Write Now! #19

INSIDE: SECRETS OF

THE DARK KNIGHT MOVIE!

$

695

In the USA

19

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Fall 2008

MILLAR & HITCH’SS FANTASTIC FOUR MAX ALLAN COLLINS

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82658 27765

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DENNIS O’NEIL

ALL ALL ABOUT ABOUT DC’S DC’S

ZUDA COMICS

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures. Batman TM & © 2008 DC Comics.

BENDIS & YU’S SECRET INVASION

DINI & NGUYEN’S BATMAN R.I.P.

M AG A Z I N E Fall 2008

[Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.

Batman TM & ©2008 DC Comics.]

Issue #19

Read Now! Message from the Editor-in-Chief .....................................................page 2 Writing The Dark Knight Reflections by Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan, and David Goyer ................................................page 3 The Denster Returns Interview with Dennis O’Neil ............................................................page 8 The Essential Batman Encyclopedia Robert Greenberger tells how he compiled the Dark Knight’s data........................................................................page 14 Man of Mystery Interview with Max Allan Collins ..................................................page 24 Spotlight on Zuda Writers of DC’s online imprint tell how and why they chose to go digital............................................................page 41 Amazing True Stories Jim Ottaviani on how he writes non-fiction comics ..............page 56

Conceived by DANNY FINGEROTH Editor-In-Chief Managing Editor ROBERT GREENBERGER Consulting Editor ERIC FEIN

Writing about Comics Evander Lomke explores the world of writing books about comics ............................................................page 67

Proofreading ERIC NOLENWEATHINGTON

Feedback Letters from Write Now!’s Readers (including a cartoon by Marc Bilgrey) ........................................page 71

Designer DAVID GREENAWALT

Nuts & Bolts Department Script to Pencils to Finished Comic: DETECTIVE COMICS #849 Pages from “Batman R.I.P.: Heart of Hush,”

by Paul Dini, Dustin Nguyen and Derek Fridolfs ..................page 10 Script to Pencils to Finished Comic: SECRET INVASION #6 Pages by Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Francis Yu ........page 19 Script to Pencils: FANTASTIC FOUR #560 Pages from “The Death of the Invisible Woman,” part 3, by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch ..................................page 37 Script to Sketch to Pencils to Finished Webcomic: STREET CODE Pages from “Awful George,” by Dean Haspiel ........................page 54 Script to Thumbnails to Sketches to Finished Comic: BONE SHARPS, COWBOYS, AND THUNDER LIZARDS Pages by Jim Ottaviani and Big Time Attic ..............................page 65

Transcriber STEVEN TICE Circulation Director BOB BRODSKY, COOKIESOUP PRODUCTIONS

Publisher JOHN MORROW

Special Thanks To: MARC BILGREY ALISON BLAIRE TOM BREVOORT MAX ALLAN COLLINS KIA CROSS F.J. DeSANTO DAVID GREENAWALT DEAN HASPIEL DAVID HYDE JACKIE KNOX PAUL LEVITZ MIKE MARTS JIM McCANN JEFF NEWELT ERIC NOLENWEATHINGTON CHRIS POWELL ELLA ROBINSON ALEX SEGURA VARDA STEINHARDT AUSTIN TRUNICK MICHAEL USLAN STEVEN TICE

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 ©2008 Danny Fingeroth and TwoMorrows Publishing. All rights reserved. Write Now! is a shared trademark of Danny Fingeroth and TwoMorrows Publishing.

Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

WRITE NOW | 1

READ Now !

Message from Danny Fingeroth, Editor-in-Chief Welcome to another eclectic issue of Write Now!

• Incredible Nuts & Bolts, featuring script and pencil art from Brian Bendis and Leinil Yu’s Secret Invasion #6, Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s Fantastic Four #560, Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen’s Detective Comics #849, and Dean Haspiel’s Zuda series, Street Code!

• Writing legend Max Allan Collins (whose prose and comics credits include Dick Tracy, Ms. Tree and The Road to Perdition) is interviewed by WN! managing editor Robert Greenberger.

• Bob Greenberger (him again) tells us how he wrote—and wrote and wrote—The Essential Batman Encyclopedia. And book editor Evander Lomke—he edited my own Superman on the Couch and Disguised as Clark Kent—tells you about writing for the world of books about pop culture.

SHAMELESS HYPE DEPARTMENT: My ROUGH GUIDE TO GRAPHIC NOVELS, from Penguin, is out. The emphasis of the book is on the fascinating world of the literary graphic novel, works such as Maus, The Quitter, Alice in Sunderland, and many others. Plus, there’s a cool graphic novella inside the book, written by me and drawn by Roger Langridge!

Now, enjoy the kaleidoscope of comics culture that is this issue!

• Dennis O’Neil tells us what it was like to write the novelization of The Dark Knight screenplay.

Write Away!

• Jim Ottaviani, writer of science-history graphic novels such as Bone Sharps, Cowboys and Thunder

Danny Fingeroth

NEXT ISSUE: SPECIAL THE SPIRIT MOVIE ISSUE!

SPECIAL

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695

In the USA

#2

0

#20 Winter 2008

Eisner.

And, as always, we’ve got an amazing array of features and interviews designed to fill you with info about the writing life:

• A lengthy section focuses on DC’s ZUDA online comics imprint, featuring interviews with Zuda honcho Ron Perazza and top talents creating comics for this new medium, including Dean Haspiel and David Gallaher.

and © 2007 Will

This time out, we’re hearing from the trio that wrote the film phenomenon, The Dark Knight: Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan, and David Goyer. While we’d hoped to have an interview with one or more of them, our paths and theirs never quite crossed. So we became our own Darkknight Detectives, scouring interviews and press conferences Nolan, Nolan, and Goyer had given, then excerpting wisdom they had to share about writing TDK. The informative results await you.

Lizards, reveals a ton of his secrets and techniques!

and character TM

Inside FRANK MILLER’s adaptation of the classic series!

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LLC. All Rights Reserved. © 2008 Spirit Films,

• A close look at WILL EISNER’s writing on his creation!

• An interview with A Distant Soil’s COLLEEN DORAN! • Script and art from DAN SLOTT and STEVE McNIVEN’s SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY! • And much more!

The Spirit name

Plus:

HOW

WILL EISNER'S CLASSIC BEC AME FRANK MILLER'S

MOVIE SCR IPT!

MOVIE ISSUE!

WRITING THE DARK KNIGHT:

NOLAN, NOLAN, AND GOYER SPEAK!

T

by Danny Fingeroth

alk about Darkknight Detective work!

When we were unable to get exclusive interviews about the writing of The Dark Knight movie (busy jet-setting Hollywood folks and all that), we did the next best thing: scouring the web for nuggets in press conferences and interviews where the writers of the TDK script revealed precious tidbits about important aspects of writing movies in general, and of writing The Dark Knight in particular.

Think of us as crusty old miners panning the media rivers for the best and brightest nuggets of information and advice from screenwriters Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan, and David Goyer.

—DF

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN is the director, cowriter, and producer of The Dark Knight.

He co-wrote and directed the groundbreaking 2005 Batman Begins, as well as Memento, Insomnia, and The Prestige.

JONATHAN NOLAN is the co-writer of TDK’s screenplay, and was the story writer of the Academy Award-nominated screenplay for Memento, as well as the mystery thriller, The Prestige.

The writers of The Dark Knight screenplay: Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan, and David Goyer. [© 2008 the copyright holders.]

DAVID GOYER is co-writer of the story for TDK, and was the co-writer of Batman Begins. He was the screenwriter of Blade and Blade II, and wrote, produced, and directed Blade: Trinity. He was also cowriter of DC’s Justice Society comic series.

ABOUT THE MECHANICS OF WRITING THE SCRIPT: CHRISTOPHER NOLAN: I think the big challenge in doing a sequel is to build on what you’ve done in the first film, but not abandon the characters, the logic, the

WRITING THE DARK KNIGHT | 3

tone of the world that you created for the first film. So there are elements the audience will expect you to bring back that you need to bring back. You also have to balance that with the need to see something new and to see something different and that’s been the challenge through the whole of making the film…

I think that what makes a good sequel is a film that feels inevitable and that when you go back and see the first film you completely understand that the story had to continue with a second film. … The pitfalls are simply repeating yourself but on a bigger scale. And that’s something we’re not doing at all. We’re really very much creating a second half to the story….

JONATHAN NOLAN: David and Chris went off and butted heads for a while and came up with this story, a really great story…. They handed it over to me and let me take a crack at the first draft. Chris is always going to take the last pass on his scripts going in.

DAVID GOYER: It became apparent as we were talking fairly early on that Harvey was actually the protagonist of the movie. The Joker doesn’t change and Batman doesn’t really change. But Harvey is the one that changes as a result of his interaction between the Joker and Batman. Obviously, he changes in a tragic way and that means the movie has to be a tragedy.

JONATHAN NOLAN: The arc of the film is the tragedy of Harvey Dent, which is, in a sense, the origin of the villain Two-Face. Which, I think, we’ve told [as] a more complete story.

DAVID GOYER: The jumping off point [for the story] was the last scene in Batman Begins. We knew we were going to tell a story about escalation, and we knew we were going to tell a story about The Joker…

Christopher Nolan, his brother Jonathan, and David S. Goyer all freely acknowledge Batman Begins and The Dark Knight owe a lot to the tone and sensibilities established in Batman’s comics, especially The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: The Long Halloween and Batman: The Killing Joke. [© 2008 DC Comics.]

