Write Now! #16

INSIDE: TODD McFARLANE ON WRITING SPIDEY & SPAWN!

$

695

In the the USA USA In

Summer Summer 2007 2007

M AG A ZI N E

RISE OF THE...

SILVER SURFER WRITERS: STAN LEE STARLIN ENGLEHART MARZ DeMATTEIS Characters TM & ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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CONCLUDED FROM BACK ISSUE #23: STAR TREK WRITERS ROUNDTABLE

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SCRIPT & PENCILS FROM BENDIS & CHO’S MIGHTY AVENGERS

M AG A Z I N E Issue #16

Summer 2007

Read Now! Message from the Editor-in-Chief ....................................................................page 2 The Writin’ Side of Me Interview with Todd McFarlane ......................................................................page 3

SILVER SURFER WRITERS ROUNDTABLE Cosmically cool Q & A with some of the greatest Surfer scribes ever: STAN LEE, J.M DeMatteis, Steve Englehart, Ron Marz, and Jim Starlin ............................................................................page 25

STAR TREK COMICS WRITERS ROUNDTABLE Part 2 (Continued from Back Issue #23) Another kind of space-spanning survey, featuring: Mike W. Barr, Peter David, Laurie Sutton, Len Wein, and many more.................................................................................................page 55 Feedback Letters from Write Now!’s Readers .............................................................page 69 FREE PREVIEW of Draw! #14 ......................................................................page 70

Nuts & Bolts Department Plot to Pencils to Script to Finished Pages: SPAWN #52 Pages from “Messiah”

by Todd McFarlane and Greg Capullo ......................................................page 17

Plot to Pencils to Script to Finished Comic: AVENGERS: THE INITIATIVE #1 Pages from “Happy Accidents,”

by Dan Slott and Stefano Caselli ...............................................................page 35

Creating Comics Step By Step (Part 2 of 3) Steven Grant delivers the second part of his information-packed series on making comic books ..............................page 41

Script to Pencils to Finished Comic: THE MIGHTY AVENGERS #3 Pages by Brian Michael Bendis and Frank Cho....................................page 51

Conceived by DANNY FINGEROTH Editor-In-Chief Managing Editor Special Thanks To: THE SILVER ERIC FEIN SURFER WRITERS Cover art by THE STAR TREK MIKE ZECK WRITERS and PHIL ZIMELMAN And… Designers RICH J. FOWLKS and DAVID GREENAWALT Transcriber STEVEN TICE Circulation Director BOB BRODSKY, COOKIESOUP PERIODICAL DISTRIBUTION, LLC Publisher JOHN MORROW

ALISON BLAIRE TOM BREVOORT CARMEN Q. BRYANT CHARLES COSTAS KIA CROSS LAUREN CROSS MICHAEL EURY RICH J. FOWLKS STEVEN GRANT DAVID GREENAWALT BOB GREENBERGER CHRIS IRVING JIM McCANN TODD McFARLANE CHRIS POWELL JIM REID VARDA STEINHARDT STEVEN TICE JIM WARDEN MIKE ZECK PHIL ZIMELMAN

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 Canada, $16 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $26 US ($44 Canada, $60 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 ©2007 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.

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READ Now !

Message from Danny Fingeroth, Editor-in-Chief W

elcome and welcome back! The features we’ve got for you this issue are so far out they’re practically cosmic!

“Cosmic” is the only way to describe this issue’s incredible Mike Zeck/Phil Zimelman Silver Surfer cover that you were staring at a minute ago. Extra-special thanks to Mike and Phil for the great art, and to Jim Reid who owns the original art and was kind enough to scan it for our use!

As for what’s inside the issue…first, we managed to get the man of many talents and businesses, Todd McFarlane to sit down for an interview about his approach to writing and how it relates to everything else he does. Todd also gave us a rarity from his files for a Nuts & Bolts section: his handwritten plot and script, and pencil art by Greg Capullo, from Spawn #52!

Then we go to the stars in honor of this summer’s mega-hit Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, with our very own Silver Surfer Writers Roundtable featuring the surfing one’s co-creator, Stan Lee, as well as J.M. DeMatteis, Steve Englehart, Ron Marz, and Jim Starlin!

But that’s just the beginning! We’ve got not one, but two Avengers Nuts & Bolts sections. First, script and art for Mighty Avengers #3 by Brian Michael Bendis and Frank Cho, and then plot, script and art for Avengers: The Initiative #1 by Dan Slott and Stefano Caselli!

Want more? We’ve also got the second part of Steven Grant’s three-part “Creating Comics Step by Step” series. If you’re serious about doing comics, this article is a must-read.

Then, breaking the barrier between magazines—we bring you the second part of the Star Trek Comics Writers Roundtable, continued from our sister (or should that be brother?) TwoMorrows publication, the Michael Eury-edited Back Issue magazine #23. This Q&A features Trek writers Mike W. Barr, Peter David, Michael Jan Friedman, Laurie Sutton, Len Wein, and a whole bunch more!

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And if you’ve always been curious about yet another hip-and-happening TwoMorrows mag—namely, Draw! (edited by my old Darkhawk partner, Mike Manley)—then you’ll be thrilled by the FREE PREVIEW of Draw! #14 that’s in this issue of Write Now! And, you wonder, what’s going on next issue? Well, what would you say to an issue centering on the smash hit NBC series Heroes—with behind the scenes interviews with the writers and producers of the series, sample scripts, a look at the online Heroes comic, and inside info about the upcoming Heroes: Origins spinoff series! It can all be found behind a dramatic photo cover featuring the show’s Hayden Panettiere and Milo Ventimiglia!

The issue also has Peter David talking about writing Stephen King’s Dark Tower comics, an interview with writer and editor C.B. Cebulski, an interview with kids’ super-hero book writer Michael Teitelbaum, and the Douglas Rushkoff interview that was supposed to be in this issue—including art from his and Liam Sharp’s Testament.

And two issues from now—Write Now! #18—will be our special all-Stan Lee issue, celebrating The Man’s 85th birthday and his amazing career writing comics, TV, movies and just about everything else! We’ve got tributes and commentary from high-profile Stan-fans including John Romita Sr., Brian Bendis, Todd McFarlane, Dennis O’Neil and lots of others. More details about this amazing issue next time.

So stick around—and tell your friends! More than ever, Write Now! is the place to find out all you need to know about writing and writers!

Write away!

Danny Fingeroth

THE WRITIN’ SIDE OF ME:

THE TODD McFARLANE INTERVIEW Interview conducted by Danny Fingeroth via telephone 5-30-07 Transcribed by Steven Tice Copy-edited by Eric Fein, Danny Fingeroth and Todd McFarlane

T

odd McFarlane’s comic book career spans more than twenty years and dozens of popular characters. As artist, his work has graced the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man (where he cocreated Venom), The Incredible Hulk, and Detective Comics. His professional writing career kicked off with the launch of one of the bestselling series of all time, Spider-Man. After years as one of the industry’s top creators, Todd joined several other popular comic book artists to form Image Comics. There, he launched his own creator-owned series, Spawn, which soon caught the attention of Hollywood and was the inspiration for a live action movie and an animated series. In addition to his comic book work, Todd also heads up his own toy and collectible company, McFarlane Toys. A busy man of many interests (including part-ownership of the Edmonton Oilers NHL hockey team), Todd was able to give us some time to speak about the subject of Write Now: writing for comics and related media.

—DF DANNY FINGEROTH: Did you write as a kid at all, or in school, Todd? Was that anything you were interested in then?

TODD McFARLANE: I was pretty good at sort of short story stuff, but I think that was just a byproduct of my wild imagination as a whole.

DF: What kind of short stories? What would they be about?

TM: The teacher would assign us to do a factual composition about, say World War II, I couldn’t do something like that. But if they said, “Go home and come up with a made-up story and bring it in,” and you could add fantasy stuff and big, dramatic melodrama to it—the equivalent of the Jack-in-the-Beanstalk stories— then I could put in a flying elephant, and purple dinosaurs a thousand feet tall, and I could do it easily.

DF: This was in elementary school?

TM: Oh, yeah. You know, the “creative writing” classes.

DF: What about in high school or college? Did you do any writing then?

TM: Not nearly as much. The writing there was more serious so a lot of it was more historical reports and dissertations in some of the classes. And you had less of a chance, or at least in the classes that I was taking, to just have fun with writing like I did when I was in high school or younger.

DF: I’ve read that you didn’t really read comics until high school. How’d you avoid them?

TM: Umm…I played a lot of sports. You know, when we went on road trips, Mom and Dad would stop at the 7-Eleven and buy a couple of Slurpees and a couple of comics and throw them in the back to me and my two brothers, so it’s not that I was devoid of comics. I’d read a handful, so I was aware of what comic books were. I never bothered collecting them, though. But at the age of about nine I started collecting baseball cards and football cards, so I was collecting, it just was in a different place. Later, all of a sudden I went, “Hey, you know what? Let me check out these comic books that I keep sort of walking by.”

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DF: You must have been drawing as a kid.

TM: Oh, yeah. I was the proverbial “best-artist-in-theclass” kid from Day One. It really goes back to the first Major League Baseball game I went to in the Anaheim area in California which I got to attend because, as a kid in kindergarten, I won an art contest. I drew a pitcher throwing a ball, and it got hung up in the stadium. My dad said, “I’ll take you to the ball game and you can see your artwork and you can watch the game.” So we went.

Maybe around then I would have started collecting comic books or done something different, but Dad took me to a ball game that day, and I got to see art, and at the same time became mesmerized by sports. And that was after watching sports on a black-and-white TV my whole life, then walking into a stadium. That was a big moment for a kid back then. In person, you see the bright green grass, and the reds were fire truck red, and it was like walking into the Land of Oz. You went from the black-and-white into the color. You just went, “Wow.” DF: With your love of sports combined with your artistic talent, you could have gone on to paint sports portraits or do sports magazine illustration. What was it about comics that made you at some point realize that the storytelling in them appealed to you?

TM: This is weird, Danny. I remember the day of consciously going into a store to buy my first handful of comic books. I mean, I close my eyes and recreate it. I remember the books that I bought. They were on a spinner-rack. What I don’t remember is, “why now?” I mean, why, at the age of sixteen? I’d been walking by comic books all my life. The closest I can give you is that I had been that incessant doodler for so long, but I didn’t have any focus for my art, and maybe I was just getting older, going, “Somewhere along the line I’m going to have to figure out what to do with this.” And so what happened very quickly was that when I bought those comics and fell in love with them and became a fanatic of comics, that I went, “Aha! Now I know what to do with this doodling. Train myself to draw American super-hero comics.” Because I had, like, fifty styles back then, and all of them were raw, at best. And so I thought, “Focus on this one task called ‘super-hero comics,’ see if you can teach yourself this, because it’s kind of cool.” And from there on, from the time I started collecting, I stopped drawing just willy-nilly doodle stuff and Mad magazine type stuff, and I just went, “Everything’s now going to be super-heroic stuff.”

DF: Was there any friend or relative who said, “Hey, you should check these comic book things out,” or did it just sort of dawn on you?

TM: Like I said, I’d walked by that store 500 times. And I just thought—because comic books were only 30, 35 cents back then, and I had a couple of bucks in my pocket—”I’m going to go buy five comic books.” Why 4 | WRITE NOW

then? I don’t know. And those five soon turned into 35,000.

DF: Now, you said somewhere that you got over 700 rejection letters? I remember seeing them at that exhibit at the MoCCA [Manhattan’s Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art] last year.

TM: I sent off about 700 samples, and about half of them came back rejects, so about 350 out of the 700 were officially rejected. The other ones just filed it in the garbage and didn’t even bother to send a rejection letter.

DF: What kept you going through that?

TM: A lot of the same things that keep me going now: stubbornness and immaturity—the two things I’d rather not teach the youth of America. You know, I give seminars and discuss, how do you succeed? I hate to say it, but it’s about characteristics I’d rather not even give my own boy, let alone you good people reading this. But you’ve just got to get myopic and stubborn.

Those aren’t really the best traits to have. But that was it. I was blinded by my own talent to think that I was better than I was.

A treat from Todd’s archives—one of his earliest drawings of Spawn, done when Todd was in high school. [© 2007 Todd McFarlane Productions, Inc.]

DF: Well, that’s often what it takes to get through the rough spots. When you sent in the art, was it drawing stories you had written, too, or you would take other people’s stories and interpret them your own way?

TM: At first it was just pin-up shots. But then, the people who were responding, said, “Hey, you’ve got to give us page-by-page story stuff.” So there were two ways of doing that. You could either, go and look at a comic book and then do your own re-imagining of an existing comic. I did that from time to time, and, as I’ve told kids, it’s a good way to do it, but make sure you don’t take the Byrne-Claremont X-Men at the peak, or whatever’s a top ten book and try to do better than that. Go get a book that’s floundering, and re-imagine that book, because you’ve got a much better chance of inspiring somebody to hire you with that than trying to draw like Neal Adams or write like Chris Claremont. But I also did, at that time, create my own characters. So in high school I created this character amongst many, called Spawn, and I actually did like a 25, 30-page comic book of that, and that was part of some of my samples when I was sixteen. And then they just went dormant until I pulled them out in the early ‘90s.

Spider-Man #1, but actually you had writing experience.

TM: I was writing, but not nearly at the prolific pace that I was drawing. I was probably doing five pages of artwork for every one page I was writing, where a true writer writes all the time. But at that point, my first drive was to do artwork.

DF: I imagine you weren’t doing much writing once you actually broke into Marvel and DC as an artist.

TM: When I first broke in, it was strictly as a penciler.

DF: Sort of like Erik Larsen with the Savage Dragon.

TM: That’s it, yeah. Along those lines.

DF: So you would do some of your own stories and some adaptations of other people’s stories, it sounds like.

TM: When I was re-imagining someone else’s stuff, like if I were looking at a badly drawn Captain America story, then I would use that story, but draw it my own way. If it was my character, the true writing came then. I wasn’t trying to rewrite Captain America. They’ve got a writer for that book. I was never, at that point, trying to take over a writer’s spot. I was trying to take over an artist’s spot. But when I did my own comic, then there was no writer, so I had to be the letterer, writer, penciler, inker, all that stuff.

DF: And would the character always be Spawn, or did you have other characters, as well?

TM: I had some other ones. I had a group called “Blood, Sweat and Tears,” and then I had this other one called “the Bruise Crew.”

DF: So people may think, “Oh, Todd just suddenly started writing one day, with

Spawn #1 helped launch Image comics as a major comic book publisher. Cover art by Todd McFarlane. [© 2007 Todd McFarlane Productions, Inc.] TODD McFARLANE | 5

DF: In your early pro-penciling career did you work collaboratively with any of your writers, or did you just take a script or a plot and draw it? Did you ever do any co-plotting?

TM: I never really did that. You know, on some level it was more out of respect for them, for the writers. I was working with guys, early on, like Roy Thomas, and then later with David Michelinie, and a little bit with Larry Hama. And Peter David came on, although I don’t think he’d been in the business that long then. But I just went, “These guys have been here before I was.” So my input with them early on was more of me asking, “Could you do a story with this character in it? Because it would be cool to draw that guy,” instead of my telling them, “Here’s how the story should unfold.” They had their own visions themselves.

DF: Would you talk to them directly, or go through the editor?

TM: I was usually on the phone to the writer. Because if

I had questions about stuff, then they would explain it, and I’d go, “Oh, I see.” Or, “Can I condense this fight scene down because it seems like the plot is a little dense. Is there any way I can do this?” Or, “It seems a little sparse. What if we added this and this and this?

How does this sound?” But it wasn’t, “Let’s sit down and plan out the next six months, and let’s get Todd on the line.”

DF: Did you work mostly from plots, or did you ever work full-script?

TM: Early on it was all plot. And, again, even in my advanced stage, I’m pro-plot from an artist’s point of view. Just give me the framework, and let me pace it.

Let me direct it, if you will. You be the screenwriter, let me direct it, and then after I direct it, I’ll give it back to you, and then you are brilliant enough that you should be able to get your ideas across with words that fit my pictures. I’ve worked full-script, but the writer’s style of pacing and storytelling, is usually different than mine.

So even when I was drawing stuff over, let’s say, Alan Moore, who’s brilliant, I still would have paced it differently. And this is the thing that’s interesting. All of them have been gracious enough to say, “Do whatever you want.” But the problem is that you’re still aware that you’re physically changing something that is meant to be a certain way, and it almost felt to me like it was insulting to change their pacing. It’s much like when I was inking over Jack Kirby and I had to erase the pencils. It’s like blasphemy. So I always preferred, “Just give me a plot.” Usually, a plot for me at that point was about four-and-a-half typed pages. Then I broke each page into five segments, so that by the time I got to the fourth plot page, I was on page twenty of the story, and then the last half-page of plot was pages 21 and 22 of the comic [the last two pages]. So I sort of had a methodology. Then I would actually mark off, in my mind, at the page breaks DF: That makes sense. But you said that you’ve also worked from full scripts?

TM: Yeah, I have. But like I said, I find it restraining. I find it the same as working as an inker working on very tight pencils. There’s no room to inject your own personality. I mean, as an inker, of course I can change anything, no matter how tight the pencils are, but the reader is aware of the change. I like to work on rough pencils when I’m inking, and I like a plot outline when I’m doing the pencil artwork on a story.

Spider-Man #1 was the first time Todd had written a comic book series. Of course, he drew it, as well. The issue sold more than 2 million copies. [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.] 6 | WRITE NOW

DF: When you write for another artist, it sounds like you do a plot for them, for the most part.

TM: Oh, yeah, it’s very loose. For a long time, when it was Greg Capullo and me on Spawn, I either just sent him a very short plot, or what I usually did was, talk to him on the phone, and he would record it, and I just

pieces in those three pages, do whatever you want with the choreography of the fight,” because everybody has their own style for that. “And knock yourself out artistically, as long as I’ve got my story information there, because if those two things happen, then I can continue my story, because a plot point is moving forward, and I need those two visuals to hook everything together.”

DF: What’s your working process when you write and draw a story yourself?

TM: I usually have a page, and I number it from one to twenty-two, and then I put the story together in my head just when I’m at ease. And then, now that I’ve got it very basically broken down and I’ve sort of put it all together in my head, then I would write five or six words describing each page, just to keep it going, so I had a “cheat sheet,” if you will.

And then, from those 22 pages, I would then do my rough of each comics page. So now I knew, “Okay, page one, we’re at Sam and Twitch’s office. We’re at the precinct. I have Sam and Twitch at the precinct.” And if there’s anything specific I need, I give myself a little note about it, just like I would give to Greg verbally.

Not anything as detailed as, say, “This is where, at the end, Sam walks out and slams the door.

Why? Because they had a disagreement over whether they should report Spawn to the authorities,” or something. I’d just give myself a couple words to go, “Okay, I know what’s going on at this point in the story.”

This page from Spider-Man #1 shows Todd getting into Peter Parker’s mind through the use of voiceover captions. He highlights one of the aspects of Spidey that fans love—that no matter how bad things may get for him, it’s cool to be Spider-Man. [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.] paced him through it. It was all pacing. I knew what I wanted him to do, and I’d say, “Okay, here’re the page breaks. Page one, we start with Spawn in the alley. I’d like to start with an extreme closeup, eventually pull the camera back, and then what we need to see is him standing there, and then there’s two football helmets next to him,” or whatever I needed, and that’s the end of page one. So, and then when you got to the fights, for the most part it would be, “Okay, now Spawn’s fighting the bad guy. I need three pages of that. I’ll let you choreograph it any way you want, but here’s the two things that I do need in your three pages. I need this, and I need this, and as long as you can get those two

DF: When do you put the dialogue in?

TM: Well, it’s interesting, because there are different ways of doing comic books. I wasn’t a fan of paste-on lettering, which is, I know, a byproduct of deadlines, for a couple of reasons. One, later on the glue dries up and the lettering falls off of the art. Two, the lettering yellows, it doesn’t look so good. So what I would end up doing when we went over to Image, and I did the same thing even on Spider-Man, is that I would “blob out” the pages, that is do very, very rough layouts that pretty much only I could understand. The figures were literally blobs. There were times when I was doing Spider-Man, and I believe Rick Parker was the letterer, that I literally had to draw arrows and write, “This blob is Peter, and this blob is Mary Jane, so here’s the balloon placement.” After the lettering was on the art boards, then I would do a lot of the artwork in the inking stages. But when I did Spawn, when I dialogued it, I would actually first dialogue it very roughly on a small piece of paper, and then I would actually go in TODD McFARLANE | 7

there and rewrite it on the actual page and do all the big, wildly dramatic lettering. Tom Orzechowski was the letterer. I liked bouncy lettering done right, at least my view of “done right.”

DF: That’s the whole point of having your own book.

TM: That’s true. Because I always felt, Danny, that a comic book was the sum of all its parts, that it wasn’t about this and that, that it all had to work together. So to me, the lettering was just as important, not only as far as what the characters were saying, but how it looked on the page. And this is actually an art that I think people don’t pay attention to–once you actually dialogue a book, then the placement of those balloons, to me, is tremendously important. Because sometimes I don’t get to do that here on the Spawn comic book, and I always groan when I see the printed comic, “Oh, guys, that’s not where you should have put that balloon.”

It’s splitting hairs sometimes, but I just have four or five rules of how you do lettering, and where you put copy, and when you have it. And even things like when you go to all caps or when you go to lower case letters,

when you go to block lettering, or when you do something bold. I mean, they’re just my own internal rules, but if I follow them, then my book looks consistent and it gets into a bit of a rhythm. And people then ultimately go, “I like the book. I can’t really explain why.”

DF: The lettering is a design element that, if you’re doing it right, people don’t notice.

TM: Right. And some of the best panels are the ones that are just, like, a closeup of a guy’s lips on a profile.

That’s the only thing you see; it’s only in the corner to the left, and then you’ve got 80% dead space. Don’t draw anything there. Don’t do crosshatching there. Don’t try to do anything. And then you put a balloon off to the side, and it’s very small, and it’s floating, it’s got a small tail, and the dialogue in lower case is the word, “No.” And let it just sit there like thunder on that page. And, again, it’s about storytelling at that point. And this is that stuff where, when I’ve worked on full script, that I don’t get a sense of the writer just letting the writing/balloon/ artwork sort of do a dance together.

Two striking Batman illustrations by Todd. Cover to Detective Comics #577 is inked by Pablo Marcos. Cover to Batman #423 is penciled and inked by Todd. [© 2007 DC Comics.]

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DF: So it sounds like, when you write and draw something, that you’re doing the drawing and the dialogue simultaneously as you go along?

TM: To some extent, right. I mean, again, when I say we’re going to pick up Spawn in the alley and pull back and see him melancholy holding a skull in his hand a la Macbeth, I just want that imagery—but I’m also aware of how close I want the camera when I start, and I’m going, okay, it’s going to take me five panels to get to that shot, and then we’re going to come into it. Or I might start with a close-up on a bug and then pull back to see that the bug is in one of the eye sockets of this skull, and eventually we pull back and there’s Spawn holding the skull.

DF: Now, would you finish all the basic thumbnail sketches and then go back and do the dialogue, or would you do them both at the same time, or is there no hard and fast rule?

TM: Usually I would actually thumbnail it out, because if something didn’t quite work in the pacing, I didn’t want again to be a slave to “I needed six balloons on this page.” If all of a sudden I came up with a different idea and I went, “Oh, cool, now you can get eight balloons in here,” or I can expand the story, or add a visual element that means somebody’s going to have to say something, or I’m going to have to add a caption, I needed to find that out after I looked at the thumbnails.

DF: So it sounds like you almost split yourself into two guys. First you do the drawing, or at least the panel-by-panel thumbnail pacing, then you go back and do the words.

TM: Right.

time Spider-Man #1 came out, I’d been in the business, five years, six years, I’d done hundreds if not thousands of pages of art at that point. I’ve been able to get the kinks out of my drawing. While Spider-Man #1 is the beginning of me starting to put kinks on the page writing, which you have to then eventually, like all writers do, get through. I was in that weird situation on that first issue where, arguably, the worst story I ever write is going to be the one that most people bought.

But I never said I was going to come wholly formed here. But I believe that, as time went by, two, three, four years later, that the writing became adequate at that point, and was better than the writing in Spider-Man #1. Ultimately, if an average person looked at Spider-Man #1 and then read something I wrote four years later, they’d go, “Yeah, there’s an improvement.” Not unlike if they saw the first artwork I did and looked at my artwork four years later, they’d see improvement.

DF: When you look back at that stuff, do you think it holds up?

TM: No, it’s choppy. It’s like anything else, you wish you could rewrite it, that you could go do it again and change stuff. But, you know, we do the same thing with our artwork.

Todd teamed up with Erik Larsen for this dual-costume pin-up that ran in Amazing Spider-Man #350. Erik penciled and inked the red-blue-and-webbed Spidey half, Todd the black-suit side. [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

DF: That’s very interesting. Now, you started writing Spider-Man in 1990. Has your approach to writing changed and evolved from that first Spidey story to where you are today?

TM: Yeah. You know, that was an interesting moment in my career, and I get reminded from time to time that people didn’t see me as two people at that point. They saw Todd the polished artist, who was now entitled to draw his own book and had won some awards, and then there was Todd the novice writer. I never said then that I was a writer in the truest sense, and that somehow, magically, my writing was going to be up to par to my artwork at the very git-go, if ever. But by the

So would I like to take it and rewrite it? Yeah, sure. But that train has left the station. And so you look at it and you learn. You, in hindsight, read it, and you go, “What would I do differently?” And you hope that you can apply that or take the criticism of it and move on and find your groove down the line as you write more and more stories.

DF: Now, once you started to have other people write or draw Spawn, you basically became the editor. Once you were in the editor’s chair, did your perception of the editor’s role change, and, if so, how?

TM: Not entirely, and I’ll tell you why. I had the good fortune to have a couple of years under my belt with Roy Thomas, who was, I thought, a good editor, and then later on with Jim Salicrup, who was a good editor for me. And I was able to take some of his editorial teachings, if you will, whether he knew I was going to be an editor someday or not. He was always questioning why I was doing stuff. And it wasn’t because he wanted to redo it. He just wanted to make sure that I had a reason for doing what I did. There were times TODD McFARLANE | 9

when he disagreed with me and he would say, “You know what, Todd? We need to fix that.” Or he would say, “Why did you do that?” And I’d give him a 20-minute dissertation about why I’d written or drawn something a certain way. Then he would either go, “Fine, Todd, okay.

I just wanted to make sure there was a reason.” Or he’d go, “I understand your reason. I think there’s a better way to skin this cat. Let me give you my perspective.

We’re not going to change it now. Just make sure, moving forward, that you sort of pay attention to this in the future.”

And I thought that was a more courteous way, a more effective way, of getting an artist to change than saying, “Redo that page, rewrite that.” Because, you know, we’re all under deadlines, and nobody wants to redo anything.

So he let me put a couple of raw dogs out, as long as he was able to say, “Next time make sure there’s a little bit of polish on that,” and gave a you little bit of reasoning behind what he was saying. And I thought that was very fair-minded, and said to myself, “If I ever become an editor, then that’s how I want to do it. I want to sit with my writers, artists, whoever else, and go, ‘Here’s what I see wrong with this issue. We’re going to let it go to the printers. But I want to go through it with you so that, because we’ve got another issue coming out next month, let’s not repeat this. But for now, let’s just let this one go, and let’s just chase our elusive Holy Grails on the next issue, and the next one after that, and the next one after that.’’’

