn the skills and how to apply them successfully to writing comics.

Persistence Keep trying; keep refining your skills. Don’t pester editors, but be persistent. Part of persistence is advancing your skills.

The moment you say, “I’m finally good enough, I don’t need to improve anymore,” is the day you’ve stopped being good enough. As a writer, you must always strive to become better.

A writer never learns enough. You may know everything there is about turning points, rising action, character interplay, and so on, but you would still need all the accumulated knowledge of human history to know “enough.” Writing doesn’t end with mastering the craft—that’s where it begins.

Be persistent in your pursuit of knowledge and skill. Be persistent in your pursuit of a job.

When applying for writing work at comic companies, remember a few key things. Before you write your cover letter, ask yourself who your audience is and research that audience (told you research was going to come in handy).

If it’s Marvel or DC editors you’re writing to, don’t ask for work outright. I recommend asking for an informational interview with the editor to get to know what he or she does. I address this further below. If you have already published something, send it along. At the very least, published material shows editors that you can carry the ball down the field. If the Books Andy mentions in this editor likes what you’ve article. Story: Substance, published, then you’ve Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting by got a shot. Until you Robert McKee [© 1997 Robert know an editor has read your work, your McKee]. Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting; attempts at getting freelance gigs are futile.

A step-by-step guide from When you get a concept to finished script by response from an Syd Field [© 2006 Syd Field]. editor at Marvel or DC, The Screenwriters Bible: A don’t let it end there. If Complete Guide to Writing, you don’t get a Formatting, and Selling Your response from either Script by David Trottier company, check to see [© 2006 David Trottier]. if your materials were received. Try to continue the dialogue. Wait a day or two (if by e-mail) to reply.

That’s not to make you look less desperate, but rather to give the editor time to get some work done before dealing with you again. If you start demanding too much time too fast, you’ll irritate an editor, and that’s not good.

While networking, which we’ll talk about a little later, be persistent enough to follow up with people. And ask the people you meet to introduce you to others who could give you advice.

Don’t leave an encounter with a comics professional empty-

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handed. You may not get work, but ask for that person’s e-mail address, or the e-mail address of someone else who may have ideas more like yours. I’m usually happy to give contact info to people I think are talented. There are good writers who simply tell kinds of stories that I’m not suited to edit. I’ve told writers this before and they think I’m criticizing them, but that’s not the case. Like the writer, the editor must also be honest with himself. I’m probably not the right guy to go to for kids content, for example. I could do it, but I wouldn’t be the best choice. I don’t work in the fantasy genre (yeah, I know, super-heroes are fantasy, but you know what I mean), but other editors I work with would be great at both of those things.

As a writer, you will most likely take criticism personally. I do. I’m always trying to improve, but it gets under my skin when someone calls me out personally in a public forum. For one thing, it’s not about you, but your work.

Try to divorce yourself emotionally from your work once it’s done. That will make taking criticism easier and you’ll probably learn more from it. Believe it or not, how you take criticism from an editor is just as important as writing in the first place. We’ll talk later about professionalism when we get to how to stay in the comics business.

Luck It would seem that, by definition, luck is something that’s out of your hands. But truth to tell, you do have control.

Boiled down, luck is about being in the right place at the right time. Which, again, sounds as if it’s out of your control, and to a certain degree it is. But you can improve your luck in a number of ways.

To increase your chances of being in the right place, go to places where comics professionals gather and start meeting them. Networking is your friend. The more professionals you befriend, the more minds you’ll be in when discussions occur about who should write what, or who has a good take on such-and-such a character. Just the other week I was out to dinner with two other editors and one freelance writer. We were discussing which writers would be good on different characters. Will that lead directly to those writers working on the respective titles? I don’t know. But if the editors were looking for writers, wouldn’t it have been cool if that freelance writer (a writer who had plenty of his own work, and so could afford to be generous) had named you as his choice to write New Avengers after Brian Bendis? Networking allows you to be in more than one place at one time. The more minds you’re in (and have made a good impression on), the better your chances for getting recommended to a writing gig.

Networking doesn’t end with getting to know other freelancers. It’s about meeting editors, colorists, pencilers, anyone whom you may want to work with or who may

Promotional pencils and cover to issue #1 of the recent Schmidt-edited Defenders: Indefensible limited series. Art by Matt Haley and Karl Kesel (promo) and Kevin Maguire (cover). [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

want to work with you or who can introduce you to people you want to know. Additionally, the more writing credits you get (writing a video game for example), the better off you’ll be. That’s about building your resume.

Networking is also about professionals learning from each other. One of the best things about the comics community is how open most people are. Are there jerks in the industry?

You bet, and you’ll meet them, but let them roll off you. For every jerk you meet, there are ten other great people who will be happy to talk with you under the right circumstances. I was walking around the convention floor in Chicago on Sunday morning of the 2005 WizardWorld Chicago with Brian Bendis, and I was astounded at how friendly he was to people after four days of dealing with fans, the convention guys, and editors like me. He’s a completely genuine human being, grateful for the success he’s had and for the loyal fans he’s developed, and is also one of the most highly regarded writers currently working in the business. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting everyone run out and e-mail Brian Bendis right now—he honestly doesn’t have the time to talk with everyone. But he’s a great guy, and so are hundreds of other writers and artists who are willing to talk with you about the process of creating. Their triumphs, tragedies and everything in between are your best road map to success.

The good news Any two of the three attributes (talent, persistence, and luck) should get you your shot eventually. The “if” clause implied here is: “If you’ve been persistent enough, and/or if you’ve got ANDY SCHMIDT | 55

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talent enough and/or if you’ve got enough luck, you will get your shot at a writing gig.” But as I said, I’m talking about ways to increase your “enough factor” in all three categories.

II. Networking and Getting Noticed Assuming you’ve got the portfolio or the springboards and are armed with enthusiasm and a healthy attitude about life in general, where do you go to get a chance to be noticed? There are typically eight places or methods to get your work looked at. Some are more likely to turn up work than others, but here we go…

The convention circuit It used to be that conventions took place only during the summer, but now they occur throughout the year. Wizard Magazine holds six alone. The largest is the Comic-Con International San Diego, aka The San Diego ComicCon. Attending publishers often hold portfolio review sessions for artists. This won’t do you as a writer much good, but most publisher booths are staffed with editors. It’s worth your time to familiarize yourself with all Covers to Andy’s Defenders: Indefensible the editors’ #s 5 and 6. Above art by Kevin Maguire. names you can [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.] and what books (industry slang for “titles”) and projects they’re working on. This way, you can introduce yourself to them, and hopefully comment on their work in a thoughtful, nonhostile manner. If you’re interested in their books, editors are probably (unless busy or just plain tired) interested in talking with you.