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stantial outline. They really figured the story out, so for me it was a pretty straight-ahead job of just taking it and building it out into the world. Chris always takes the last pass of the scripts before he goes into production…

The script is always an evolutionary process to it. Chris has a confidence where he can play around with things a little bit as he gets into the production, but for the most part he wants to have it nailed away before they start to film…

It felt like a very easy job—one of the easiest I’ve had because these guys [Goyer and Chris Nolan] nailed it right out of the gate with this incredible story…

ABOUT THE CHARACTER OF BATMAN: CHRISTOPHER NOLAN: I think he is a more complete version of himself as it were. I think he is, he has moved on, and he is less tortured by his distant past, so we get to torture him more with fresh [problems]. He’s never entirely free from torture one might say…

The TDK movie poster image of Batman (Christian Bale) set against a building with a burning bat symbol indicates to audiences that this film is as much about Batman’s legacy in Gotham City as it is about the Joker’s campaign of chaos and murder.

[Photo Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures. TM & © 2008 DC Comics]

I think that there are elements from The Dark Knight [comics series], elements from The Long Halloween, elements from The Killing Joke. But it’s not like we were specifically adapting one specific comic book or comic book arc.

I worked with Chris for about a month, and Chris and I wrote a treatment together with the beats of the story. Then we gave that to Jonathan and he did, I don’t know how many drafts you did.

He can’t mope, he can’t have a selfindulgent angst. He has to be substantial. We tried to tell a story in the first film whereby he did confront and overcome various aspects of what drives him, of the angst, and let others hang. So in this film we try to have Christian Bale’s character start from the point of he’s not sitting around moping over that his parents were killed etc., etc. We dealt with that in the first film. But he’s nevertheless a very dark character.

JONATHAN NOLAN: A lot of the stuff that in the film feels contemporary, Batman wrestling with the questions of how far is too far in trying to catch someone?

They are as old as stone in the books. They have been there since the very beginning. That question of Batman as a vigilante and what’s appropriate, what’s legal, what’s not legal, what does he do?

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN: Batman definitely much more easily in this story assumes more of a detective role.

There was something that was important to get in the first film, we got it in in a small way, but in dealing with the origin and in dealing with all larger aspects of the character it became very difficult to get that in.

JONATHAN NOLAN: These guys gave me a really subWRITING THE DARK KNIGHT | 5

The late Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker was said to be inspired in part by the portrayal of the villain in Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s Batman: The Killing Joke. Ledger’s performance redefined the character for a new generation. [Photo Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures. TM & © 2008 DC Comics]

ABOUT THE JOKER AND HEATH LEDGER: DAVID GOYER: I felt like Heath took what we’d written and took it to a whole different, extraordinary place. I almost feel like he took authorship over the whole thing. I’m just glad to have been along for the ride.

He doesn’t have a cause, so you don’t have to justify any of his actions. So he’s one of these rare instances in telling a story where the whole point of the character is that you’re not justifying what he’s doing.

JONATHAN NOLAN: Weirdly, somewhat frighteningly, he was the easiest character I’ve ever written. I think that character is common to a long history. You’ll find a version of him in almost every culture going back thousands of years. It taps into something elemental. The jokester. The trickster. You sit down and write that character and it just kind of appears…

To me it’s the most interesting vision of the character, is one who leaves you at the end of the movie with more questions than answers. To me, The Joker, my vision of the character, my understanding of the character from the comic books, the aspect of him that appealed to me most, was the idea of the elemental bad guy.

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DAVID GOYER: I think if we had done an origin story, you guys [the fans] would not have liked the character as much. I mean, I think the whole thing that makes him fascinating is that he remains this enigma. If we had told an origin story, we would have completely demystified the character. That was what was instantly appealing about him. I think that a lot of people assumed we’re doing a second film so we’re going to do The Joker’s origin story, and I think from the very beginning we just said no.

JONATHAN NOLAN: The character almost has no mystery. He just presents. There’s nothing in his pockets but knives and lint. There’s no ID card, there’s no fingerprints. He’s more of an elemental force. It kind of pleases me to think that that first shot you have of him standing on the street corner, it’s almost like he appeared out of thin air.

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN: David Goyer and myself… we just really kind of dove in and tried to do our version of the character simply based on our memories of the comics, you know, without going back, and when Jonah came on board to write the first draft from our treatment, one of the things he specifically said was,

Aaron Eckhart plays Gotham City district attorney Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight. His tragic transformation in the course of the story is foreshadowed in this dramatic still from the film. [Photo Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures. TM & © 2008 DC Comics]

“Did you look at the first appearances of the character?” And I said “No,” then we went back and looked at those as we were writing the script and we went up, I think, very, very close to the original jump-

ing off point of the character in the history of the comics. …Just in summary, basically it winds up being an amalgam, looking at everything that’s been done with the character.

The quotes in this article are culled from the following sources:

(4) MOVIES ONLINE http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_15021.html

(1) NEWSARAMA http://www.newsarama.com/film/080704-dark-knightwriters.html

(5) BATMAN ON FILM http://www.batman-on-film.com/TDK_junket_davidgoyer-jonahnolan_7-3-08.html

‘Dark Knight’ Writer David Goyer - “This One IS Better”

By Tom McLean posted: 04 July 2008 10:17 am ET

INTERVIEW: Jonathan Nolan and David Goyer Author: Jett Wednesday, July 2, 2008

(2) CRAVE ONLINE http://www.craveonline.com/articles/filmtv/04651061/director_ch ristopher_nolan_on_the_dark_knight_html http://www.craveonline.com/articles/filmtv/04651037/goyer_and _nolan_on_the_dark_knight.html Goyer and Nolan on The Dark Knight http://www.craveonline.com/articles/filmtv/04651037/2/goyer_a nd_nolan_on_the_dark_knight.html

(3) COMIC BOOK RESOURCES http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=17036

(6) ROPE OF SILICON: http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/the_dark_knight_writers_des k_with_david_goyer_and_jonathan_nolan (7) SUPERHERO HYPE http://www.superherohype.com/news/batmannews.php?id=7348 The Dark Knight Set Visit: Writer/Director Christopher Nolan Source:Scott Chitwood June 16, 2008

THE END WRITING THE DARK KNIGHT | 7

THE DENSTER RETURNS: DENNIS O’NEIL TALKS ABOUT WRITING THE DARK KNIGHT NOVELIZATION D

Interview conducted via e-mail September 16, 2008

by Danny Fingeroth ennis O’Neil is the writer of the novelization of The Dark Knight (published by Del Ray).

But that’s just one of his many accomplishments. Denny is one of the most highly acclaimed writers and editors in the comic book industry. For more than 40 years, he has crafted groundbreaking stories for both Marvel and DC Comics. At DC Comics, he had some of his greatest successes. He wrote the groundbreaking Green Lantern/Green Arrow stories, illustrated by Neal Adams. Also with Adams and editor Julie Schwartz, Denny helped to bring Batman back to his essence as a “Dark Knight detective” and creature of the night. Denny was for many years Group Editor of DC’s Batman comics line. He also wrote the novelizations of the epic comics storyline Batman: Knightfall and of the first Christopher Nolan-helmed Batman movie, Batman Begins. He’s the author of the original DC novel Green Lantern: Hero’s Quest.

I caught up with Denny to see what he had to say about adapting the Nolan, Nolan & Goyer screenplay to prose form.

—DF DANNY FINGEROTH: Dennis, Can you speak about the differences between a film script, a comics script and a novel manuscript in broad terms. What needs to be emphasized in each, and what is lost (and/or gained) when you translate a story from one medium to another?

DENNIS O’NEIL: The first, and most obvious thing, is that the essential visual information in the movie has to be translated into verbal information. This entails a process of selection—do we really need to know what the third thug looks like? That’s going from movie script to novel. Much the same process is involved in going from movie to comic, but in reverse: comics are a very compressed storytelling form and, back in real life, there’s usually about twice as much story in a movie as in a comic, which means the writer has to 8 | WRITE NOW

choose, carefully, which movie scenes are essential to the plot and even which lines within the scenes move the story along. Going from movie to novel, the writer has to add, rather than subtract material, because a two-hour film doesn’t have enough pure plot to make a 75,000-word prose piece. But you can’t just add scenes at random. They’ve got to be an integral part of the story being told, somehow. For me, that often means adding backstory to characters.

DF: What would you say the differences between adapting Batman Begins and The Dark Knight to prose were? Was there any difference in your approach to this script from the previous one?

DO: It seems that every time I do a book, I’m faced with new problems. But the process in doing the two adaptations was about the same: add the things that novels are good at, like background and interior monologues and, since film does action so much better than prose, see if some action scenes might work as dialogue scenes. And flesh out the character’s back-

ground. The exception was The Joker. The movie guys insisted that I not give him a backstory and I could not possibly agree more. He works best when there’s no rationale for what he does.

DF: Did you feel a need to provide bridging material to bring the reader up to speed since the events of the first film?

DO: Just a little. Minimum exposition, on my usual assumption that not everyone who reads this piece will be familiar with earlier pieces.

DF: The animated DVD Gotham Knight is designed as a bridge between the two films, did you need/want to take any of those events into account?

DO: No. I didn’t see Gotham Knight until the book was finished.

DF: Does the casting affect how you write the characters?

DO: Not that I’m aware of.

DF: So much has been made of Heath Ledger’s unique performance as The Joker, is there any way to capture that in prose?

DO: I didn’t see the movie until it opened at a theater near me and so I couldn’t know how good Ledger was.

And that was damn good.

DF: Does your familiarity with the characters’ back-stories cause you to reconsider how the script handles the characters?

DO: I add things now and then, but my job is to be true to the filmmaker’s vision, not my own.

DF: Did you have much input from your editor and/or from the movie people on TDK novelization? Can you describe the working process?

DO: The editor, Chris Cerasi, and I talked briefly about the project and then off I went to do the book. When I had a first draft, the movie guys gave me some notes and I did a bit of rewriting, e-mailed the revised manuscript to Chris and waited for the movie to open.

DF: There were two blockbuster hits with characters you’re closely identified with (Iron Man and TDK) in theaters this past summer. How did you feel about that, including the treatment of any ideas or characters you were involved in creating or modifying? Did you ever think you’d see comics-based material so widely accepted?