So my editorial point-of-view was sort of taken from bits from the various editors I had. Roy Thomas, too. He was very kind and gave you a long leash but reminded you when you sort of went too far, or did something “wrong.”

Those guys were always there with constructive criticism instead of just “redo it.”

company that’s been expanding, as opposed to spending all your time at hands-on writing and drawing. What led you to make what seems, at least from my perspective, the decision to be more involved in business matters than you are in creative?

TM: I think that perception is out of whack. I think people see the business side of what I do, but I don’t do nearly as much business as people think. The problem is that, when I was doing comic books, when you hunch over the board, what you do over that board or over that typewriter, the public sees. I’m now in a position where a lot of what I do artistically is pre-production work that the public will never see. And so what they see is the end product. But somehow, “magically,” these toys come out of my company, but they don’t just appear without there being drawings in advance of their production. And there are also drawings that go in

DF: Do you enjoy editing enough that if, say, hypothetically, Marvel said, “Come be our chief,” would you go do that?

TM: [laughs] You know what? I wouldn’t mind it, and I think with the experience I’ve had being an artist, writer, and now with Image, running my own comic company, dealing with printers and staff, and having to deal with freelancers, and then expanding that into companies outside of the comic book world, you know what? I think I’d actually make a pretty decent editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics. It’s just, I don’t need the job right now, you know. So I’m busy. Maybe another day, but right now I’m busy.

Before landing Amazing Spider-Man, Todd drew The Incredible DF: That leads me to another question. There are Hulk. Issue #340 pitted the Hulk against Wolverine. Cover pencils only 24 hours in the day and you’re running a big

by Todd, inks by Bob Wiacek. [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

10 | WRITE NOW

Venom debuted at the end of Amazing Spider-Man #299. It was his terrorizing of Mary Jane that ultimately led to Peter ditching his own black costume in favor of the original red-and-blue one. Script

by David Michelinie. Art by Todd. [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

advance of doing animation, and there’s the music [video] directing that I’ve done, and the film work I’ve done, and designing characters for video games. There’s still a decent amount of artwork that I do, it’s just people don’t get to see it with their eyeballs, so they assume that I’m not drawing that I must be out with bankers or something like that.

Now what led me to some of the business tasks I’ve taken on is that I’m not a guy that likes to sit by water coolers and complain about things. I believe that we all sort of, for the most part, are in control of our lives. And it’s like, if you don’t like your job and don’t like your boss, then quit. But people like to stand by a water cooler and bitch, but not do anything about it. I just think that, if I’m going to be the artist, or the musician, or the singer or the actor who’s going to complain about their agent or manager, or about an executive, I’ve got two choices. I either figure out how to be that guy or I just shut my mouth. And so I took the path of, I’m going to figure out whether I can get smart enough to find how to produce and deliver my own artwork.

At some point the business part of it is like learning a second language. I am now fluent in “business.” So can I walk into a meeting with a banker and a bunch of executives in Hollywood and say the things that are important to those people on that day, or to a guy that I’m dealing with at Wal-Mart? Absolutely. Because I understand the words that matter to them and what’s important to them. And a lot of times it’s not about art.

But I take that business hat off as soon as I can when I get out of those meetings, so I can breathe again and go back to just being the artist who wears a business hat every now and then. And this is a point that people

don’t understand, and they say, “Oh, Todd, you’re a sellout.” Okay. If your definition of a sellout is to figure out a way to get your artwork out to the marketplace in a successful enough way—and it has to be successful, nobody will give you an opportunity if you keep screwing up. This I know for a fact. So you must be successful enough in your business so that they will give you more opportunities to put out more art. So the only way I’m going to be able to keep putting out more art is I have to be successful in the business side of it. It’s that simple.

I don’t want to run a big business and be successful in business so I can be a rich businessman. I want to be successful in business so that I can continue to do art when I want to. It’s as simple as that. If I walk into a business meeting and tell the people I’m meeting with that the last ten lines of toys I’ve done have been successful, or the last two music videos I did won awards, TODD McFARLANE | 11

or the last TV show I did, the ratings were up, I get a better chance of getting my next creative idea made than if I walk in there and say it was a failure.

DF: When you say you’re “doing the art” on a lot of projects, does that include the storyline also?

TM: Yeah. Like the animation we’re working on right now, I came up with the idea and wrote the script to it, and then I think pass it on to... Brian Holguin, maybe, he might have done a little polish on it, and then I came back and did some more work on it, and so on.

some things. It’s sort of the trouble I’ve had with Spawn as a whole. Everybody that comes on board is, in my mind, being too loyal to what’s gone on in the past, you know? A little bit of ignorance, I think, will actually go a long way, for instance a writer going, “I’ve never really read Spawn, but you know what? Give me a couple of big, broad strokes to explain it,” and then he would come out with some crazy stuff, not worrying about the continuity of the last 150 issues. I mean, it’s a little bit like what happened with the “British Invasion” of comics in the 1980s and ‘90s.

When the British writers came over here they were so ignorant of the history of, say, Superman, but, “Here’s a cool Superman story I’ve been thinking about,” and you go, “Wow! That’s trippy.” I don’t know that we want a steady diet of that, but it was refreshing enough that it was new.

DF: This is a new Spawn animated project?

TM: Yeah. Like the new Spawn animation we’re working on. And I’m eventually going to direct the new Spawn movie, or we’re never going to see it. But I’m DF: What’s coming up? going to write Is the Spawn animation and direct and going to be a series, or produce it. a one-shot?

Why? Because it’s in my TM: Right now it’s head, and I planned for an 80 or 85haven’t had minute movie/pilot that much luck I’m hoping that, when I’ve translating got enough of it together what’s in my and I go back to L.A., I’ve head to got cable stations that other I’ve dealt with and other people. people that’ll go, “Yeah, Every time I cool, Todd, bring it in, we’ll When Todd designed Venom he do that, it take a look at it,” and they doesn’t work wasn’t told that there would be a man inside the costume, so might go, “We’ll take that he gave Venom a super-sized physique and grotesque mouth that ended up making out. I’m not 80-minute as a pilot, and him a sales phenomenon. Cover art to Amazing Spider-Man #316 is by Todd. saying that then give us episodics after[© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.] I’m better wards,” like on HBO. Or than them. they might go, “Hey, take that 80 minutes and cut it into I’m actually dealing with some skilled people. It’s just three and we’ve already got our first three shows.” that there are nuances and things that are in your head that just can’t be explained to other people. Or people DF: And the second Spawn movie is still in developare so loyal to what it is that they think you want that ment? they’re missing the idea that I want them to reinvent 12 | WRITE NOW

again, in trying to figure out TM: Oh, yeah. And, like I how to polish wheels. So said, I’ve been living with it’s like, oh, okay, there’s that one in my head, comic books, how do we Danny, and there’s no way make them slicker? There’s I’m going to be able to get toys, how do we make anybody else to do it the them cooler? There’s aniway I see it. I’m going to mation, how do we make get the right cinematograthat more sort of adult? I’ve pher, because there’s a just taken what’s there and couple of them that I gone, “What’s lacking?” and know can hit the look that then added to it. But sports I’m going for, and I’ll give comic books, as I look at all the money to the cinethem historically, I go, matographer because he’ll “nah.” Because the history make me look good. I’m tells me that sports comic very strong in what it is books don’t work. So I’ll that I want visually, and debate anybody on it, how I want the camera to because, somebody, please, move, and what I want it give me an example. We’ve to come across as being. I had over 70 years of see bits and pieces of it.

In 1998, Todd did the cover for the metal band Korn’s comics now. Give me an When I watch certain album, Follow the Leader. [Korn: Follow the Leader © 1999 Epic Records. Album example of a sports comic movies I go, “There it was. artwork TM and © 1999 Todd McFarlane Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved.] that lasted more than nine I just saw another scene issues. Why would a kid want to read about Ken Griffey, in my movie. It looks like that, it feels like that.” It’s the Jr. when they can watch him, or they can play him on same way I developed my own art style. You see bits their video game? “Well, what if we made Ken Griffey, Jr. and pieces of thousands of comic books, and you just a super-hero?” “Well, why?” As a kid who collected cobble little pieces, put it all together, and it becomes a sports stuff when I was a kid, Danny, I just go, “Why do I unique style called “yours.” want an unrealistic version of what I know to be true? I don’t want Ken Griffey, Jr. flying. I want to see Ken DF: Would you think about doing that as a comic first Griffey, Jr. hit a three-run home run and win the balljust to show it to people and say, “Here’s what I’m game!” So I never was able to make that leap and figure thinking of?” what would make a successful sports comic book.

TM: We’re actually sort of doing that in the last couple issues of Spawn right now. You know, it’s not about DF: DC used to do “Strange Sports Stories.” alien invasions at that point, and things from the pit of TM: You know what? If someone had a good idea more Hell, which, bizarre as that is, is what Spawn is. It’s just, in the vein of Eerie and Creepy, I’d go, “Yeah, cool!” how do we “ground-level” a story and still make it a Because now you’re doing a true twist on something. I cool, odd, creepy, singular story? When I was a kid there mean, you’re doing Tales from the Crypt stuff. That were things like The Omen and The Exorcist where makes sense to me. I go, “Yeah, yeah, that’s cool.” But there was only one thing in those movies that was odd, doing some kind of super-heroic sports comic because and it was the kid. And earlier, when I was watching we think the five-year-old kids are going to read it? I’ll black-and-white movies, it was Frankenstein, and that let somebody else spend their money on that idea. was the same thing. Everything was normal in that world except for Frankenstein. So I don’t want DF: But you are interested in sports, and I’ve always Frankenstein’s bride, I don’t want the villain, I just found that an interesting contrast to your comics and want, in this movie, in this story that I have, I just want other work. On the one hand, you have your love of Spawn to be the odd thing, and the rest of the world baseball and hockey and those sort of bright, shiny will be as realistic, art, dramatic looking, as anything sports, and then your fascination with the horror stuff. you’ll ever see.

What’s the relation between those, for you?

TM: I don’t think there is one. For me, actually, it’s not DF: Have you ever thought about doing a sports comic that there’s a relationship, it’s that there actually isn’t a or a sports movie? I mean, that’s such a big interest relationship. For me, at the end of a 12-hour day of of yours. writing, or a 12-hour day of drawing—or in some cases TM: I’ve got a couple of ideas for a movie. But in terms 20-hour days like I used to put in—I, unlike some of my of sports comic books, I’m not a guy that’s smart peers—and, again, I’m not saying it’s good or bad, enough to invent wheels. I’ve had a little bit of skill, TODD McFARLANE | 13

trying to take something from all these people and they have to figure out how to get through it, you know?

DF: When you say “deconstructed,” what do you mean?

TM: Well, you know, when the hero faces a situation of “If you don’t toe the company line, you’ll lose your job.

We’ll blacklist you.” And the hero goes, “Hold on a sec, I’ve got a mortgage, I’ve got a wife.” I mean, these are the true heroes of our world, people who eventually stand up, to the point of putting, arguably, their own families at risk, to say, “No, I need to do the right thing.”

Because, it’s a tough one when, do you do the right thing if it puts your family in jeopardy, or do you just turn a blind eye and protect your family? And I don’t think any of us can make that decision until we’re there.

As a way of broadening his company’s appeal, Todd entered into a partnership with the rock group Kiss. He oversaw the creation of an ongoing Kiss comic book series as well as a line of popular action figures based on the group. [KISS name, logo and facial depictions © 1999 KISS Catalog, License arranged by Signatures Network, Inc.]

everybody has to do what they do to survive–I couldn’t, at the end of those long hours, sit down and watch Star Wars. I couldn’t do it. I would go, “I need to get away from fantasy. I need to just get myself away from all this big, fantastic stuff, I need to just get out of that world.”

So, for me, stepping into the sports world is an escape.

Movies, too, which is why I like the idea I just mentioned about the new Spawn movie being urban, because I like movies that are realistic except for one element. I’ve always liked the movies that—if I gave you my favorite movies, they’d all be art dramas that are very realistic movies, if not actually based on real events.

DF: What are your favorite movies?

TM: Number one, I’d put Godfather. Number two, I’d put The Insider, that one on the tobacco industry.

Number three, Crash. I just thought that was a tremendous movie.

DF: The Cronenberg Crash or the more recent one?

TM: The new one. And then the remake of [British miniseries] Traffic. It’s dark, it’s gritty. To me it’s all dark stuff.

If you look at it, I mean, even in The Insider, you see the protagonist get deconstructed, and the world is 14 | WRITE NOW

At some levels, when I’m dealing with Spawn, although I picked big ideas for him—there’s Heaven and there’s Hell, that’s as big as it’s going to get—to me it’s all metaphors for the government and corporate America trying to control one man’s life, and him going, “I want to just live my life the way I see fit. Just leave me alone.” Arguably I could go one more step and just go, you know what? It’s basically just me. It’s my life.

The easiest way to write is to actually go from your own personal experience and just go, “No.” You know, I’ve fought against forces my whole life. People said I couldn’t do stuff, people tried to block me, people try to put you out of business, all of it. People are trying to sue you, bring you down and say, “No, you can’t.” Even from the early point of people saying, “You’ll never break into comic books. It’s too tough. You’ll never get there.” And, again, what kept me going is that stubbornness, and you have to keep that thickness of skin on you throughout the whole game, because there’s always going to be somebody there that’s going to say, “Can’t be done.”

And you either just accept that or you can go, “No.” So those movies I listed take people, put them in these fantastic places that are still real, then go, “How are you going to get out of it? And at what cost?” To be Malcolm X comes at the cost of losing your family, but is it good for the community? Yes. Did it cost you your own personal life? Yes. And I’m not talking here about getting shot, I’m saying the home life goes out the window. So you protect the community, but you can’t protect your own family, because to protect your family you have to ignore the community. At what point do you become a Good Samaritan, and at what point do you cover your own family? These are personal debates that we all may have to sometime make a choice on.

And they’re not easy choices by any stretch.

DF: Well, that’s the appeal of Spider-Man, right? He’s one guy, and how does he balance the heroic role he’s taken on with his personal life, with his family life?

Fans of Spawn, the band Disturbed asked Todd to do the cover for their album, Ten Thousand Fists. So Todd, along with Greg Capullo, created this stunning image that features the band’s sinister smiling, hooded icon, known as “The Guy.” [Disturbed: Ten Thousand Fists © 2005 Reprise Records. Album artwork TM and © 2005 Todd McFarlane Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved.]

TM: Let’s talk about that. I know that’s Stan Lee’s personal take on it, and I get it, and it’s not a bad sort of mantra. I don’t subscribe to it, though. Because there’s also a character that is equally interesting and equally branded called Batman, and Batman is a millionaire, philanthropic, good-looking playboy. And he doesn’t really have too many problems, so he can go date supermodels every day. The core of it is that what makes Spider-Man cooler than anyone else, is that he just crawls up damn walls. He swings on webs! I’ve got a seven-year-old boy who would love to do that tomorrow. And Superman can fly, and Batman can put on a costume and scare the crap out of people, and he’s got a Batmobile! So one guy happens to be a college student, the other guy happens to be a playboy? Yeah, it adds some interest to them, but if Peter Parker were a playboy millionaire, he still would be cool because it’s still Spider-Man crawling up the walls and spinning webs.

DF: I agree that, especially for kids, the costumes and gimmicks and powers are the appeal of super-heroes.

But what makes them appeal, I think, to older people, as well, is this business of having to make choices. Even Batman does have that choice between living that playboy life and going out and fighting crime. He’s giving up different stuff than Peter Parker is, but I think it does come down to personal choices.

TM: Right, right. They’re both making sacrifices to try and get someplace. So the sacrifices can come in a lot of different forms. It doesn’t have to be a poor kid. It can be a rich guy who’s giving up his comfortable, insulated existence to try and do something, too.

DF: Exactly. So, how did you like the way the Venom character came out in Spider-Man 3?

TM: I would have done certain things a little bit differently. Just tweaks on it. When I created Venom, I always wanted that character to be bigger and bulkier than Spider-Man, sort of a scaled-down Hulk, if you will. If Spider-Man is one finger thick, I always thought of Venom sort of as being two fingers thick. Why? Because I wanted this creature, which is what he was, he was a monster to me—and going back to the origin of it, they didn’t tell me there was a human underneath it until after I came up with the creature part of it. So I was like, “Oops! Sorry.” I didn’t know a man was supposed to be in there, which is why I didn’t give him true human proportions. I gave him sort of quasi-Hulk proportions. I gave him a bulky build that you wouldn’t even find on a body-builder. I wanted something that was very formidable when it stood in front of the little, skinny Spider-Man. So what I saw on the screen was, Spider-Man and Venom, body-build-wise, weren’t that dramatically different. And the body language of the way that I used to draw Venom was hunched over and sort of had a little bit of Quasimodo in it. And the head I designed was a little less human-shaped, and the jaw dropped down a little bit more. It was a true, true monster to me.

DF: What were your guidelines from editorial when you came up with Venom?

TM: I don’t know if that came from editorial. I think it came from David Michelinie, and I think the phone conversation—there was nothing written down—was as simple as, “Hey, we’ve got to come up with a new TODD McFARLANE | 15

comic, once the costume comes on, it enhances Eddie, it makes him bigger. I’m a big monster fan, so to me Venom is about a creature, a monster that’s big and strong, fighting the little skinny bug called Spider-Man, whereas in the movie it was two boys fighting each other.

DF: Any thoughts on the state of the comics industry these days and about breaking in, for anybody who’s looking to?

TM: I don’t think that the act of breaking in has changed that much over the decades. You still have to go and look at your trade, try and figure out how to put it together, sort of sit in a quiet corner and teach yourself whatever it is, I don’t care whether it’s coloring, lettering, inking, writing, whatever it is, and eventually get to the point where you’re confident or delusional enough to take those samples out to the public, which means either putting them in the mail and/or going to conventions and/or knocking on people’s doors. I mean, is there a more streamlined way of breaking in than the way you and I did? I don’t think so. I think it’s still the old-fashioned way. “Just go and make your own breaks, son.”

DF: It seems to help to be a bestselling novelist or a Hollywood director these days.

TM: Well, yeah, but I’m talking about the kid in Ohio. Can that kid still break Disturbed was so pleased with Todd’s cover for their album that they asked him in? Yeah. Do I think that there’s more to create and direct the music video for their remake of the Genesis classic, chances on the art side? Yeah, just “Land of Confusion.” The animated music video features “The Guy” and several because just pure math says that most of the characters from Todd’s Ten Thousand Fists cover. [Disturbed: Land of Confusion © 2005 guys can only draw one monthly book, Reprise Records. Album artwork TM and © 2005 Todd McFarlane Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved.] whereas a lot of writers can do multiple design and a new character, and there’s this black books, so there’s less opportunity for writers because costume in the continuity.” And I’m going, “Cool.” That there’s less of a need to have one on every book. But was all I got. And then for me it was, the costume is most comics need, for the most part, one artist for alien, so, okay, I’m going to make a quasi-alien monster every book. out of it. And then later on they went, “Uh, we’re going to give it a human host, a human has to be able to wear DF: Makes sense. Well, this has been great, Todd. it.” I’m like, “Oh, okay.” If you see the drawings I did, Thanks for your time.

[Venom’s host] Eddie Brock is a lot bulkier than the TM: Thank you, Danny. This was fun. actor in the movie, Topher Grace. But even still, in the

THE END

16 | WRITE NOW

[© 2007 Todd McFarlane Productions, Inc. Savage Dragon © 2007 Erik Larsen.]

Here’s a rare glimpse of the creative process Todd uses to create an issue of Spawn, specifically 1996’s #52 (cover by Greg and Todd shown above).

On this page, we see Todd’s skeleton plot-outline for the issue. It’s a “beat sheet” style plot, which Todd used as notes for his telephone plot conversation with penciler Greg Capullo. [© 2007 Todd McFarlane Productions, Inc.]

SPAWN #52 NUTS & BOLTS | 17

Todd hand-wrote his script for page 4 of the story on an overlay that went over a copy of Greg’s pencil art (see next page). Todd and Greg are working “Marvel-style,” aka plot-first style, where the dialogue is written after the pencil art is done.

Also shown is how panel one of the page came out. You can see the entire page later in this Nuts & Bolts section. [© 2007 Todd McFarlane Productions, Inc.]

18 | WRITE NOW

Here’s a copy of Greg’s pencils for page 4 page with Todd’s balloon placements indicated. This shows letterer Tom Orzechowski specifically where each copy unit should go. [© 2007 Todd McFarlane Productions, Inc.]

SPAWN #52 NUTS & BOLTS | 19

Here’s the lettered and inked page, inking credits to Todd and Danny Miki. [© 2007 Todd McFarlane Productions, Inc.]

20 | WRITE NOW

In the plot outline, all that is designated for Page 5 is that the dog licks Terry and that there are some blank boxes, meaning panels. But since Todd and Greg talked out the story, all Todd needed to jog his memory for their conversation was those few words. The resulting page is far more complex, of course, including the comic relief of the “attack” by the dog. [© 2007 Todd McFarlane Productions, Inc.]

SPAWN #52 NUTS & BOLTS | 21

The stunning cover art by Greg and Todd to Spawn #52 showcasing Spawn and the Savage Dragon in all-out action. [© 2007 Todd McFarlane Productions, Inc. Savage Dragon © 2007 Erik Larsen.]

22 | WRITE NOW

THE END

NEXT ISSUE: M AG A Z I N E

#1 7

In this super-special issue, we go behind the scenes of HEROES with writers and producers including: • TIM KRING—series creator!

• JEPH LOEB—one of comics’ hottest writers, now one of TV’s!

…and many others—as we see how an episode—and an entire season—of this blockbuster series is created!

PLUS: Secrets behind: • the HEROES: ORIGINS spin-off series!

• and the HEROES comics!

A dramatic photo cover featuring HEROES’

Hayden Panettiere and Milo Ventimiglia!

PLUS: • An interview with DC Comics’ head editorial honcho DAN DiDIO! • An interview with Marvel Publisher DAN BUCKLEY!

• The conclusion to Steven Grant’s “Creating Comics Step-by Step!”

ALSO: • Great script and art Nuts & Bolts with rare, uninked pencil art by some of today’s top artists!

• PETER DAVID talks about writing STEPHEN KING’S DARK TOWER COMIC!

• An interview with kids’ book superstar-author MICHAEL TEITELBAUM!

• Writer and editor C.B. CEBULSKI talks about his career from manga to Marvel!

• A FREE preview of BACK ISSUE #24, and much more!

ARTICLE NAME | 23

& Scott Hanna. ley Cover art by Mark Bag

LOOK! UP IN THE SKY! It’s... You!!

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

ny Fingeroth; Copyright ©2004 by Dan Lee Foreword ©2004 by Stan

paperback

$19.95

available now

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 super-heroes.

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SILVER SURFER WRITERS ROUNDTABLE H

e started out as a distant gleam in outer space, and ended up more than 40 years later— appropriately—on the “silver screen.” Bad, bad Norrin Radd—better known as the Silver Surfer—first appeared in the pages of the classic Fantastic Four #48, the first part of what has come to be known as “The Galactus Trilogy.”

Over the intervening years the Surfer has starred in two ongoing series and a whole bunch of limited series and one-shots. And that’s not to mention the hundreds of guest appearances he’s made across the Marvel Universe. The Surfer has been written by some of the finest writers in the business, and they took their cues from the men who created him back in 1966, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

As the story goes, it seems that, after discussing the Galactus story with Stan, Jack went home to draw it. When he brought in the penciled pages, he had added a shining character riding a surfboard through space, a character that hadn’t been part of the team’s plotting session. Queried by Stan as to who the figure was, Jack said that he figured a character as awesome as Galactus would have a herald to announce his coming to the worlds he would devour. Stan liked the idea, one of them named him the Silver Surfer, and the rest is comics history. It turned out that the Surfer became one of Stan’s favorite characters to write for reasons he discusses on the next page.

In honor of the Surfer’s 40-plus years of traveling the skyways of the Marvel Universe—and his cinematic debut in this summer’s blockbuster bonanza, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer— I decided to get together a virtual roundtable discussion of some of the greatest Surfer Writers of all time. I say “virtual” because I didn’t actually sit these guys down in one room. As with our nowlegendary Spider-Man Writers Roundtable in issue #14, I asked them all the same dozen questions and am running their answers consecutively. So there’s no “cross-talking” as there no doubt would have been were all these writers in the same room, and if a Roundtabler doesn’t have an answer to a given question here…it’s because he chose not to answer it.

Of course, there was one writer who got his own very special set of questions. Needless to say, that was The Man himself—Stan Lee! I couldn’t really ask him what it felt like taking over a character with a legacy like the Surfer’s—since he was responsible for so much of that legacy! His erudite answers lead off the section, and then we go roundtabling with the rest of the Surfer-crew.

So polish up your silver coating, align your surfboard’s rudder—and let’s get this beach-party started!

Danny Fingeroth Editor-in-Chief

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STAN LEE ON THE SILVER SURFER We kick off our Silver Surfer Writers’ Roundtable with an e-mail chat with the Surfer’s co-creator, Stan Lee, in which The Man gives us his thoughts about everyone’s favorite sentinel of the skyways…

DANNY FINGEROTH: You’ve always had a special fondness for the Surfer, Stan. What is it about the character that appeals to you? After all, a nearly naked guy surfing through space on a “board could as easily be seen as silly as dramatic.

(And you are the guy “who wrote the “Silver Burper” parody in Not Brand Ecch.)

STAN LEE: I loved the fact that I could express so much of my own philosophy through the Surfer’s dialogue. Through his eyes we could see how mankind’s foibles and insanities would register on a being from another world. And I liked the fact that I could have him speak in a stylized manner—not a dialect, not an accent, just a very individual way of framing phrases and sentences.

was no way he’d continue to obey Galactus if it meant the death of innocent planetary inhabitants.

DANNY: Did you see the Surfer from early on as not just an exciting supporting character, but as a figure who could carry his own title? How did you know he could headline his own book?

STAN: I didn’t know that he could, but the more stories I wrote about him the more I liked him and the more I was determined to have him carry his own title.

DANNY: Would it be safe to say that Spider-Man represents your more freewheeling side and the Surfer the more serious you? Either way, please elaborate.

STAN: You summed it up perfectly. I don’t know how I can elaborate on a perfect summation. Although Spidey wasn’t always all that freewheeling. As I recall, I tried to inject many dramatic elements into his stories as well DANNY: What did John Buscema bring to the portrayal of the Surfer?

STAN: I think John brought a sense of really fine illustration.

To me, he made the Surfer stories seem more than comicbook artwork—he seemed to give them a more mature, classical, ultra-dramatic look.

DANNY: I know Jack This classic cover to Fantastic Four #50 was the climax of DANNY: Is or was there a specific drew the Surfer into the actor or public personality— Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s “Galactus Trilogy” that introGalactus story as a duced the Surfer.

Cover art by Kirby and Joe Sinnott. or writer—you think of when “surprise,” but who [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.] writing the Surfer’s dialogue named the character? (aside from Laurence Fishburne, STAN: I don’t remember who voices him in the FF2 movie)? what Jack originally called him, but I named him STAN: Not really. I don’t know of any actor, or anyone, The Silver Surfer. who phrases things the way I had the Surfer do it. It was just my own contrived little style.

DANNY: The Surfer started out as Galactus’ herald.

Did you and Kirby know from pretty early on that he DANNY: Of all the characters that you and Jack came would rebel against Galactus, or did that evolve as up with, why do you think the producers of FF2 chose the story went along? to use the Silver Surfer for the sequel?

STAN: His rebellion against Galactus evolved.