If you get a conversation started with an editor, don’t just start pitching your ideas. Let the conversation go naturally; you’re not wasting the editor’s time. As you size up the editor, he or she will be sizing you up as well. How you discuss the editor’s work informs the editor of how you relate to your own. The criticisms and comments you offer inform the editor of how much you know about storytelling and story structure.

The discussion is valuable—jump into your pitch too soon, and you’re written off because the editor doesn’t have a real gauge of who you are and what you can do. Let the editor know by the end of the (hopefully good) conversation that you’d like to communicate further and bounce some ideas off of him or

her. As a writer at a convention, this is probably as far as you want to go unless you’ve already got a relationship with an editor, in which case, hey, you’re ahead of the pack. Don’t give them samples of your work to take home. Those’ll likely end up in the trash at their hotel, where an ambitious bellhop will steal your ideas and become rich. Wait to be asked to send in any of your published or produced work.

Cold submissions to publishers Sending your ideas for stories and/or previous work you’ve done is less likely to yield results with the larger publishers like Marvel and DC, but with smaller press publishers looking to expand their talent pool, it may work.

If you’re going to submit ideas to Marvel or DC, be prepared to sign some legal jargon papers first. It usually says something to the effect that, “so-and-so company may be developing similar ideas independently of you, and you recognize that, so if we publish a comic similar or even identical to your idea, you can’t sue us.” It’s pretty standard—don’t be afraid to sign it.

Most of us are good people, and no one wants to be accused of stealing your idea. That’s not good for anyone.

[Editor’s note: At DC, you have to be asked to submit samples. DC President and Publisher Paul Levitz speaks in his interview elsewhere in this issue about how to get “solicited,” and Paul Benjamin has done a nifty editors’ survey about what editors at many companies want to see, also in this issue. —DF] Online resources Several websites can connect you with an artist or other writers.

This includes working professionals. Go to publishers’ websites. Go to individual writers and artists’ websites. Make the rounds. Many publishers post rules for how to submit to them right on their website. I’d give you some links—but if you’re really committed, you’ll find them on your own.

Working writers and artists As I’ve said, most writers and artists are pretty cool people.

Don’t be afraid to talk with them on line or at a convention. If you happen to be at a convention, don’t pass up Artists Alley.

Take a good long walk through it and meet other people who are breaking in. You may hit upon the perfect artist for the book you want to write. If nothing else, you’ll probably meet

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people with similar interests (I can almost guarantee that) and you can start networking with them. Again, make sure you ask for contact information when you meet people with common interests. After meeting a good contact, make a note of what you talked about or what the contact’s work was like so you can clearly remember later.

Schools You can always take courses on writing. Screenwriting courses are offered by most major universities, and there are workshops that travel across the country. Robert McKee, himself, gives three-day writing seminars (which are what he based his book on) in major cities around the world, Some colleges offer comics writing courses (like Danny Fingeroth’s and Dennis O’Neil’s at NYU), as do places like the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York, where yours truly teaches from time to time. I can’t stress enough how much continuing your education can help you.

Websites of your own You can develop your own website. Typically, this is more useful for an artist than a writer, but having a place to selfpromote sure doesn’t hurt.

Check out Brian Bendis’s or Marc Sumerak’s websites to see what I mean.

Self-publishing If you can afford it, I recommend self-publishing.

There are two reasons for this: the first is that you’ll have something published—which puts you above those who don’t. The second reason is that you will learn so much about how the industry works and how difficult it is to put Rob DeLaTorre’s cover to together a finished project, that Giant-Size Ms. Marvel #1. you’ll become more tolerant of The comic was edited by Andy people who make mistakes and Schmidt. [© 2006 Marvel you’ll hone your craft that much Characters, Inc.] further. Nothing teaches you the lessons you need more than jumping in and doing it.

Trade magazines/journals/papers If you’re reading this, you already know about trade magazines and journals. They can connect you with other creators and provide insight into the industry as a whole.

Primary research is always more valuable. Primary research is research you’ve collected, meaning you didn’t read the interview—you conducted it. You didn’t hear from a friend about a conversation with Dan DiDio—you talked with Dan yourself. Primary research is great. If you can, try to interview

working professionals. You’ll gain valuable information and make another contact. It was conducting interviews that most directly led me to my current position at Marvel.

III. Pitching When pitching a project to an editor at Marvel, there are two ways to do it: verbally and in writing. Here's a quick guide on how to do it each way. Let's take a look at how best to format a pitch.

Know one thing going in: An editor has the right to terminate a project at any time. That said, I know of no working editor today who enjoys asking a writer to do a lot of work just to pull the plug later on. Every step you move to a new level with an editor.

It's an indication, though not a promise, that the editor has confidence in you and your project. You will only be paid for approved projects unless there are extenuating circumstances and, at Marvel’s request, you have gone “above and beyond” the normal work involved in pitching. This may be different at other publishers.

I’m not sure.

It’s worth clarifying that “the pitch” refers to your entire submission. Pitches often have many components—a summary paragraph, character lists or biographies, issue breakdowns or just a prose brief (a summary of ideas in paragraph form) of the story. It may also contain ideas for marketing the project, requests for potential artists to work on it, or really any number of ideas and questions. So you’ll have to understand that pitches are fluid things and that there is no one format to a pitch. I’ve seen all kinds of pitches and no one format is correct. The ideal pitches at least have these components: a title, a clear protagonist and antagonist, and a story summary.

On a side note: Marvel isn’t actively looking for new writers to create new characters for Marvel’s catalogue. Of course new characters will crop up in stories, but the new character is never the reason Marvel hires a new writer.

Marvel is looking for talented writers who can tell great stories about Marvel’s popular characters. Once you become a star, then we’ll talk about your new character ideas.

Questions Your Editor Will Ask Before you commit to paper, flesh out the story and characters in your mind. Try to think like an editor in deciding how to format your pitch. What information will the editor need to know? I judge a work on its merits only—no freebies due to past credits.

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Here are a few questions I ask before I even start reading a pitch: • Do I know the writer? If so, what has he/she done previously?

• Do the major characters interest me?

• Is there any buzz or fan interest I can tie to this pitch?

If I'm satisfied with the answers to those questions, I read the story section of the pitch. For me, ideally, there is a short summary, but that’s just my preference. As I begin reading, I ask: • Does it have a compelling title?

• Does it have a hook that I can understand and communicate to fans?

• Can I swap out a major player for another character? If so, the story probably isn't about the characters, but about the plot only. That's not good.

If all that stacks up well, I ask around the office to determine: • Are these characters being used in another story?? If so, is that a problem?

• Is any other office altering the status quo of any important characters? If so, how? If not, can we change anything about them if it’s warranted?

• Is anyone currently working on something similar? If so, is it too similar for me to continue with the idea?

Cover art to Spider-Girl #75, edited by Andy. Art by Ron Frenz and Al Williamson. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Only at this point will I read the body of a pitch. I'll read the story in the pitch or the outline if that’s broken down into chapters or comic book issues. What I ask that a pitch tell me is: • What makes this story worth telling?