DO: Absolutely not. Comics were considered subliterate and the audience for them mouth-breathing semi-

The Dark Knight novelization by Dennis O’Neil.

[TM & © 2008 DC Comics.]

literates. As for my characters… it’s gratifying to realize one has not labored in vain, so to speak. It would be swell to see my name on a screen sometime, or Gerry Conway’s name, or any of the other unsung comics guys’ names. But life does not exist to please me, darn it.

DF: Any plans to do more novels, either adaptations or originals, in the future?

DO: No plans for adaptations. I’d certainly accept the call of anyone who wants to offer me a gig. I may have another novel or so in me, though.

DF: Any other observations on, or thoughts about, adapting The Dark Knight?

DO: Terrific movie! Nice to be associated with it.

THE END DENNY O’NEIL | 9

Hush, the villain with a lifelong grudge against Bruce Wayne, was brought back for a new storyline by writer Paul Dini and penciler Dustin Nguyen in Detective Comics. The pages seen here are from issue #849. Inks are by Derek Fridolfs.

The solicits for the issue tell us that it’s “a ‘Batman: R.I.P.’ tie-in! In this penultimate chapter of the 5-part arc, ‘Heart of Hush,’ Batman tears his way through Gotham City's underworld to reach his dangerous adversary. But after the Dark Knight learns what his childhood friend-turned-villain is really after, will Batman be able to survive what Hush plans next?”

PAGE TWELVE Panel One Hush hurries over to where the masked and gowned doctor is standing.

1 GOWNED DOCTOR: Someone inside...

2 HUSH: Good!

Panel Two

Dini’s script for page 12 call for just three panels, giving Nguyen plenty of room to design the page for maximum drama, especially in tthe half-page confrontation between Hush and a disguised Batman.

Hush runs in to see the door to the stairwell closed. The gowned doctor has quickly moved to the side. Even as Hush takes this in, he knows he has been set up.

3 HUSH: No… Panel Three The “gowned doctor” fires a familiar black boot into Hush’s midsection just as the villain instinctively spins and fires. Hush is enraged, less from the pain and more by the knowledge that he has been played by BATMAN, who is, of course, the “gowned doctor” in disguise.

4 GUN SFX: BAM! BAM! 5 HUSH: NO! 3/-%/.% ).3)$% '//$

Nguyen’s cover painting to the issue.

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[© 2008 DC Comics.]

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PAGE THIRTEEN Panel One Now free of the hospital gown (or as the last of it falls off him) Batman staggers Hush with a devastating fist to the face.

(No dial.)

Panel Two Hush is down. Before Batman can rough him up some more, the other staffers have found him and advance on him with their surgical tools.

1 STAFFER #1: The doctor…

2 STAFFER #2: Protect the doctor!

On page 13, Nguyen shows both men’s faces in a large panel, as Batman lands a blow. Then, as they separate and the chase is on, the penciler reverts to a more traditional panel grid, moving the reader along.

Note that Dini’s script only gives the barest of details, letting Nguyen pick “camera” angles.

Panel Three Though individually these guys are no match for Batman, their sheer numbers could overpower him. The fact they are carrying saws and needles doesn’t help any. Batman shoves the first few away.

3 BATMAN: Stay back!

Panel Four Hush springs up behind Batman and starts shooting. The “staffers” shy back as the bullets fly near them. Batman is already spinning to take him down in a body block. He door to the stairwell is right behind Hush.

4 GIN SFX: BAM! BAM! Panel Five Batman has lunged onto Hush, crashing through the stairwell door and headed over the edge of the stairwell’s railing.

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DETECTIVE COMICS #649 NUTS & BOLTS | 11

PAGE FOURTEEN Panel One A big panel. Now Batman and Hush are over the railing edge and into freefall in the stairwell.

Batman grabs onto Hush while pulling free his grapple and firing it. Hush’s guns fall out of his hands.

1 GRAPPLE SFX: POOM Panel Two The grapple now secure at some point above him, Batman and Hush are swept up to the hospital’s higher floors. Batman glares vengefully at the smirking Hush.

2 BATMAN: I should let you fall.

3 HUSH: Try it. Two-Face couldn’t kill me. Neither could Joker. Besides, if I die her heart dies with me.

Panel Three Close on the two combatants as Batman glowers at Hush.

On page 14, Dini’s instructions become more specific in order to extract the maximum drama from panels with no movement. Nguyen achieves the goal and, especially in panel three, interprets the instruction to use a close-up in a creative but clear manner.

4 BATMAN: Why Selina?

5 HUSH: Because I wanted to hurt you in the worst way I could. I know what that gutter slut means to you, even if you deny it to yourself.

The penciler’s powerful page and panel design are emphasized by the black diagonal lines in the background, which emphasize the tension between the adversaries.

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PAGE FIFTEEN Panel One Inside the stairwell. Batman lowers them down by the grapple to the bottom floor. Hush continues to talk.

1 HUSH: It doesn’t matter what woman you’re with, diplomat; socialite or super-powered freak, there has only been one woman that really held your heart.

Panel Two The angry Batman lets Hush drop the remaining ten feet or so to a rough landing on the floor.

It’s not far enough to hurt him seriously, but enough to knock him around.

Here, on page 15, Dini and Nguyen give the impression of Batman’s simmering rage, as he lets Hush fall enough to hurt him, but not severely. Note that a sound effect not in the script (WUMP) was added at some point to emphasize the impact of Hush’s fall. This could have been added by writer, artist, or editor.

2 HUSH: Ufff!

Panel Three Hush rises, a little hurt but undaunted. He smiles coldly through his bandages up at Batman.

3 HUSH: And now I’m holding hers.

Panel Four It is a few minutes later. Batman walks behind Hush through the hospital corridors. On either side are masked staff workers, still armed, still waiting to attack Batman should Hush give them the word. For the moment however, they wait. Batman looks darkly at the people, wondering about them.

4 BATMAN: These people…

5 HUSH: Derelicts, outcasts, released asylum patients with no place else to go. I gave them shelter and a new purpose in life.

Panel Five Batman scowls at Hush, who is unfazed.

6 BATMAN: I meant these people have been drugged.

7 HUSH: A small precaution to ensure their obedience. Though between you and me, most of them wouldn’t know the difference.

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THE END DETECTIVE COMICS #649 NUTS & BOLTS | 13

THE ESSENTIAL BATMAN ENCYCLOPEDIA:

WHAT IT IS AND HOW IT CAME TO BE

B

by Robert Greenberger

atman’s adventures have been in ongoing publication in countless comics for 70 years. There have been so many Batman stories, you’d need an encyclopedia to keep track of the Dark Knight’s continuity. By an amazing stroke of luck, such a book exists, and Write Now!’s own managing editor, Bob Greenberger, is the author of that book—the recently published Essential Batman Encyclopedia. Here, Bob tells us how such a mammoth undertaking came about, and what it was like researching and writing such a tome, while keeping it entertaining as well as informative.

—DF

Back in the 1970s, comics fans were entirely reliant on fanzines and the occasional letter column for any sort of background information on characters not regularly published. Heck, even information about older stories was scant unless the particular tale had been reprinted.

As a result, the arrival, in 1976, of Michael L. Fleisher’s Batman Encyclopedia was an amazing achievement. Suddenly, there was at least some information on every single Batman story from Batman, Detective Comics, and World’s Finest Comics between 1939 and roughly 1968. Yes, by the time it saw print it was already many years out of date and it ignored the Dark Knight’s appearances in The Brave and the Bold and Justice League of America, but it remained a significant achievement.

Paul Levitz, when he was editing the Bat-titles, once commented to me that the book could help him come up with story material for years and years.

Bob G’s The Essential Batman Encyclopedia. Cover art by Jim Lee and Scott Williams. [© 2008 DC Comics.]

14 | WRITE NOW

Since then, we’ve had the various Who’s Whos that explicate the DC Universe and its characters, but at the same time, we’ve also had an explosion of Batappearances throughout the DC Universe along with revisionist and contradictory information about char-

acters and events. The coming and going of the multiple universes and revisions to the timeline only served to muddy the waters of the “official” Batcanon. Online writers have tried to assemble it all and make it make sense, but (needless to say—it’s the Internet!) they aren’t entirely in agreement.

With that background, it was inevitable that DC itself would one day want to set the record straight.

So it’s not surprising that DC decided to—with Random House’s DelRey imprint—publish entirely new encyclopedias on DC’s bestknown heroes: Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman. In September 2006, I was invited to write the Batman book that would kick off the three-year publishing event, with the first volume timed to come out in time for The Dark Knight movie.

Interestingly, a number of decisions about how to approach the book were left up to me, largely thanks to my experience not only a writer on Who’s Who, but also as having been one of the writers on DK’s 2004 DC Comics Encyclopedia.

Wayne’s parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne, were killed by Joe Chill on Gotham’s Park Row, known to most as “Crime Alley.” A smaller handful knows that occurred on June 26 at 10:47 p.m. However, the twopage origin in 1939’s Detective Comics #33 identified none of those elements. The wealthy, unnamed parents were gunned down by an anonymous criminal at night, leaving young Bruce, age unknown, an instant orphan. Other details of the origin story were added or modified over the decades.

Approaching the material this way meant that future writers, editors, (and fans) could see for themselves how and when elements were introduced, so, should creators feel a need to retell or modify stories, they would know the sources of the original details. In too many instances, contradictions have crept up in stories because writers and editors missed details by looking at an incomplete run of a title or just one retelling of events.

The writers on the other books in the series—Phil Jimenez on 2009’s Wonder Woman and Martin Pasko on 2010’s Superman—had differI tried to imagine how to ent reactions to the editorial make this vital to readers who format I provided. Phil was could just as easily look up the Cover to Detective Comics #33. where Batman’s enthusiastic, while Marty origin first appeared—six issues after the character’s (although agreeing in principle information on a fan site or debut! Art is by Bob Kane. [© 2008 DC Comics.]