STAN: I never discussed it with them, so your guess is However, I knew that it had to happen, because I as good as mine. But, since we’re guessing, I’d think it wanted the Surfer to be a good guy—in fact, more might be because his flying surfboard gives us a great than a good guy, almost a Christ-like guy—and there 26 | WRITE NOW

visual effect. Also, his background, origin and purpose are so totally different from any other character that an audience is apt to see in any movie anywhere.

DANNY: Do you think the Surfer works best when he’s in a fantastic setting, or when he’s in a more normal, earthlike environment?

STAN: Both. In fantastic settings he’s one of the most unique characters anyone will ever see, while in a normal, Earthlike environment he best personifies the always exciting “fish out of water” theme.

DANNY: Considering their deep connection, do you think Alicia would have ever gone off with the Surfer?

STAN: Not if I were writing it. I’d never have Alicia be unfaithful to ol’ Ben. Besides, as I recall, Shalla Bal was the love of Norrin Radd’s life. I’m not sure whether she’s supposed to be alive now or not, but if she is—he’d never rest till they were reunited. At least, he wouldn’t if I were writing it.

DANNY: What are you proudest of that you’ve done with your writing of the Surfer?

STAN: I think I’m proudest of the fact that the Silver Surfer seems to mean so much to so many older, more literate, more sophisticated readers.

DANNY: Would you ever want to write another Surfer story? Who’d be your dream artist to draw it?

STAN: Perhaps, if I ever had the time. Hey, there are so many great artists who could do a fantastic job with the Surfer. There’s Alex Ross, John Romita Jr., Jim Lee—I could go on and on. Incidentally, since I’ve

Now that’s we’ve heard from Mr. Lee, let’s find out what the Roundtable has to say about the Sentinel of the Skyways…

DANNY FINGEROTH: What is it about the Surfer that’s so appealing? After all, a nearly-naked guy riding through space on a surfboard could as easily be seen as silly as dramatic.

J.M. DeMATTEIS: It’s a testament to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (and John Buscema, who did such brilliant work on the original Surfer series) that he doesn’t seem ridiculous. If you look at Kirby’s original Surfer, there’s nothing remotely silly about him. He radiates dignity and power (in context, even the surfboard works). And Stan’s dialogue took what was there in Jack’s extraordinary visuals and deepened it. The Surfer was curious, grave,

been away from comics for so long, there’s one thing I truly regret. I’ll occasionally thumb through a comicbook that catches my eye because of the sensational artwork, but since most of today’s terrific artists are new to me, I never can remember their names. So there are many more I should be mentioning, because I love their artwork but regretfully, I can’t recall their names.

In fact, my memory is so unreliable that I’ve even forgotten if you have any more questions for me. So I might has well sign off now—but not without one enthusiastic EXCELSIOR! Stan Lee co-created the Marvel pantheon of characters including—in addition to the Silver Surfer—the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the Hulk, and the X-Men. His hit Sci-Fi Channel series, Who Wants to be a Superhero?, returns for a second season on July 27th. And Stan will soon be getting his own star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame!

The Surfer’s first cover appearance, in FF #49, although he debuted in the previous issue. Art

by Kirby and Sinnott [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

and philosophical. This was a character you had to take seriously. Hey, if you didn’t—Galactus would come and eat your planet!

For me, though, where the character really came into his own was in the Lee-[John] Buscema series. Those first six issues of the original Surfer run are among my favorite mainstream comics of all time (the third issue, which introduced Mephisto, is probably my single favorite Marvel comic): a wonderful mix of adventure, philosophy, and raw emotion. Stan was really trying to stretch the boundaries of the Marvel universe, giving us a protagonist whose greatest power wasn’t his cosmic bolts: it was his compassion. The Surfer, as Stan has often noted, is a character with a genuine spiritual component—and that set Norrin Radd apart from the rest of the Marvel Universe, making him utterly unique among the Lee-Kirby creations.

STEVE ENGLEHART: When played right, he’s the archetypal SILVER SURFER ROUNDTABLE | 27

Here’s the cover to the premiere issue of the Surfer’s first solo series, from 1968, and a panel from page 6 of the issue, which illustrates the Surfer’s eloquent frustration with humanity. Script is

by Stan and the art is by John Buscema (pencils) and Joe Sinnott (inks). [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.] opposite. People take one look at this guy zipping through space on skis and immediately think it’s ridiculous.

“noble savage.” That sense of alien aloneness with a great heart appeals to lots of readers. The problem is what he looks like. Your first reaction is, he looks terrific— but the longer-term reaction is, there’s an impenetrable reflective barrier around him that means you can’t get close to him. You can understand him, you can feel his pain, but all that time his form—and he’s all form, being naked—is a solid wall between you, the reader, and him, the character. It’s subtle, psychological, but it’s why, I believe, he could be simultaneously highly acclaimed and a hard sell. Why he could work as a poster but not as a comic.

RON MARZ: You know, it’s kind of curious. Obviously the character was created during an era when surfing, thanks in great part to musicians like the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean, was being popularized in the public consciousness. And on a very surface level, the Surfer could very easily be seen as camp, but you just don’t get that reaction, even from non-comics readers. Somehow, Stan and Jack captured some magic. There’s majesty to the Surfer, both visually and in terms of his character.

I guess the other side of the coin is the Black Racer, a Kirby creation who is in a lot of ways a DC counterpart to the Surfer. But with him, the reaction is just the 28 | WRITE NOW

JIM STARLIN: Well, at the time I got hold of the Surfer, it hadn’t been so long ago that he’d been trapped on Earth. His adventures in outer space were just beginning, so to speak. Plus there was this nobility about the Surfer that was so appealing. But the big draw, for me, was the fact that writing the Silver Surfer gave me yet another chance at furthering Thanos’ story. Every time I came back to Marvel, it was really to write and draw the Titan again. Surf, Warlock and Captain Marvel were never anything but excuses to do another Thanos tale.

FINGEROTH: Was there anything you consciously (or, in retrospect, unconsciously) set out to accomplish during your run on the Surfer?

DeMATTEIS: My run on the series [Volume 3, issue #’s 126 –145] was a little frustrating. I had a very big story planned for my initial arc—among other things, it dealt with the death of Galactus and Galactus’s desire to have the Surfer’s forgiveness before he died. I remember writing up a lengthy outline for the arc, which my editor read and approved, being as excited about the story as any I’d ever done—and then having it shot down by the Powers That Be (after I’d already begun working on the story) for reasons that escape me. (Perhaps something to do with continuity or another upcoming Big Event.)

So I had to shift the storyline in midstream and then, as

I recall, my next idea was shot down, as well.

My whole run on the book felt like that: jumping through hoops, trying to adjust stories on the fly. (Time, and distortions of memory, may have magnified that feeling.) That said, I got to work with brilliant artists like Ron Garney and Jon J. Muth (among others) and do some good work. Still, considering how much I love the character, I never got to do the Surfer I wanted to. Of course, if I’d done the stories exactly the way I’d originally envisioned, I still might not have been satisfied.

ENGLEHART: Make him work as a comic. There were 20 years of disappointing Surfer numbers when I got there and I liked the challenge of trying to turn that around at long last.

MARZ: First and foremost, I set out to not embarrass myself. Surfer was very literally the first job I had in comics. Silver Surfer Annual #3 was not only my first job for Marvel, it was my first time writing a comic script ever. So to say I was a rookie is an understatement. When Jim Starlin stepped aside and Marvel handed the book to me, it was very much on-the-job training. So I don’t know that I had any goal in mind other than trying to tell a good story every issue, and get better at the craft of writing. Jim’s Surfer issues were hugely entertaining, and set a real high-water mark for the character, so I wanted to continue that as best I could.

STARLIN: Yeah, despite the flippancy of my previous answer, Surf was always a character I loved and thought had tremendous untapped potential. One of the things about the Surfer was that he’d aided Galactus in destroying who-knows-how-many planets and killing countless folk. But this noble creature never seemed to be bothered by the evil acts he had aided and abetted. So this was a track I, early on, decided I wanted to explore.

In 1978, Marvel produced its very first self-contained graphic novel, The Silver Surfer, published by Fireside Books. It featured a new, alternate version of the Surfer’s origin, sans the Fantastic Four, and re-teamed Lee and Kirby for the first time in several years. Inks are by Joe Sinnott. [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

FINGEROTH: Was it more—or less—pressure to be writing a character who, while a Marvel icon, wasn’t as high-profile as, say, Spider-Man or the X-Men? DeMATTEIS: To me the Surfer is as high-profile as Spider-Man or the X-Men. He is, in many ways, the ultimate Marvel character. A fusion of Kirby’s cosmic grandeur and Stan’s very human heart. I don’t know if that creates pressure—once you start writing, the story and characters take over and it’s got very little to do with how you feel about it—but it does create a situation where you feel a great sense of responsibility to the character. If you’re writing the Surfer or Spider-Man, you

want to do your absolute best. Better than your best.

ENGLEHART: That stuff never matters to me.

MARZ: In my mind, less pressure. Spidey and X-Men were franchises, especially so in that period. I had a good relationship with the editor, Craig Anderson, so I didn’t feel a lot of pressure. Although, I do remember seeing a sales chart fairly early on in my run and Surfer was selling a lot of copies, a hell of a lot more than Superman. And I thought, “What’s wrong with this picture?” Here’s this rookie writer, writing a character you’d have to consider as second-tier, and we’re kicking Superman’s ass. It didn’t seem quite right.

STARLIN: It’s always so much easier taking on the second stringers. In fact my favorite characters to do are the ones that are on the verge of cancellation like SILVER SURFER ROUNDTABLE | 29

MARZ: I think you need both aspects, because each one is made stronger by the contrast to the other.

You need the big cosmic stuff, because that’s the Surfer’s natural setting, and so you can give the readers those epic, sci-fi visuals. But you also need the earthbound stuff so the Surfer can be, in a literal sense, the alien in our midst. We are reflected in him, no pun intended.

It’s just like Thor works on Asgard, and he works on Earth, but he works best when Asgard and Earth are juxtaposed.

STARLIN: Like with Thor, a combination of both works best, in my opinion.

FINGEROTH: In his longest run, the Surfer was able to sustain his own series from 1987 to 1998 (146 issues, plus 7 annuals). Even with the “boom” comics market factor of some of those years, the series still outlasted many others of the era. Any thoughts as to why that was such a sustained good sales period for the character? (No false modesty necessary from those actually involved with that run.)

In 1987, Marvel gave the Surfer another shot at an ongoing series, written by Steve Englehart and penciled by Marshall Rogers. Cover art to this series first issue is by Rogers (Pencils) and Josef Rubinstein (Inks). [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.] Captain Marvel and the Silver Surfer were when I got on them. Nobody really thinks you can bring them back from the brink and so nobody cares what you do with them.

FINGEROTH: Do you think the Surfer works best when he’s in a fantastic setting, or when he’s in a more normal, earth-like setting?

DeMATTEIS: Maybe because I grew up reading the original Surfer stories, I’ve always felt that the Surfer works best on Earth—with periodic jaunts into space and other dimensions. I think when all of the Surfer’s stories take place in space, he becomes Just Another Cosmic Character and his uniqueness gets lost. I like to see the Surfer among humans, commenting on, and reacting to, our best and worst qualities. Offering compassion, and perhaps a shot at redemption, to a world he both loves and loathes.

ENGLEHART: Fantastic. All you can say when he’s on earth is, he’s cooler than we are. In space, you can see how cool he really is.

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ENGLEHART: When they asked me to do the series, I was very aware that nothing had worked to that point.

The biggest reason I could see was, he’d been trapped on earth and whining about it for 20 years. Getting him off earth might or might not make him a star, but it would certainly stop his whining. Originally, I was told no, he had to stay in captivity, and I dutifully set to work under those circumstances, but after the first issue was done (with John Buscema), somebody somewhere changed his mind and I got to do what I wanted. The Surfer in space opened up a *kof* whole new universe for him, and that universe was the Marvel Universe, where guys from space had appeared in various series but had never had one place where they could all play before. So you had the Surfer with new things to do, and parts of his past he could finally reconnect to—you had the very grandest of guest stars and supporting casts—you had SPACE, which I played up quite a lot— and with all that, you could do cosmic philosophy to match, with which I’d had some experience on Doctor Strange and Shang-Chi. It took the character from being a solitary human figure in reduced circumstances to being part of a cosmic universe, and I believe it’s that scope and grandeur that made the long, long run seem right and natural and doable.

That said, I’ve sold books with bad art, but it always helps to have good art. Again, somebody somewhere decided to replace Big John with Marshall Rogers (those decisions were not made by the writer in those days),

FINGEROTH: What’s the and Marshall was just as hardest thing about good for the Surfer as writing the Silver Surfer? he was for the Batman— because Marshall had an architectural background, DeMATTEIS: The Surfer, by his so he had a wonderful nature, doesn’t really have a sense sense of the reality of humor. So you’ve got to find around the characters. other ways to work humor into And I was pushing SPACE, the stories. Otherwise things can so he really got into that. get a little too serious.

His Surfer would sometimes fly upside down, ENGLEHART: His psyche is as because what’s “right side closed off as his body, so you’re up” in Space? After working with a comparatively Marshall’s recent death, I narrow range of emotion. It’s like talked a lot about his he’s on tranquilizers all the time.

Gotham City, how it was a There’s damage in there. character in and of itself, but it was the same with MARZ: Are we talking about the distance and openness writing him as a lead character, of the universe. He nailed rather than a guest star? that down so that everyone Truthfully, after writing the who followed him knew character for four years, I came that grandeur was part of to the conclusion he really the series. does work best as a guest I would just add that star, as a character that other Marshall was very much an characters can react to or play “underground cartoonist,” Jim Starlin kicked off his run as writer of Silver Surfer off of. One of the dangers with in that he’d only do what with a bang—bringing back Jim’s popular Warlock interested him, and never for villain, Thanos! Cover art to Surfer #34 is by Ron Lim him being a lead character is that you have to get too close very long. He set up the visual and Josef Rubinstein. [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.] to him. It’s tougher to keep approach to the Surfer and him at arm’s length, and keep that alien aspect to him, then he left, and I was fortunate to be given Ron Lim to if he’s the star of the book. follow him. But when Marshall was coming on board, The Surfer’s sheer power level can be difficult. It’s the he was worried about meeting a monthly deadline, and Superman problem, only without the kryptonite. The I did say to him “It’s a naked guy in the middle of Surfer is so powerful, and can do damn near anything, that nowhere. No clothing folds, no fire hydrants—it’ll go a lot it’s a real test to come up with fitting antagonists, or even faster than Detective.” just situations that place him in danger. If your character can’t be placed at risk, why should the reader care?

MARZ: I wrote more than 50 of those issues, so I’d like to take all the credit, but in all honesty, I don’t really STARLIN: During my stint on Surf there was a certain know. No matter where I’m doing a signing, somebody editor up at Marvel (no, he won’t be named and it brings some Surfer issues and tells me they enjoyed the wasn’t my Silver Surfer editor, Craig Anderson, who run. It’s flattering and very appreciated, because like I was terrific to work with) [And it wasn’t me or Eric, said, I was just figuring out what the hell I was doing. either!—DF] who wanted to take charge of all of Marvel’s “cosmic” characters and was rather annoyed by the fact STARLIN: Yes, I guess I was in there somewhere during that he didn’t have control of the Surfer and, later on, that period. During my run and later Ron Marz’s stint on the Infinity stories. He was constantly objecting about the Surfer I was also writing the Infinity Gauntlet/War/ things in my plots and was outraged that I was getting Crusades series, and the Silver Surfer was always a to write all these big-selling Infinity stories. Didn’t matter major player in those tales. The Infinity miniseries were to him I’d created the Infinity series. So what happened big sellers and so, I figure, that probably helped Surf’s eventually, to keep the peace, as I recall, is that Craig sales. But, overall, I think the Surfer thrived because a and the editor-in-chief started lying to this editor about number of very talented people loved the character and what I was doing. This editor would ask about the worked on the title during that spell.

SILVER SURFER ROUNDTABLE | 31

Infinity War, that he’d seen listed on the schedule, and folks would tell him that was a mistake and that title wasn’t really going to be published. Never did hear how he took it once the title actually came out.

FINGEROTH: What’s the most fun about writing the Silver Surfer?

DeMATTEIS: I love being able to get cosmic—to push off into the farthest limits of imagination—while also getting deeply human, pushing down into the deeps of the human heart. For me, that combination of spirituality, cosmic adventure and humanity makes the Surfer the perfect vehicle for great stories.

ENGLEHART: The vast, endless universe he inhabits, and all the worlds in it.

MARZ: The range of stories you could tell was a real treat. I think that’s one of the key aspects to the Surfer’s appeal. You could let your imagination run completely wild. You do a big cosmic throw-down in one issue, and follow it up with something small and character-driven the next. You could tell stories about the human condition, even if they took place a hundred lights years from Earth and didn’t feature a single human in them. That’s one of the beauties of science fiction.

it’s easily some of the most beautiful artwork I’ve ever been associated with. Every page is a masterpiece, which makes sense because it took Castellini more than two years to finish it. When he was done, he wouldn’t trust FedEx with the pages—he flew over from Rome with the pages in hand. And even at the Marvel offices, he was still noodling on these beautiful, finished pages.

The editor literally had to take the pages away from him and lock them in a flat file.

It was supposed to be published in an oversize color edition, with a special black-and-white limited edition.

But none of that ever happened. It took Claudio so long to finish the damn thing that by the time he was done, another regime was in place at Marvel, and the project wasn’t a very high priority anymore. So eventually it was just put out as a regular saddle-stitch comic without much fanfare. The pages were so detailed that there was a huge problem calibrating the printing presses—all the detail closed up and the color was really blotchy and overpowering. They actually had to throw out the entire

STARLIN: Him reacting to and with the myriad side characters we were able to bring into the story, like Drax, the Impossible Man, the Titans, etc. Surf turned out to be a terrific straight man.

FINGEROTH: What are you proudest of that you’ve done on your Silver Surfer run(s)?

DeMATTEIS: As noted, I often found my run creatively frustrating. But, in the best stories we did, I think we managed to hit the right balance of cosmic adventure, spiritual exploration, and human emotion. I’m especially happy with some of the issues I did with Garney and Muth.

ENGLEHART: Finding the missing pieces and making them work? Yes, but I also liked the vast complexity of the Kree-Skrull War I ended my run with. Lots and lots of pieces, all coming together for a grand finale—mucho fun for a writer.

MARZ: Probably my favorite story is one that most readers haven’t even seen. I did a 48-page one-shot with Claudio Castellini titled “Dangerous Artifacts,” and 32 | WRITE NOW

Ron Marz went solo as the Surfer’s writer with issue #51.

Of all those who have written the Surfer, Ron has written the most consecutive issues—including annuals, more than 50!

Cover art is by Ron Lim (Pencils) and Tom Christopher (Inks). [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

first run because it printed so badly. The second run was better, but still a far cry from what it should’ve been. The cropping on the pages was all wrong, so head and hands were cut off half the time. The American edition is just a mess, though I do have some European editions, in black and white, that are just gorgeous. I really hope that someday it gets re-colored and reprinted properly over here. Artistically, it’s right up there with the best Buscema and Kirby, as well as Moebius. Best Galactus ever, as far as I’m concerned.

STARLIN: I’d like to think I left Surf a more complex and interesting character than when I first started on him.

FINGEROTH: What do you think about the “silver screen” version of the character in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer?

[Note: This Roundtable was done before the movie opened.—DF] DeMATTEIS: I can only hope they treat the character with dignity and really put Lee and Kirby’s vision up there on the screen. The first FF movie was uneven (for instance, I loved the portrayals of the Thing and the Torch and thought they pretty much blew it with Doctor Doom): I’m hoping that this one nails it.

ENGLEHART: At this point, it literally remains to be seen.

If he looks like a cool, alienated guy on screen, he can play a cool, alienated guy—but if he looks like clunky CGI, he can’t play anything. His look is the single most important thing about him, because he lacks a lot of visual cues normal humans have. What cues he does have, have to work just right for normal humans to see into his soul.

MARZ: Not having seen the movie yet, it’s tough to form any sort of informed opinion. But the stuff in the trailers featuring the Surfer looks great. I can remember seeing Terminator 2 out in San Diego, probably my first time at the con. When the T-1000 shows up, all silvery and reflective, I immediately thought, “Okay, now they can do the Surfer.”

STARLIN: He looks great in the trailer. But I get the impression, again from the trailer and perhaps wrongly, that the movie makers are not going to use Galactus in their story. There’s some human-sized guy in a dark hood talking to the Surfer in one clip. That might be Galactus? If it is, that would be a big mistake. So I’ll hold judgment until I actually see the flick.

FINGEROTH: Of all the FF characters they could have chosen for the movie, why do you think they chose the Surfer (and Galactus) to co-star with the FF? DeMATTEIS: The so-called “Galactus Trilogy” was the

When he took over the series, with issue #126, J.M. DeMatteis brought new excitement to the Surfer, sending him into the past, developing a brief relationship with Alicia Masters, and even battling Mephisto. Cover art is by Ron Garney. [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.] high point of the Lee-Kirby collaboration, which makes it one of the high points in comic book history. How could you not choose it?

ENGLEHART: “The Coming of Galactus” was the greatest FF story ever. I applaud them for going for the gold right away instead of working up to it.

MARZ: To be completely cynical for a moment, I think they’ll sell a lot more Silver Surfer action figures and Tshirts than Black Bolt or whoever. But I also think a huge part of it is the Surfer’s visual appeal. He’s a great visual to put up there on the screen—truthfully, a lot more suited to film than the static images in comics, because so much of the Surfer is about motion. Plus, when you look at the history of the Fantastic Four, issues #48-#50 are probably right at the top of the list. I don’t think there’s a better, more epic story anywhere in the run. It was the obvious choice, and I expect a better film than we got the first time around.

STARLIN: The way I’ve heard it over the years, is that several directors and producers wanted to make a Silver Surfer movie but the hang up was that there had to be SILVER SURFER ROUNDTABLE | 33

boogie-boarding after that. No effect on the writing, other than waking up every night I was on the Surfer, screaming something about drowning.

FINGEROTH: Is there anything you’d like to say about writing the Silver Surfer not covered by my questions?

DeMATTEIS: It’s always exciting when you get to write a character that meant so much to you as a kid.

Contributing, in some small way, to the Surfer’s mythology really was an honor.

MARZ: I’ll always have a soft spot for the Surfer. I cut my teeth in this business on the character. I’ve had the chance to meet Stan and tell him how much I enjoyed working on the Surfer, but one of my regrets is that I never had a chance to meet Jack and say thank you. So thank you, Stan and Jack, for letting me stand on your shoulders. And thank you, Jim Starlin and Craig Anderson, for giving me the chance to write the series.

STARLIN: Only that the Silver Surfer is irrefutable proof that Jack Kirby was a totally insane genius.

SILVER SURFER WRITER BIOS

This powerful Surfer illustration by Mike Zeck is a recreation he did in 2000 of his pin-up for 1991’s Silver Surfer Annual #4. [©

Silver Surfer-centric info about the roundtablers.

Needless to say, their complete resumes are much longer than this.

2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

a Fantastic Four movie first. In fact I’d heard that first awful Fantastic Four movie, they did years ago and absolutely nobody saw, was to fulfill some requirement that the FF movie come out first. But apparently the moviemakers’ finances fell apart after that and before they ever got to the SS movie. Anybody out there know if this is the truth or urban legend?

FINGEROTH: Have you ever actually surfed?

Either way, did it affect how you approached the character?

DeMATTEIS: I’ve never surfed (I can hardly swim!), but I think the character is more about surfing the waves of our imagination—and I’m pretty good at that.

ENGLEHART: I love to body surf; never learned to do it on a board. But it had nothing to do with my writing the guy. Body surfing is short and intense, not at all like the vast sweep of the Surfer’s surfing.

MARZ: Never surfed, though my son is convinced I need to start snowboarding with him this winter. I might take him up on it.

STARLIN: Yeah, tried it and nearly killed myself. Kept to 34 | WRITE NOW

J.M. DeMatteis brought new depths of emotion to the Surfer, as well as rip-roaring adventure, when he became the writer of Silver Surfer, Volume 3, issue #s 126–145.

Steve Englehart, along with Marshall Rogers, relaunched the Surfer in his second, and longest running, ongoing series (Volume 3) in 1987 and wrote issue #s 1-20 and 22-31, as well as Silver Surfer Annual #s 1 and 2.

Ron Marz got his big break in comics when he was tapped to co-write the Surfer’s adventures with Jim Starlin. He wrote issue #’s 42, 43, 49, and Annual #3 with Jim Starlin. His solo tenure on the series spans issues 51-102, as well as Annuals #s 4-7, and the oneshot Silver Surfer: Dangerous Artifacts.

Jim Starlin earned his cosmic cred with groundbreaking writing stints on Captain Marvel, where he introduced Thanos, and on Warlock, where he went where no comic book writer-artist had gone before. Besides scripting the Surfer’s adventures in his regular series (issue #’s 34-38 and 40-50), Jim also wrote the Silver Surfer/Warlock: Resurrection limited series and the Silver Surfer: Homecoming graphic novel.

THE END

IVE #1

AVENGERS: THE INITIAT “Happy Accidents” Plot for 23pgs.

Second Draft

PAGE 1 Panel One Open on Iraq… an armored VIP car from the A military convoy is escorting en one of the supposedly safer “Gre tours it as nse Defe of ent tproof Departm k four-by-four with black, bulle blac a is car VIP The Iraq. in Zones” windows.

Panel Two oy’s trucks, a soldier spots an In the bed of one of the conv and it’s a local car. It’s pretty beat up, It’s ing. oach appr car zed unauthori oy. conv the rds veering towa shout Panel Three his unit draw their weapons and The soldier and other men from se. cour ge chan to car the for out warnings . The Panel Four up speed as it heads right at them But it’s no use, the car picks fire. open to but ce choi soldiers have no ly a car Panel Five where we can see that it’s clear We cut to the inside of the car, containers holding gallons of and s shell ry armo with bomb. It’s filled their bodies are drive on as both their car and gasoline. The suicide bombers chanting oaths to both Al ts, zealo are bers bom The riddled with bullets.

Qaeda and Hydra.

AVENGERS: THE INITIA TIVE #1 “Happy Accidents” Script for 23pgs.

PAGE 1 Panel One LOCATOR CAPTION: Baghdad, Iraq.

ELECTRONIC BALLO ON (no tail): Desert Eag le to convoy. Status of “Carrot Top”?

GUNNER IN FIRST CA R: “Carrot Top” is secure, sir. minutes out to base and We’re ten all’s clear. No sign of— GUNNER IN FIRST CA R: Hold up!

Panel Two GUNNER IN FIRST CA R: contact!

GUNNER IN FIRST CA R:

We have contact! I repe

at! We have

Vehicle heading this way

!

Panel Three FIRST SOLDIER/BRST :<PULL OVER!> SECOND SOLDIER/BRST : <STOP or we Panel Four FIRST CAR (in the dist ance): Panel Five FIRST SOLDIER/BRST : SECOND SOLDIER/BRST : SFX (guns): BRRAT SFX (guns): PKA PKA PKA

will OPEN FIRE!>

Son of a @#%*! They’re

speeding up!

It’s an I.E.D.!

LIGHT IT UP!