• What does the writer “say” about the characters? That is, what insight into them do you have?

• How do the characters change?

• Do I buy into the decisions that the characters make?

• Does the story have a clear and concrete ending?

• Is it a story that should and can be told visually?

• Does it feel formulaic? If so, is that a problem? Is it a cliché story?

Assuming I'm still with you after answering all these questions, I'll still have to put your pitch through one last round of questions.

• On a gut level, do I like the story?

• On a gut level, do I have confidence in the writer? If not, is it worth a conversation with him or her to gauge my confidence level better?

• Can I see the story in my mind's eye? Can I find a proper artist for the project?

If you've gotten this far with me, then your pitch has already accomplished more than 95% of those I read. Yes, I'd say that not more than one in 20 makes it this far. Now, I’ve never read a pitch that answered all of my questions perfectly. But if enough of these questions are answered positively for me, I go back to the writer and work with him/her to see whether we can shape the pitch up and strengthen it. If you have gotten this far, but the project derails, you've still done extremely well. Be proud of that.

Unless you had a personality conflict with the editor, you've made it far enough that I imagine he or she would be willing to accept another proposal from you. That means you've made real progress.

Formatting Your Pitch Now that you know what goes through my head when reading a pitch, you're ready to begin formatting yours.

I'm not suggesting you adhere to what I’m about to say as if it were binding law. Every writer has different strengths. Make sure your pitch shows yours off. If you're great with dialogue, put snippets of conversation in the pitch. If you don't want to do chapter outlines, don't. But I still need to see the high and low points as your story develops. If you're better at talking about themes or concepts or character interplay, but not a great plotter, don't give me a plot synopsis. Give me a character study instead of the synopsis.

I can't tell you how best to formulate your pitch. I can only try to guide you to the best way to present your ideas. On a side note, if you're pitching several different projects, not all your pitches need follow the same format. Yes, you want to play to your strengths, but different stories have different needs. For example, a straightforward story synopsis might be great for a Superman action-story pitch but not so great for a Batman mystery pitch.

So let's say you've got all your ideas in order, figured out your characters, and know the perfect structure of your story.

Now we're ready to talk about the actual pitching process.

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Verbal Pitching There are two keys to verbal pitching. The first is finding the right time and place to do it. The second is the pitch itself. It's easy to know the appropriate time to pitch. The simplest way to find out is to ask. Just say something like, "Hey, are you open to hearing a story idea right now?"

Most editors will tell you whether it's a good time. In general, if you're at a social function or the editor is off duty, it's not the right time.

So when is a good time? If you're at a convention and the editor is on booth duty, you've got a good shot. If you've made an appointment, you're golden. Conventions are the best places to meet editors to set up an appointment.

Pitch the characters you like. If, as an editor, I'm interested in pursuing a particular character, I go to guys with whom I already have a good working relationship. You'll get nowhere asking me if I'm interested in hearing a pitch on a particular character. The only pitch I want to hear from you is one that you love. If you're passionate about it, it'll come through in your pitch. If you’re not into the character, I'll know it, and you're done.

If the editor isn't interested in your pitch and says so, think of another pitch. Don't take stabs in the dark on the spot.

It’s better to wait, take a few days or weeks and come up with a fresh idea at your leisure. Ask for advice on how to improve your pitch or for names of other comics professionals with whom you might talk about your pitch. And don't ever forget that you always want to put your most passionate and best work forward.

When pitching, be brief and excited. Don't go overboard with the excitement or bring props. But do show that you're involved in what you're pitching. Be able to tell the story in three minutes or less. Make sure that, besides giving the editor the story, you also give the editor enough of the flavor of your story that he or she understands how you intend to execute it. In other words, what other things might your story resemble in style, structure, or tone? Boiled down to its simplest form, no one knows for sure which story will be great and which one won't. 95% of a great story is in the execution. Unfortunately, I can't know how well you can execute a story from your verbal pitch—but you're not looking for an approved project in your verbal pitch, just for enough interest to lead to a follow-up conversation.

The reason editors rarely give new writers work is because we don't know how well they can execute their stories. This unease on an editor’s part can lead to a couple of possible next courses of events. You may be asked for a first script on speculation (spec, for short). Or you may be asked for a detailed outline of the first several issues (usually six or twelve issues). Again, if that's good, you may be asked for a published writing sample. If you've got one, hand it over or mail it in. If it’s well received by the editor, he or she will take you and the project on to the next steps.

When talking with an editor, always be polite, respectful, and relaxed enough to put the editor at ease. Take any questions or suggestions seriously and try to address any concern your editor has. If the editor's concern makes sense, you may have a story problem, but don't let that stop you from trying to deal with it. Think before you speak—don't just fill the silence with your voice. Take your time, and articulate your point or story revision clearly and succinctly.

Written Pitching When pitching, I suggest coming up with stories featuring either: (a) a major character for whom you propose a oneshot or limited series, or (b) a lower profile, out-of-use character on whom you've got a new take and who you feel you can make really cool. (It's important to note that I'm just talking about what works best with me. Other editors may tell you something different, and they're not wrong to do so.)

Why pitch a major character? While I'm not going to hand you the writing reins on Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, I might try to set you up with a limited series related to SpiderMan. Why would I give you a chance with Spider-Man? That's simple—Spider-Man sells regardless of who the creator is.

What sells a project is a combination of creator, concept, and character. It's a simple thing. If you're not a popular creator, that only leaves a great concept (which you'd better have) and a popular character to sell your series. You and SpiderMan and a great concept will probably work. If you come in with a great concept for a limited series based on Spider-Man, it's easier to get it off the ground than, say, a great idea for a limited series about the Shroud.

The second kind of story to pitch is the kind I just said won't work (yeah, I know). Pitch a project on the Shroud, Sidewinder, or Blue Devil, and your pitch usually won't see print. But a pitch on one of those characters that raises my eyebrow will cause me to write back to you and start a dialogue. A dialogue with an editor is your first goal.

Pitch me something I like, and I'll start talking with you.

For example, I've got a pitch on my desk right now that started from a Spider-Man Unlimited story that I didn't commission. But I liked something in it. I started talking with the writer and we discovered a mutual interest. Now I've got a pitch on my desk that we both like, about a character other than Spider-Man. For another example, I also have a pitch on my desk that came in as a Scorcher series. That pitch, after several discussions with the writer, has evolved into a much larger story. Once your editor has confidence in the pitch, he brings it to his boss and you've got a whole new gauntlet to run, but that's something your editor will escort you through.

Cover to The Pulse #s 1 and 9. Andy did the edits. Art on #1 is

by Gabrielle Dell’otto, and on #9 by Mike Mayhew. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.] ANDY SCHMIDT | 59

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Covers to Secret War #s 4 and 5, edited by Andy.