Wikipedia. Of course, one key with my approach) was underdifference would be that, havstandably ready to hang me for ing the data in a DC-produced publication, would forcing him to try and put the Man of Steel’s evenmake it “official.” Beyond that, one of the first things more-convoluted-than-Batman’s mythos into a format settled in my mind was that it needed to put every a mass audience could comprehend and enjoy. incarnation of Batman into context, fully addressing Fortunately for me, DC agreed with my approach, and the “multiple Earths” concept. For each character for Marty has forgiven me (I think) for coming up with it. whom there were versions on more than one Earth, I Doing the research was fascinating, since I had the would begin with their chronological incarnation, Fleisher book for starters, but opening up the entire most often that of Earth-2, which chronicled the pubDC Universe so as to include any appearance of lished exploits of the heroes from 1938 forward.

Batman characters anywhere meant thousands more Along the way I’d have to begin paragraphs with “In comics needed to be researched. Now, my memory the world after the Crisis on Infinite Earths….” and then included entries on the necessary cosmic events. for the broad strokes of most DC material is pretty darn good, but an encyclopedia demands citing actual issues and facts. Enter: John Wells. John is an ace Second, it needed to identify the elements of the researcher and has maintained meticulous character Batman mythos as they were added or modified lists. He has proven to be the go-to guy for more than through the years. This way, people could get a sense a handful of creators, from Mark Waid to Brad of the world-building that occurred, and of the many Meltzer. John and I have been online pals for years, hands who contributed to the initial work of Bob and he graciously made his lists available to me. That Kane and Bill Finger. After all, today we know Bruce THE ESSENTIAL BATMAN ENCYCLOPEDIA | 15

made it easier to actually look up the specific issues either in original printings or the growing pile of collected editions. Thankfully, nearly everything Batman from 1939 to about 1945 has relatively recently been reprinted, which made checking a lot of details easier.

John’s lists were essential in tracing the career paths of characters who popped in and out of Batman’s world. For a couple of random examples, Brian Augustyn used Jason Bard, setting him up as a supporting player in his incarnation of Firebrand, something I had totally forgotten but worth noting in his entry. And Dr. Moon wound up being used by everyone at some point and rarely did his career show any stability.

Revisiting all the old stories allowed for connections to be made. For example, John was the one to note that Scarecrow messed with Catwoman’s mind in a Mike Barr/Alan Davis issue of Detective that, taking into account of the revelations from Identity Crisis, helps to explain how Catwoman kept switching from good to evil to morally ambiguous.

In rereading tales, I discovered that some very interesting Batman stories occurred not in Batman and Detective but the solo stories in World’s Finest. Additionally, the change in tone from pulpinspired to more mainstream kids’ adventure fare came pretty quickly, within the first two years of the character’s debut. Dark, malevolent villains like the Monk and even the original incarnation of the Joker gave way to less dangerous-seeming foes and also to many common thugs. Recurring themes or story notions—such as the reliance on specialized organizations that usually featured some corrupt member of the group—started to become apparent when reading so many stories at once.

It was also fascinating to see how, during editor Jack Schiff’s reign, writers regularly added to the Batmythos within the 1950s. It really began in 1948, but extended well through the next decade, as we first met Joe Chill as the shooter, and also took the first extensive tour of the Batcave. With regularity Schiffedited stories introduced upgraded bat-vehicles, as well as stories about the characters’ pasts. Schiff gave us the Thomas Wayne-dressed-as-Batman and Bruce Wayne-dressed-as-Robin to train under detective Harvey Harris stories, or told the story of the man who trained Batman to use a boomerang. Schiff was adding to Batman’s world in ways that still resonate.

As the 1950s gave way to the 1960s, everyone thinks about editor Julie Schwartz’s “New Look” era, but in analyzing those stories, we see it really wasn’t 16 | WRITE NOW

The Not-so-Dark-Knight (and boy wonder sidekick) at the height of 1960s era Batmania. The cover to Batman #183 is by Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson. [© 2008 DC Comics.] Adam West and Burt Ward headlined the 1966 Batman movie spinoff of the popular TV series. [Movie © 1994 Greenlawn Productions and 20th Century-Fox.]

until 1970, after the 1960s “camp” Batman TV showspawned “Batmania”-craze that, in my humble opinion, Julie really made his mark. The tone of the stories changed and Julie brought back more classic villains, but it wasn’t until he was forced to change the creative staffs after 1968 that things began to change in the look and feel of the stories, as writers Frank Robbins and Denny O’Neil took over Batman’s creative direction.

Working through the book in alphabetical order, I was well along before some of these themes truly became apparent. Also, for the first time in my career, I wound up giving a series of interviews to promote a

book, forcing me to think more critically about the stories than when I was researching and writing.

The writing itself was done on nights and weekends until August 2007, which is when Weekly World News (and my job there) folded, and I was on my own. I spent most of that month finishing the writing and wound up with 316,000 words, 116,000 words more than initially contracted for.

Batman’s status quo in his many ongoing comics adventures was evolving rapidly as the manuscript was being completed. As a result, when reviewing the copy edits in November and December of 2007, I was rapidly updating key entries including the resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul. I also noted that Frank Tieri had created a brand new version of Killer Moth in Gotham Underground and had to insert that fact into the book to keep as current as possible. Although the manuscript was delivered August 31, 2007, I was able to include substantive status quo alterations as I read the copy-edited manuscript in December.

While the manuscript was being edited, I then went through the comics specifically to look for art to recommend to the design and editorial teams.

Fortunately, the editors at DC and DelRey, in addition to the art director and design team, all contributed to this, so there was a wide variety of work to choose from. My final tweaks there were to try and balance the artists represented so it didn’t all look like it came from the last five years’ worth of comics.

Soon after the book was published, I was visiting the DC offices. Dan DiDio congratulated me on the book then told me it had to be updated given the massive changes in the unfolding “Batman: RIP” story–than laughed and refused to give me any hints.

So yes, the book is finite, and in a handful of entries may already seem dated. On the other hand, it does put a tremendous amount of detail into context that should help the editors and creators in the years ahead, in addition to the current changes in the status quo. And if you’re a fan of Batman in particular, and the DC Universe in general, I think you’ll find it a fun book, full of exciting and surprising information.

The encyclopedia is clearly of value to fans and pros. As a professional writer, was such a labor-intensive task a worthwhile thing to have done (aside from the obvious fact that I was paid for the work), my answer is an unqualified “Yes!” Professionally, it was one of the most high profile projects I had ever tackled, so it raised my profile and has already led to additional assignments both at DC and DelRey. Being

The recent “Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul” storyline may not have been a surprise—Ra’s is a comic book villain, after all—but its timing led Bob to have to do some last-minute updating to the encyclopedia. Cover art to Batman #670 is by Tony Daniel and Jonathan Glapion. [© 2008 DC Comics.]

a freelancer, you hope each assignment does exactly that. And, as a lifetime comics fan, I thought this sort of book was long overdue and it was a personal privilege to be the one to do it.

Would I do something like it again? Does Batman have a bat on his chest?

ROBERT GREENBERGER, Write Now!’s Managing Editor, also logged 20 staff years at DC and one at Marvel Comics, in addition to his extensive freelance credits. Currently, he is also News Editor at ComicMix.com and Editor-in-Chief at Famous Monsters of Filmland (www.famousmonstersoffilmland.com). His next Batman foray will be 2009’s Batman Vault from Running Press.

THE END

THE ESSENTIAL BATMAN ENCYCLOPEDIA | 17

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Here is some of Brian Michael Bendis’s script and Leinil Francis Yu’s pencil art from issue #6 of Marvel’s big crossover event, Secret Invasion. (Cover art, at left, is by Gabriele Dell’Otto.)

The issue begins to bring events in the eight-issue mega-event to a climax. We pick up on page 15, at the end of an action sequence.

Page 151- Ext. Street- same Big panel. Over the shocked shoulders of the ESU students, Nick Fury and his young team actually took down the Skrulls.

The intersection is trashed but they did it. A couple of turned over cars. People are stunned.

The Skrulls unconscious, or maybe dead, bodies on the ground at their feet.

The heroes are looking to the sky and taking each others back making sure there are no more coming. Nick, gun up, thumbs at the students.

PATRIOT Ok, so, we should get out of here.

STONEWALL Took 'em down. Well alright!

THE DRUID Great, only eight thousand more to go.

STONEWALL A win is a win.

GAUNTLET Except it takes ten of us to beat on one of them.

THE VISION Cassie, you should shrink back down, you're too big a target at your larger size.

NICK FURY And you kids get back to the dorm. Or better yet get the hell out'a the city.

2- The students are standing and shaking and stunned. Only Sara still has her angry wit's about her.

SARA POE Oh yeah, man... Why don't you leave the city?? You fascist.

PAUL Oh man, are you, like, Nick Fury?

SARA POE They're he re to

[© 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

change the world. What are you he 3- Over Ca re for?? ssie, Patr iot, and Qu between bu ake's head ildings. A , looking huge white sky. From up an lightening this odd an bolt shoots d in gle you ca n't see wh up into th ere its or Spx: BOOM e iginating from.

CASSIE LANG Uh...

4- High lo oking down , Fury and Avengers an the Comman d The Init does and th iative look e Young up in awe.

PATRIOT Is that li ghtning?

5- Tight on NICK FURY Let's move .

Fury. Stee ly eyed.

Stay close and stay to gether.

Bendis calls for a big panel to let readers get a sense of the damage resulting from a major battle in the storyline. The next four panels are tightly packed at the bottom of the page, and serve to convey information to the reader. But Yu—interpreting Bendis’s art directions—makes the scene visually exciting as well.

SECRET INVASION NUTS & BOLTS | 19

Page 161- Ext. New York city- Same

Page 16 is oddly constructed but effectively designed to get in the large amount of visual information the script calls for. Note that, for this page, Bendis goes to a modified screenplay format as he switches from scene to scene (“Ext. New York City/ central park–Same,” etc.), probably to make sure Yu knows exactly where each panel takes place in the potentially confusing rapid crosscutting between locales.