Panel Six SFX: TNK TNK TNK FROM INSIDE THE CA RBOMB/ BRST: <HA IL HYDRA! Cut off a limb, two more will grow in its place!>

Here are plot, script and art from Avengers: The Initiative #1. Initiative is a series that spins out of Marvel’s Civil War limited series. As a result of CW ‘s events, it was mandated that each state would have a government-supervised super-team. Initiative focuses on the training of these heroes, including MVP, Cloud 9, Armory, and Trauma. [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

AVENGERS: THE INITIATIVE NUTS & BOLTS | 35

For this series writer Dan Slott and artist Stefano Caselli work in a hybrid version of the Marvel method and full script. Dan writes a plot that has the description of each page’s action broken down into panels, but without final dialogue. Stefano draws the story, and then Dan writes his script based on the penciled pages.

Stefano pencils and inks his work, so what we see in this Nuts and Bolts section is his inks and printed comics pages—which show how important the role of colorist Daniele Rudoni is in the finished art. [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

PAGE 2 Panel One Suddenly, a heroic figure leap s out of one of the convoy’s armo vehicles! It’s THE GAUNTL red ET, the one American super hero who’s fighting the War on Terror on the front lines!

Panel Two From his giant mecha-glove, THE GAUNTLET projects an energy hand that wraps around enormous the car bomb…

Panel Three …right as it EXPLODES! THE GAUNTLET stands firm, unflinching, as he’s backlit from the explosion.

Panel Four The convoy comes to a stop as some of the soldiers go up to GAUNTLET to salute him and/ THE or congratulate him. THE GAU NTLET tells them that there’ll be time for that later. First things first, they should secure the perimeter!

36 | WRITE NOW

PAGE 2 Panel One It’s— SOLDIER: It’s not slowing down!

Everyone FALL BACK! GAUNTLET: SOLDIER: THE GAUNTLET?!

Panel Two GAUNTLET:

I’ve got this one.

Panel Three GAUNTLET:

Got it well in hand.

Panel Four SFX: BWCHOOM Panel Five RIGHT! We had no idea YOU were SOLDIER: Damn, sir, that was ALL . detail this to ed assign (space) Sarge, all the boys are proud to have SOLDIER: Just want you to know, … you HERE back CAPES are busy coolin’ their heels SOLDIER: …while all them other el-thems g amon n’ fighti Or home!

You men secure the Not now, soldier. First things first.

GAUNTLET: perimeter…

Panel Six GAUNTLET:

…while I check on the “package”.

PAGE 3 Panel One THE GAUNTLET approaches the VIP car that the convoy was escorting. He asks if everyone is okay in there.

Panel Two The black window rolls down revealing that the passenger inside is none other than HENRY GYRICH. (Stefano, GYRICH is a longstanding AVENGERS character. He’s a stern politician with close-cropped red hair and thick, horned-rimmed glasses. If you’re not familiar with him, we’ll find you reference.)

Panel Three As GYRICH steps out of the VIP car, THE GAUNTLET tells him ead that this attack is more proof that he needs to stay on the front lines—inst this of being sent back to America. GYRICH disagrees. GYRICH feels that just highlights the need for MORE super heroes on the frontlines.

Panel Four GYRICH confides in the GAUNTLET. He tells him that ever since the mutant gene practically vanished off the face of the Earth, America is in now leading the world in superhuman population. We’re the global leader “happy accidents”—all of the radioactive spider-bites and super soldier serums—no one can touch us.

Panel Five CLOSE UP on GYRICH. “Why do you think the U.S. is so worried about Iran’s nuclear capabilities?” GYRICH tells him, “S.H.I.E.L.D. could easily take out the odd bomb or two… But another Hulk? That’s a different story.”

Panel Six We pull back as the two of them stand on the side of the road in Iraq.

The suicide car bomb is still smoking in the not too distant background.

GYRICH explains that if America is going to take advantage of this “super power gap”, all of those “happy accidents” are going to need training—military training. If the GAUNTLET can get them all up and running, then THIS war will go away in the blink of an eye.

See, everyone thinks it’s about getting more boots on the ground.

Actually? It’s all about getting more capes in the air…

PAGE 3 Panel One GAUNTLET: Sir? Are you okay in ther e?

GAUNTLET: Secretary Gyrich?

GYRICH (inside car): I’m fine, Sergeant, except for a mild case of nausea.

Panel Two GYRICH: “I’ve got it well in hand.” You actu ally come up with that crap?

GAUNTLET: No, sir. A petty officer from public affairs. He five of those a day. writes GYRICH: Good. I alm ost changed my mind abo ut you.

GAUNTLET: I wish you WOULD, Mr. Secretary.

Panel Three GAUNTLET: I think this, right here, prov es MY POINT. I’m not needed STATESIDE, sir.

I’m needed HERE. GYRICH: No, you’re not. Not since M-Day. GAUNTLET: What? When all the mut ants lost their powers? Wh does that have to do with at the Middle East?

GYRICH: Everything.

Before M-Day, mutants were the great equalizer, evenly spread across the globe.

Panel Four GYRICH: And then, POO F, like magic, nearly eve ry homo superior on Earth lost their super pow ers.

GYRICH: You know what that left us with, Serg eant? All the “Happy Accidents”.

Panel Five GYRICH: Your magic rings, cosmic rays, and radi oactive spider bites.

GYRICH: All the littl e people who were in the right place at the right time.

Panel Six GYRICH: And that’s US. The U.S. of A., lead ing the world in lab accidents, time warps, and alien crash sites.

GYRICH: Without doin g a damn thing, we won the super-powers race.

Now all we need is som eone to train our freaks…

GYRICH: …mold them into a proper fighting forc e. And that’s where YOU come in.

GYRICH: You want to win this war? It’s up to you. You can do it with more boots on the ground…

As Dan writes his plot, he gives Stefano bits and pieces of dialogue to help him understand the characters’ emotions, which in turn will help him in telling the story visually. Note, however, that Dan’s script does differ from his original suggested dialogue. [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

AVENGERS: THE INITIATIVE NUTS & BOLTS | 37

PAGE 4/SPLASH PAGE (Title, Credits, and Indicia go here) Cut to Evanston, Illinois…

CLOUD 9, an insecure high school sophomore, is escaping all the worries of her daily life by using her secret ability—the power of flight.

She’s totally geeking out on her super power, dashing and swooping through the sky and leaving cloud-like trail in her wake. She’s having a great time, when suddenly…

PAGE 4 GYRICH/CAP: “…or more capes in the air.”

LOCATOR CAPTION: Evanston, Illinois.

CLOUD 9 (big open lette rs): YEAHHH! TITLE: HAPPY ACCIDENTS CREDITS WAR MACHINE/CAPTI ON (like a read out over his suit of armor’s displays): Subject is an unregistered Super Hum an. Female.

WAR MACHINE/CAP: Powers: Manipulation of an unidentified (possibly extraterrestrial) gas. Pro ceed with caution.

Notice how, on the plot for this page, Dan “tells a story” to the editor and artist in a prose-like manner. But then, with the drawn art to base his captions and dialogue on, Dan is able to convey information to the reader in a less direct manner, letting Stefano’s art help tell the story, including Cloud 9’s emotions. [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

38 | WRITE NOW

PAGE 5 Panel One …she’s buzzed by two F-16

fighter jets!

Panel Two The jets pull up along side her and tell her to land IMMEDI It seems that in this Post 9/11 ATELY! World, the Air Force isn’t too fond of unauthorized flights—whether they’re from small vehicles or flying girls!

Panel Three CLOUD 9 freaks out and tries to ditch them. She doubles back …

Panel Four …and hides in a cloud.

Panel Five Cut to a POV shot from insid e WAR MACHINE’S helmet. see an infra-red view of CLO We can UD 9’s heat signature—even though she’s hiding in a cloud. In voice over we can hear him tell the pilot s that he’s got her signal.

(To the reader it’s still a mys tery that this is WAR MACHIN talking.)

E who’s

PAGE 5 Panel One y): Copy that.

JET PILOT (electric/tail going to canop Holy @#%*!

CLOUD 9 (normal balloo): Panel Two flight plan has Attention, superhuman flyer! Your JET PILOT (electric): FAA. NOT been approved by the you copy?

You will land IMMEDIATELY. Do JET PILOT (electric): CLOUD 9: I… uh…

Panel Three CLOUD 9: I am SO busted!

JET PILOT: Scramble! We lost her! in!

JET PILOT: Whiskey Mike?! Come Panel Four key Mike. I have her.

WAR MACHINE/CAP: This is Whis cloud cover. Not bad.

WAR MACHINE/CAP: Kid’s using Panel Five enough.

WAR MACHINE/CAP: Just not good …

CLOUD 9: Great. Good one, Abby

Though, the reader does not yet know he’s there, War Machine plays an important role in this sequence. Despite the fact that he starts off as a mystery figure, Dan, of course, has to let Stefano and the letterer, Virtual Calligraphy, know that WM is involved so they can present his electronic dialogue balloons and helmet vision correctly. [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

AVENGERS: THE INITIATIVE NUTS & BOLTS | 39

PAGE 6 Panel One CLOUD 9: …this is SO worse than Panel Two CLOUD 9: AHH! WAR MACHINE o/p: repulsor beams…

WAR MACHINE o/p:

PAGE 6 Panel One d—scared out of her wits.

Cut to CLOUD 9 inside the clou ing Panel Two d she’s in gets blown away, leav CLOUD 9 is startled as the clou her face to face… his Panel Three/Money Shot hands are held out, ready to use …with WAR MACHINE! His . well as her at s are aimed repulsor repulsor rays. And all his gun 9 to comply, or he’ll turn his WAR MACHINE tells CLOUD just a cloud. CLOUD than y awa e mor blow and rays up to a higher setting— head, surrendering to him.

9 raises her hands above her CHINE in a time that we’ve seen WAR MA first the is this , fano (Ste one based or— arm his of ion an updated vers while. He should be wearing or—but black and white and arm N’S MA N IRO of ion off of the current vers sporting enormous guns!)

taking mom’s car withou

Your cover has just been

t—

blown away by my

…at their LOWEST sett

ing. Trust me…

Panel Three WAR MACHINE: …you do NOT want me setting them any higher.

WAR MACHINE: Identif y yourself.

CLOUD 9 (small): I’m Abb y. Um… Abigail B— WAR MACHINE: Stop!

Not your name. Your iden tity. Your SUPERHUMAN identity .

CLOUD 9 (small): Cloud 9.

Panel Four WAR MACHINE: All righ t, Cloud 9, listen up. You wanna fly?

WAR MACHINE: You need a LICENSE. Com e with me.

s going Panel Four as he tells CLOUD 9 that she’ Close up on WAR MACHINE !

NOW … to have to get registered

Here we get a big, dramatic reveal of War Machine. Note that, in Dan’s plot, he gives Stefano important information he will need to update the character. [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

40 | WRITE NOW

THE END

CREATING COMICS STEP BY STEP

STEPS 4-6

By STEVEN GRANT Copyright © 2007 by Steven Grant.

A

s we said last issue:

“Steven Grant has a long and successful career as a comic book writer. He, along with Mike Zeck, brought the Punisher to new heights of popularity with their groundbreaking limited series. Steven has also scripted stories featuring Spider-Man, Batman, and even Robocop. He is also the creator of the popular independent comic book series, Whisper. Steven has a weekly column, Permanent Damage, on ComicBookResources.com.

“In ‘Creating Comics Step by Step,’ which first ran on Permanent Damage, he explores the process of how writers craft their stories. Steven has taken many agreed upon approaches of professional writers and presents them in an easy to understand and fun way.”

There are ten (up from nine) essays for this series.

We ran the first three last issue and are happy to run the next three here, with the last four scheduled to appear next issue.

So grab that highlighter for the important points Steven makes (which is all of them) and enjoy this middle third of his Master Class in creating comics!

—DF

Step 4: PLOT The term “plot” is often misconstrued, and just as often segregated from “character,” especially by critics who subdivide fiction into “character-driven” and “plotdriven” stories, by which they generally mean either the character’s behavior and responses determine the direction of the plot (and wherein plot is sometimes invisible) or the requirements of the plot predetermine a character’s responses. The distinction is largely overblown, and often used to separate “mainstream” fiction from “genre” fiction and imply an innate superiority of the former over westerns, detective stories, horror stories, science fiction, etc., all of which do have their own content requirements before you can join their club. But that’s really smoke, obscuring a simple fact:

Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa from 1503 to 1506. Does this world-famous work of art tell a story? Should it?

Character and plot, in practice, are indivisible.

Character without plot is a painting, a static persona: Mona Lisa, the corners of her mouth slightly upturned, eyes lightly dancing, hands crossed just a bit unnaturally in her lap as a storm seems to gather over a landscape behind her that’s cultivated but still seems to suggest something of the wild. Her hint of a smile has captivated viewers for centuries, but its meaning is lost, unknowable. She’s only a moment in time, trapped there forever, and while we can judge her character by what da Vinci left on canvas, that’s all we’ll ever have. She projects a character, but we can’t even know what of it is real and what we’re projecting.

She has no story moving through time.

STEVEN GRANT | 41

She has no plot.

Story, loosely defined, is character in motion through time. Plot is the shape of that motion. There’s a concept in physics called the Heisenberg principle, which says that in order to truly understand subatomic particles you have to know two things—the nature of the particle and its movement—but if you slow down or stop a particle in order to determine its nature, it no longer has any movement to know, while if you don’t interfere with its movement you can’t discover its nature. You need both, but in getting one you lose the other. Fiction’s a lot like that. If you fixate on character, you lose a sense of plot. If you fixate on plot, it’s easy to abandon your character. It’s not as complicated or indeterminate as nuclear particle physics, but you’ve got to keep your eyes on both elements at the same time.

Like I said, there has been a longstanding tradition of being dismissive toward “plot-driven” stories, and it’s not a wholly inaccurate presumption, but the distinction is unnecessary: a better term for a story where the plot overwhelms and dictates a character’s behavior is “bad story.” But there’s no reason to stigmatize plot or character during development; some writers are naturally more attuned to thinking mainly in terms of plot and others in terms of character, and more often writers will generate some stories from plot and start plugging characters into it and other stories by wrapping a plot around some character(s) they’ve conceived. I’ve done both; I suspect most writers with any sizable output have. The process of getting to the story is unimportant. Only the resulting story is important. The reader will only care how you got there in retrospect, if then.

So you’ve got your general idea, and you’ve whittled down the many possibilities it suggests to a general theme. At that point either characters that can carry and personify the theme are starting to occur to you (if the character wasn’t already part of your original idea) or you’re getting an idea for a plot. Start loose on either, and, again, don’t get so in love with any concept that you won’t throw it out to make your story better. Take whatever you’ve got and start working out the other.

Since we’ve already covered character, let’s start with that. I mentioned the three most basic questions to ask about your main character: • What does he want?

42 | WRITE NOW

• What is he willing to do to get it?

• What’s he afraid of?

Answering those three questions brings you not only to the rudiments of character but also to the rudiments of his plot. Goal is plot. Determination is plot. Fear is plot.

A spoiled girl wants to keep her family home.

She’s willing to lie, cheat, steal or kill to keep it.

She’s afraid she’s going to lose everything that ever meant anything to her if she doesn’t stay single-mindedly focused on her goal.

Gone with the Wind—like most well told stories—uses character to propel plot and vice versa. [™ & © 2007 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All rights reserved.]

That’s the loose plot outline to Gone With The Wind. As soon as you know what your character wants, that’s the beginning of your plot. And of your character. You just ask different questions of both.

• Character: why does he want it?

• Plot: what’s he going to do to get it?

Plot is really problem-solving. Initially, you present yourself with a series of questions/problems, and then you answer them. The answers you choose determine the direction of both plot and character, and those in turn (not to mention where they come into conflict with each other) generate other problems/questions, and the process recurs. And both plot and character develop.

Complications: Your character does not exist in a vacuum. He’s part of a world, whatever world that happens to be. Choice of world is what determines genre, and once you choose a world you play by the rules of that world; in a story set in the Wild West your character can’t suddenly haul out an Uzi unless you intend it to be a very different kind of genre. Presumably he’s not going to be the uncontested lord of his world, unless he’s

A superhero-supervillain confrontation is always more satisfying when a character’s motivations are multidimensional, as in this Spider-Man vs.

Shocker battle in Amazing Spider-Man #46. Script by Stan Lee. Art by John Romita, Sr. [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.] them that distinguishes one story with that framework from the next, which is why one story may be far more memorable than another with basically the same overall plot. It’s all in the details. It still all comes down to character in the end. How your characters act on the worlds they exist in, are acted on by those worlds, and the reactions of each to the actions of the other are your story. This can be as simple as a super-hero fight where a villain hits a hero and the hero hits back or as complex as a political chess game between opposing sides of a major public issue, or two expert generals on either side of a war manipulating whole battlefields. either going to be brought low or you’re writing a very boring story, so there will most likely be other people and at minimum other forces in his world whose goals will at least temporarily align or conflict with his. I spoke of primary and secondary characters; every time you introduce one, and answer those three questions and then start to answer new questions the answers generate, each character develops their own plot.

Where the plots intersect is the soil where your larger plot grows.

Traditionally every protagonist has an antagonist. In the simplest stories, common in comics, either both are after the same goal (known from Hitchcock as the MacGuffin, the something the characters have an excuse to fight over) or the protagonist’s goal is to keep the antagonist from attaining his goal (The Shocker wants to rob a bank because that’s what he does; Spider-Man wants to stop him because that’s what he does). Those are plot-driven types of stories: in either the structure of the story determines the overall arc of the character’s behavior, and, window dressing aside, any character used in them is basically interchangeable with any other character used in them.

On the other hand, it’s how the characters play in

The main thing to remember is that conflict is drama, and, as mentioned before, there are three kinds of conflict: man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. himself. Adversaries need not even be traditional enemies; loved ones in adversarial relationships are the stuff of many stories. Breaking away from traditional concepts of hero and enemy can increase conflict, as Akira Toriyama plays with consistently in Dragonball: no matter how much martial artists respect and admire each other, only one can win the title of The Strongest Under The Heavens, and it’s the emotional complexities of the players, and their struggles against their own perceived weaknesses as exposed in combat, as much as the fight scenes that makes Dragonball a success.

As you develop your plot, which can simply be understood as the string of events that carries your story from start to finish, or the sequence of obstacles and resolutions that a character or characters experience on the way toward the achievement of their goal, a number of things must constantly be kept in mind.

Unless you’re writing a story that calls for random action—they exist, but they’re tricky—all events added to your plot must serve several elements of your story STEVEN GRANT | 43

simultaneously: in addition to pushing the story forward toward the ultimate resolution, they should also develop your characters, reflect your theme and highlight the story’s milieu.

And that’s only the broad overview.

Step 5: MORE ABOUT PLOT A caveat: When people teach writing (this can be extrapolated to any kind of art, and probably most things) what they normally teach isn’t how to write, but how they write. Students eager to find “the secret” that will turn them into successful professional writers often lap it up and repeat points as gospel, frequently stunting their creative development by trying to force their natural inclinations into someone else’s straitjacket. In these articles, I’ve tried to avoid framing things in terms of how I write, though doubtless that’s crept in there. My objective here is two-fold: to get people thinking about aspects of creating comics (and while

Will Eisner dealt with the limitations of short-form comics by using humor combined with drama to add depth to many of his Spirit stories. This splash from the Eisner written-anddrawn syndicated Spirit Section story “Sand Saref ” was originally seen on January 8, 1950. [© 2007 Will Eisner Studios.]

I’ve been focusing on the writing so far, I’ll get into art, lettering, coloring and other aspects eventually; story, one way or another, always comes first) and to recognize, refine and organize my own thoughts on the subject. Everything here is, at best, a rough draft.

But all writing “courses” are rough drafts. Participants in such things are advised to take John Bunyan’s quartet from Pilgrim’s Progress to heart: What of my dross thou findest there, be bold To throw away, but yet preserve the gold; What if my gold be wrapped up in ore?

None throws away the apple for the core.

All that said, there are some fairly rigid aspects to plot.

In early comics, most stories were short. Even “full-length” stories, like the Justice Society’s in All Star Comics, were usually multiple complete short stories. The cover art to All Star #33 is

by Irwin Hasen. [© 2007 DC Comics.]

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Plot has always been problematic for comic books, and for any dramatic medium where expression is limited by space or time. Comics, until the advent of the graphic novel, were among the most limited. Novels can go on as long as the writer can sustain them and

the publisher permits. Plays and films are more limited, mostly by tenuous calculations of how little an audience will accept for their money vs. how long they’ll sit still, but the forms are flexible enough to accommodate one act plays and twelve-hour films. Radio and television are limited by artificially fixed timeslots. Short fiction breaks down into stories of anywhere from 1000 to several tens-of-thousands of words, but venues for such material are usually flexible about space. The amount of plot that goes into any of these varies with the form, but all plots make essentially the same basic mechanical demands (that is, separate from considerations of other elements like character or theme) regardless of the story’s length.

Comics have traditionally been very limited by space. While, in the ‘40s, it wasn’t unusual for comics to be 52 pages or more in length, individual stories rarely exceeded 8 pages, and even “full-length” stories—such as Justice Society stories that appeared in All-Star Comics—were usually split up into individual ”chapters” that were complete little stories in themselves Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth uses the comrather than fitting the chapter style of traditional novels that highlights specific pressed nature of its chapters—originally serialized in the Chicago weekly aspects of plot or character. While some New City and then in Ware’s own Acme Novelty Library—to achieve a high density of story content. Script and art by Ware. [© 2007 Chris Ware.] very interesting stories can be told in eight pages, the space limitations, comThe Spirit, addressed the problem by underlying plicated by breaking the story into panels (or, if you even his most dramatic stories with slapstick timing want a film analogy, “frames”) as well as the need to and a strong comedic sense, while Kurtzman in aesthetically balance the number of words versus the books like Frontline Combat and Two-Fisted Tales, number of pictures on any given page, automatically brought a remorseless laser focus to his stories, as imposed limits on the amount and sophistication of well as extreme precision in both his words and character and plot in the story. drawings. Both are absolutely essential reading for anyone who wants to learn how to properly write Even in the best short stories in comics, characters comics for maximum effectiveness in limited space. have been quickly sketched, wearing their emotions on It didn’t hurt that both seem to have had a natural their sleeves, and most comics short stories, good or instinct for the short story, and both—but especially bad, have locked into the straight adversarial plot: the Kurtzman—were merciless in eliminating the extraneous very bad person does something bad, the very good from their work.) person corrects the situation (or doesn’t), the end.

Good for quickly heightening (melo)drama, but bad for character development or sophisticated viewpoints.

(There are, of course, exceptions, certainly the work of Will Eisner and Harvey Kurtzman. Eisner, especially in

The graphic novel is our escape from the dominance of space; in theory, as with novels, the space allowed to a comics story should be as flexible as that allowed to prose novels, with greater sophistication and more STEVEN GRANT | 45

complex examinations, philosophies and convolutions possible, but so far it mostly hasn’t turned out that way. Rather than using the space to expand their plots, many have been content to inflate their plots to fill the space. What was formerly done in a 22-page comic is now frequently done in a 48 page “graphic novel,” with bigger pictures. It’s no wonder that trade paperback collections are often more fulfilling reads than original graphic novels, since the pressures of plot per issue lead to more condensed, and therefore more elaborate and captivating plots across the entire package. Even some of the most acclaimed and groundbreaking “original” graphic novels, like Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell’s From Hell or Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan are compilations of serialized stories, forcing a much greater density of plot that makes them feel much more like “real” novels than many of their meandering, straight-to-book-form kin.

The Demands of Plot: • All stories need a beginning, a middle, and an end, even if one or more are only implied.

Bear in mind that plot structure is not plot: the beginning, middle and end don’t necessarily need to be in that order. Anyone wondering what I mean should watch Christopher Nolan’s Memento, which starts at the logical end of the story, with the beginning in the middle, and the middle providing a brilliant, chilling conclusion. The plot of the movie could have been laid out in any fashion, but only the structure Nolan chooses tells the story he wants to tell.

• Plot should be proportionate to space.

The right amount length for a story is not 22 pages or 8 pages or 128 pages, but the smallest amount of space it takes you to effectively tell your story. If you conceive of a “graphic novel” but you can easily fit your material into 18 pages, you should either tell your story in 18 pages or reconceive it to invest it with more plot. Likewise, if you’ve got 22 pages to work with, and your story would fit better in a 36 page special, you either need to get very inventive or restructure your story to fit the space, figuring out what elements, if any, you can defer to later chapters.

Don’t leave cuts up to your editor, because you won’t be happy with them, and it’s your story. You’re the first person who should be happy with it.

• Any plot element introduced into a story must have a payoff.

Another way of dealing with comics’ space limitations was Harvey Kurtzman’s. As editor, writer, and cover artist, he made his Two-Fisted Tales stories precise and focused.

Here’s his cover to issue #25. [© 2007 William M. Gaines, Agent, Inc. All rights reserved.]

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A plot element is any element that has a bearing on the course or outcome of the story, which means virtually everything. If a character notices something on the street, that “something” should have some influence on the story. If an element is introduced, it has to have a reason. “Erika gazed out her window, impatient for any sign of Drake. A homeless man slept uncomfortably in a doorway, but otherwise the street was empty.” The homeless man may never be seen or referred to again, but he has already served a plot purpose: to highlight Drake’s continued absence. (More on setting and its relation to plot later.) If a character always carries a loaded pistol, any violent confrontation with that character should either involve the pistol or give a good reason why the pistol isn’t involved.

• You cannot pay off on a plot element that has not been introduced.

Meaning you have to play fair with the reader. You don’t write a Flash story where Superman suddenly appears in the second-to-last panel and stops the bad guy instead of the Flash, when you’ve never once referred to Superman in the course of the story. This sort of thing (and that’s the broadest example of it) is generally known as a deus ex machina ending, or “the god from the machine,” referring to Greek theater where plays would be brought to their conclusion by an actor playing a god, lowered to the stage by a hoist (the machine) and declaring an end to a play. Deus ex machina takes all kinds of forms. One mystery buff I know has noted that many comics mysteries have detectives solving the case by suddenly coming up with information never introduced during the story, so the reader never stood a chance in hell of solving the mystery themselves (and, in fact, the detective shouldn’t have been able to solve the mystery either). That’s a deus ex machina of a sort; a special condition introduced from nowhere that allows the story to close, and the traditional space restrictions in comics have made it seductive to many writers.

we find that Chicago is now a nest of alien bugs converting the planet to a giant anthill, and the monster is trying to exterminate them before human life on earth is impossible, while the heroic type is responsible for unleashing the bugs on the planet in the first place and will do everything in his power to keep them safe.

Again, that’s a very broad example. But all stories, to some extent, must play against reader expectation; otherwise readers grow very, very bored.

• Every plot must conform to the logic of the story you’re trying to tell.

This is a fancy way of summing up this section’s points. Every decision you make about plot should be a conscious decision, leading to a careful construction.

It’s your story, it generates its own logic, and by sucking the reader into the story’s logic you overcome their unwillingness to suspend disbelief (i.e.—to buy into a story’s logic, even if it’s fantastic).

Every time you introduce an element in the plot that breaks the reader away from the story’s logic, you break that chain of suspension just a little bit.

Comics have special requirements in this regard: I remember how, in the ‘70s, Batman stories often used the Ellery Queen gimmick of “Readers! Did you spot the clue the Batman saw?” Of course not— because the artist didn’t draw it! To some extent, all stories are mystery stories, leading to a revelation for the reader. Plot is a progression of story logic to get the reader to that revelation.