Art is by Gabrielle Dell’otto. [© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

However you decide to pitch, be passionate about what you're pitching, courteous, relaxed, and open to suggestions and changes. Any correspondence back from an editor—even a rejection—could be the passage to a different, and better, writing gig.

I got my first gig. So what’s next?

For the sake of argument, you’ve got your first gig offered to you from Marvel or DC Comics. What do you do then?

I know this sounds obvious, but the first thing you do is to commit to actually writing your story. I recently offered a shot at writing a Marvel story to a writer whose work I like. I know he wants a chance, but for whatever reason, he never got back to me with an idea. He did respond to the e-mail so I know he got the offer. After his initial response, I waited about three weeks before moving on to the next guy. Did he burn a bridge with me? Honestly, no.

But I’m not every editor. With someone else, that may have been sufficient to do so. If he wants, I’ll try to give him another shot—but many editors wouldn’t.

Once you’ve accepted the gig, you’ve got three categories upon which you’ll be judged. As an editor with several books to edit in a month, I’m looking for talented people who can sell my books with great stories. I’m looking for people who deliver when I need it and are fun to work with. In short, I’m looking for people who make my life easier. I work with people like Brian Bendis, Peter David, and Keith Giffen because they’re all talented (in very different kinds of writing), because they’re easy to work with, and because I like them. If I have my own way, I’ll be working with these three writers for a long time to come. You’ve got to be on time, talented, and courteous.

Three Fundamentals for Staying Employed: Be talented Sorry to say this, but you will actually need at least a little talent to stay around. But even if you’re not the most talented writer, there are other factors that are important. If you turn in decent scripts on time and are a cool person, I’m likely to work with you again.

Not every comic is going to be Watchmen.

Remember, I’m on a schedule. I need a comic in a monthly series to be there each and every month.

Again, if you don’t get another shot right after your first one, go back to your weaknesses. Build them up. Make them your strengths and then come back and impress me. Ultimately, you and I want the same thing—to tell some great comic book stories.

As long as we’re on the same page and you’re getting better with each assignment (these can be from different editors), then you’re on the right track.

Be courteous I’ve tried to think of some other way to put this, maybe “fun” or “cool,” but “courteous” seems the best word. If you’re gracious and editors like you, and/or have fun working with you, that’ll go a long way.

Sometimes, I’ll read a comic that a friend of mine edits and I’ll think it stinks. I’ll ask the editor, “why did you hire so-and-so again after that awful issue he wrote?”

The answer often is, “I have a lot going on, and so-andso turns in decent scripts on time. They don’t blow me away, either, but he’s really good to work with and he takes the comments I give him well and takes them to heart.”

There it is folks. Be easy to work with. Which leads me to…

Be professional How is this different from being gracious? You can be a jerk but still be professional. Here are the things that professionals do and don’t do: 1. Professionals don’t complain when they get edited. They may argue, but they’ll do so rationally.

If I tell you I think a scene should be cut because nothing important happens, a professional may argue me on the point, but he or she will do so by telling me what does happen and where he/she is going with it. A professional doesn’t take it as a personal affront when an editor does his job.

You can be gracious, but still not be professional.

How? For example, your editor could ask you to cut a scene, and you just cut it. But what if that scene was building to a great dramatic climax, which is now ruined without the scene? Perhaps it simply needed to be re-worked, not cut altogether. A professional would find a way to make that case.

2. Professionals format their work properly. There is no template for this in comics. Correctly really means logically. The most common method is to describe the panel first, then add dialogue. You can do this in Microsoft Word. You can use Final Draft, but it’s got to look and be consistent. Once you set up your system and your writing works on the page, don’t stray from it.

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3. Professionals spell and grammar check their work. Just do it. But remember that those tools don’t catch every misspelled and misused word.

4. Professionals know they’re not the boss. As your editor, if I disagree with you and it’s my final decision, it’s your job to do as I say because I’m your boss.

5. Professionals do rewrites. I’ve gone as many as eight rounds with a writer on a script before I’ve approved it.

If you seek to be a professional writer, you’re going to have to do rewrites. You’re more than welcome to discuss the rewrite notes. In fact, if something is unclear, that’s encouraged. But you will have to do the re-writes, unless you can graciously and professionally talk me out of them.

6. Professionals hit their deadlines. When you agree to a deadline, make sure you hit it. I don’t need excuses. I need people I can depend on.

7. Professionals stay in constant communication with their editors. They also talk with the penciler and the rest of the creative team. This shows that you care about the final product. One important note on this: Don’t try to overrule your editor if he has told the colorist or penciler one thing and you want another. That discussion is between you and the editor, not you and another member of the creative team.

8. Professionals know they’re part of a team. One of my most angry moments as an editor was when I had three members of a creative team arguing with each other publicly. Being a part of a team is like parenting; you put up a united front.

Once you’ve been offered, and accepted, your first gig as a writer, you should only need two of the attributes mentioned above (talent, a courteous attitude, and professionalism) to stick around. Ideally, you’ll have all three attributes, like the gentlemen I mentioned above. Peter, Keith, and Brian are all

easy to get along with, talented, and very professional. Hence, I continue working with them. Try to get hired back by the same editor over and over again until you’ve built a trusting and mutually beneficial relationship. From there, you can try your luck with other editors. They may even contact you first.

Parting words To summarize what I’ve been trying to get across: Your first step in getting to write for Marvel or DC is to hone your skills and craft. Then you’ll need to meet the right people. You’ve got to be a social animal to some degree.

You can be shy, but you’ll have to come out of your shell some, and understand how conversation works.

Remember, most people like talking about themselves.

Ask editors questions about what they’re working on.

That’ll get them talking and you’ll learn what interests them. Once you’ve got contacts willing to talk with you, you’ll need to structure your pitch properly, as I discussed above. When pitching, always be polite and courteous.

Make sure that you follow up on your correspondence with editors. Take criticism and notes well. It’s okay to disagree with an editor, but make sure you can articulate your point of view clearly. And always, always, always be practicing and learning your craft. If you skillfully do all of this, you’ll become a comic book writer.

For the last four years, Andy Schmidt’s been editing comics for Marvel Entertainment. He’s put together projects such as Secret War, Defenders, Ms. Marvel, Annihilation, and X-Factor. He is an associate editor working under Tom Brevoort on the Marvel Heroes line, which includes New Avengers, the Fantastic Four, House of M, Civil War, and Young Avengers.

Andy currently edits Spider-Man Unlimited, an ongoing comic book series dedicated to finding new writers. Prior to beginning his comics editing career, Andy was a college professor in St. Louis, Missouri where he earned his masters degree in Media Communications and taught classes on Aesthetics, Film, and Comics & Sequential Art. Andy currently teaches a class on breaking into comics in New York at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA, for short).