Tall panel. Wide of the city. From over the trees on Central park... Another huge lightening bolt crashes up to the sky. It doesn't hit anything. It just shoots up to the heavens.

Spx: boom 2- Ext. Camp Hammond- Same High looking down, Jessica Drew, Hank Pym and other Skrulls step out of the war room and look to the sky.

SPIDER-WOMAN What was that?

3- Ext. New York city/ central park- Same

Again, as in any strong writer-artist collaboration, Yu takes liberties with the script instructions. The last panel, for instance, implies (“still kneeling”) that Thor’s entire body should be seen, but Yu opts for a dramatic tight close-up of his face.

Profile. The hammer of Thor hits the grassy ground. Hard. Thor's hand swinging it down. When the hammer hits a massive lightening bolt shoots right out of it.

Spx: boom 4- Ext. Skrull ship- Same At an angle. Agent Brand and the Avengers look out the front window. All mouths drop. The reflection of the lightening The heroes see him.

THE WASP Is that?

ARES Aye! Its him.

5- Ext. New York city/ central park- Same Big panel. Thor, on one knee, hits the ground with his hammer, and the insane lightening shoots up to the sky again. His hair blows back.

Spx: boom Reads: THOR, GOD OF THUNDER 6- Ext. Camp Hammond- Same Small panel. Same as 2, but tighter, high looking down, Jessica Drew, Hank Pym and other Skrulls look to the sky.

SPIDER-WOMAN Gather the ground troops.

All of them.

This- this too was written.

7- Ext. New York city/ central park- Same Small panel. Thor still kneeling looks right at us. The wind whips from the weather energy around him.

[© 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

THOR Who are thou supposed to be?

20 | WRITE NOW

1- Over Thor's shoulder as he stands, Captain America, the new one. Bucky, with shield and a gun, is walking towards him.

Page 17CAPTAIN AMERICA Who do I look like?

2- Two shot, profile, Cap steps forward. Their first ever meeting.

Thor doesn't know how he feels about it or if this is even him.

On page 17, the story pauses its breathless action for a moment to allow for an important meeting, the first between Thor and the new Captain America, formerly Bucky.

Meanwhile, Leinil continues to use vertical panels to give scope to each lightning strike.

Behind them, in the distance, the Avengers Skrull transport is hovering toward a landing. We now see Thor picked the most wide open field in the city.

THOR You're wearing the uniform of Captain America. A true friend of mine, the greatest avenger... but thou are not he.

CAPTAIN AMERICA Weren't you dead?

THOR Summoning the battle that must be fought.

5- Thor hits down. The lightening shoots to the sky.

Spx: boom

3- From behind cap, Thor turns to see the Skrull transport ship landing and the Avengers pouring and popping out. Ready to fight.

6- The light show dissipates and Spidey steps forward with logan.

The other Avengers behind them. They see something off panel.

Tony has fastened himself exactly half an armor. His helmet is not on but his boots, gloves and chest plate are all connected. He is half an iron-man.

SPIDER-MAN Yeah, uh, I- I think they got the message.

Reed Richards is holding a new contraption. It glows. Giving Richards a glow on his ravished face. a Skrull detector.

IRON MAN What are you doing Thor?

SPIDER-MAN Assuming you are Thor?

REED RICHARDS It's him.

SPIDER-MAN Ok, are we sure. Because the last one had a chin thatREED RICHARDS It's him.

THE WASP What are you doing??

[© 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

4- Thor, hammer out, is about to hit the ground again.

Yu’s decision to make panel two so large gives the meeting between the two heroes intense visual impact. However, it leaves little room in panel three for all the dialogue Bendis has written for it. And in the finished comic, a couple of balloons have indeed been deleted.

SECRET INVASION NUTS & BOLTS | 21

Page 181- On the other side of the field. The Superskrull army.

As described... Skrulls are not just have one Super Skrull type, but hundreds of Super Skrulls of every mix and match of hero and villain powerset a fanboy could dream of. a new line of Superskrull.

The Superskrull warriors are seven to nine feet tall. Most are thick in the middle and wide shoulders. Their middles look like they can't hold the huge torsos and heads.

A smoldering steam coming off of them from the genetic bastardization and travel. They are not 'bwaa ha ha' evil. They are soldiers.

They are the best of the best and doing the most dangerous job for the Skrull homeworld. They have been trained for this moment their entire life as a soldier.

Right in the foreground is a classic Avengers Superskrull warrior (a mix of Thor - complete with big hammer, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Wasp & Vision in all their 1970's glory).

And a classic X-Men Skrull (a mix of Cyclops, Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Colossus from the Claremont era).

And then any mix and match of Alpha Flight, Force Works, Savage Land Mutates, Frightful Four, Galactic Guardians, Serpent Society, Generation X Sinister Six, Guardians of the Galaxy, Brotherhood, Champions, Hellfire Club, Starjammers, Heroes for Hire, Circus of

In perhaps a signal that the era of “decompressed” (stretched out) storytelling is on the wane, the script for page 18 calls for an incredible amount of visual information.

There’s also a great deal of background and character discussion here. Some writers would put that in a separate document, or even just talk it through with the artist over the phone or via e-mail.

But longtime creative partners Bendis and Yu have a collaborative method that works for them, so do it this way.

And, with the intended effect of the page now established, Yu is free to interpret the panels as he sees fit.

Crime, ClanDestine, Inhumans, Team America, Damage Control, original Thunderbolts, Defenders, U-Foes, Masters of Evil, Midnight Sons, original New Mutants, original New Warriors, Wildboys, Enforcers, Wolfpack, Eternals, Omega Flight, X-Factor, Excalibur, all different types of X-Men Fantastic Force, fantastic gour, all different grouping of Avengers. X-Statix, Fantastic Four, Power Pack, X-Terminators Young Avengers, and Zodiac Now the mixture of power sets and iconography is using the Earth logic and group connection but some of them are just a mish mash or has one element missing or misplaced. Have fun with it. This is all you.

But most importantly these are not silly. They are powerful, backlit, super soldiers of the Skrull race. Sent here to fight to the death.

And standing right in the center is Spider-woman in dirty costume and mask and Hank Pym in Yellowjacket costume. No mask.

2- Reed Richards, foreground left, flanked by the other heroes, is ready to kill them all. He holds up his glowing devise.

Ronin turns and see Nick Fury shows up with the Young Avengers and the Initiative and the howling commandoes.

Yu- this is a tricky part. There is a lot being unsaid here. The return of Cap and Fury alone would be enough to blow everyone in this group's mind. But all of them descending on this together is too much.

But the dialogue has to stay focussed on Reed and the queen. So having the heroes visually shocked to see each other has to be clear. The unbelievable pile on is part of the thrill here.

REED RICHARDS You- you killed my family.

You're not here to save us.

It's all lies. You're here to punish us.

3- Same as one, but tighter on Jessica Drew. Standing regal.

SPIDER-WOMAN Well, you should of thought about that before you found it funny to turn our brothers into cows.

4- Behind the gathered heroes, The Thunderbolts are dropping out of their transport, see Thunderbolts for reference..

Everyone armed and ready. Norman Osborn is armed and leading in a shirt, tie and slacks. a business man mercenary. His move to a new level.

SONGBIRD Whoah...

NORMAN OSBORN Thunderbolts. Take point.

SWORDSMAN That is a big pile ofNORMAN OSBORN Skrulls are the target. Anything past that, and you won't live 'till tomorrow.

VENOM But, Osborn, Spider-man is right-

NORMAN OSBORN Skrulls are the target.

6- Over Spider-woman's shoulder, the gathered heroes is growing as The Hood and his gang come out of the other side of the park. Guns and weapons are ready. Tony is right dead center, flanked by cap and Thor.

IRON MAN Leave now!

Last warning.

22 | WRITE NOW

[© 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

5- Over Venom's shoulder, Norman turns and growls. Over his head we can see more heroes coming in for a landing. The ground swell is growing larger at every second.

Page 191- Spider-man turns and see the Hood's dangerous gang joining them. Fury, Cap, Venom... The tensions are insane.

Reed, foreground, right, almost in tears, in a dark place we have never seen him before. Holds up his glowing devise.

Patriot is staring in awe at the back of cap's head. Fury is focussed on the Skrulls, but he knows some are focussed on him.

Jessica Drew is a shock to him. He's ready to go nuts on her.

SPIDER-MAN Don't mean to poop on the parade, but we still don't know who we can trust here.

REED RICHARDS Yes, we do. I figured them out.

Only mistake they made is they should have killed me dead.

This will revert them to their natural form.

As fair a fight as we'll get.

2- Jessica is not Jessica anymore. She's the Skrull queen in Spider-woman's costume. Hank is a Skrull too.

SPIDER-WOMAN Of course you figured us out...

You invented everything it took to bring you to your knees.

3- Nick Fury steps forward, in between logan and Reed Richards.

The Wasp swooping in to the foreground. Her mouth is hanging open when she sees her husband on their side.

NICK FURY Now What does that mean?

WOLVERINE Who cares?

LUKE CAGE Exactly.

THE WASP No...

4- Spider-woman is now the empress is Jessica Drew's clothes.

SPIDER-WOMAN Your hate is your own. Your judgement is your own.

We are here to save you. We are here to change you.

And we're here because in spite of all that you've done to our empire.

He loves you.

5- Spider-man uneasy between the wrecker and Bullseye.

SPIDER-MAN Uh... He who?

6- Spider-woman the religious zealot closes her eyes and outstretches her hands.

SPIDER-WOMAN God. 7- Fury barks and spits. Thor behind him ready to smack down. Ares and Hercules over either shoulder.

On the right, Tony steps forward and puts on his helmet, his armor half working, but his spirit completely restored.

NICK FURY Yeah??