Look at it this way: a storyteller is a con man. The way a con man operates is this: he starts, usually, from a premise of an emotional appeal to the “mark” (in our case, the reader) that vaguely promises a positive but rational benefit. (“Bet a dollar, find the shell the pea is under, and you get $20 back.”) In more elaborate cons— most cults, for example—the con artist gets the mark in the habit of “What is real and what is illusion?” is a I have a fondness for stories in theme that runs through many of Philip K. saying “yes” via a series of logically Dick’s work including The Penultimate obvious propositions that the mark which events have at least two Truth. [© 2007 Philip K. Dick Trust. All rights reserved.] can agree with. Once the mark is possible interpretations: exoteric (the in the habit of answering “yes,” the interpretation informed mainly by con artist drops a logical fallacy on him, and when the pre-existing reader expectation) and the esoteric (the mark replies “yes” to that, the con man’s got him. “surprise” interpretation). A quick, off-the-top-of-myOnce the logical fallacy is accepted, any other fallacy head example: a handsome, heroic looking type battles will also most likely be accepted if later fallacies do in the stratosphere against a monstrous creature trying not overtly contradict the original fallacy. to launch a nuclear missile at Chicago. In the absence of other information, the reader will usually approach Story logic in fiction works on the same basic principle, the former as the story’s hero and the latter as the and if you give your reader the opportunity to say, villain. That’s the exoteric interpretation. It has nothing “Hey, wait a minute...!” you’ve blown it. The mark specific to do with the story, everything to do with makes a personal emotional stake in the fallacy he has reader expectation. In the course of the plot, however,

STEVEN GRANT | 47

the risk of him thinking, “Why white bread all of a sudden?”

• Keeping things consistent helps keep the reader on course.

A con game and a story aren’t exactly the same thing. A con game only pays off for the con artist; a good story pays off for everyone, although a really good story fits an important condition of the perfect con game: the mark never even realizes he got took.

Step 6: SETTING A lot of the things I’ve said in this series may seem perfectly obvious, but there are times when the obvious must be stated, because many people are so familiar with elements of stories that they don’t think about them even when they should. One of these elements is setting, something so fundamental I almost forgot about it.

In addition to being scenery, setting is an element of story logic, though one that should ideally be transparent to the reader, in most cases so natural to the story that it doesn’t come to the reader’s attention. The setting is a basic way of creating a world that draws the reader in.

Philip K. Dick once wrote a novel called The Penultimate Truth, set in a future where nuclear war has devastated the earth’s surface, driving the vast bulk of humanity to live in cramped underJames Robinson’s reinvention of DC’s Opal City-based Starman ground cities. The world was a conscious choice was popular with both mainstream comic book fans and those who on Dick’s part—all choices in stories are conscious, enjoyed edgier fare. Cover art for Starman #1 is by Tony Harris. whether we’re conscious of it or not—because the [© 2007 DC Comics.] story he wanted to tell demanded it. And the subterranean world he invents is immediately bought into, often to the point where he refuses any believable, believable enough that it supports and contradictions to the fallacy in order to preserve that subtly justifies the behavior of his characters; their stake; the reader wants a personal emotional stake in behavior is intimately tied to their world. your story, and your promise to the reader is that they won’t be disappointed. The difference between a good But that’s not the real lesson of the story, and, as in con artist and a bad one is that the bad one overplays most Dick stories, the world the characters live in isn’t his hand and tries too hard to convince the mark while really the world they think they know. The hero’s the the good one subtly invites the mark to be his partner one to figure this out, by watching old newsreels, the in the con and convince himself that the con is legit. backbone of the lie being perpetrated, and he figures it The plot is the trail of breadcrumbs you throw down so out by recognizing that elements in the newsreels— the mark can find his own way to the end of the story. fiction within the fiction—feature inventions that weren’t Too few breadcrumbs and it’s too much work for him. invented at the time the newsreels were supposedly Too many and he gets the feeling he’s being led. shot but which were so familiar to the hero’s world Suddenly switch from rye bread to white and you run that the vast majority of viewers wouldn’t think twice

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about them. In other words, the authors of the fiction within the fiction were sloppy—they were too lazy to get the details of the setting right—and the whole fiction fell apart.

Setting is detail, as in the Dick example, and setting is general. Setting is the world of the story, and specific places within that world. Batman is based in Gotham City (as many super-heroes are based in fictitious cities) so as not to be restricted to the physical limitations of a real locale, but even Gotham City has to stay somewhere within the broadest parameters of what we’d expect from a real American city. (One of the few weaknesses of James Robinson’s Starman was his attempt to make Opal City be too much; the more he described aspects of it, the less real it became. At times it seemed to be in the Midwest, at others somewhere in the Southwest, at others in the Deep South.) Some characters are specifically tied to their settings, for both physical and psychological reasons.

We can easily imagine Spider-Man swinging through Manhattan with its miles and miles of massive skyscrapers, but throw him into the flat expanses of the San Fernando Valley or the wilds of New Jersey, as writers sometimes do, and you neuter much of what makes him a unique and visual character; he becomes less outside of New York, unless the writer comes up with a good alternative setting where his powers can be used in an interesting way. (In a wonderful sequence in Amazing Spider-Man #14, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko took him out of his element to film a movie in New Mexico, and moved him into an inventive fight sequence in caves.)

On a technical level, writers are less involved with setting than artists are—it’s the artists who draw the stuff, after all—but good writers will take setting into account on their end. Even if you’re doing, say, a space story where you’re making the whole thing up, you still need to “see” the setting, and you need to figure out your rules for it, so that you’re not concocting aspects of it on the fly.

(Bear in mind that a little detail is often more convincing than a lot of detail... but you need to know the details you don’t spell out. As with other aspects, you’re liable to realize way into

your story that a room needs three doors instead of two, which is fine; just go back and make sure that’s consistent throughout. Think about your props; a ’30s dust bowl refugee won’t pull up to a California Border Station in a Ford Thunderbird.

In most cases, general settings will be suggested by the nature of the story—if they aren’t, you’re likely not thinking your story through well enough—but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t carefully consider them anyway. Specific settings—settings of individual scenes within a story, and set elements within those scenes— demand considerably more thought, and

Stan Lee and Steve Ditko send Spider-Man underground in this sequence from Amazing Spider-Man #14, putting the hero in a nonurban setting, although one where he could still show off his unique abilities. [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.] STEVEN GRANT | 49

A story has to have a reason for where and when it occurs.

Eric Shanower’s Age of Bronze, with its source material in Homer’s The Iliad, could only take place at the time of the Trojan War, because that’s where and when The Iliad is set.

Cover to issue #22 is by Shanower. [© 2007 Eric Shanower.] should never be selected haphazardly. I once wrote a Punisher story involving a serial killer who preyed on women walking their dogs in New York City at night.

The editor could understand why I wanted it set in NYC (a concentration of potential victims), and why it was at night (easier to strike and escape unseen) but why, he asked, did I specify a potential victim was walking a small dog. I let him work it out for himself, and he did after a couple minutes: you don’t attack someone who’s walking a big dog. That’s where setting—and, as a prop, the dog was part of the setting, what French film critics like to call mise-en-scene, or, loosely translated, “putting in the scene”—intersects with story logic. You always want the setting, and the props, to play into the story logic.

As with every other element in a story, if you introduce (which is to say, emphasize) some aspect of your

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setting—like the stalactites in the Lee-Ditko Spider-Man story that provide Spider-Man with something to attach his webs to—use it! You don’t send a character to the opera unless the opera fits into the story somehow, even if in as small a role as the hero having to figure out how to get out of the opera house without drawing attention to himself. If a character’s a farm boy, you don’t have him travel to the big city unless that setting is of some consequence for the story: he falls in love with a floozie he would never have met in the country, he gets mugged and his longstanding faith in the innate goodness of humanity crumbles, whatever.

If you use a setting you need a reason for that setting, though sometimes the setting is inherent and the reason is obvious; Eric Shanower’s Age of Bronze takes place at the time of the Trojan War because its source material, The Iliad, is about the Trojan War. A western doesn’t take place in 22nd century Chicago, usually. But even if you’re doing something with a setting as apparently obvious as a western, you have a choice of settings: the Mojave Desert, a harsh Montana winter, the Great Plains, a Texas border town, San Francisco’s Barbary Coast, the Colorado Rockies, or the gold mines of the Black Hills. These and many other settings have all appeared in westerns, and the settings chosen, general and specific, change the nature and direction of the story.

Next Issue: Steven discusses the importance of characterization, dialogue, script formatting, and pitching, in Steps 7-10 of “Creating Comics Step by Step.”

Steven Grant has been a professional writer since the 1970s.

He has written for Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, First, Avatar, and a host of other publishers. At Marvel, he helped popularize the Punisher with his collaborations with Mike Zeck on The Punisher limited series and graphic novel. He co-created the popular independent comic series Whisper (Capital/First) and Badlands (Dark Horse).

His new four issue series Two Guns is published by Boom! Studios His weekly column about comics, pop culture, and politics, Permanent Damage, can be found at: cbr.cc.

THE END

PAGE 13 4- Ext. Street- same Ultron takes Sentry's blow. Catching

it. Slamming into it with her hand hard.

1 - ULTRON

Robert...

2 - Spx: smackfoom 3 - ULTRON ted...

Your physical defeat has been calcula held by Ultron, looks up in horror. A 5- High looking down, Sentry, still being re. hid face and its not raining on him anymo 4 - ULTRON And executed.

big shadow covering half

The Mighty Avengers launched out of the final issue of Marvel’s Civil War (#7) and was formed by Tony Stark as a government-sponsored super team.

Here we have some of Brian Bendis’ script and Frank Cho’s art (his inks over his pencils) for TMA #3. The issue pits the Avengers against a new version of Ultron, and she is a foe to beware— and yes, we said she. [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

MIGHTY AVENGERS NUTS & BOLTS | 51

Page 141- Ext. S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier- day Big panel. Over the Sentry's head, looking him/ us.

Ultron is throwing it at him. Shootin

straight up. The massive S.H.I.E.L.D.

Helicarrier is heading for

g it at him.

2- Int. Helicarrier science center- Same Maria hits her head hard against the some are out.

console. The monitors are flickering

Ultron's face. Some are in and

each other. Wonder-man has devastation. People are falling all over Some show ULTRON, some show the tech. Wasp is floating and dodging chaos. grabbed Black Widow and a science 1 - Spx: clang

Brian favors writing full scripts (scripts containing each panel’s action and copy) and uses modified screenplay formatting, which employs a “slug line” to give the setting of a scene, and then just a few lines to describe the action in each panel. Dialogue and sound effects are then centered on the page. [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

R MARIA HILL

2 - S.H.I.E.L.D. DEPUTY COMMANDE Agh!

the chaos. Ares is on top of her. Everyo 3- Ms. Marvel lifts her head up among gravity and free-fall. To barks an order.

ne struggling with the

3 & 4 - MS. MARVEL Simon!

Go! 4- Ext. City- Same High looking down.

The Sentry is flying right for us with

genuine panic in his eyes.

a god moment. Backlit to lighting Powered, ready for what he has to do, actually cool.

Superman moment. If superman was He is tearing up through the battered

52 | WRITE NOW

caverns of the city.

that is bolting sideways. A real

Page 151- Half a page. Profile. Wide

.

The Sentry, still crackling, catche s the hull of the Helicarrier. It actually kind of tackles him and into it. He just gets his arms up he flies to catch it.

The metal of the hull falls over

itself on impact. His form is

Spx: foom

Oof! 2- Int. Helicarrier science center

dwarfed by the immense size

of the Helicarrier.

2 - THE SENTRY - Same

The Avengers, the S.H.I.E.L.D Agents, all go tumbling over to the left- smashing into the ship is being tipped over. monitors.

Like a

And now the electronics of the ship are being overloaded. They are exploding. Sparking. Light consoles are exploding into spark s and s. Shadows everywhere.

So much energy is being pump ed into the ships hull its overlo ading, even this high tech kingd handle it. om can't

Jesus!!

3 - THE WASP

4 - Spx: splam 5 - Spx: spink

On this page, Brian called for the wide shot of the plunging helicarrier to come first. However, when it came time to lay the page out, Frank decided to present the action a little differently, using three panels to show Sentry’s effort to catch the helicarrier as well as what was happening inside. This builds drama for the final reveal of Sentry actually catching it.

Note how the coloring, by Jason Keith, helps create motion and immediacy—even in a black and white version— by blending and streaking colors off the plunging helicarrier. [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

6 - Spx: boom 7 - Spx: karoom 3- Ext. City- Same Sentry howls out in rage and pain as he tries to do the impos sible. He's trying to push it back everything he has. Muscles tense, with veins pop.

Hrrrrrgghh!!!

8 - THE SENTRY

MIGHTY AVENGERS NUTS & BOLTS | 53

Page 161- Big panel. High looking down, The Helicarrier is in heavy perspective as it tips over with The Sentry at its far end. Lightning hits it.

Planes are falling off of it.

2- Profile. Sentry is straining. Calling

out to the wind.

The Helicarrier is starting to push on top of the taller buildings. Concrete and brick is coming off as are pieces of the carrier.

Brian calls for small close-ups of Sentry to heighten the drama of whether or not he will be able to stop the helicarrier’s plunge. But it was Frank’s decision to design the page with a big vertical panel, followed by a series of smaller panels along the right side of the page.

Neither the city nor the Helicarrier can

survive this.

1 - THE SENTRY HhhrrraaaaAgghh!!!

3- Smaller panel. Tight on the Sentry, 4- Smaller panel. Same, but Sentry's

he is pushing back with all his might.

face goes from straining anguish to

5- Profile. Widescreen. The Sentry feels

slight confusion.

the Helicarrier tip upwards. Is it over?

He's confused.

Notice that Frank added a panel to this page, increasing the drama of the scene. [© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

THE END 54 | WRITE NOW

star trek WRITERS ROUNDTABLE PART TWO (CONTINUED FROM BACK ISSUE #23, NOW ON SALE)

Conducted via e-mail by Robert Greenberger, October through December, 2006.

O

ur sister publication, Back Issue, published part one of a writers roundtable discussing the joys and pitfalls of adapting Star Trek from screen to comic book.

The discussion over there included topics on going from screen to print, working with licensing restrictions, the role of the artist on such a property, and how the various

companies that have handled Star Trek through the years have been to work with. Of course, the preceding summary is no comparison to actually reading the first part.

So let’s get re-introduced to the participants, and then get back to the discussion…

—DF

a quick introduction to the dramatis personae: mike w. barr Mike was a long-time DC Comics writer and short-time DC Comics editor with twin passions for Star Trek and mystery fiction.

He was the debut writer for DC Comics’ run of Star Trek and has also written the Trek novel Gemini.

peter david The self-proclaimed writer of stuff’s credits include a well-regarded run on DC’s version of Star Trek in addition to numerous novels for Pocket Books. He also co-created the fiction-only series Star Trek: New Frontier.

michael jan friedman A novelist who is also a Star Trek fan, Mike sold one story to Pocket Books, which brought him to DC’s attention, and he became a successful writer for them in the 1980s and 1990s. Mike has written countless novels for Pocket Books and more recently has tackled the Wolfman, Aliens, and Predator for DH Books.

glenn greenberg

“I am a former editor and writer for Marvel Comics, which is where I wrote the Star Trek: Untold Voyages limited series.

Currently, I’m an editor and writer for Scholastic Inc. and a recurring writer for Simon and Schuster’s Star Trek: Corps of Engineers line of e-books. My first e-book has already been published, and I’m currently writing my second one.”

andy mangels

A long-time fan, Andy turned his passion into a career as a comic-book writer, critic, historian, and novelist. He and writing partner Michael A. Martin have written for several of the Trek franchises at Pocket Books.

Leonard Nimoy (Spock) and William Shatner (Kirk) in a recent photo marking the Original Star Trek TV series’ 40th anniversary. [© 2007 Paramount]

martin pasko “I have more experience than I’d care to admit with branded entertainment properties in a variety of media. While still in my teens, I began a comics career working for many publishers, including a long association with DC, both freelance and on staff. I’ve also written and story-edited for TV, both live-action (Twilight Zone, Max Headroom, Roseanne) and animated (the original Batman [The Animated Series] and many other series). After a long stint at DC as an editor and Creative Services manager, I now freelance and run my own consulting business, creatively developing clients’ toy and game properties into story-driven entertainment. I’m told I’m the only one on this panel to have written both the Trek comic books and the comic strip, as well as having supervised the comics’ production as an editor.”

laurie sutton “I’ve written DS9 for Malibu and Voyager for Marvel, and have enjoyed being an editor for both DC and Marvel. I first encountered the once-in-a-lifetime, original-run Star Trek in 1966 when I was 13 years old and visiting Brownsville, Texas, while on a family road trip vacation (our own ‘trek’ if you will!). It was dinner time and we were all going to go down to the Holiday Inn restaurant, but this program came on the TV and that was it for me! I was fascinated, entranced, hooked! I sat like a five-year-old with my face as close to the screen as possible. Thank goodness my parents observed the obvious and let me miss dinner and watch the show. Their simple, single ‘indulgence’ set the course of my life, to a large extent. If they’d made me come to dinner, I might not have followed the Trek path with the sort of joy and freedom I have to this day.”

len wein Len can count among his earliest comics writing assignments several issues of Gold Key’s Star Trek title. Years later, after co-creating Swamp Thing and serving as editor-in-chief at Marvel and Batman editor at DC, Len returned to the 23rd century with a multiissue stint on the title, in time to celebrate the series’ 20th anniversary.

howard weinstein At 19, while attending the University of Connecticut, Howard sold the script to “The Pirates of Orion,” which was aired during the second season of the animated Star Trek series (now available on DVD). Additionally, he provided story help to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. He subsequently wrote several novels and short stories for Pocket Books and Star Trek comics for DC, WildStorm, and Marvel.

STAR TREK WRITERS ROUNDTABLE | 55

Greenberger: Each Trek ship has its own crew, but sometimes you need to add to the complement in order to tell your story. Are you better off grabbing an obscure character from one episode or creating your own recurring ensemble to pick from?

Sutton: It depends on who you grab!!! Barclay was a good one—so many paranoias upon which to play!

And, honestly, what reader is going to care about Unknown Red Shirt Shot by Phaser? Personally, I utilized these sorts of throwaway characters as mouthpieces to advance the story. (Then there was the time that I invented a character to honor a friend of mine and the editorial vision went elsewhere! *another sigh* ) But to answer the question directly: In order to tell the story, use the character who will do so to best advantage, known or invented.

Greenberg: I’ve tended to use pre-established characters, no matter how obscure. I think it’s fun to take a background or minor character that you’ve seen but know nothing about, and provide some history or characterization.

In Untold Voyages, for example, I used the alien ensign that Uhura scolds at the beginning of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Remember him? He defends Captain Decker after Kirk assumes command of the Enterprise, and Uhura tells him, “Our chances of returning from this mission in one piece may have just doubled.” I gave him a name—Ensign Omal—and had him substitute for Spock as Science Officer when Spock was away on leave.

Weinstein: Depending on the story, either or both. One enjoyable aspect of doing the comics (and print fiction) is the chance to take a minor character from TV or a

movie and make that person a real 3-D character.

But it’s also fun to make up brand new characters, since we couldn’t make any mold-breaking changes to the series regulars (though I enjoyed giving secondary characters like Sulu, Chekov, Uhura and Saavik bigger roles than they ever had in TV/movie Star Trek).

Pasko: With the original series, budget limitations usually precluded going much further than pointed ears and blue skin in the depiction of aliens (this was long before the later features and the other four series, whose FX budgets allowed for a wide range of non-humanoid crewpersons and aliens). And even Star Trek: The Motion Picture included odd-looking aliens only as background extras in walk-bys or in the scene on the massive rec deck set where Kirk addressed the assembled crew. So I was wary of trying to invent new supporting cast except as throwaways (killed or moved off the Enterprise by the end of the issue), and tended to keep them humanoid to avoid violating the “feel” of the source material at that time.

I kept remembering those multi-armed and animal-based aliens Filmation created for that dreadful pseudoanimated show. They just felt “wrong” to me, and I didn’t want to make the same mistake. Today, of course, I’d be Ferengi-ing it up along with everyone else.

But I think your question really has more to do with how the writer is structuring the comics series than the character mix; the considerations you raise come into play only if you’re structuring the book as an ongoing soap opera, which I didn’t. Otherwise, Roddenberry’s old “Wagon Train to the stars” pitch provides the answer: the ship’s size is such that around any corridor is a previously unseen crew member (or prisoner/passenger/guardian of special cargo, etc.) who provides the jumping-off place for a story. Wagon Train, after all, was more like an anthology show with Ward Bond and the other regulars wrapped around the guest star’s story like a framing device, and in his original conception, Roddenberry was envisioning a science fictional equivalent of that (the second pilot and the first season’s “Charlie X” are perhaps the purest examples of how that structure plays). It’s been said that it was NBC who steered Roddenberry toward more conventional formatting.

The only advantage of comics over film that I felt I could leverage was that I could call for menaces—as opposed to supporting cast—that were more visually spectacular and larger in scope than the original series’.

Though the original Trek series was cancelled after just three seasons, Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise found themselves back in action in a Saturday morning animated series which reunited most of the cast of the original series and ran for 22 episodes during the 1973 and 1974 TV seasons. [© 2007 Paramount]

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Barr: Depends on the needs of the story. New crewmen can sometimes reveal something new about established characters, but sometimes a story has a need that only reviving an established character, with his/her baggage— Kevin Riley, Tonia Barrows, etc.—can serve.

David: I think the best approach is to use both.

That’s what I did with New Frontier. John Ordover, in hiring me for the gig, suggested using several oneshot or occasional characters, such as Shelby and Lefler and Selar, to intermingle with the wholly original characters who were going to populate the ship. That way the long-time fans have a vested interested in characters they’ve met before, and at the same time will become invested in the new guys.

Wein: Generally, some obscure character from some episode.

I won’t be seeing any licensing revenue from anyone I create, so why help fill Paramount’s coffers?

In addition to scripting

Mangels: Mike and I did a many Star Trek comic combination of adding new book adventures, characters and spotlighting Peter David has written obscure characters in all the more than two dozen stories we wrote—in addition to Star Trek novels covering core characters, of including the New course. It’s made difficult Frontier series, which because of that old juggling job of moving established is based on a concept characters forward when they he conceived with can’t move forward because John Ordover. they’re on a show still airing. [© 2007 Paramount] The key in creating new characters is to not allow them to overshadow the main characters (as I feel some DC books did in the past), but to add flavor and further interaction to your main cast.

It was also fun to explore the secondary characters.

Paramount wasn’t quite as restrictive with what you could do with them, as long as you didn’t go drastic with things that might be contradicted on the show. Our last DS9 story was a very taut thriller with Garak, and allowed us a lot of exploration of his history.

Friedman: As I started writing the ST: TNG comic, it became pretty clear that Paramount didn’t want us inventing new characters. Later on, we had a lot more freedom. However, I enjoyed mining episodes for secondary characters to use in my comic stories, like Lt. Rager, Sonja Gomez and so on. I wrote one standalone story in which someone’s murdering Starfleet engineers, so I was able to mention some of Geordi’s predecessors on the Enterprise-D.

Greenberger: Klingons or Romulans?

Sutton: I like the visuals of the Romulans. They have such a sexy, subdued elegance. But I like the Klingons as characters because they are so no-holds-barred medieval.

Greenberg: Hmmm… if you put a gun to my head, I guess I’d have to answer Klingons. But I’m using the Romulans in my next e-book.

Weinstein: Klingons. That may be because the later TV series and the movies included much more cultural development for the Klingons than for the Romulans.

Romulans pretty much were pills, but Klingons are fun.

Any characters who get to say things like “I’ll cut out his heart and drink his steaming blood” are fun to write!

Pasko: I was allowed to use only the Klingons because the Romulans hadn’t appeared in the feature film. But I always thought both races were overused, when the core ideas of the property—especially its notions about intergalactic diversity—offer limitless potential for all sorts of antagonists, especially recurring enemy alien races.

(And, of course, the spin-off shows took greater advantage of that built-in value by creating many more recurring antagonists such as the Borg.) But of the two groups you STAR TREK WRITERS ROUNDTABLE | 57

Mike and I have happened to write more Klingons in the comics, but a lot more Romulans in our novels. And there is a lot more Romulan stuff coming up from us…

David: In response to Andy: Hugh Grant. I’m sorry, I just don’t have trouble with these kinds of questions. Maybe it helps that I give my answers very little thought…

Friedman: As the author of Kahless and Faces of Fire, I’d have to say Klingons.

Greenberger: How much world-building is necessary to properly tell your story given page limitations?

cite, I prefer the Romulans because they give you a greater opportunity for a closer connection between villain and regular cast and for interesting deep-character stuff if you’re dealing with Classic Trek and Mr. Spock: the mocking attitude, sometimes even a devil-tempter demeanor, with which the Romulans approach their “cousins,” the Vulcans, always struck me as providing fertile story territory. The fans’ distaste for all things Fred Frieberger and the execution of the third season episodes notwithstanding, “The Enterprise Incident,” with those seduction scenes between Nimoy and Joanne Linville, is a perfect example of what I’m talking about.

Barr: Klingons are better for sheer ruthlessness and double-dealing. Romulans are better for knotty political intrigue and mysterious motives, as so little is known about them. For years, I tried to sell a story about the planet Remus, which no one had ever done, then Nemesis spoiled that idea. Wotta stinker.

David: Romulans.

Wein: Andorians, actually. I just love that blue skin.

Mangels: Russell Crowe or Hugh Grant? I prefer Klingons, for their boldness and rowdiness, and because they grow better facial hair. Romulans just seem snooty and insufferable to me.

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Sutton: I love world-building!!!

How much of it gets into the comics is mutable. In my comic book scripts I provide as much description of the local culture and customs as possible Len Wein wrote eight without turning it into a novel!

But before that description issues of the Gold Key Star Trek series ever gets to the artist, I have thoroughly visualized it. I’ve as well as several thought of the culture the crew issues of DC’s Trek is visiting, and roughly imagined series. DC cover art the history of the people and is by Jerry Bingham. their place (I like anthropology, [© 2007 Paramount] go figure). But remember, each panel description is only 30-40 words. One must be brief, yet concise! For example, for issue #13 of Voyager, I introduced a society that lived in and on the thick atmospheric layers of a gas giant and mined the minerals the clouds held in suspension. I got to explore the tech—both high and low—of how they accomplished this. The most fun was inventing the indigenous life-form they utilized for that purpose—a gigantic flying sting-ray-type creature that fed on the minerals like a whale on krill, taking in both the surrounding gasses and the mineral, then collating the mineral. And then Paris and Chakotay got to ride them!

The visuals were dynamic and unique while advancing the story. However, the story had its genesis in the unusual environment of the planet. I created a world and hung an adventure on it, not the other way around.

Now that’s pure Star Trek for me!

Greenberg: World-building is very important. There should be internal consistency and logic to any new world you introduce, so a certain degree of advance thought should be put in.

In most cases, you want the alien world you’re introducing to be as visually interesting and exotic as possible. In a comic, you have very limited space, so you have to rely on visual cues to convey the culture and society and history of the planet. For example, you can introduce an alien species and show that their technology

Michael Jan Friedman wrote DC’s Star Trek: The Next Generation series and numerous limited series and one-shots. Cover art for ST:TNG #s 2, 7, and 19 is by Jerome K. Moore. [© 2007 Paramount]

is made entirely of crystal—no metals whatsoever. That right there tells you a little something about this species, and you don’t have to take up a lot of space in the story to get it across to the reader.