THE END

Covers to four more Schmidt-edited comics. Spider-Girl #92 (art by Ron Frenz and Sal Buscema), Madrox #1 (art by David Lloyd), Captain Marvel #35 (art by Patrick Zircher and Rich Perotta), and X-Factor #1 (art by Ryan Sook). [c 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc.] ANDY SCHMIDT | 61

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WRITING WEBCOMICS T

he idea of “webcomics” is an irresistible one. People like comics. People like to do stuff on the Web. And so… webcomics! But what exactly is a webcomic (this week), and how do you break into the field, get noticed, and maybe even make a few bucks doing them? T Campbell, who knows about such things, is here to give you the lowdown. Take it away, T. —DF

The World Wide Web is either the greatest publishing opportunity to come along since Gutenberg, the most efficient means of wasting time ever produced, or both. Depends on how you treat it and what you expect.

Writing comics for the Web can be a A panel from the lot of fun and good for your career. webcomic Rip and But it's not for the timid.

Teri, written by T A “webcomic” is generally Campbell with art by considered to be a comic created for Jason Waltrip. online consumption. This definition is [© 2006 T Campbell pervasive but not universal. Some and Jason Waltrip.] webcomics artists take their lead from sentiments in Scott McCloud’s book Reinventing Comics and claim that true webcomics are those difficult or impossible to reproduce in print. These “purist webcomics” might include sound, animation, hypertext or interactivity, or they might simply be twenty feet high. We’ll discuss those more at the end of the piece, but our focus is on printable webcomics.

But “printable” covers a lot of ground. Is a printable webcomic a comic strip, a comic book, or a single gag cartoon? Yes, yes and yes… it can fill the needs of any of those formats.

At first, writing webcomics may seem like a dream come true: all of the benefits of independence with none of the drawbacks. No worries about whether circulation will justify your continued existence—outside of hosting costs, you and only you decide when your comic stops. No DC, Marvel or Image to navigate around—they have Websites, but they don’t really compete in the same space as online comics, at least not yet. No hours wasted at a signing nobody comes to or a convention table everyone passes. No printing bills. No distributors’ cut. (Newspaper comic strip syndication giants like King Features and United Media do have significant web presences, but they are to the kind of webcomics I’m discussing here as Paramount and Columbia are to independent filmmakers who show their work at Sundance.)

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by T CAMPBELL

But do webcomics also mean no money and no audience?

Well, there is some of each. Of the two, the audience is the easier to get. The monthly audience for webcomics consistently beats out the monthly audience for comic books—people cried hallelujah when All-Star Batman and Robin #1 sold 261,000 direct market copies, but Sluggy Freelance, not even the most popular webcomic, gets 300,000 readers every month. Only newspaper comics can compete with that kind of circulation, and you can only guess what percentage of a newspaper’s readership actually reads a given comic strip. And unlike newspaper publication, online publishing is a growth industry, with an audience projected to double between now and 2009.

Now for the reality check. The audience is there, but so is the competition. At the top of the virtual heap are established players who’ve spent years gathering an audience loyal both to their properties and to them, personally. At the bottom—well, any fool can publish online. All you need is a Web address, a host, an FTP program and a scanner.

As for the money, most of the established players are grizzled-cartoonist sole-proprietors, presenting only their own work, who have achieved the highest level of success of which “webcartoonists” dare to dream—they make a living. Unlike in print, the Web’s most successful selfpublishers make more than the highest-profile cartoonists at Web-publishing labels, and even members of those publishing labels always own their work. The two biggest “publishing labels” (i.e., websites) in webcomics, Keenspot and Modern Tales, are moderately impressive as businesses and a nice windfall for their most popular contributors. [Contributors’ pay is determined by their traffic as a percentage of the overall site traffic, multiplied by half Keenspot’s profits (or half Modern Tales’ revenues) from ads, merchandising, donations, “premium” subscriptions and print.] Below those folks are an untold number of hobbyists. Not every cartoonist on the Web treats cartooning as a business, and though these hobbyists might sell sketches to cover hosting costs, they don’t seriously compete for dollars. But they do compete for readers’ attention, without which dollars cannot flow.

With this in mind, there are two reasons to seriously consider writing comics for the Web. (Needless to say, you’ll need to be or to work with an artist, but since this is a magazine about writing, I’m focusing on that aspect.) One is that you’re making an investment. Building an audience and gaining experience online today may help you get into the print comics field tomorrow. The other reason to consider the Web is that you’re making an immediate career move. If

their relationship to grow over the years, people will beg you, plead with you, to have them “get together” by the second month. It doesn’t matter if you point out that that’s what killed the 1980s TV series Moonlighting. They want instant gratification—and they want it right now!

In my early days of doing webcomics, way back in 2001, I had two characters who the readers really wanted to see catfight. I did give them what they asked for, but I did it my way… instead of a wacky, sexy, fanservice-y fight, they got a violent one with upsetting consequences. You have to stick to your guns—but still be ready to be called a sellout, regardless.

I see some of my friends get [character-]assassinated for no reason by… usually a 12-year-old who doesn't know why he's not writing X-Men, and he will now torture you.

—Brian Michael Bendis

Sluggy Freelance webcomic by Pete Abrams for March 2, 2006. [© Pete Abrams, 2006. All rights reserved.] [You can find it at: http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=060302]

you’re fed up with the direct market and ready for a new environment with new rules, or if you want a new environment for that one passion-project for which the print market doesn’t seem to have a place, the Web could be the place for you. Let’s talk a little about these reasons…

Everyone’s A Critic The Web’s ability to give instant feedback is its blessing and its curse. Writing and drawing are lonely occupations.

When your work goes online and people from around the world talk to you about it less than five minutes later, it feels really, really good. But mind how you listen.

The Internet has been a source of comics commentary back since the days of USENET discussion groups with names like “rec.arts.comics.misc.” But be careful about taking chatroom chatter and message board postings as accurate indicators of what the webcomics audience wants. As Peter David once noted: Jim Shooter, correctly I think, observed that fans keep saying they want to see modern opera, but what they really want to see—or at least what they’ll most eagerly support—is the 38th production of Carmen.

This talk-versus-reality disconnect is true of all media audience feedback, so why should the Web be any different?

That doesn’t mean the Web doesn’t provide an eager audience for new ideas. It does! If I had to name the most popular comics genre on the Web, it’d probably be “gamer comics” (which focus on video games or tabletop role-playing games—either the people who play those games, or characters and situations from them). Also commanding a lot of attention are action-adventure, comedy, pop-culture parody and slice-of-life, with plenty of overlap between them. Superhero comics, crime comics… they won’t be booed off the stage, but they don’t own the stage. This isn’t their turf.

However, you will find that if you introduce, say, a romance strip featuring a “will-they-or-won’t-they” couple and plan for

You absolutely cannot win an argument with your readers.

You can’t do it. If they don’t like a character, your scripting style or your mother, you pretty much have to sit there and take it. I cannot emphasize this enough: anything you say in your defense will make them think you’re even more of an a-hole. Focus on the next strip; let other readers do the defending for you. (The only exception to this point is if the criticism comes from an established cartoonist—but if that happens, you’re already in the advanced class.)