Well my god has a hammer!!

IRON MAN (right)

[© 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Avengeeerrsss!!!!

Again, tons of visual information here on page 19, expertly condensed and interpreted by Leinil, offset against what are essentially stage-setting dialogue-panels. The dialogue exchange here allows Leinil to play with angles and move the “camera” from close-ups to medium shots.

The density of art and dialogue also serves to emphasize Spider-Man’s “everyman” point-ofview when he asks, in a single, brief word balloon, the question on all the readers’ minds in panel five.

THE END

SECRET INVASION NUTS & BOLTS | 23

MAN OF MYSTERY:

THE

MAX ALLAN COLLINS INTERVIEW

Conducted via e-mail June-August, 2008

by Robert Greenberger

Y

ou can hardly pass a bookstore without seeing Max Allan Collins’ name on some detective thriller or cross-media novelization. Longtime comics fans also fondly recall his work with Terry Beatty on Ms. Tree, the trendsetting female private eye series.

Since he’s written comic books (including Batman), movies, novels, novelizations and more, we figured it was high time to find out how he does it all. Bob Greenberger got the info.

—DF ROBERT GREENBERGER: Hey, Al, so good of you to be available. Let’s go into the Way Back machine and see how you sold that first novel in 1976. What got you interested in writing?

MAX ALLAN COLLINS: I was always interested in storytelling. My mom read to me at night, and my earliest memories are her reading me the Tarzan books published by Whitman in the 1950s. I think a key thing is that, at an early age, I got hip to movies and TV shows coming from novels and comics. Like a lot of kids, I saw George Reeves as Superman on TV and went out and read the comics accordingly. But I also went another step–I don’t think every kid who saw the Topper TV show went out and found the original novel by Thorne Smith!

RG: What led you to publishing your first novel in 1976?

MAC: We have to go way-er back than that–I actually sold the first book in 1971. It and a sequel were published together in January 1973 by Curtis Books, Bait Money and Blood Money.

I was at the University of Iowa Writers Workshop, that famed citadel of creative writing (as opposed to uncreative writing, I guess), first as an undergrad from 1968 through 1970, then as a grad from ’70 through ’72.

RG: Wait a minute. Tell me about the Iowa program.

MAC: I grew up in Muscatine, Iowa, just about 35 miles from Iowa City–still live in Muscatine, by the way–and I 24 | WRITE NOW

knew Kurt Vonnegut was teaching up there, and other big-time writers. I was under the sway of crime fiction– Hammett, Chandler, James M. Cain, Mickey Spillane– but also the so-called “Black Comedy” writers like Vonnegut and Joseph Heller. So I got in, but Vonnegut had just left–he did come back and do a seminar, and read to us from his next as yet unpublished novel… little something called Slaughterhouse-Five.

But I ran into lots of resistance at the Workshop, since the teachers and students saw themselves as artists where I was obviously “just” a mystery writer, an entertainer. As it happened, a major literary writer, Richard Yates, was teaching the one section of undergrad study

that the Workshop offered. Despite some initial misgivings about my mystery writer’s bent, he saw merit in my work and took me under his wing.

Interestingly, even weirdly, Yates’s most famous novel, Revolutionary Road, is currently being made into a film by Sam Mendes, who directed the film of my graphic novel, Road to Perdition. I’m sure Mendes has no idea he’s adapting a book by the mentor of the guy who wrote Perdition.

Anyway, I worked closely with Yates, and he helped me land my first agent, Knox Burger, a legendary, crusty character who had been the editor at Gold Medal Books, where many of my heroes like Richard Stark, John D. MacDonald, Richard S. Prather and Donald Hamilton had been published. I remember vividly that Yates wrote Burger saying that he’d discovered a new Hammett, and sent him my novel, Bait Money. Burger wrote back and said, “Well, not Hammett, but a young W.R. Burnett maybe.” And W.R. Burnett, who wrote The Asphalt Jungle and Little Caesar of course, was good enough for me.

Burger took me on.

Bait Money was one of three novels that comprised my thesis for my Master of Fine Arts at the Writers Workshop. The premise was that a small town in Iowa, based on my hometown Muscatine, could serve as the setting for three different kinds of crime novels–that you didn’t have to write about New York or L.A. The novels were Bait Money, No Cure for Death and Quarry (published initially as The Broker). Book series grew out of each one– Nolan, Mallory and Quarry. Bait Money reflected my strong comics interest, by the way–Nolan’s co-star, Collins’ Road to Perdition went from three-part Paradox Press miniJon, was an aspiring cartoonist and pop culture series to a big budget feature film from DreamWorks. [RTP script copyright © 1998 by Max Allan Collins, art copyright © 1998 by Richard Piers Rayner. Movie hound. poster: Pulse Advertising/David Sameth TM & © 2002 DreamWorks L.L.C. and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.]

RG: That’s pretty impressive to turn college work into the beginning of a career. Now, all of your original works tend to deal with rugged individuals–Mallory, Nolan, Heller–what’s your take on them?

MAC: I’m like pretty much like all mystery writers–the protagonists are idealized versions of myself, and I am hardly rugged though probably an individualist. Many of the characters appear in first-person narratives, and I think writing is similar to improvisational acting–Heller is me filtered through his background and times.

Quarry, in some ways, is closest to me, and he’s a hired killer–but his nasty, cynical outlook is me at my darkest.

Mallory, a small-town mystery writer, was blatantly me, and I lost interest in him quickly, not surprisingly.

Nolan, who appeared in Bait Money and seven subsequent novels, appears in third-person narratives, and the secondary character, Jon, the aspiring cartoonist, was more my portal in the story. I set up Nolan as an “old” man, a tough guy at the end of his road–he was

fifty. Suddenly that doesn’t seem so old….

RG: You’ve written almost exclusively original crime fiction, what’s the appeal?

MAC: Early on, I used to get what I call the Mickey Spillane Question–why did you choose to write about sex and violence? The answer is a Mickey Spillane one, too–it was easy: sex is love and violence is death, and those are the two big human topics. It’s really pretty much what we all care about, with some greed tossed in, also a common element in crime fiction. And life.

I do like the tough hero, the avenger. It’s funny that I grew up on Ayn Rand and right-wing vigilantes and emerged, if not leftist, certainly left-leaning. But until I got a growth spurt going into high school, I was a bookworm kid with glasses who got picked on, and the idea of getting even, through a tough hero or anti-hero, MAX ALLAN COLLINS | 25

appeals. Related to this is the central notion of mystery fiction, pretty much all mystery fiction: the protagonist solves a problem and brings some order at least to a chaotic world.

on Mike Gold, who was my Ms. Tree editor at DC, was also a big help on research and just getting the Chicago feel right. In the first novel, True Detective, one example of just how much George did is the background of Heller’s father and grandfather–he pretty much devised that. I wrote the chapter from his notes.

RG: Your Nathan Heller novels, all wonderful, have required massive research. How much do you do and how much do you rely on researcher George RG: When you wrote True Detective, did you have any Hageneur? idea this was going to the best received of your series MAC: For the uninitiated, I should or that it would last a dozen novsay that Nathan Heller is a els?

Chicago PI in the 1930s (and MAC: I knew I was stepping up later ’40s and ’50s) who becomes to the plate and doing someinvolved in some of the great thing special, something bigger unsolved or disputed and more ambitious than the mysteries/crimes of the 20th cen50,000 word replicas of Gold tury–the assassination of Mayor Medal novels I’d been doing.

Cermak, the Lindbergh kidnapHeller had been devised some ping, the disappearance of Amelia years earlier, initially as a comic Earhart, the Roswell incident, and strip idea, and I had the basic so on. They are big novels, some idea of setting a private eye in of the longest private eye novels the context history in the early ever written, and the first one ‘70s, pre-Chinatown, but knew I won the Best Novel “Shamus” wasn’t writer enough yet to tackaward from the Private Eye le it. I did not know, at first, that Writers of America and really Heller would be a series. changed my career. They’ve been Obviously, with a PI as the main very well received–a year or so character, you know that’s a posago the PWA gave me their Life sibility, which is partly why I Achievement award, the Eye, made him young, mid-twenties, mostly for Heller (and somewhat in the first novel, knowing that if for Ms. Tree). And I’ve just signed there were more I’d want to age a contract with Tor Books that will him as the years passed. And take Heller into the 1960s and the first book was originally plotthe JFK assassination. ted to include the Dillinger Collin’s Road to Purgatory, his 2004 prose George Hagenauer, who I met material that eventually became sequel to the Road to Perdition graphic novel.

[Copyright © 2004 by Max Allan Collins. All rights through comics fandom, is really the second novel, True Crime. reserved.] a collaborator on those books.

Once I realized I couldn’t cover We haven’t done one in a while, everything in True Detective, I and I’ve done a few historicals with him participating in knew a second novel was a strong possibility. a lesser fashion–the new book, Red Sky in Morning I had no idea I was dooming myself to a lifetime of under the “Patrick Culhane” byline, was researched by homework and research. Thank God for George my other right hand, Matthew V. Clemens. And I did the Hagenauer, to share the research load and help me research on Strip for Murder, the recent mystery about carve my way through the various jungles.

Al Capp and Ham Fisher, myself. Red Sky, incidentally, For the record, I consider Heller my life’s work, my is based on my late father’s experiences during WWII most important and potentially lasting achievement. as a young lieutenant in charge of a huge contingent of The Perdition books grew out of Heller, were a sidebar black sailors loading ammo and explosives in the of sorts.

Pacific.

But the Heller and Eliot Ness novels were heavily RG: When writing a series such as Heller, how much of the timeline do you map out? What sort of continuity impacted by George’s research and also by his creativinotes do you create for yourself? ty–we have spent many hours on the phone kicking MAC: At first it was haphazard. After the first three, the around ideas. The Heller novels are odd, because you so-called Nitti Trilogy, I began to take extensive notes, have the constraints of history, and the plotting has to and fashioned a timeline–tried to make sure I didn’t weave in and around, and not contradict, reality. Early 26 | WRITE NOW

years, often staying overnight at his Woodstock, [IL] estate, sometimes visiting his Tribune Tower office, where I first met his assistant (and my future collaborator), Rick Fletcher.