In a comic, world-building is, ideally, a joint effort by the writer and the artist. So in the script, I would say something along the lines of, “This is a world almost entirely covered by water, with the sole exception of one large stretch of land. And on that land is a very technologically advanced city, filled with towers stretching from the ground to the clouds.

And the towers are made of smooth, glittering, diamondlike materials—and no two towers look the same. The architecture is somewhat chaotic, there’s no uniformity to the towers whatsoever. Some have sharp edges, some are completely tubular, some can even be shaped like spiral staircases. Most importantly, they shouldn’t look like any structures on Earth. Let your imagination run wild!” And hopefully the artist will come through.

I just made that up, by the way— I should try to work it into a story!

Weinstein: Depends on the story.

That’s where writers need to remember how to use the pictures to tell their stories—a picture may not be worth a thousand words, but it can be worth quite a few when it comes to scene-setting and establishing important details of an alien planet or culture.

Pasko: Frankly, I think this question, when applied to the self-contained, 22-page model, has the thinking backwards: if your story requires a lot of “world-building” to pull off, it’s too ambitious for the format and should be simplified.

All those civilizations in the original series that were modeled on Earth cultures and historical periods weren’t done just to amortize existing sets or to capitalize on the assets of a full-service studio. They were also there to eliminate the need for cumbersome exposition, which, as you’ll recall from the famous memo in The Making of Star Trek—the one about how you don’t explain what a phaser is before you fire it; you just do it and it’s selfexplanatory—was anathema to Roddenberry & co. When the Enterprise went to the Nazi planet, for example, nobody STAR TREK WRITERS ROUNDTABLE | 59

needed to explain to the audience that the head honcho was the guy addressed as “Fuehrer.” Whereas, in the show where rebellious miners are being driven mad by a gas released by the ore (“The Cloud Minders”), the relationship of Jeff Corey to the troglodytes, and to the multi-tiered society as a whole, required at least two awkward, baldly expository scenes for all the skullduggery to make sense.

Laurie Sutton has written for Marvel’s Star Trek: Voyager series as well as Malibu’s Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Cover art to her ST: Voyager: Splashdown #1 is by S. Sava. Cover to ST: Deep Space Nine is by Leonard Kirk and Terry Pallot. And the cover to ST: Voyager #10 is by Jesus Redondo.

Barr: Not a great deal, but that’s because most Trek worlds are the convenient “one world, one political system, one fashion statement” type of world. Most Trek writers probably feel that, if they came up with a great idea for a new alien civilization, they wouldn’t sell it work-for-hire. This to some extent keeps Trek from becoming as mature a property as it could be, but it’s gone 40 years without it so far.

Friedman: You can often set your story with a caption or two, especially since our readers are trained to accept the captain’s log. However, there are often reasons to draw out that information and create a more complex world.

David: That’s kind of a circular question. You use as much world-building as is necessary to tell your story.

Wein: Just that much and no more.

David: Boy, I’m just not gonna out-succinct Len, am I? Mangels: It depends on the story. A one-part story is better spent with a character piece, although that character piece can involve some new “world.” A multi-part story is better for exploring something new, whether it’s a planet, landscape, spatial anomaly, architecture, species, culture, or physiology. Those are all elements in “world-building.”

It’s extremely important that you have a good artist when you allow for this. A lazy artist who makes your “interplanetary alien bazaar” look like a garage sale in suburbia is doing neither you nor the readers any favors.

As a writer, you have to provide the artist with necessary details of your world/culture/etc. but also give them room to enhance your description. But they have to be up to it. One set of artists was fired from a Trek book of ours because they got lazy with the details.

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[© 2007 Paramount]

Sutton: I’ve got to comment that I think that everyone is forgetting that Star Trek is all about seeking out new life and new civilizations, and if stories are light on the worldbuilding it’s the writer’s choice and not the fault of the original Trek premise or show budgets. I found the exploration of the unknown to be the most exciting part of writing Trek comics.

Greenberger: Does Star Trek lend itself to the serialized, soap opera that many mainstream comics today resemble? If you did this in your own work, did you find it successful?

Sutton: Oh yes, Star Trek lends itself to serialized fiction, whatever genre or medium in which it’s expressed. It has a continuity of characters all its own now. Personally, I don’t want to read that on-going sort of thing because I’m attached to the original (pardon the phrase) “done-in-one” stories. My preference is a story with a definite beginning, middle, and end. (Then again I still watch The Young and the Restless. Gaaagh!)

Greenberg: Absolutely, Star Trek can work very well in a serialized, soap opera style approach. Mike Barr and Peter David demonstrated that. But I feel the focus has to remain on the main characters. Granted, the main characters aren’t allowed to grow or change significantly

in the comics or novels. And as a result, the temptation for many writers is to create all-new characters to concentrate on, and those characters can show real growth and change over the course of a story line. But it’s my feeling that the main characters are the ones that the readers are paying to see, so they always have to be front and center. As a reader, I’d always be disappointed when the characters created for the comics—Bearclaw, Bryce, and Konom—hogged the spotlight. That became a growing problem—for me, at least—with Volume 1 of the DC series. Sorry, guys—I know most of you wrote those comics, but I gotta call it like I see it! To be honest, I was thrilled when DC relaunched the series and those three characters were gone without a trace. The focus was back where it belonged—on the Big Seven. Don’t get me wrong—I think having recurring secondary characters is fine. Just keep them secondary!

Weinstein: It’s very hard to tell a good Trek story in one short issue.

Just not enough room for much complexity of plot, theme or character.

As a writer (and a reader), I much preferred doing multi-issue stories.

I found three to five issues to be optimal.

Longer than that and the story loses focus. While I don’t think Star Trek works in a continuously serialized format, I do like the idea of having certain character-development subplots carrying over from one completed story into the next.

Andy Mangels scripted issue #s 10-15 of Marvel’s Star Trek: Deep Space Nine series. The cover to #15 (drawn by Greg Scott and Josef Rubinstein) is pictured.

Mangels also had a story in the DC/WildStorm Star Trek Special, which sported a John Van Fleet-drawn cover.

Pasko: For me, it never [© 2007 Paramount] really came up. I started doing comics for horror anthologies, published at a time when there was a large market for short, self-contained stories. I was fairly experienced at writing comics that way early on (which, incidentally, helped enormously to get the hang of writing episodic TV as quickly as I did when I went to L.A. in the ‘80s. So I was never locked into that onlyclassic-Marvels-are-real-comics mindset that says every comic book has to have a serial structure—“three or four acts and you’re out” was okay by me. Besides, on the first Marvel series, writers were asked to think in selfcontained story terms rather than multi-issue arcs because the approval process was slow, so no one writer was encouraged to think of himself as the “regular” assignee. I was told that, in order to make shipdates each month, Marvel had to have a number of

stories by different teams in the works at all times, and each job was published on a first-come, first-scheduled basis. That’s probably why the book didn’t do too well in the direct market: the solicitations were sometimes a bit vague because Marvel couldn’t always be sure which story was gonna be in which issue.

Barr: The last three incarnations of Trek—DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise—were “serialized soap operas” in format.

It’s not difficult to retrofit this format onto TOS [The Original Series] and TNG. You can get away with almost anything in Trek as long as a) the characterizations are faithful and b) you do it with respect and a straight face. As soon as you wink at the reader, the story comes crashing down.

David: That was certainly the approach I took when I was writing the series for DC. And yes, I think it was very successful. It set Richard’s [Richard Arnold, for a time, was approving material in Gene Roddenberry’s name and was the subject of much controversy] teeth on edge because, at the time, Trek wasn’t doing, and hadn’t done, anything like that. But I felt it necessary since the soap opera approach was what comics fans were accustomed to, and if we didn’t give them that level of familiarity, then they’d wander away. TV viewing is much easier in terms of appointment: You merely need the fans to sit down and turn on the TV. With comics, you need to give them an incentive to show up at the store and lay down money for it.

Wein: Absolutely. The stories are more about the characters than the plot, so serialized stories should work just as well. I did a few multi-parters when I was writing Trek and they came out just fine.

Mangels: Given that everything now is being written as 4-6-part storylines for the trade paperbacks, the serialized storyline is dictated by the length the publisher now wants, not the writer. This does allow for a more novelistic or operatic treatment for the story, but requires 4-5 climaxes and cliffhangers. That can be draining to come up with.

Although Mike and I did write some longer arcs, the shorter 1-2-part stories were actually more creatively fun. Had we had time to write longer arcs, maybe we’d feel differently.

More and more the stories today are padded beyond belief, with minimal dialogue, character arcs that take years to come to fruition, and double-page spreads or splash pages designed to enhance the artist’s original art sales price more than the storytelling. That’s frustrating for readers and writers alike, though good for the bottom line of the publisher and the artist.

STAR TREK WRITERS ROUNDTABLE | 61

When Mike and I recently pitched a mini-series to IDW, although there was a thematic arc to the mini-series, each issue had its own individual dramatic through-line and character exploration.

Friedman: You can do it if you’re not running neck and neck with an ongoing TV show, as I was with ST:TNG. Obviously, I had to leave character development to the show people.

Greenberger: With an ensemble cast, was it hard to pull off character-driven stories that told the reader something fresh about the characters without giving everyone else short shrift?

Greenberg: Definitely! That’s partly why I structured Untold Voyages the way I did: issue 1 focused on Kirk, issue 2 on Spock, issue 3 on McCoy, issue 4 on the secondary characters, especially Sulu, and issue 5 focused on Kirk again.

I remember giving Chekov a nice little moment in one of the Kirk issues, and ultimately yanking it out.

I was short on space and this Chekov bit wasn’t absolutely essential to the story, as much as I liked it and wanted to include it. And based on that experience, I came to the conclusion that maybe William Shatner got a bum rap from the supporting cast. They blame

him for always using his influence on the set to have their great moments edited out, because of his ego.

But I can say from experience that when you’re telling a story with a limited amount of space, you have to concentrate on the needs of that story. I cut the Chekov bit for the greater good of the story—William Shatner had absolutely no influence on me when I made that decision! But an actor watching his already limited screen time get whittled down even more wouldn’t necessarily see things that way.

In Untold Voyages, Scotty and Uhura ended up getting the least attention, but it was really unavoidable. Scotty has a nice, meaty role in my next e-book, though, so I’m making it up to him, at least!

Weinstein: That was the nice thing about knowing you’d be doing 12 issues per year on the monthly book—you could move the spotlight around and feature different characters, or combinations of characters, in order to give each of them a turn at center-stage and a chance to develop beyond what we’d seen on

Pages 21 and 22 of DC’s Star Trek Annual #1, scripted

by Mike W. Barr from a plot by Marv Wolfman and Dave Cockrum. The art is by David Ross (Pencils) and Bob Smith (Inks). [© 2007 Paramount]

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IDW currently publishes new Star Trek comics. Cover art for Star Trek: Klingons: Blood Will Tell incentive edition #1 (left) by Joe Corroney; cover art for the regular edition #1 by David Messina; and cover art for Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Space Between #5 by Corroney.

Both BWT issues are written by Scott Tipton and David Tipton, and TSB is written by David Tischmann. [© 2007 Paramount]

TV and in the movies (this was especially true with TOS, where the secondary characters never got much development time).

Pasko: For me, no, because—first off—if you’re writing TOS, it’s not an ensemble cast (Remember the sneering title of that TV Guide article?—“Nobody Upsets the STAR”?). But even if it were, if you think about the material in episodic television terms, the question of “short shrift” never enters the mind. The only character that this doesn’t apply to is Kirk because, as we now know, Shatner’s outsized ego was a powerful force in shaping characters’ screen time.

But, over the course of a season, any one of the other characters could be brought “front and center” in any given episode (like Scotty in Bob Bloch’s Jack The Ripper show), or be “light” in a picture (the “bottle show” about the overpopulated planet immediately comes to mind— the one where Kirk wakes up alone on the Enterprise and, with the exception of Spock, you never see the rest of the crew except in the teaser and the tag). Indeed, some actors had 8/13 deals, in which contractually they only did 8 out of every 13-hour order, so as a viewer, you didn’t tune in with the expectation of seeing everybody in every episode. So if I didn’t give some of the supporting players anything to do, I didn’t think twice about it.

Barr: No. The main characters in Trek are so well developed that the full depth of their characters can be invoked by a single line, if the writer knows the characters. (See my next answer.)

David: Nope.

Wein: Not at all.

David: Yes! I gave a shorter answer than Len! I rule!

Mangels: Not at all. For us, many of the best stories came out of the characters first. Our first sale at Marvel was a drunken roundelay with the DS9 characters imagining the reason that Klingons hated Tribbles so much. It was a comedy story, but it also allowed a little character glimpse into each of the storytellers’ personalities. And it played off of one line from Worf in one episode that implied a story was to be told.

We were the ones to tell that story!

Friedman: It’s not hard at all. Over the course of a year, you’ve got twelve issues. If you want to feature each of six characters twice, you can do that. However, I tried to mix up personal stories with those that involved the entire ensemble.

Greenberger: Star Trek has succeeded and failed at numerous publishers over 40 years. IDW has brought Star Trek back to print, why is Star Trek so hard to sustain as a comic?

Sutton: If I had the answer to that I’d be the Chris Claremont of Star Trek comics!! Truthfully, I suspect that it’s a Paramount problem. The licensor has certain expectations. Comics simply don’t meet the expectations in terms of revenue and dollars earned. It really isn’t a creative failure.

Greenberg: That’s not an easy question to answer. Part of it is creative, part of it is financial. I really think you have to look at it on a case-by-case basis.

The Gold Key series was licensed product. No more, no less.

STAR TREK WRITERS ROUNDTABLE | 63

Howard Weinstein has been writing Star Trek novels since 1981. He is also the youngest person to write for Star Trek. When he was just 19 years old he sold a script, The Pirates of Orion, to the animated Trek series. [© 2007 Paramount]

The first Marvel run was incredibly inconsistent— the quality varied wildly from one issue to the next.

Plus, Marvel was hampered by a contract that prevented them from using any elements of the original TV show—they could only refer back to the first movie.

With the second Marvel run, it definitely came down to money. Marvel was in deep financial trouble and was looking to cut costs. Management couldn’t see the point in paying Paramount the licensing fee, which wasn’t cheap. Plus, the head of Marvel at the time felt it was more important to promote Marvel’s characters, not Paramount’s. So Marvel canceled the line.

But I think one of the keys to answering your question, Bob, is to pinpoint exactly what happened at DC. The license was there for about 12 years—definitely a respectable length of time. And there was some real greatness achieved during those 12 years, but it seemed to me that, especially near the end, for whatever reasons, the quality of the series wavered.

But nowadays, there’s an even simpler reason why Star Trek hasn’t been able to sustain as a comic book.

The audience for Star Trek comics has always been significantly smaller than the regular super-hero comic book audience. The comic book industry is still in the midst of a long slump. If regular super-hero comics aren’t selling well, Star Trek comics really aren’t going to be selling well. And with that licensing fee you have to pay Paramount for the rights, it could easily become financially prohibitive for a comic company to publish Star Trek.

I wish IDW all the best, though!

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Weinstein: I don’t know enough about the comics biz to really answer that. How much overlap was there between the readership of Star Trek comics and super-hero comics?

The success of a regularly published Star Trek comic book is obviously tied to the popularity of Star Trek in TV or in the movies. With no recent Star Trek movies or current TV series, it’s pretty clear the Star Trek audience has dwindled. Is the remaining core sufficient to support a comic series? I guess IDW will find out. We also have to keep in mind that Star Trek’s peak of popularity in the mid-to-late 1980s preceded the entertainmentmedia explosion we have today. With so many choices, it’s much harder for any one thing to achieve longstanding blockbuster status. The whole pie may be bigger, but each slice is smaller.

Pasko: Is it hard to sustain? DC had a very long run with it, and I’m convinced that the second Marvel run and the WildStorm deal were both scuttled due to larger business issues than the unit sales at retail.

One factor that influences cancellation or renewal decisions is how limiting or accommodating the terms of the license agreement are. After Marvel pulled the plug the first time, and by the time DC picked up Trek, Paramount’s licensing operation had become more sophisticated, and they understood that there was greater long-term value in licensees having access to all the incarnations rather than selling a sub-license here and another one there. By then they were starting to understand that licensed product aimed at a Trekker audience was less attractive to them if it lacked the possibility of delivering the whole universe.

By the ‘90s, the major comics publishers, too, had come to understand their relatively new niche markets, and came to believe that the sense of a character group inhabiting a “shared universe” was essential to robust comics sales.

So with Paramount they took the posture, “If we can’t

have the whole franchise—if we can’t do books on Classic Trek, TNG, DS9, Voyager and whatever else [Enterprise had not yet been born]—and be able to do megacrossovers and ‘stunts,’ we don’t want the license at all.”

I think you can argue that hardcore Trekkers want to see “value-added content” in the licensed publications: situations and events that, for various reasons, can’t be done onscreen. But with CGI expanding the range of visuals that could be done cost-effectively, by the ‘90s there was less of a need for the comic to deliver visuals that would be prohibitively expensive in episodic TV. However, actors’ contracts and schedules still limited cast crossovers on the four contemporaneous TV shows (as did the producers’ fear of pushing the envelope on SF tropes; genre fans know there are countless ways to put together casts in different eras besides putting age makeup on Leonard Nimoy, but, apparently, somebody thinks there are only so many time warps a viewer will accept). So the comics people wanted to exploit an opportunity to use all the characters, all the time. As time went on, successive publishers enjoyed longer runs than Marvel’s first one by exhibiting extraordinary fidelity to the source material as well as Martin Pasko wrote issues having made deals that of Star Trek for both permitted maximum Marvel and DC. Cover art opportunity for the to Marvel’s Star Trek #13 is “value-added” qualities.

by James Sherman (Pencils) I don’t believe the and Larry Hama (Inks), and cancellations of the two to DC’s Star Trek #56 is by most recent incarnations Jerome K. Moore. of Trek comics were [© 2007 Paramount] due to poor sales so much as the license fee eating into the margin. The second factor, I think, is the new corporate hegemony in media and the easing of government anti-trust regulations.

It is now possible for companies to sell themselves to themselves—20th Television programming for FX and the Fox Network; WB exploiting the DC Comics brands in film, TV, animation, digital content, etc. So there is less interest in licensing in from another company; they’d prefer to keep the deals in the family. I’d argue that IDW wouldn’t have the license now if Viacom-CBS/Whatever It’s Called By The Time This Sees Print had a comic book company.

Barr: Because some publishers who have tried Trek didn’t think it was important to publish a comic that was faithful to whichever series they were adapting, they thought all they needed was to have the words STAR TREK on the cover. Also, publishers often decide they

want something different than the usual Star Trek comic, like that’s easy to do, so they choose writers who know nothing about the franchise—or, worse, who actively dislike the franchise—but are hot. They learn, but not until they’ve lost lots of money.

Additionally, all Trek comic writers fall into one of three categories: 1) The Purists, who just want to do good Trek stories that are consistent with filmed Trek; 2) The Profiteers, who just want to write Trek comics because they think it’s a license to print money, and; 3) The Revisionists, who want to fix Trek, redoing it in their image.

David: I disagree with that assessment. Star Trek initially ran at DC for over 50 issues—close to five years—and the only reason it was shut down was because of licensing disputes. Then the series came back and ran for over 60 issues.

The ST:TNG comic ran for over 70. That’s five years, six years, seven years. People don’t go around shaking their heads and saying, “Gee, ST:TNG was a failure because it only lasted seven years.” In television, if a series lasts even five years, it’s a success. In book publishing, series don’t continue indefinitely, and it’s understood that things end without it being considered a measure of success or ruled a failure.

Only in comics is something considered to be unsuccessful if it doesn’t go on forever. By that rationale, considering just about every continuing title out there has been canceled and then restarted, every comic title ever published is a failure.

Wein: I think it’s because you can’t hear the music.

Yeah. That’s it. It’s the lack of music. Seriously, I think a big part of why Trek has been canceled by the various companies over the years when other of their titles were selling equally as well or as poorly, is that the comics companies have no ancillary involvement in Trek, no way to make money selling action figures, shirts, models, whatever. The book has to stand or fall based entirely on its copy sales, not on its potential reuse.

Mangels: The only reason Marvel cancelled their later line was due to high licensing fees.

Star Trek must be published as a color comic, putting out all but a handful of publishers. Of those publishers, only a few actually do licensed comics, so your field is narrowed further. And Dark Horse is banned from Trek due to their Star Wars agreement with Lucasfilm, so one of the few possibilities is thus knocked out. Marvel and DC would both prefer not to pay licensing fees, so they’re out.

STAR TREK WRITERS ROUNDTABLE | 65

Covers to three of Michael Jan Friedman’s Star Trek novels. He’s written more than thirty! [© 2007 Paramount]

I’ve written a lot of licensed comics, and the problem for the publisher has never been about sales, it has always been about the licensing fee.

In publishing, it used to be that the licensed comics were seen as PR for the TV or movie property, and the fees were extremely low. In the post-Star Wars world, that’s not the case. Licensed comics are meant to be moneymakers only. Curiously, the studios don’t seem to realize that having no comic book of their property out there makes them significantly less money than charging a lower licensing fee and having flourishing comic series out there…

Friedman: It’s not. And I’d argue with the premise that Trek has failed at numerous publishers. What’s failed is the ability of the comic publisher to maintain a particular kind of relationship with Paramount, or the comic market as a whole. For instance, when DC lost the Trek franchise, it was because Paramount wanted a different kind of publishing relationship, not because the comics were tanking. In fact, they were still doing well in relation to the rest of the market.

What’s made it difficult to get a Trek comic venture off the ground in recent years is the depressed state of the comic book market, not anything intrinsic to Trek.

Greenberger: Which do you consider the best Star Trek comic you’ve written?

Sutton: I’d like to be remembered best for “Splashdown” because of Terry Pallot’s visuals of the literal event and for the whole idea that a starship could go underwater!!!

(This story appeared in comics before the Voyager episode “Thirty Days”, when Paris took the Delta Flyer, well, underwater.)

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Greenberg: Probably my last issue of Untold Voyages, issue 5. It was a double-sized issue, the grand finale, so I had more room to tell my story. It was the biggest, most epic Star Trek story I’d ever gotten to do. I was very happy with the character arc I developed for Captain Kirk, and the dialogue I’d written for the characters.

The quiet moments in that story were my favorites, probably the best stuff I’d done in the whole series.

And I was really pleased with Michael Collins’ art—he even drew [Star Trek editor] Tim Tuohy and me into the issue as Enterprise crewmen! It just felt like everything really came together and fell into place with that issue.

Weinstein: That’s a tough one. I like different stories for different reasons, so it’s hard to pick a favorite.

Pasko: I don’t think any of them—with one exception— could be called a good comic, because the art was so horrid. But I can talk about scripts I was happy with, and there were two of those: One in the first Marvel run is called “All the Infinite Ways” and, at the time I wrote it, was one of the first stories in licensed media to bring in McCoy’s daughter Joanna as an onstage character. She was planning to marry a Vulcan, with which McCoy predictably had issues. I was particularly proud of the tag, a one-page scene between Spock and McCoy in which Spock shows surprising, but not uncharacteristic, sensitivity to Bones, whose relationship with his daughter remains painfully strained.

The other is the one Trek I did for DC—the exception I mentioned. It was the most satisfying to me because, not only was I proud of the script, but it had fantastic art

by Gray Morrow, who had been on my list of people I was dying to work with for years. It had the Enterprise en route to a starbase hospital with critically injured passengers, until she was diverted to a planet that was a kind of intergalactic religious shrine reputed to be the site of faith healing miracles.

I wouldn’t be surprised if stories like these have since been done on television, but I wouldn’t know for sure because I kind of lost interest in the TV stuff after the first two seasons of TNG, which I thought were way too fan-centric to be entertaining to a mass audience.

Barr: Star Trek Annual #2 (DC, 1986): “The Final Voyage,” with art by Dan Jurgens and Bob Smith. This was my attempt to write, rather than a comic book about Trek, an episode of TOS, with TV pacing, and it succeeded. And how.

David: Probably Star Trek Annual #3 with Scotty that tells the story of the woman in his life, in reverse. The format was directly inspired by a Harold Pinter play, called Betrayal and—although the stories themselves obviously bore no resemblance—I still felt the need to credit Pinter in the credits. So it said something like, “Inspired by an idea by Harold Pinter.” This caused no end of confusion, as people were asking, “Wait, so...

Harold Pinter is writing Star Trek now?” Right behind that annual, I’d probably hold up the New Frontier one-shot I did for WildStorm. Not only did the story fill a continuity gap in the book series, but I was very involved in the character designs. So it gave me the opportunity to present what were, to me, the definitive visualizations of the characters, far more so than one sees on the covers of the original novels. Whenever anyone asks what the characters look like, I always refer them to that one-shot.

The classic Futurama animated series regularly featured satirical—and hilarious—homages to the original Trek crew. Here, Kirk grits his teeth at Futurama’s Leela.

[Futurama © 2007 Twentieth century Fox Film Corporation. Star Trek and Kirk © 2007 Paramount.]

Wein: Oh, hands down, it was “Vicious Circle” (at least I think that’s the title; I don’t have the book handy right now), the 20th Anniversary story where the original Enterprise crew met their future selves and discovered what their lives were going to be like. I was and remain incredibly proud of that story.

Mangels: There are three: DS9 #14 was the first story we wrote, and it holds the record for quickest approval ever at Paramount. It’s the story of why Klingons hate Tribbles so much, and it’s very silly and funny. The following issue, DS9 #15 was an incredibly dark and espionage-heavy Garak story that was a very moody character study. The two stories showed a complete contrast to each other.

The third favorite story we wrote was to be the first issue of a Star Trek “What If?” series called Star Trek: Realities. The plot was “What if Gul Dukat Became the Emissary?” and it was brutal. In the tradition of many What Ifs, it had the destruction of a huge amount of property, many deaths, friends becoming enemies, and one hell of a shocker ending, leading into the sequel…

“What if the Borg assimilated Earth?” It kills me that it will never be seen. Visually and story wise, it was incredible.

But Marvel axed the line before it could be published.

Friedman: The best Trek comic I’ve written would probably be four comics, actually: “The Worst of Both Worlds” sequence in ST:TNG #47-50. It thrust our heroes into an alternate universe where the Borg won their encounter with the Federation in “The Best of Both Worlds” two-parter and took over Earth.

David: I also enjoyed a limited series that I did in conjunction with Mike, The Modala Imperative. It was two four-part stories except that I, who was writing the ST:TOS comic at the time, wrote the ST:TNG half while Mike wrote the ST:TOS half. That had my all time favorite scene in it: Data and Spock engaged in a chess game with one another. No board, no pieces: They just stood there face to face and started saying chess moves back and forth while an amazed and impressed crew watched these two chess wizards go at it.

Greenberger: Which franchise did you never write and most want a shot at?

Sutton: How do you choose a favorite child? I’d be delirious with joy to write any of the franchises, either for the first time or for a repeat performance. Writing Trek stretches my imagination in ways that other genres simply cannot. It allows me to explore science, politics, mysteries, and even romance. Star Trek has evolved into a wondrous universe, and I love going there.

Greenberg: I guess The Next Generation, because there have been times when I’ve liked it, disliked it, been frustrated by it, and been downright disgusted with it. So I’d like to take a shot at doing a TNG story, just to see if I could get a handle on the characters, if I could write them as well as I think I can write the Original Series characters, and develop a story for them that captures the elements of TNG that were in the episodes I really liked. That would be a real STAR TREK WRITERS ROUNDTABLE | 67

Wein: That would have to be Deep Space Nine or the final season version of Enterprise, where they finally started doing what the show should have been about all along.

challenge, which is something every writer should want when working on a story. And if I could pull it off, if I could do it successfully, man, would that be satisfying!