If you have a relatively large readership (say 5,000 readers a day), and no one’s defending you, then it’s probably time to take stock. And if you actually tell them you agree with the criticism, you can win a lot of points by conceding the point. Healthy ego abounds on the Web; humility is regarded—rightly—as water in a desert.

Speaking of popularity, you may be wondering how to get ”circulation figures” for your webcomic, and what those figures mean. There are many different programs on the market that present “traffic reports.” Shop around for such a program and ask others to share their experiences with it.

The figures to pay the most attention to are pageviews and visitors: how many times any one of your pages is viewed and how many people came to view them. Obviously every visitor to your site viewed at least one page while he or she was there. The ratio of pageviews to visitors tells you how many pages the average visitor viewed, which tells you if you’re bringing in new and curious readers or a loyal base.

It’s also useful to look at these figures over the course of one day and over the course of one month. Readers aren’t dollars—the flimsy assumptions of the dot-com boom were founded on that assumption—but between 1 and 10 percent of a webcomic’s audience will buy its T-shirts and posters and printed editions and such. Webcomics are also in a better position to negotiate with advertisers than their independently-published print cousins: their audience is younger, tech-savvier and less fixed in its tastes.

“Pay-to-read” models have not been spectacularly successful online (more about that later) and I’d urge most cartoonists, particularly newcomers, to look at building an audience as a long-term investment. It’ll take time. Just because Sluggy has 300,000 readers this month doesn’t mean you will next month. But on the Web, no one can cancel you except you, you are tapping into a growing readership, and you have months or years to figure out how to build your audience one step at a time.

T CAMPBELL | 63

Pages from Rip and Teri, written by T Campbell, with art by Jason Waltrip. [© 2006 T Campbell and Jason Waltrip.] [Find this webcomic at: http://www.graphicsmash.com/series.php?name=rip]

The Moving Target We’ve been over the differences in genres, but that’s only the surface. My first series was Fans, about a set of adventuring college students. We did crossovers with two other strips of that type: College Roomies from H*ll and It’s Walky.

Both of them featured variations on the old “fight-thenteam-up” story structure (which I remembered fondly from the DC Comics of my youth), and one also ventured into the “mix-and-match alternate universes” territory of more recent crossovers like JLA/Avengers and DC vs. Marvel. I thought readers would enjoy my playing with the comicbook tropes as much as I did. This backfired badly—some readers seemed to enjoy almost everything about the crossovers except the comic-book borrowings!

But that was my bad for assuming the audience had the same rigid preconceptions as I did. In general, you don’t have to worry too much about adjusting your vision to the existing webcomics audience. The Web is full of different kinds of people, and many will be happy to read a comic for the first time if it’s written with them in mind. Find them and direct them to your work, and they will stick with you.

But how do you find them? Search engines have two uses: to help you find them and to help them find you. Think of the interest group that would find your comic most interesting, and think of the things they talk about. Use the major engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask Jeeves) to find those things, and along with them you’ll find bloggers and podcasters and general “talk-abouters.” These are your key constituents: ask them to help provide feedback on your work and to tell their friends about it. Meanwhile, make sure that anyone who searches on Google for “rollerblader comics” can find your rollerblader comic. The judicious use of keywords and 64 | WRITE NOW

requested links from rollerblader sites and blogs will help you along here. The art is to do this without being too obvious or looking too desperate (which is a good rule for self-promotion in general).

Speaking of selfpromotion, here’s a quick plug. Since beginning this article, I’ve launched the webcomics-specific search engine OhNoRobot, at http://www.ohnorobot.com.

It is our mission statement to help webcomics and readers find one another, so naturally I think it’s worth your time to go to the site and read what it has to say.

To grow your audience, it’s of utmost importance to network with other cartoonists. Online message boards and bulletin boards are the most relaxed and convivial places where cartoonists seem to gather these days, perhaps because unlike e-mail, any statement becomes a public statement. This puts most, though hardly all, on their best behavior. Many webcartoonists are well-informed about the scene and happy to advise respectful newcomers. If they like your work enough, they may even pull you into a cross-marketing alliance.

Long-form works (such as Nowhere Girl at www.nowheregirl.com) are welcome on the Web, but the best way to build an audience is with a regular schedule of new episodes or “updates.” These “updates” need be no longer than a standard-sized comic-book page or even a comic strip. It’s good to “update” as often as you can, but it’s even more important to update regularly. Yes, some established strips get away with frequent hiatuses, but they shouldn’t be your scheduling role models. You want to addict your readers—give them a little taste of funny, a little slice of life, a little taste of funny, a little taste of drama—make sure you leave them smiling or wowed every time, ready to come back for more. Nothing builds a webcomics audience faster and better than returning readers and word-of-mouth. It’s arguable that the whole Internet is composed entirely of electronic word-of-mouth.

Regardless of whether your story is meant for print or not, you’ll want to write something that works in both the small installment size of an “update” and in large collections.

Comics have a lot of practice at this sort of thing—look at Doonesbury collections or Tintin volumes. Then look at different kinds of comics on the Web to see what they’re up to. I’m hardly an unbiased party at this stage, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t recommend some sites I considered a crash course in the form. Most of these websites belong to independent self-starters, though one is a Keenspot affiliate and another keeps its archive of older strips on Modern Tales. Here they are...

SOME COOL SITES: Pop-Culture-Obsessed Comedies: Penny Arcade. The most popular (with 3.8 million visitors a month) and the most imitated comics website. The strips assume you’re familiar with video-game terms and take an unusual approach to character. Even if it’s “Not Your Thing,” you should know it’s out there. “Tycho” and “Gabe,” the writer and artist of all the strips, exaggerate different aspects of their personalities in different strips. (http://www.penny-arcade.com) PvP. (http://www.pvponline.com) Another webcomic about gaming and pop culture in general, but much more accessible to non-gamers than Penny Arcade. PvP has made successful inroads into print with Image Comics.

Sluggy Freelance. Sluggy has a back-continuity that’s sometimes hard to become involved with. For beginners, I’d recommend Sluggy’s “Gofotron,” a cavalcade of anime and sci-fi parodies (http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=010611&mode=weekly) and “Fire and Rain,” which hints at a larger story but soon zeroes in on a self-destructive assassin and one woman’s desperate flight for her life (http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=020119&mode=weekly).

Taken together, they show how readers will accept wildly varying tones in a single webcomic.

Narbonic. (http://www.narbonic.com) You need to pay for all but the latest episode and a small sampling, but for $2.95 you get more panels than you’ll find in a Cerebus trade paperback, plus many other features. Shaenon Garrity tells the hilarious tale of a mad scientist and her hapless minions, with continuity so subtle you almost don’t know it’s there until you’re hooked.