But my friendship with Chet didn’t have any impact on my getting the Tracy gig.

One afternoon in 1977 I got a phone call out of the blue from Don Michel, the editor at Tribune Media Services. He had heard about me from my agent Knox Burger and from Rick Marschall, a fellow comic art collector, who had been the editor at Field Enterprises When Collins succeeded Chester Gould as the scribe on the Dick Tracy newspaper strip, he and syndicate, where we’d disartist Rick Fletcher, took the character back to his roots, focusing more on crime and detective cussed my doing a comic work. [TM and © 2008 Tribune Media Services.] strip called Heaven and Heller, whose lead character have Heller in two places at the same time, because was a certain Chicago PI called Nathan Heller. Michel some of these stories overlap. It’s tricky. Plus, there are and syndicate prez Bob Reed (a great guy) thought Chet around 20 short stories, too, which have to fit the timeneeded to retire, so that the strip could be revitalized. line. A fan a while back did a great, detailed timeline, Chet didn’t necessarily want to retire, but they offered which has been helpful. him more money to retire than to keep going, and his A major problem was the Perdition sequel, Road to capitalist side kicked in–he spent the rest of his life Purgatory, which covered the same material, the same developing new strips, by the way, much as he had in time period, and even some of the same crimes as the the ten years before he landed Tracy. Anyway, the Heller novel, The Million Dollar Wound. I started out Tribune wanted to replace him with a mystery writer, thinking I would ignore the problem, and wound up but they didn’t want to spend real money and hire a making sure the novels did not contradict each other– famous one, so they turned to this kid in Iowa who’d that the Heller stuff was happening off-stage in written several novels that featured lots of comics referPurgatory. Both novels represent father-and-son relaences–Bait Money and Blood Money, again (these tionships with their protagonists and Frank Nitti. I feel were republished as one book by Hard Case Crime a very lucky that not a single reader or reviewer has comfew years ago, as Two for the Money). plained that the earlier book was simply recycled into The Tribune folks were doing a talent search and I the later one. was one of half a dozen or more candidates being asked to try out. I’d been unwittingly preparing for this RG: In 1977, you got tapped to replace Chester Gould job all my life. Overnight, I wrote my sample story on Dick Tracy. How’d that happen? (introducing Angeltop, Flattop’s daughter) and sent it MAC: I never quite know how to tell this story, because off special delivery. A week or so later, I was in Chicago it’s both convoluted and straightforward…. being offered the job. The talent hunt was shut down.

I knew Chester Gould. My friend Matt Masterson, the Chet called me a few days later, and said, “I underworld’s greatest Dick Tracy fan, and I were invited to stand congratulations are in order!” He was delighted a his Tribune Tower office in, I believe, 1973. I had sent Midwesterner had been chosen, by the way.

Chet copies of the first two novels, Bait Money and Blood Money, and we’d started a friendly corresponRG: What sort of preparation did you do before writing dence (we’d exchanged letters when I was a kid, literalthe strip? ly eight years old). Matt and I both had invites from MAC: I re-read as much Tracy stuff as I could lay hands Chet–and this was rare, he was very insulated from his on, and I had a big collection already. In particular I fans–and we pooled our intestinal fortitude and went studied the most recent decade, more to understand together. We had a number of visits with Chet over the what Chet’s bosses were unhappy about than anything MAX ALLAN COLLINS | 27

else. It’s well known that I blew up Moon Maid in a car, as an indication of a new, more traditional direction for the strip after some unfortunate science-fiction detours

by Chet. I had already studied the comics form, prepping to do Heaven and Heller for Rick Marschall. I’d done several months’ continuity for that, so I had the daily/Sunday scripting format down.

RG: The experience proved bittersweet. Looking back on it, what worked for you and what didn’t?

MAC: I had less than ideal relationships with both artists. In particular, Rick Fletcher and I had a rocky ride, at least until toward the end when we became friendlier. He had wanted to write the strip, and viewed me as a young interloper, eating up half of his potential income. I was friendlier with Dick Locher, but we never really got close. I blew up at him early on, when he rewrote me, and while I was right, I handled it dreadfully. I apologized and he accepted it, but that incident prevented us from getting tight. My fault, really. I’m not sure Dick ever knew that he got the job in part because I had asked for him, requested him, since he’d been a Gould assistant in the 1950s.

And I had a brief falling out with Chet. During the 50th anniversary of the strip, the syndicate wasn’t planning anything, and I hired at my own, considerable expense a PR person–Mike Gold, as it happens–to promote this important anniversary. We got lots and lots of press, including Time magazine and network TV. Unfortunately, Chet–who was feuding full-on with Rick Fletcher–took the opportunity to speak into the microphones I’d provided to say he didn’t think much of the current strip.

Understand that Chet was consulting on the strip, that I spoke to him at least once a week; his name was on it with mine and Fletcher’s. He was part of the team, and yet he took the opportunity that my PR money had provided to say critical things he’d never shared with me. I was, I think, understandably angry, and told the syndicate to take his name off the strip. They did. I didn’t consult with Chet again. A year or two later, I called and we gradually restored our friendship. But not a working relationship.

RG: Did Tracy directly lead you to create Ms. Tree for comic books?

MAC: Oh yes–I was doing topical crimes in Tracy, much as Chet had done in the first thirty years of the strip. But some of the crimes I want28 | WRITE NOW

ed to handle were too hot or unpleasant for “family newspapers.” I bridled against restraints on violence all the way through my fifteen years–actually, I got some fairly strong medicine in there, and innovative stuff like video piracy, human cloning and computer crime. On the other hand, in Ms. Tree, we did date rape, abortion clinic bombings, gay bashing, serial killers and all manner of unpleasantness.

RG: How’d you first hook up with Terry Beatty?

MAC: He introduced himself, serving my wife Barb and me a pizza at a local restaurant. He was the son of my favorite English teacher from junior high, so we immediately had a bond. Then he took a film class from me at the local community college, and we began to hang out. Terry was doing some underground comix stuff at his high school, and I was impressed–he had talent, and he was smart, and we had similar tastes. He knew everything about comics already, and was a huge monster movie fan, but I introduced him to Spillane, Hammett and so on, and further corrupted him.

We developed a thing called “The Comics Page” that we self-syndicated to shoppers and small-town papers for a year or so. It was a self-contained tabloid page of about five different features, including “The Mike Mist Minute Mist-ery.” Our biggest client was the Chicago Reader, which ran only “Mist.”

RG: Who taught you script format?

MAC: Nobody. I invented one myself that I still use. No editor or artist has ever complained—it’s just panel-by-

Collins and artist Terry Beatty created Michael Tree, the first female private eye to gain her own comic book title: Ms. Tree. Cover art to issues #21 and #24 is by Beatty.

[TM and © 2008 Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty.]

panel breakdown, with my suggestion for the visuals, plus dialogue of course. I always try to present my description of the panel as a starting point or suggestion, so as not to hamstring the artist. Because I do real-world stuff, sometimes historical, I often provide reference. For Road to Perdition 2, artist Steve Lieber needed shots of country churches, and I went out and shot photos of half a dozen chapels and such.

opera and topical crimes.

I did really enjoy the 48-page novella format of the ten DC issues. That was our best stuff, in my opinion.

Mike Gold was a stellar editor. That seemed like a really ideal format for the character, and for writing crime stories in comics form.

RG: You just wrote a Ms. Tree novel which Hard Case Crime published late last year. Was writing her in prose different or difficult?

RG: Were you at all surprised with the reaction to Ms. MAC: Fallin’ off a log.

Tree and its longevity?

Truth is, I was working off a screenplay I wrote for MAC: Frankly, I thought we deserved more success and Oxygen Network for a two-hour Ms. more attention. We got beat up in Tree pilot. They assigned several other some reviews, in particular The writers to it, and my stuff got lost in Comics Journal, where a feud grew the process, so I preserved my take on up between Gary Groth and the Ms. the character, circa today, in the form Tree team. I made the mistake of of that novel. The reviews were mostly responding to criticism. Stupid. While I really, really good, so maybe I’ll do still think Groth in those days was teranother some time. We just got nomiribly mean-spirited, resorting to pernated for the Shamus Award for Best sonal attacks, no one can fault him for Paperback Novel by the Private Eye the incredible work he’s done as a Writers of America. publisher. But having him attack Ms. Most of my characters never fail me.

Tree so stridently was not helpful.

I worry when I haven’t written about Others, like Don and Maggie them in a while. Nate Heller, for Thompson at The Comics Buyer’s example–haven’t done him in a novel Guide, were much more supportive. since 2001. I’ve done a few short stoWe anticipated the tough female PI ries, and I always sit down, worried he craze of the ’80s (Sara Paretsky, Sue won’t be there. But he always is. Ms. Grafton) and because we were comics, Tree proved the same. She’s never let and comics created by men, nobody me down. noticed out in the mainstream, Ditto the Quarry character. I created although we did have a fashion layout Ms. Tree fans were treated to her first prose novel, Deadly Beloved, by him as a kid back in college in the in Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine Max, of course, published in 2007 early ’70s. When I sat down to write in the ’80s patterned after us. under the Hard Case Crime imprint.

The Last Quarry a year or two ago, I We liked the work, though, and The cover painting is by Terry Beatty. hadn’t written about him in a long, managed to generate enough income [TM and © 2008 Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty.] long time. But he was there. Right to keep going. Somebody was always there. optioning the property for movies or Now I’ve done The First Quarry, set TV, which helped. in the early ’70s, when both Quarry and I were getting Still, the entire ride was a struggle–moving against started. That’s a Fall ’08 book from Hard Case again. the tide. Nobody was doing straight crime comics but us–nobody. And somehow we lasted something like 70 RG: What’s happening with the Oxygen television issues in various formats. series?