Star Trek: Titan is a series of novels, written

by Andy Mangels and Michael A, Martin, that follows the adventures of newly promoted Captain William Riker on his first starship command, the U.S.S. Titan. [© 2007 Paramount]

Weinstein: I got to do at least a few issues for all four series prior to Enterprise (did anyone ever do any Enterprise comics?) And my favorite Trek era is the original-series movie period, which is when I set almost all the stories I wrote for DC. So I consider myself lucky to have written that monthly series for 4 years.

Barr: James Bond.

Oh, you mean in Trek? Though I’m always ready to return to TOS—or any other incarnation of Trek – I’ve had every chance I wanted. I wrote the first TOS comic that was faithful to the series and commercially successful, and I’m the first writer to have written the first four incarnations of Trek: TOS, TNG, DS9 and Voyager. (Well, it would have been good to do an Enterprise comic, just to corner the market, but no publisher was interested. Wisely.)

David: Doc Savage. Maybe Mike and I could team up and have Doc Savage meet James Bond. That’s right up there with my dream assignment of Tarzan vs. the Phantom.

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Mangels: If my co-writer Michael Martin were answering, he’d say the Original Series. However, I’m going to pick Titan.

At the end of the last Trek movie, Riker left to captain his own ship called the U.S.S. Titan. Mike and I got to write the first two best-selling Titan novels, and populate the ship with the most diverse and alien cast ever.

Titan screams to be done as a comic book, since visually, it would be stunning.

An example?

The Chief Medical officer is an intelligent eight-foot Komodo dragon/ velociraptor! Online polls show Titan as far and away the fans’ top choice to be done as a comic book series, so here’s hoping that we might one day be able to do that!

Friedman: Never wrote Enterprise. Which is fine.

It never really appealed to me.

Greenberger: Thanks, folks. I think you’ve given the readers a lot to think about and argue over.

Live long and prosper all that jazz.

And so we end our Trek Writers roundtable (and our first—but hopefully not last—crossover between Back Issue and Write Now). Let us know how you liked it—and what other roundtables you’d like to see in the future!

–Danny Fingeroth and Michael Eury BOB GREENBERGER has worked at Starlog Press, DC Comics, Gist Communications, Marvel Comics, DC, and World Weekly News, in that order.

He edited DC’s Star Trek line for eight years and segued over to writing for Pocket’s Star Trek fiction line, so he knows a thing or two about the franchise.

THE END

Feedback

Letters from our readers

Hi, Danny!

Just read Write Now! #15 and really enjoyed it, particularly the interview with J.M. DeMatteis and the article by John Ostrander.

And speaking of next issue, besides our great Heroes features—including an amazing photo cover featuring series stars HAYDEN PANETIERRE and MILO VENTIMIGLIA—we’ve got tons more great stuff to edutain you:

I’ve been reading the magazine since the first issue and have always found something useful or entertaining (sometimes both) each issue.

• PETER DAVID talking about writing STEPHEN KING’S DARK TOWER comics

Alex Grecian via the Internet

• an interview with writer and editor C.B. CEBULSKI, who’s done everything from manga to Marvel!

Thanks for being there since the beginning, Alex. And if we’ve both educated and entertained you—well, that’s the whole point of Write Now!

• an interview with multi-talented author of kids books—including lots of super-hero stuff— MICHAEL TEITELBUM

Hi Danny,

• the DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF interview that was supposed to be in this issue—including art from his and LIAM SHARP’s Testament.

I just read my subscription copy of Write Now! #15.

Great job, as always. It’s inspiring to have a regular dose of reading about writing comics, as it was to take the class you and Denny O’Neil taught at NYU last fall. In this issue, I particularly enjoyed the in-depth coverage of the logistical challenges behind writing series like 52 and Countdown.

I’m looking forward to the McFarlane interview and Avengers “Nuts and Bolts” next issue. And in the near future, how about an article or two about another series that has an even bigger fan base: Heroes?

Best, Sean Patrick Flahaven via the Internet Thanks for the compliments, Sean. It was great to have you in the class. Now that you’ve read it, how did you like this issue?

And your wish regarding Heroes shall be granted— and how! Because next issue is our Focus on Heroes issue! We go behind the scenes to find out just how a complex show like that is written. We’ll have interviews with comics’ own JEPH LOEB (X-MEN, BATMAN, you name it)—who’s one of the show’s writers—as well as Heroes creator TIM KRING! We’ll also learn about the Heroes online comic and the upcoming Heroes: Origins spin-off series! Plus, there’ll be script samples and all sorts of other peeks behind the Heroes curtain!

• a FREE PREVIEW of BACK ISSUE #24.

• and lots of cool Nuts & Bolts features with script and pencil art from some of your favorite creative folks!

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT; Two issues from now—Write Now! #18—will be our special ALL-STAN LEE ISSUE, celebrating The Man’s 85th birthday and his amazing career writing comics, TV, movies and just about everything else! Joining in on the festivities will be high-profile Stan-fans including JOHN ROMITA, SR., BRIAN BENDIS, TODD McFARLANE, DENNIS O’NEIL, ROY THOMAS, and lots of others. More details about this amazing issue next time. (And one month earlier, Roy will also be celebrating Stan in issue #74 of his Alter Ego magazine, also published, of course, by TwoMorrows.

Let me know what you thought of this issue—or anything else relating to writing comics, animation, and science fiction in all media. E-mail me at WriteNowDF@aol.com, or snail-mail your thoughts to Danny Fingeroth, c/o TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614.

FEEDBACK | 69

We hope you enjoy this FREE

DRAW! #14 PREVIEW! Edited by top DC and Marvel Comics artist MIKE MANLEY, the Eisner Award-nominated DRAW! magazine 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, as each artist invites you into their studio to reveal their working methods and tricks of the trade!

Issue #14 features in-depth interviews and demos

by DC Comics artist DOUG MAHNKE (JLA, Batman, Seven Soldiers: Frankenstein, Superman, Justice League Elite), OVI NEDELCU (Pigtale, WB Animation), and STEVE PURCELL (Sam and Max).

Then, MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS bring you Part III of COMIC ART BOOT CAMP: “Using Black to Power up Your Pages”, covering the best ways to use black placement to enhance and kick up the energy in your pages. Plus, there's a color section, a new MAHNKE cover, and more!

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MATT HALEY, TOM BANCROFT & ROB CORLEY, ALBERTO RUIZ

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Conducted by Mike Manley Transcribed by Steven Tice

oug Mahnke is an artist’s artist. He does all of the hard things well, and makes it look easy. He’s one of the rare artists in the medium of comics who can flex between funny, fantastic action and horror. From Seven Soldiers of Victory: Frankenstein to The Mask, Major Bummer, Superman: Man of Steel and the JLA, Mahnke’s powerful figure work has always stood head and shoulders above many other artists working in the field. It’s not surprising to find out that the man who draws such powerful and dynamic heroes is also a competitive power lifter. DRAW! Editor Mike Manley catches up with this busy artist and father of six from his home studio in Minnesota.

D

BATMAN ™ AND ©2007 DC COMICS

DRAW!: What is your typical workday like?

DOUG MAHNKE: It has varied quite a bit over the years, but I’ve settled into some fairly regular habits, as it has become obvious to me what gets the job done. I could divide this up into two different days, which is the productive day vs. the unproductive day. They do their best to coexist, although I feel

the unproductive day always gets the better deal as the productive one has to pick up the slack.

Productive day: I get up by 5 a.m. and go right down to the studio. The first thing I tend to do is turn on the computer to check e-mail and let my brain warm-up by visiting some of my favorite sites, all of which tend to be weightlifting-oriented. By 6:00 or 6:30 I get to work penciling or inking, whichever is the DRAW! #14 Preview

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priority at the moment. I might just sit in silence or turn on the radio. I get into ruts where my “atmosphere” is concerned, and will go for very long stretches doing one thing then suddenly shift and do another. It might be talk or sports radio for a month or three, then some local music station for a while, then I might listen to a Greek or Italian station on the net for days. I will also put in a movie to keep me company. Most recently on a long productive day—which actually stretched into two days—I watched the first season of The Beverly Hillbillies over and over again. I’m not actually watching it very often, just listening to it. Oddly, I did this recently with the Jet Li movie, Hero, which is in Chinese.

As I sit and work I hear the house wake up, as one after another my six kids and my wife rise until the house is full of noise.

Usually after seven I go upstairs for a quick breakfast with the family, then back downstairs. It might be a bowl of oatmeal and some eggs or a protein drink. Coffee is a major player in my regular day, although I try to drink green tea now and then at the recommendation of DC editor Peter Tomasi. I also drink Yerba Mate. The bottom line is THIS PAGE: Batman pencil sketch.

NEXT PAGE: Cover to Dark Horse’s King Tiger & Motorhead #1.

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BATMAN ™ AND ©2007 DC COMICS

caffeine, which I am pretty sure is the secret to the success of the human race as we know it. Back to work after breakfast, and I try to get at least one page finished by 10 a.m. I eat a snack then... probably a piece of fruit and more protein. Back to work and try and get a little more done before lunch, which can happen at any time between 11:00 and noon, or whenever my kids have lost their minds with hunger. After lunch I will goof around on the computer for a little bit, but I keep it down on productive days. I find keeping off of the computer the best way to get work done. The computer can kill your day. I don’t play any games or do much with it, but time flies even when you’re looking for reference.

After my goof-off time, it’s back to work, which will be more of the same, penciling or inking. If everything has gone well, a productive day can have me finished with my work by 3:30. I’ll knock off then and lift weights until supper. I don’t have a set pattern for the amount of penciling I will do before inking, although I do know it’s best for me to mix the two, so I can make realistic projections of when I can finish a page.

Unproductive days for me are almost identical to productive days, except everything is slower. I get to work later, I eat longer, I linger on the computer, I get distracted by some pointless Internet thread. I could be looking up some military reference, then discover myself an hour later looking up information on the old Will the Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down cartoon. I might find myself paying too much attention to some facet of a page that will probably end up covered in a word balloon, or using some ink that is so thick I can barely get it to pour from the dropper, let alone flow from my nib. Out of a five-day work week, if I have two slow days it takes a couple of ultra productive days to make up the difference. The problem lately has been to turn the heat up on the productive days, as they feel they contribute enough. Occasionally I will work late, but I just function better in the morning work-wise than in the evening.

Recently I’ve gone through a very long “anti-productive” slump, possibly the worst I’ve had in my 18 years of comic drawing. I chalk it up to a couple of things... one is coming off of an enormous productive stretch that lasted a couple of years and left me mentally exhausted. When I say “antiproductive” I mean in terms of quantity, as the quality is pretty high. I also was in a car wreck one year ago on October 14th, which is the date of my anniversary. My wife and I were going to go out for a quick bite at one of our favorite restaurants. To do so we were driving our kids to my sister-in-law’s place.

About one mile away from our home we were rear-ended, while waiting to turn left off of the highway. I saw the car coming at the last moment in my rear view mirror and hit the gas, getting us moving just enough to diffuse a little of the impact. The driver, a young guy, nailed us at 45 to 50 miles an hour. My seat broke and threw me backwards, the back of my head smashed into my oldest daughter’s head, just above her right eye, severely fracturing her socket and the bones on the right side of her face. (I’m happy to report a full recovery by the way)... it could have been pretty grim. I received a concussion, but being the true professional totally behind the eightball with a big deadline, I went home that

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DOUG MAHNKE

night while my daughter was in the intensive care unit and finished five or seven pages if I remember correctly.

The injury also effected my sight for a while, but I managed to work. Honestly, there are a few months that are merely a blur for me, but when you have a job to do you have to do it.

DRAW!: What’s your drawing pace like?

KING TIGER, MOTORHEAD ™ AND ©2007 DARK HORSE COMICS, INC.

DM: In all actuality, when only penciling and if the pressure is on, I can pencil a page every two to three hours of straight work. If it’s reference heavy, that can slow me down, but if I know what I’m doing, I can knock them out fast. I’m very fast with drawing and pretty accurate with laying out perspective without ruling lines. The only problem is it can fatigue me pretty bad these days, and leave me a mental pile of mush. I’ve penciled a complete book in a three-day tear with the help of my old assistant Shawn Moll. This is all fine and great but a sensible person would never put themselves into a position to find that kind of output necessary. Having to work that hard and fast is usually the result of taking on too much work—which I’ve done—or too many unproductive days.

DRAW!: What is your studio set up like?

DM: Very unimpressive. My studio is fairly small; it’s in a 12’ x 12’ room in my basement. Thankfully I have a nice window. My most recent addition to it is a large desk where I can organize my paperwork and store books and supplies. The last time I bought something for my studio was 18 years ago. I’ve always been terribly frugal where my studio is concerned, and it wouldn’t hurt me to invest in some new stuff now and then, but I’ve been comfortable enough to work with what I originally bought those many years ago. My desk and chair have seen better days, and I rule lines with an angle that is broken in two pieces. The angle has so many chips and dings in it that I have to watch out for the irregularities when inking with it.

It does add character to a straight line though.

There is an old tabby tray on the left side of my desk that is nothing more than a glorified pencil holder and graveyard for old erasers. I also have a picture of my wife and my mom there, and a cool little piece of artwork one of my kids made for me that I always liked. Sitting next to me on my left is an old child’s school desk that I use for a table. Reference material, opened ink

bottles and scratch paper is usually sitting here, while inside is a nice hand mirror that I swiped from one of my kids as well as my old broken one. Whichever ends up in my hand first is the one that gets used. Right behind me is a little piece of furniture with three open shelves, which I clear off a few times a year and slowly pile stuff on for the rest. I also tend to set coffee or food back there. I have a shelf that I line with knick-knacks and photos of my family, a Swedish horse, a little Greek vase, a Hmong tiger carved out of ivory, and my prized Lou Martin/Major Bummer Inaction Figure that my friend Joel made.

I have a second desk that I bought a few years ago when my friend Shawn Moll started to work with me as my assistant. Since then Shawn has gone on to do his own work, but the desk stays. It DRAW! #14 Preview

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JLA ™ AND ©2007 DC COMICS.

DOUG MAHNKE

has a nice chair, and my kids or wife come in to work or draw now and then. It has a light, which is something I should really get for my own desk, but as I sit by the window I enjoy the natural light.

On my walls I have a few pieces of artwork. A framed piece of The Mask holding a pie with a bomb in it, the wall hanging of the first Justice League cover that I did, a nice copy of Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam” from the Sistine chapel. My friend and fan Kevin gave this to me as a gift. I also have a picture of me on the wall holding a weight over my head in the clean and jerk, with a bunch of medals hanging next to it.

I’m an avid competitive weightlifter.

That’s about it for the studio. I have a phone that is rarely charged and constantly goes missing, and the necessary computer with e-mail to keep me connected to the world.

DRAW!: Wow, that’s some story, I’m really glad to hear everyone came out okay. Can you give me a bit of your background, your schooling or art schooling if you’ve had any?

DM: I had no formal training or art school. I never liked school and higher education wasn’t for me, but I am always learning and I’ve had some direction here and there over my lifetime. When I was in 5th or 6th grade I took a special portrait drawing class from a very talented gentleman whose name escapes me, unfortunately. I was a little kid in an adult class, and learned a lot about proportion and lighting. I took some private art lessons as a child from a woman who was an artist. Joelle Waldo was her name, and she was a good teacher and lovely person. She showed me art beyond comics, and made it fun. I also took some private lessons from a commercial artist. He would give me an assignment and then provide me with the tools to execute the piece.

But my most influential teacher was a woman named Pat Wolf. She was my 9th grade art teacher and her personal focus was pottery, but she was an excellent teacher. The greatest “teaching moment” she ever gave me was when I was doing some drawing of a man... just something out of my head. She looked at it and told 74

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me the legs were too short. I took immediate offense, and disagreed with her with all my self-centered artistic soul. She calmly picked out a few books that had some old masters art, mostly figure stuff, and had me take a look. I couldn’t disagree with her after that. It opened my eyes from then on, and I was never the same since. I knew I was not God’s gift to art, and that if I was open to learning I could at least always improve. I’ve been a bit detached from what I do since that day, and open to criticism. I look at what I do for how I can improve it, and I like to look to others to see what can be learned from their work. No matter how badly I might think someone draws, if they sell comics and have people interested in their art there has to be something there. Sometimes it’s not the clarity with which they draw but the emotion they “draw out” from the person looking at it. Art is fascinating that way. Really, I am always learning something new. One day I’m going to sit down and learn how to draw women’s hair. I think it’s about time!

DRAW!: What are you currently working on?

DM: I’m penciling and inking Stormwatch PHD for Wildstorm.

Christos Gage is writing it and David Baron is coloring it. My editor and friend Ben Abernathy is doing his best to keep me in line.

It’s a revamping of the old Stormwatch book, which I wasn’t familiar with previously, so it’s all new to me. Instead of a super-powered Stormwatch fighting super-bad people, they have a scaled down, budget conscious human division fighting super-bad people.

Christos has come up with some very fun characters to draw, from vivacious to less than ordinary. One of them is a former super-villain called the Machinist, who is now a has-been with a growing paunch and receding hairline. I like to draw guys like that; it’s fun for me. No matter how unimpressive they are they still have to go up against the exotic and super-powered, which is great contrast for the main cast of characters. As this article goes to press, I’ll be working on a Black Adam miniseries, written by Peter Tomasi.

DRAW!: You know, there are a lot of comic artists from up in

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your neck of the woods: Gordon Purcell, and I guess that’s where Ordway is from, Milwaukee I think, and Terry Beatty, too.

DRAW!: Now, how did having assistants work with you? What were their duties?

DM: Yeah, Pete Krause, Tom Richmond, Pat Gleason, Tom Nguyen, Dan Thorsland, Shawn Moll, Sam Hiti, Peter Gross, Zander Cannon and Clint Hilinski. Not to mention other comics professionals, such as inker Barbara Schulz and writer Terrance Griep.

DM: Well, they’re two entirely different kinds of guys. When Pat Gleason was working with me, he was just a kid. I mean just out of high school. But I knew that he would get into comics without a doubt when I saw his work. It’s a pretty cool story, really. One Halloween this kid, not Pat, but a friend of Pat’s, came to the door, and I’d set out some trinket that kind of identified me with comics or with The Mask, so the kid struck up a conversation.

And he stated, “Oh, you draw comics? Well, you know, I really want to draw comics.” You know, I kind of hear that from a lot of kids. I said, “Well, if you ever want to show me your stuff, I’ll take a look.” And for about a year, maybe two, this kid would

DRAW!: I guess there’s a few little pockets in the Midwest.

There were a lot of artists out of the Detroit area, from where I’m originally from, like Milgrom and Austin, Starlin and Vosburg and Keith Pollard.

DM: That’s quite a list.

DRAW!: But yeah, there were several little areas like that. And then there’s the Chicago area. So there’s, I guess, what you call, little enclaves.

DM: Breeding grounds.

DRAW!: Yeah, yeah. And I know, like those artists that I mentioned before, guys like Milgrom and Terry Austin, they were all getting in I think around the same time, so I think that probably also facilitated that a little bit. You know, because once your buddy gets in, then you help your buddy.

DM: Always. What else are you going to do? You do kind of graduate towards those that you’re friends with, but you also have desire as a limiting factor. If you don’t have desire, you’re not going to make it. And talent does sort of dictate, but a friend gives a word, which always helps to get editors to take a look. It certainly never hurts to have somebody work with you, and then they become familiar with an editor. It’s as simple as that. Patrick Gleason, for example. He’s been working at the DC offices and he’s making a career. He used to be my assistant.

STORMWATCH ™ AND ©2007 WILDSTORM PRODUCTIONS.

ASSISTANTS DRAW!: When we first talked about this interview you mentioned you had an assistant?

DM: Yeah, Shawn Moll, he’s doing some stuff for Ben Abernathy right now, over at Wildstorm.

PREVIOUS PAGE: A sampling of covers from Doug’s run on JLA. RIGHT: From Doug’s recent Stormwatch series.

DRAW! #14 Preview

75

DOUG MAHNKE

COMICS

show me his stuff. And the truth is, to make a long story short, he never had the ambition, nor the talent. But he had the mouth to keep coming at me with stuff. He would call me up and say, “Oh, I’ve got some art to show you.” So I’d have him come over to the studio, and he’d have nothing. Every time, he had nothing. At best it was some hastily drawn figures or some designs of a character floating in space. I would always tell him, “You’ve got to draw comics. I can’t help you like this. I can’t show you anything because you’re doing nothing for me to critique.”

DRAW!: Right, that’s typical, too, of a lot of young artists.

DM: Oh, yeah. They don’t quite get it.

DRAW!: Yeah, they’ll show you a sketchbook full of dismembered figures and things floating around. You know, “Here’s something I drew five years ago,” and it’s all dirty and smudged.

DM: Yeah. Well, the worst part is, the first time he came over, his mom brought him, and she sat and talked to my wife upstairs while I took him to the studio and showed him art. And when I

went upstairs to see, she had his sketchbook, and of course, like any mother, she was extremely proud of her son and all of the good things that he had done. And I don’t blame her there. Great.

And so I started flipping through the sketchbook, all this totally marginal stuff. She goes, “Yeah, yeah. How about this, though?”

And she turns this one page, and it was a copy of a Mask drawing that I had done. You know, it was as best as he could, line for line.

She goes, “Now, this is good!” I look over at the kid, and he looks at me, like I said, “I’m not going to rat you out, son, but that’s my drawing. That ain’t your drawing.” So his mom, the best thing that she could point out was something that he had just copied.

Anyway, this kind of dragged on for a while, and finally I said, “I don’t want to see you until you have something concrete to show me. I’ll give you one more chance.” So he calls me up and he says, “Yeah, I’ve got some stuff, and I got a friend, he wants to be in comics, too.” I’m thinking, “Oh, great, two of them.” So I met them at a local comic shop. I sat down and said, “Okay, what have you got?” He had nothin’. He pulled out some of the usual notebook paper, some hastily drawn stuff. I just laid into him. I said, “This is sh*t. I know you just did this. What are you wasting my time for?” And he was apologetic, but also defensive.

For the rest of this interview, don’t miss DRAW! #14, on sale now!

THE MASK ™ AND ©2007 DARK HORSE COMICS, INC.

BELOW: Pencils from The Mask.

76

DRAW! #14 Preview

BACK ISSUES DRAW! (edited by 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.

“TwoMorrows has printed a goldmine of information for up-and-coming artists under the able tutelage of Mike Manley, and anyone serious about drawing comic books for a living should not only pick up this volume, but also seek out the other issues and subscribe to the magazine.”

ComicCritique.com on BEST OF DRAW, VOL. 2

DRAW! #4

DRAW! #5

DRAW! #6

Features an interview & step-by-step demo from ERIK LARSEN, KEVIN NOWLAN on drawing and inking techniques, DAVE COOPER’s demo on coloring in Photoshop, BRET BLEVINS on Figure Composition, PAUL RIVOCHE on the Design Process, reviews of 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 stepby-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) $9 US Diamond Order Code: APR022633

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DRAW! #8

DRAW! #10

DRAW! #11

DRAW! #13

DRAW! #14

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!

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!

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!

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WRITE NOW! (edited by 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!

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Get practical advice and tips on writing from top pros on BOTH SIDES of the desk!

MARK BAGLEY cover and interview, BRIAN BENDIS & STAN LEE interviews, JOE QUESADA on what editors really want, TOM DeFALCO, J.M. DeMATTEIS, and more!

ERIK LARSEN cover and interview, writers STAN BERKOWITZ (JLA cartoon), TODD ALCOTT (“ANTZ”), LEE NORDLING (Platinum Studios), ANNE D. BERNSTEIN (MTV’s “Daria”), step-by-step on scripting Spider-Girl, 10 rules for writers, and more!

BRUCE JONES on writing The Hulk, AXEL ALONSO on state-of-the-art editing, DENNY O’NEIL offers tips for comics writers, KURT BUSIEK shows how he scripts, plus JIMMY PALMIOTTI, JOEY CAVALIERI, and more! New MIKE DEODATO cover!

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HOWARD CHAYKIN on writing for comics and TV, PAUL DINI on animated writing, DENNY O’NEIL offers more tips for comics writers, KURT BUSIEK shows how he scripts, plus FABIAN NICIEZA, DeFALCO & FRENZ, and more! New CHAYKIN cover!

WILL EISNER discusses his comics writing, J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI on Hollywood writing, BOB SCHRECK details his work on Batman, DENNY O’NEIL’s notes from his writing classes, FABIAN NICIEZA, PAUL DINI, and more! CASTILLO/RAMOS cover!

BRIAN BENDIS and MICHAEL AVON OEMING in-depth on making an issue of Powers, MARK WAID on writing Fantastic Four, BOB SCHRECK’s interview continues from last issue, DIANA SCHUTZ, SCOTT M. ROSENBERG, & more! OEMING cover!

JEPH LOEB and CHUCK DIXON give indepth interviews (with plenty of rare and unseen art), JOHN JACKSON MILLER discusses writing, MARK WHEATLEY on his new Image series, & more NUTS & BOLTS how-to’s on writing! TIM SALE cover!

Part One of “how-to”crossover with DRAW! #9, as DANNY FINGEROTH and MIKE MANLEY create an all-new character and ideas are proposed and modified to get a character’s look & origins! Plus interviews with DON McGREGOR & STUART MOORE!

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WRITE NOW! #9

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NEAL ADAMS discusses his own writing (with rare art and a NEW ADAMS COVER), GEOFF JOHNS discusses writing for comics, a feature on the secrets of PITCHING COMICS IDEAS, MICHAEL OEMING and BATTON LASH on writing, plus more NUTS & BOLTS how-to’s on writing and sample scripts!

Interviews and lessons by Justice League Unlimited’s DWAYNE McDUFFIE, interview with Hate’s PETER BAGGE conducted by JOEY CAVALIERI, comics scripter/editor GERRY CONWAY, writer/editor PAUL BENJAMIN, plus more NUTS & BOLTS how-to’s on writing and sample scripts, and a JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED cover!

STAN LEE, NEIL GAIMAN, MARK WAID, PETER DAVID, J.M. DeMATTEIS, TOM DeFALCO, DENNY O’NEIL, and 18 others reveal PROFESSIONAL WRITING SECRETS, plus DeFALCO and RON FRENZ on working together, JOHN OSTRANDER on creating characters, and an all-new SPIDER-GIRL cover by FRENZ and SAL BUSCEMA!

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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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WRITE NOW! #14

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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!

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HOW TO CREATE COMICS HOW TO DRAW COMICS TRADE PAPERBACK FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT

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HOW-TO BOOKS & DVDs

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PANEL DISCUSSIONS

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COMICS ABOVE GROUND

SEE HOW YOUR FAVORITE ARTISTS MAKE A LIVING OUTSIDE COMICS

DVD

HOW TO CREATE COMICS FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT

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(108-page trade paperback with COLOR) $18 US ISBN: 9781893905603 Diamond Order Code: APR063422

• 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!

Documents two top professionals creating a (208-page trade paperback with COLOR) $29 US comic book, from initial idea to finished art!

ISBN: 9781893905146 In this feature-filled DVD, WRITE NOW! Diamond Order Code: STAR19844 Magazine Editor DANNY (Spider-Man) FINGEROTH and DRAW! Magazine Editor MIKE (Batman) MANLEY show you how a new character evolves from scratch! Watch the creative process, as a story is created from concepts and roughs to pencils, inks, and coloring—even lettering!