Weird Funny Stuff: The Web’s a great place to show off unusual sensibilities and senses of humor. These are some good gag sites with little or no continuity: The Perry Bible Fellowship (http://cheston.com/pbf/archive.html), Diesel Sweeties (http://www.dieselsweeties.com), and Sinfest (http://www.sinfest.net).

Long-Form Webcomics: Here are two less episodic webcomics that have made it to the bookstore and clearly work in the longer, collected format, yet work equally well in short, bite-sized bits. The first is American Elf (James Kochalka’s daily journal of his life, at http://www.americanelf.com). It’s subscriptionbased at a reasonable $1.95 per month. The second is Bee, an oddly charming murder mystery series. The first Bee book is no longer available online, but the second is now going up in weekly installments at http://www.beecomix.com.

Taking the Plunge If you’re only writing (and not drawing), you’ll need to find an artist partner. Many of the rules for collaboration in print apply online, but not all. The time between production and publication is usually much shorter, and sometimes your artist partner might post the work online himself or herself, without your last-second approval. So you better be sure you get someone you trust to deliver on time and who treats you with respect. I made it clear from the beginning that Fans was my baby, and lead artist Jason Waltrip and his various substitutes understood that. It meant more work for me, since I usually had to letter the panels, do production, and post the strips to the Web (all tasks which, in webcomics, are often done by the artist), but it was worth it to be able to tweak the dialogue to fit existing art. If a character’s expressions made it clear he was repulsed, I could forgo the scripted line, “Ick.” If an action sequence was not as clear as I hoped, I could subtly alter the dialogue or use narrative captions to explain it.

Gisele Lagace and I co-own my new strip Penny and Aggie, and we trust each other implicitly. I almost never ask for changes, but she always gives me the chance to do so.

The Web is a great place to track down portfolios or previously completed bodies of work of artists you may want to work with, either known or unknown to you. (Never mind whether the work was published. Does it look like the kind of work you want? And does the artist seem able to produce more of it on a regular basis? One seeks out online artists for their talent, not their connections.)

A couple of pages of Fans, by T Campbell and Jason Waltrip. [© 2006 T Campbell and Jason Waltrip] [ http://faans.com/] T CAMPBELL | 65

Remember: though there’s no law that says this should be so, writers who work on online comics are more likely to meet and communicate with their artists online, so a good grasp of Netiquette is always a plus. Remember that no one can see the expression on your face as you type: what you mean in all good humor could be read as angry or insensitive.

Parting Thoughts: By this point you should have a fairly clear picture of the differences between webcomics and comic books, so you may know which form you want to make your home base for your next project.

If your eventual goal is print, then you need to pick a format for your webcomic right now. Note that bookstores are moving toward accepting only graphic novels that fit on manga shelves (or are of a size published by a few companies). Note that comic-book store stock is almost all the size and shape of your standard Marvel or DC comic.

If you want to be in newspapers, shoot for strip size unless you really are the next Gary Larson. Whatever format you choose, get its dimensions exactly right and save two print-resolution copies of everything. Otherwise, before you know it, you’ll be a hundred strips in with unprintable work and no time to reconstruct it.

If your goal is solely online, it’s still a good idea to find a standard size and stick to it. Readers like coming back to a familiar format; it helps you addict them. Addict enough and you can format and sell your own book outside traditional markets. Only Scott McCloud has really drawn a large audience while constantly varying his format, but, well, he’s Scott McCloud.

The only reason to ignore the preceding paragraph is if the Goddess of Art insists. A handful of people who read McCloud’s Reinventing Comics, or who took their cue from those who did, are playing around with McCloud’s concept of “infinite canvas,” i.e., comics with picture planes that stretch beyond your computer screen’s field of vision. Their work is more work for the reader, but art isn’t always supposed to be easy.

It’s not always supposed to be profitable either. Despite McCloud’s best efforts, infinite-canvas comics are at a distinct disadvantage in the marketplace. The grizzled sole proprietor websites tend to seize almost any revenue stream they can get their hands on—advertising, merchandising, donations, “premium” subscriptions and print. Again, it is because of the audience they’ve built up, and the percentage of that audience that become willing customers, that such an “anything-goes” approach works. Pure subscriptions, like Narbonic and American Elf, and micropayments, as advocated by McCloud in Reinventing Comics, are more controversial models, but their supporters argue that they’re more merit-based. Maybe so, but merit doesn’t always pay the bills: as I write this, Modern Tales is moving from almost pure subscriptions to a 90% free service, with Narbonic and a few others sold as “premium strips.” Micropayments seem to have taken hold in the Korean webcomics market, but with English-speakers they’ve been a tough sell.

Suffice it to say if you want financial success, you have to take your webcomic seriously. Writer Rodney Caston talked artist Fred Gallagher into beginning the Megatokyo series as a lark; Gallagher considered it a warm-up for his “real” comics.

Two days after its launch, Megatokyo got links from two of the 66 | WRITE NOW

Several dailies (or whatever you’d call segments of strip with a four-times-a-week schedule) of T and Gisele Lagace’s Penny and Aggie webcomic. [© 2006 G. Lagace and T Campbell.] [http://www.pennyandaggie.com/]

most popular webcomics on the market, and from then on, Gallagher’s destiny was set: he gradually took over the writing from Caston, and Megatokyo is now the best-selling “American manga” on the web. Fans love this kind of Horatio Alger story, but it took place six years ago and couldn’t happen now. Today’s Web is noisier, more difficult to impress.

Success is still possible but rarely will it fall into your lap.

Of course, it all depends on how you define “success.” I got started in webcomics because I had stories to tell and couldn’t afford the heavy losses I was taking selfpublishing in the direct market of the late 1990s. I had that one “passion-project.” I discovered an artistic community far richer than I could have imagined, a new audience and new laws of participation and distribution. It all gave me joy, and after a few years, that joy has been compounded with paying assignments from Antarctic Press and TokyoPop to do original series.

With webcomics, I was suddenly in a world in which many strange new things were possible. The very laws of physics seemed to bend around me, and it was intimidating at first—but I soon learned how those strange new possibilities could work for the writer.

You’ll see what I mean.

T Campbell writes the online series Penny and Aggie (http://www.pennyandaggie.com) and Rip and Teri (http://www.graphicsmash.com/series.php?name=rip). He edits the webcomics showcase Graphic Smash (http://www.graphicsmash.com) and consults for the iPodbased comics company, Clickwheel (http://www.clickwheel.net).

T’s book, The History of Webcomics, will be out in summer 2006. For his past work, see http://www.tcampbell.net.

THE END

Celebrity Poker Showdown

STRIP FIFTEEN

1. Party’s goin’ full blast. Karen walk s up to Aggie with a seemingly since re smile.

Karen: Aggie!

Karen: I’m glad you came!

Aggie: You… are?

2. Karen rubs the back of her neck . She is so good here, we might actua lly believe what she’s saying.

Karen: Yeah! I feel terrible about the cold shoulder I gave you guys .

Karen: I was still really insecure, and I just couldn’t…

3. Karen’s hand gestures to a grou p of guys who really seem more the beer-and-pretzels type than the political-discussionand-protest type.

Karen: Make yourself at home!

Karen: We have pizza… you can pick off the pepperoni… and I’m sure these guys would just love to hear about African politi cs!

4. Karen walks off with a nasty smir k. Aggie looks at that group of guys , and is hurt.

Karen’s right: she IS out of place here, and this time it matters to her.

Karen: You’ll find your place.

Celebrity Poker Showdown STRIP TWENTY-FIVE

1. Karen sets the book down, gently. Penny looks

innocent.

l.

Karen: I can smile without an instruction manua Penny: Some people need one.

is that Penny has the initiative here, so 2. Several crowd reactions. The general feeling the outcome than Karen’s. Rich keeps to the Penny’s supporters are feeling better about if Penny is talking about him. back, nursing a beer and vaguely wondering Penny: They get what they want… cocktail dress, it.

hot guy, full house… and forget to enjoy

’s face is so unusual for her, one might 3. Karen’s seen from behind. The look on Penny lly faked humility, at any rate. carefu Or ty. humili it: ize recogn to take a second Karen: You’d know.

Penny: Oh yeah. I’m real bad. Don’t be like me.

is watching the Penny-Karen 4. View from slightly above. Almost everyone “conversation” now. This round to Penny.

Karen: … ne, right?

Penny: You do know how not to be like someo

On this page and the following two are T Campbell’s scripts and Gisele Lagace’s pencils and inks (and letters, too) for a couple of episodes of their Penny and Aggie webcomic. [© 2005 G. Lagace and T Campbell.]

T CAMPBELL | 67

On this page are Gisele’s pencils for the strips. On the next are her inks and washes. [© 2005 G. Lagace and T Campbell.]

68 | WRITE NOW

The same way print comics are often collected in trade paperback format, many webcomics eventually migrate to print collections, another source of collectibility for fans and revenue for creators.

Gisele’s covers to two P&A collections are shown on this page and the previous one. [© 2005 G. Lagace and T Campbell.]

THE END

T CAMPBELL | 69

Feedback

Letters from our readers

As you may have guessed, most of the mail that came in about DFWN #11—our Professional Secrets issue—was taking me up on the offer I made to reveal my own Professional Secrets.

For example, here’s a letter from reader John Constant: Dear Mr. Fingeroth: I recently discovered your magazine, Write Now!, and totally enjoyed it. In fact, I recently subscribed to it and ordered all the back issues online.

In the current issue, you mention that if we were interested in your Professional Secrets that we could write to you and ask for then. I am very interested in what Professional Secrets you have to offer.

Thank you for a great magazine and any insights you can offer.

So, without further ado, John and everybody else who wrote in, here are my answers to the questions Stan Lee, Neil Gaiman and twenty-five other top comics and animation pros answered last issue:

Danny’s Professional Secrets: The most important creative advice for an aspiring writer: Don’t worry about whether or not what you’re writing is the most original or wonderful thing ever done. Look how many non-original and non-wonderful things get produced and published. Not that you should ever not strive to do your best work, but in many ways, finishing something is the most important thing. And you can’t stop at one. Whether your work is accepted or rejected, you have to keep producing completed works. Especially at the beginning, the work you do will probably be imitating someone else’s style or even plots. That’s fine. That’s how you develop your own voice. (Of course, don’t ever try to pass someone else’s work off as your own. That’s plagiarism.)

Journey through the stages of imitating those writers you admire and you’ll arrive at your own voice without even realizing it. But don’t keep yourself from starting or finishing a piece of writing because you think you’re not being original or clever enough. Get a first draft of whatever it is done. Then you can go back and revise it. But don’t revise it forever. Eventually, you have to consider a thing finished and move on to the next thing.

The most important business advice for an aspiring writer: The popular Smith System “Five Keys of Space Cushion Driving” that you may have learned about in drivers’ ed offers instructions for smart driving that are also metaphors for life and business, including the writing business. They are: (1) aim high in steering, (2) get the big picture, (3) keep your eyes moving, (4) leave yourself an out, and (5) make sure they see you. In business as in driving—and in life—you’re generally better off having a wide view, even while you deal with a specific situation in front of you. For instance, you may be working for someone— an editor or publisher—but what people and forces are they 70 | WRITE NOW

influenced and controlled by? Or you may like writing one particular kind of thing, but if your aim is to be a professional writer, you have to be aware of what the marketplace wants— and it will want different things at different times. Be able to write a variety of fiction and non-fiction. You also need to know such things as who your competitors are, what your short and long term goals are, how to get yourself noticed, and how to be prepared for the unexpected. If you understand Smith’s Five Keys of driving, odds are you’ll understand how to survive as a writer, as well. (You can check out the Smith website for more about the system, but they don’t actually teach writing: http://www.smith-system.com/) Copyright © 2006 Danny Fingeroth. All rights reserved.

Smith System copyright © 2004 Smith System Driver Improvement Institute, Inc. All rights reserved.

Hope my observations are of some use. I’d love to hear what you thought of them.

I also want to mention that, if you were one of the many folks who were blown away by the Write Now! / Draw!

Crossover that Draw! EIC Mike Manley and I collaborated on (in DFWN #8 and Draw! #9), we’ve got big news for you! The crossover, of course, showed you how to create a new character from springboard to finished, printed comic. Then, we put out a DVD version—How to Draw Comics From Script to Print— which is still selling out of stores and which people are still raving about.

But the big news is that we’re putting out an EXPANDED TRADE PAPERBACK collected edition of the crossover! We’re calling it HOW TO CREATE COMICS FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT! It’s got all the material that was in the crossover—plus 30 All-NEW PAGES filled with lots more information about writing and art!

Mike and I really pulled out all the stops on this one and we can’t wait for you to see it! It’s coming in June from—where else?—TwoMorrows! You’ll be able to find it in your local comics shop and many hipper bookstores, as well as at websites like barnesandnoble.com, amazon.com, borders.com, and, of course, at the TwoMorrows online store: www.twomorrows.com.

I can’t wait to hear what you thought of this very issue of DFWN! Was the information in the articles and interviews valuable and entertaining? Did you like the webcomics section? Should we cover more of that writing arena? Let me know 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.

Seeya next issue, when we interview Simon Kinberg, writer of the screenplay for X-Men 3: The Last Stand, hear what Kurt Busiek has to say about breaking into comics, find out how Dennis O’Neil wrote the Batman Begins novel, and much, much more.

—Danny Fingeroth

HOW-TO BOOKS & DVDs

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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!

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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).

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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!

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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!

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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!

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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

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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

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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

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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!

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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!

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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

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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

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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

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ROUGH STUFF #9

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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).

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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

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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

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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!

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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