“The closest thing you’ll find to Packed with “how-to” tips and a comic creation tutorial; an tricks, it’s the perfect companion to the WRITE NOW #8/DRAW essential reference for anyone who’s #9 CROSSOVER, or stands ever hoped to self-publish or make a alone as an invaluable tool for amateur and professional serious bid at a career in the field.” comics creators alike!

(120-minute DVD) $35 US ISBN: 9781893905399 Diamond Order Code: AUG043204

ink19.com on HOW TO CREATE COMICS

MODERN MASTERS BOOK 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 our DVDs show the artist at work!

VOL. 1: ALAN DAVIS

“This volume does a really terrific job of explaining why Walt Simonson is great. It’s a really excellent job, for a really excellent comics artist. Get it.”

Steven Grant on MODERN MASTERS VOL. 8: WALTER SIMONSON

V.2: GEORGE PÉREZ

V.3: BRUCE TIMM

V.4: KEVIN NOWLAN

V.5: GARCÍA-LÓPEZ

(128-page trade paperback) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905252 Diamond Order Code: STAR20127

(120-page TPB with COLOR) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905306 Diamond Order Code: APR042954

(120-page TPB with COLOR) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905382 Diamond Order Code: SEP042971

(120-page TPB with COLOR) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905443 Diamond Order Code: APR053191

V.6: ARTHUR ADAMS

V.7: JOHN BYRNE

V.8: WALTER SIMONSON

V.9: MIKE WIERINGO

V.10: KEVIN MAGUIRE

(128-page trade paperback) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905542 Diamond Order Code: DEC053309

(128-page trade paperback) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905566 Diamond Order Code: FEB063354

(128-page trade paperback) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905641 Diamond Order Code: MAY063444

(120-page TPB with COLOR) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905658 Diamond Order Code: AUG063626

(128-page trade paperback) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905665 Diamond Order Code: OCT063722

V.11: CHARLES VESS

V.12: MICHAEL GOLDEN

V.13: JERRY ORDWAY

(120-page TPB with COLOR) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905696 Diamond Order Code: DEC063948

(120-page TPB with COLOR) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905740 Diamond Order Code: APR074023

(120-page TPB with COLOR) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905795 Diamond Order Code: NOV068372

(128-page trade paperback) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905191 Diamond Order Code: STAR18345

MORE GREAT MODERN MASTERS VOLUMES ARE COMING IN FALL 2007; SEE OUR JULY CATALOG UPDATE THIS ISSUE!

MODERN MASTERS STUDIO DVDs (120-minute Std. Format DVDs) $35 US EACH

GEORGE PÉREZ

ISBN: 9781893905511 Diamond Order Code: JUN053276

MICHAEL GOLDEN ISBN: 9781893905771 Diamond Order Code: MAY073780

TwoMorrows Publishing 2007 Catalog Update JUNE-DECEMBER 2007 • ORDER AT: www.twomorrows.com TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 • e-mail: twomorrow@aol.com

Introducing: COMICS INTROSPECTIVE!

All characters TM & ©2007 their respective owners.

TwoMorrows Publishing proudly presents a new book series that spotlights indy comics talent with an outside-the-box approach.

Through a combination of original photography, multiple art gallery sections, and an introspective dialogue with each subject, COMICS INTROSPECTIVE is unlike anything being published. Printed on deluxe glossy stock to maximize the impact of the art and photography, the goal is to make the series as breakthrough as the innovators it covers.

Volume 1: PETER BAGGE

Volume 2: DEAN HASPIEL

With a unique, expressive style, PETER BAGGE’s work runs the gamut from political (his strips for reason.com), absurdist and satirical (the BATBOY strip for WEEKLY WORLD NEWS), and dramatic (APOCALYPSE NERD). From his Seattle studio, Peter Bagge lets journalist CHRISTOPHER IRVING in on everything from just what was on his mind with his long-running Gen X comic HATE!, to what’s going on in his head as a political satirist. This debut volume of COMICS INTROSPECTIVE features an assortment of original photography, artwork picked by Bagge himself, and a look at where Bagge’s work (and mind) is taking him.

Volume Two shines a light on DEAN HASPIEL, the multi-genre cartoonist behind BILLY DOGMA, the existentialist bruiser hero, and the artist on Harvey Pekar’s AMERICAN SPLENDOR mini-series and THE QUITTER graphic novel. Writer/editor CHRISTOPHER IRVING hangs with Dean in his Brooklyn apartment for the day, talking about Haspiel’s diverse and unique approach to comics, his use of Dogma as a semi-biographical “avatar”… and just what “Aggro-Moxie” really is. Featuring galleries of original Haspiel art, as well as original photographs by RYAN ROMAN, and an introduction by Y The Last Man’s BRIAN K. VAUGHAN, we continue this experimental and bold new series.

(128-page trade paperback) $21 US • ISBN: 9781893905832 Diamond Order Code: DEC063948 • Ships July 2007

(128-page trade paperback) $21 US • ISBN: 9781893905900 Ships January 2008

Coming in 2008: Volume 3 featuring JAY STEPHENS, and Volume 4 featuring BOB FINGERMAN!

UPCOMING BOOKS: MODERN MASTERS SERIES Edited by ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON, these trade paperbacks 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!

Vol. 14: FRANK CHO

Vol. 15: MARK SCHULTZ

Vol. 16: MIKE ALLRED

(120-page TPB with COLOR) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905849 Ships October 2007

(128-page TPB) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905856 Ships December 2007

(120-page TPB with COLOR) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905863 Ships February 2008

MORE MODERN MASTERS VOLUMES ARE COMING IN 2008: GAIJIN STUDIOS AND JOHN ROMITA JR.!

SEE OUR JANUARY CATALOG FOR DETAILS!

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KIRBY FIVE-OH! (JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #50) ALTER EGO: THE BEST OF THE LEGENDARY COMICS FANZINE

(10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION) In 1961, JERRY BAILS and ROY THOMAS launched ALTER EGO, the first fanzine devoted to comic books and their colorful history. This volume, first published in low distribution in 1997, collects the original 11 issues (published from 1961-78) of A/E, with the creative and artistic contributions of 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.

Picks up where Volume 1 left off, covering the return of the Teen Titans to the top of the sales charts!

Featuring interviews with GEOFF JOHNS, MIKE MCKONE, PETER DAVID, PHIL JIMENEZ, and others, plus an in-depth section on the top-rated Cartoon Network series! Also CHUCK DIXON, MARK WAID, KARL KESEL, and JOHN BYRNE on writing the current generation of Titans! More with MARV WOLFMAN and GEORGE PÉREZ! NEAL ADAMS on redesigning Robin! Artwork by ADAMS, BYRNE, JIMENEZ, MCKONE, PÉREZ and more, with an all-new cover by MIKE MCKONE! Written by GLEN CADIGAN.

(192-page trade paperback) $26 US ISBN: 9781893905887 Ships February 2008

(224-page trade paperback) $31 US ISBN: 97801893905870 Ships March 2008

TITANS COMPANION VOLUME 2

The publication that started the TwoMorrows juggernaut presents KIRBY FIVE-OH!, a book covering the best of everything from Jack Kirby’s 50-year career in comics! The regular columnists from THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR magazine have formed a distinguished panel of experts to choose and examine: The BEST KIRBY STORY published each year from 1938-1987! The BEST COVERS from each decade! Jack’s 50 BEST UNUSED PIECES OF ART! His 50 BEST CHARACTER DESIGNS! And profiles of, and commentary by, the 50 PEOPLE MOST INFLUENCED BY KIRBY’S WORK! Plus there’s a 50-PAGE GALLERY of Kirby’s powerful RAW PENCIL ART, and a DELUXE COLOR SECTION of photos and finished art from throughout his entire halfcentury oeuvre. This TABLOID-SIZED TRADE PAPERBACK features a previously unseen Kirby Superman cover inked by “DC: The New Frontier” artist DARWYN COOKE, and an introduction by MARK EVANIER, helping make this the ultimate retrospective on the career of the “King” of comics! (A percentage of profits will be donated to the JACK KIRBY MUSEUM AND RESEARCH CENTER.) (168-page tabloid-size trade paperback) $24 US ISBN: 9781893905894 Ships December 2007

HOW-TO MAGAZINES

DRAW! is the professional “How-To” magazine on cartooning and animation, featuring in-depth interviews and step-by-step demonstrations from top comics professionals. Edited by MIKE MANLEY.

WRITE NOW! features writing tips from pros on both sides of the desk, interviews, sample scripts, reviews, exclusive Nuts & Bolts tutorials, and more! Edited by DANNY FINGEROTH.

ROUGH STUFF features never-seen pencil pages, sketches, layouts, roughs, and unused inked pages from throughout comics history, plus columns, critiques, and more! Edited by BOB MCLEOD.

DOWNLOAD DIGITAL EDITIONS OF OUR MAGS FOR $2 95, STARTING IN JULY! SEE PAGE 4 FOR DETAILS! 2

NEW MAGS: T H E U LT I M AT E C O M I C S E X P E R I E N C E !

TM

BACK ISSUE celebrates comic books of the 1970s, 1980s, and today through a variety of recurring (and rotating) departments, plus rare and unpublished art. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

ALTER EGO focuses on Golden and Silver Age comics and creators with articles, interviews and unseen art, plus FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), Mr. Monster & more. Edited by ROY THOMAS.

BACK ISSUE #23

BACK ISSUE #24

BACK ISSUE #25

BACK ISSUE #26

“Comics Go Hollywood!” Spider-Man roundtable with STAN LEE, JOHN ROMITA, SR., JIM SHOOTER, ERIK LARSEN, and others, STAR TREK comics writers’ roundtable Part 1, Gladstone’s Disney comics line, behindthe-scenes at TV’s ISIS and THE FLASH (plus an interview with Flash’s JOHN WESLEY SHIPP), TV tie-in comics, bonus 8-page color ADAM HUGHES ART GALLERY and cover, plus a FREE WRITE NOW #16 PREVIEW!

“Magic” issue! MICHAEL GOLDEN interview, GENE COLAN, PAUL SMITH, and FRANK BRUNNER on drawing Dr. Strange, Mystic Art Gallery with CARL POTTS & KEVIN NOWLAN, BILL WILLINGHAM’s Elementals, Zatanna history, Dr. Fate’s revival, a “Greatest Stories Never Told” look at Peter Pan, tribute to the late MARSHALL ROGERS, a new GOLDEN cover, plus a FREE ROUGH STUFF #6 PREVIEW!

“Men of Steel”! BOB LAYTON and DAVID MICHELINIE on Iron Man, RICH BUCKLER on Deathlok, MIKE GRELL on Warlord, JOHN BYRNE on ROG 2000, Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman, Machine Man, the World’s Greatest Super-Heroes comic strip, DC’s Steel, art by KIRBY, HECK, WINDSOR-SMITH, TUSKA, LAYTON cover, and bonus “Men of Steel” color art gallery!

Includes a FREE DRAW! #15 PREVIEW!

“Spies and Tough Guys”! PAUL GULACY and DOUG MOENCH in an art-packed “Pro2Pro” on Master of Kung Fu and their unrealized Shang-Chi/Nick Fury crossover, Suicide Squad spotlight, Ms. Tree, CHUCK DIXON and TIM TRUMAN’s Airboy, James Bond and Mr. T in comic books, Sgt. Rock’s oddball super-hero team-ups, Nathaniel Dusk, JOE KUBERT’s unpublished The Redeemer, and a new GULACY cover!

(108-page magazine) $9 US Diamond Order Code: MAY073880

(100-page magazine) $9 US Ships September 2007

(104-page magazine) $9 US Ships November 2007

(100-page magazine) $9 US Ships January 2008

ALTER EGO #72

ALTER EGO #73

ALTER EGO #74

ALTER EGO #75

ALTER EGO #76

SCOTT SHAW! and ROY THOMAS on the creation of Captain Carrot, art & artifacts

by RICK HOBERG, STAN GOLDBERG, MIKE SEKOWSKY, JOHN COSTANZA, E. NELSON BRIDWELL, CAROL LAY, and others, interview with DICK ROCKWELL, Golden Age artist and 36-year ghost artist on MILTON CANIFF’s Steve Canyon! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

FRANK BRUNNER on drawing Dr. Strange, interviews with CHARLES BIRO and his daughters, ROY THOMAS’ 1971 synopsis for the origin of Man-Thing, interview with publisher ROBERT GERSON about his 1970s horror comic Reality, art by BERNIE WRIGHTSON, MICHAEL W. KALUTA, JEFF JONES, and others FCA, MR. MONSTER, a FREE DRAW! #15! PREVIEW, and more!

STAN LEE SPECIAL in honor of his 85th birthday, with a cover by JACK KIRBY, classic (and virtually unseen) interviews with Stan, tributes, and tons of rare and unseen art by KIRBY, ROMITA, the brothers BUSCEMA, DITKO, COLAN, HECK, AYERS, MANEELY, SHORES, EVERETT, BURGOS, KANE, the SEVERIN siblings—plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

FAWCETT FESTIVAL—with an ALEX ROSS cover! Double-size FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America) with WALT GROGAN and P.C. HAMERLINCK on the many “Captains Marvel” over the years, unseen Shazam! proposal by ALEX ROSS, C.C. BECK on “The Death of a Legend!”, MARC SWAYZE, interview with Golden Age artist MARV LEVY, MR. MONSTER, and more!

JOE SIMON SPECIAL! In-depth SIMON interview by JIM AMASH, with neverbefore-revealed secrets behind the creation of Captain America, Fighting American, Stuntman, Adventures of The Fly, Sick magazine and more, art by JACK KIRBY, BOB POWELL, AL WILLIAMSON, JERRY GRANDENETTI, GEORGE TUSKA, and others, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

(100-page magazine) $9 US Ships September 2007

(100-page magazine) $9 US Ships October 2007

(100-page magazine) $9 US Ships December 2007

(100-page magazine) $9 US Ships January 2008

(100-page magazine) $9 US Ships March 2008

DRAW! #15

WRITE NOW! #17

WRITE NOW! #18

ROUGH STUFF #6

ROUGH STUFF #7

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!

HEROES ISSUE featuring series creator/ writer TIM KRING, writer JEPH LOEB, and others, interviews with DC Comics’ DAN DiDIO and Marvel’s DAN BUCKLEY, PETER DAVID on writing STEPHEN KING’S DARK TOWER COMIC, MICHAEL TEITELBAUM, C.B. CEBULSKI, DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF, Nuts & Bolts script and art examples, a FREE BACK ISSUE #24 PREVIEW, and more!

More 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!

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!

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!

(80-page magazine with COLOR) $9 US Ships October 2007

(80-page magazine) $9 US Ships October 2007

(80-page magazine) $9 US Ships January 2008

(100-page magazine) $9 US Ships October 2007

(100-page magazine) $9 US Ships January 2008

3

Digital Editions: $295 Pros@Cons!

Summer 2007 Update Edition • Hype and hullabaloo from the publisher determined to bring new life to comics fandom • Edited by John Morrow

New Cover Art!

For various reasons, we’ve had to change cover art on a couple of items since we published our January catalog. Above are new covers for WRITE NOW #16 (shipping in July), and MEGO 8” SUPERHEROES: WORLD’S GREATEST TOYS (shipping in October)! For WRITE NOW, we’ve added a roundtable of Silver Surfer writers, including STAN LEE, STEVE ENGLEHART, JIM STARLIN, J.M. DEMATTEIS, and RON MARZ, so we felt this new cover painting by MIKE ZECK seemed spot-on. And the MEGO cover changed at the polite request of our friends up at DC Comics, so who are we to argue? Same great pubs, but with great new fronts! Get ’em soon!

Beginning with our July issues, we’ll begin offering digital editions of all our new magazines at www.twomorrows.com, for only $2.95 PER DOWNLOAD (way less than HALF THE PRICE of the printed versions)! Not only that, but these new PDF editions will feature much of the art from our printed magazines’ black-andwhite pages in FULL COLOR! As a special bonus, subscribers to our printed magazines will get FREE ACCESS to the digital versions of the issues in their subscription, which will generally be available 2-3 weeks BEFORE copies are even printed. So if you’ve hesitated to subscribe because our mags show up in your local comics shop before they’re in your mailbox, you can now see the whole issue digitally (and in color) weeks earlier, for no extra charge!

We’re offering these digital editions as a test to see if there’s a market for them, not as a way to do away with printed magazines.

But we’re relying on the honesty of our readers, to NOT share their digital editions with others. Since we rely on sales from every printed copy and download to keep the magazines going, if readers illegally share these files with others, the TwoMorrows mags you love so much could cease to be published in ANY format. So enjoy the files, but make sure you pay for yours! And if you’re a subscriber, send your e-mail address to www.twomorrows.com to get free access to these new digital editions!

During the second half of 2007, we’ll be exhibiting at the following comic cons: COMICON INTERNATIONAL (San Diego, CA, July 25-29, 2007) WIZARDWORLD: CHICAGO (Chicago, IL, August 9-12, 2007)

BALTIMORE COMICON (Baltimore, MD, September 8-9, 2007) SPX (Small Press Expo) (Bethesda, MD, October 12-13, 2007)

ULTIMATE SINNOTT

So stop by our booths and buy something!

We Built And Diamond Order Codes It, They Came...

Here’s a list of Diamond Order Codes that weren’t yet available when we printed our January Catalog: Alter Ego #68: MAR073852 Alter Ego #69: APR074098 Alter Ego #70: MAY073879 Alter Ego #71: JUN074006 Back Issue #22: MAR073855 Batcave Companion: NOV068368 Brush Strokes With Greatness: Joe Sinnott: MAR073744 Comics 101: FEB070050 Draw! #14: MAY073896 Image Comics: The Road To Independence: MAR073745 Jack Kirby Collector #49: JUN074028 John Romita... And All That Jazz! (HARDCOVER): APR074019 John Romita... And All That Jazz! (SOFTCOVER): APR074018 Rough Stuff #5: MAY073902 Write Now #16: MAY073903 Modern Masters Vol. 12: Michael Golden: APR074023 Modern Masters Vol. 13: Jerry Ordway: JUN073926 Modern Masters: Michael Golden DVD: MAY073780 Working Methods: MAR073747

BATCAVE DELAY

Our upcoming book THE BATCAVE COMPANION (by MICHAELS EURY and KRONENBERG) has been pushed back to April, to allow extra time to make it the most outstanding “Companion” we’ve ever done.

Stay tuned! We guarantee it’ll be worth the wait!

Over 25,000 copies of COMICS 101 (our Free Comic Book Day publication) were handed out on May 5 at comics shops across the country, and from our webstore.

And thousands more have been given away at conventions we’ve attended. If you somehow missed your copy of this great sampler of our mags (featuring “how-to” and history lessons from our editors), you can still get one online for a measly $2 IN THE US (which covers our postage costs to send it to you). Get it while the gettin’s good!

Only at www.twomorrows.com, we’re offering an ULTRA-LIMITED EDITION (only 52 copies, lettered “A” to “Z” and “AA” to “ZZ”) of our Joe Sinnott bio, BRUSH STROKES WITH GREATNESS! Joltin’ Joe has drawn 52 pencil drawings, and one has been bound into each copy, making a truly one-of-a-kind edition! So hurry online to get yours, and you can choose which character you want before they sell out! NOT SOLD IN STORES!

New Subscription Sell Outs!

Rates: (due to postage hikes)

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: Four tabloid issues in the US: $44 Standard, $56 First Class (Canada: $64, Elsewhere: $76 Surface, $120 Airmail).

BACK ISSUE!: Six issues in the US: $40 Standard, $54 First Class (Canada: $66, Elsewhere: $90 Surface, $108 Airmail).

ROUGH STUFF, DRAW! & WRITE NOW!: Four issues in the US: $26 Standard, $36 First Class (Canada: $44, Elsewhere: $60 Surface, $72 Airmail).

ALTER EGO: Twelve issues in the US: $78 Standard, $108 First Class (Canada: $132, Elsewhere: $180 Surface, $216 Airmail).

NOTE: IF YOU PREFER A SIX-ISSUE SUBSCRIPTION, JUST CUT THE PRICE IN HALF!

These items are now SOLD OUT: HEROES & VILLAINS: THE WILLIAM MESSNER-LOEBS TRIBUTE SKETCHBOOK WRITE NOW! #12 DRAW! #9 and #12 COMIC BOOK ARTIST COLLECTION, VOLUME 2 COMIC BOOK ARTIST #11 To get periodic e-mail updates of what’s new from TwoMorrows Publishing, sign up for our mailing list! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ twomorrows

NEW RATES: Prices include US Postage. Outside the US, ADD PER ITEM: Mags & DVDs, $2 Canada ($7 Surface, $9 Airmail) • Books, $4 Canada ($12 Surface, $22 Airmail)

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

NOW SHIPPING FROM TWOMORROWS!

ALTER EGO #70

ROUGH STUFF #5

DRAW! #14

BACK ISSUE #23

KIRBY COLLECTOR #49

Spotlight on ROY THOMAS’ 1970s stint as Marvel’s editor-in-chief and major writer, plus art and reminiscences of GIL KANE, BOTH BUSCEMAS, ADAMS, ROMITA, CHAYKIN, BRUNNER, PLOOG, EVERETT, WRIGHTSON, PÉREZ, ROBBINS, BARRY SMITH, STAN LEE and others, FCA, MR. MONSTER, a new GENE COLAN cover, plus a FREE ROUGH STUFF #5 PREVIEW!

NEVER-BEFORE-PUBLISHED art 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 DC’s Jonah Hex, a new STEVE RUDE COVER, plus a FREE BACK ISSUE #23 PREVIEW!

Features in-depth interviews and step-bystep 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!

Comics Go Hollywood! Spider-Man roundtable with STAN LEE, JOHN ROMITA, SR., JIM SHOOTER, ERIK LARSEN, and others, STAR TREK comics writers' roundtable Part 1, Gladstone’s Disney comics line, behindthe-scenes at TV’s ISIS and THE FLASH (plus an interview with Flash’s JOHN WESLEY SHIPP), TV tie-in comics, bonus 8-page color ADAM HUGHES ART GALLERY and cover, plus a FREE WRITE NOW #16 PREVIEW!

WARRIORS, spotlighting Thor (with a look at hidden messages in BILL EVERETT’s Thor inks), Sgt. Fury, Challengers of the Unknown, Losers, and others! Includes a rare KIRBY interview, new interviews with JERRY ORDWAY and GRANT MORRISON, MARK EVANIER’s column, a pencil art gallery, a complete 1950s story, a wraparound Kirby Thor cover inked by JERRY ORDWAY, and more! SHIPS IN AUGUST!

(100-page magazine) $9 US Diamond Order Code: MAY073902

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $9 US Diamond Order Code: MAY073896

(108-page magazine) $9 US Diamond Order Code: MAY073880

(84-page tabloid) $13 US Diamond Order Code: JUN074028

IMAGE COMICS

COMICS INTROSPECTIVE VOLUME 1: PETER BAGGE

WORKING METHODS

MODERN MASTERS VOLUME 12: MICHAEL GOLDEN

(100-page magazine) $9 US Diamond Order Code: MAY073879

JOHN ROMITA... & ALL THAT JAZZ! The artist who made AMAZING SPIDERMAN Marvel’s #1-selling comic book in the 1960s talks about his life, his art, and his contemporaries! Authored by former Marvel Comics editor in chief and top writer ROY THOMAS, and noted historian JIM AMASH, it features the most definitive interview Romita’s ever given, about working with STAN LEE and JACK KIRBY, following Spider-Man co-creator STEVE DITKO as artist on the strip, and more!

Lavishly illustrated with Romita art, it’s a career overview of a comics master, and a firsthand history of the industry by one of its leading artists! Available in Softcover and Hardcover (with 16 extra color pages, dust jacket, and custom endleaves).

(192-page softcover) $29 US ISBN: 9781893905757 Diamond Order Code: APR074018 (208-page hardcover w/ COLOR) $49 US ISBN: 9781893905764 Diamond Order Code: APR074019

THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE In 1992, seven artists shook the comic book industry when they left their top-selling Marvel Comics titles to jointly form a new company named IMAGE COMICS! IMAGE COMICS: THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE is an unprecedented look at the history of this company, featuring interviews and art from popular Image founders ERIK LARSEN, JIM LEE, TODD MCFARLANE, WHILCE PORTACIO, MARC SILVESTRI and JIM VALENTINO. Also featured are many of finest creators who over the last fifteen years have been a part of the Image family, offering behind-thescenes details of the company’s successes and failures. There’s rare and unseen art, making this the most honest exploration ever taken of the controversial company whose success, influence and high production values changed the landscape of comics forever! Written by GEORGE KHOURY. Introduction by DAVE SIM.

First volume of TwoMorrows’ new book series spotlighting INDY COMICS TALENT with an outside-the-box approach, combining original photography, multiple art gallery sections, and an introspective dialogue with each subject—all on deluxe glossy stock to maximize the impact of the imagery. Volume One features PETER BAGGE, whose work runs from political (his strips for reason.com), to absurdist and satirical (the Batboy strip for Weekly World News), and dramatic (Apocalypse Nerd). From his Seattle studio, Bagge lets us in on everything from what was on his mind with his long-running Gen X comic Hate!, to what’s going on in his head as a political satirist. Written by CHRISTOPHER IRVING.

Art professor JOHN LOWE puts the minds of comic artists under the microscope, highlighting the intricacies of their storytelling and creative processes step-bystep. For this book, three short scripts are each interpreted in different ways by professional comic artists to illustrate the varied ways in which they “see” and “solve” the problem of making a script succeed in comic form. It documents the creative and technical choices MARK SCHULTZ, TIM LEVINS, JIM MAHFOOD, SCOTT HAMPTON, KELSEY SHANNON, CHRIS BRUNNER, SEAN MURPHY, and PAT QUINN make as they tell a story, allowing comic fans, artists, instructors, and students into a world rarely explored.

Hundreds of illustrated examples document the artists’ processes, and interviews clarify their individual approaches regarding storytelling and layout choices.

(280-page trade paperback) $39 US ISBN: 9781893905719 Diamond Order Code: MAR073745

(128-page trade paperback) $21 US ISBN: 9781893905832 Diamond Order Code: MAY073779

(176-page paperback w/ COLOR) $26 US ISBN: 9781893905733 Diamond Order Code: MAR073747

Features an extensive, career-spanning interview lavishly illustrated with rare art from Golden’s files, plus huge sketchbook section, including unseen and unused art!

By ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON. (120-page TPB with COLOR) $19 US ISBN: 9781893905740 Diamond Order Code: APR074023

MODERN MASTERS: MICHAEL GOLDEN DVD Shows the artist at work, discussing his art and career!

(120-minute Std. Format DVD) $35 US ISBN: 9781893905771 Diamond Order Code: MAY073780

SUBSCRIPTIONS: JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR: Four issues US: $44 Standard, $56 First Class (Canada: $64, Elsewhere: $76 Surface, $120 Airmail).

BACK ISSUE!: Six issues US: $40 Standard, $54 First Class (Canada: $66, Elsewhere: $90 Surface, $108 Airmail).

DRAW!, WRITE NOW!, ROUGH STUFF: Four issues US: $26 Standard, $36 First Class (Canada: $44, Elsewhere: $60 Surface, $72 Airmail).

ALTER EGO: Twelve issues US: $78 Standard, $108 First Class (Canada: $132, Elsewhere: $180 Surface, $216 Airmail).

FOR A SIX-ISSUE ALTER EGO SUBSCRIPTION, JUST CUT THE PRICE IN HALF!

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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