MAC: Not sure. They had a decent script ready to go, RG: Did your approach to the feature change as it and they paid us the full purchase price, which usually moved from publisher to publisher? means they’re going to shoot. But to my knowledge, MAC: Not really. Ms. Tree was always meant to be an they haven’t yet. There are other interested parties, experiment in coherence–back then, lots of confusing though, just waiting for their shot. layouts were being foisted on comics readers, lots of artists and for that matter writers were trying to RG: Who would you personally cast as Michael Tree? impress, not entertain. We used the Johnny Craig/EC MAC: If we’re going young, it would be Kristen Bell, approach, which itself came out of traditional syndicatVeronica Mars herself. Obviously, Lucy Lawless would ed comics. The stories flowed out of each other, naturock. That other actress on Battlestar Galactica, who rally, and we were a combination of, I guess, soap MAX ALLAN COLLINS | 29

played the semi-evil starship commander in Razor, Michelle Forbes, she’d be great, too.

RG: Is it fair to say that Nolan led to Dick Tracy to Ms. Tree to Batman?

MAC: Tinkers to Evers to Chance.

RG: Your tenure at DC was short-lived. What was it like writing Batman in 1986 on the heels of “Batman: Year One” ?

MAC: Obviously, it was the suicide slot, but I was too dumb to realize it, or anyway care. I think I disappointed Denny O’Neil because he liked Ms. Tree and the darkness on display there, and I brought a less dark vision than was fashionable then (and now, for that matter) to Batman. I did him tough, but straight. I liked him human.

To be fair, Denny later hired me to do a Batman Elseworlds, and included one of my stories in a Batman: Greatest Stories Ever Told anthology. I have a lot of admiration for him, one of the best comics writers of his or any generation. But anyone with the vague opinion (or specific one) that my Batman sucks should go read Child of Dreams, the graphic novel I did with Kia Asamiya. I’ll stand by that as a solid Batman graphic novel.

I should explain that Asamiya wrote the original graphic novel, but I was given complete freedom, actually encouraged, to write something of my own that fit with his basic concept and of course his pictures. So Child of Dreams is my story, though it’s Batman #408 reintroduced readers to Jason Todd, seen here based on his. It was thought at DC, and I agreed stealing the tires off the Batmobile. Collins wrote the story. with this assessment, that the Japanese version was [© 2008 DC Comics.] not right for an American audience–the science was too vague, for one thing. It’s kind of hilarious, though, to think of me as the guy fixing the science….

MAC: It started with me getting fired off Dick Tracy.

Toward the end, the editor who hired me at Tribune RG: At the same time, you created Wild Dog for DC. Media Services left, and a new one came in–he and I What brought that about and was he always intended did not hit off well, to say the least. to be part of the greater DC Universe?

Anyway, very shortly after I lost the Tracy strip, I was MAC: I believe Wild Dog came a little later than my scrambling for gigs, including comics work. I had a Batman run, but I’m not sure. That was Mike Gold meeting with Andy Helfer–sitting in a hotel lobby, I again. He came to Terry and me wanting us to do a believe, at WonderCon in Oakland, California–where he superhero project. I thought the series was clearly outtold me that he was planning to do a series of noir side the DC universe, as it was a comment on what graphic novels, and wanted me to do one. At that time, might happen if somebody in the real world tried to be I was the only comics writer who also had a straight a costumed avenger. mystery writing career going (not so now), so I was a fairly obvious choice.

RG: Wild Dog recently appeared in Booster Gold. Were Andy wanted me to do something along the lines of you surprised?

Nathan Heller, but not Heller, something new but in MAC: Didn’t know about it. Also haven’t been paid! that vein and with that vibe. I’d been toying with a Prohibition-era variation on Lone Wolf and Cub, RG: While at DC, you and Andy Helfer started talking spliced with the historical story of John and Connor which lead to Road to Perdition. How’d that come Looney, father-and-son gangsters in Rock Island, Illinois, about?

30 | WRITE NOW

and was also looking for a way to transfer my heavy interest in John Woo’s Hong Kong crime melodramas to comics–one Woo film was another Lone Wolf homage, Heroes Shed No Tears. (This was ’93, way before Woo was at all well known in America.) I didn’t have anything on paper, but I pitched it anyway.

My original title was Gun and Son, which Andy hated. He despised all my punny, jokey titles (Ms. Tree, mystery, get it?). What can I say; I grew up on Chester Gould. What’s good enough for Charles Dickens is good enough for me.

Another aspect of the original Perdition concept was my indie movie, Mommy, which I was working on at the same time. Road to Perdition was a variation on that murderous mommy and innocent, adoring child idea, as well.

RG: Pacing out three volumes with more pages and fewer panels per page must have been challenging.

MAC: At first, I was just doing thirty pages or so at a time. I’d get a phone call from Andy Helfer saying, “I need more pages,” and I’d say, “More pages of what?”

Artist Richard Piers Rayner was not moving quickly, to say the least. So for literally years, I would have to go and re-read everything we’d done before, to get back into it. Of course, seeing that beautiful Rayner art helped–he played right into the understated tone I had to mind with his lush penwork. The art, in an elegant way, shouted, while my dialogue and captions

Collins continues to write for comics, including the CSI title from IDW Comics. [TM & © 2008 CBS Inc.]

whispered.

The only major problem came late in the game. We originally were going to do three volumes of Road. I’d done the first two 100-page books (it was designed to be published in three smaller volumes, though never was) when Andy called and said the Paradox graphicnovel publishing program was being scrapped. I had to finish what had been conceived as a 900-page epic in another 100 pages.

That was tough. It plays well, but I was not able to do everything I planned to do, which is why I did Road to Perdition 2: On the Road (which was serialized by Paradox Press in three 100-page volumes, and then collected).

You know, we almost hit the trash can. Richard Piers Rayner had been so painstaking in his genius that it took four years to complete. In the meantime, the Paradox Press noir graphic novel program had essentially tanked, and Perdition was headed for the shelf.

Helfer, God bless him, made the case that the book represented everything the program had sought to achieve, and deserved publication, if not as three books then as one. That was a good bullet to dodge.

RG: You left DC and other than Ms. Tree and Mike Danger, you haven’t done much other comic book work. Do you miss it?

MAC: Actually, more recently I did three CSI’s and one CSI: NY at IDW. Five-issue mini-series that were collected as graphic novels, and have been very successful. I was nominated for a Harvey for the first one, “Serial.”

The three CSIs were just reprinted in new formats, for the umpteenth time.

But it’s true I haven’t concentrated on comics lately. I would consider jobs if called, as the CSI gig indicates, but haven’t self-generated much. When I talk to mainstream publishers interested in having a graphic novel by the Road to Perdition guy, they are shocked into silence when the economics of paying an artist come into play. Richard Piers Rayner and I would like to do a Perdition prequel together, and that may happen. Terry and I are discussing doing a new Ms. Tree for a major publisher, as well. That publisher is planning to reprint the complete Ms. Tree, by the way, though the contracts haven’t been signed as yet.

RG: Turning to your media tie-in work, you’ve novelized movies and television series. What’s your process for turning a script into a manuscript?

MAC: First I determine my way “in” to the material.

Usually this is a straightforward, third-person approach.

But other times I do something a little more out there, notably the multiple first-person chapters in Daylight, which I did as a documentary on paper–the material was unappealing to me and I had to find a way to get MAX ALLAN COLLINS | 31

excited. On Maverick, I noticed that the lead character tion. That’s great, but I love that, thanks to tie-ins, I’ve was in every scene but one tiny one, so I wrote the also been able to write horror, sword & sorcery, novel in first-person–the classic TV series often had a romance, western, war, espionage, techno-thriller and first-person voiceover; also, I imagined young James science fiction. These are not opportunities I would othGarner as Maverick, not Mel Gibson, and wrote it as an erwise get, and it’s improved me as a writer, flexing all episode of the old show, which I loved as a kid. On I those muscles.

Love Trouble, another script I didn’t care for, I got the RG: How much leeway do you generally receive to fill notion of alternating first-person chapters between the in missing bits or add dialogue? male and female reporters, making them not entirely MAC: I try to ascertain what the trustworthy narrators. Scorpion ground rules are ahead of time.

King I approached as if I were My preference, and my usual SOP, writing an Edgar Rice Burroughs is to fill in dialogue and backstory; Tarzan novel. I have to discover in fact, I pretty much throw out the something to be enthusiastic dialogue or rework it extensively. about in the material, or I can’t do As a screenwriter, I know that it. movie script dialogue and novel I break the screenplay down dialogue, like movie scenes and into chapters, make notes about novel scenes, are different animals. whether I need to re-order certain My goal is to write a novel that scenes to maintain whatever my seems to be the book the movie narrative approach is–if I’m alterwas based on. Some of my movie nating POVs between two or tie-ins are among my best novels– three characters, I will combine obviously, Saving Private Ryan shorter scenes featuring one of and American Gangster, but also those characters into a chapter or Daylight and even The Mummy. I a section of a chapter. I don’t like am very pleased that I got to do breaking point of view, although I all three Mummy novels and the do break that personal rule from Scorpion King spin-off. The Mummy time to time in movie novels. novels have generated lots of fan Sometimes there’s research to mail from younger readers, middle be done–as on Saving Private school, high school.

Ryan and Windtalkers. I did a Mike Hammer creator (and onetime comics surprising amount of research on writer) Mickey Spillane was first idol, then RG: You’ve also written original the first Mummy. inspiration, and ultimately collaborator and good friend to Collins. [Photo copyright © 2008 works set in those other universes, from NYPD Blue, books I really RG: Are movies or television easi- the copyright holder.] enjoyed, to CSI. How do you create an original work er to adapt? based on a show where the status quo might change MAC: Movies are easier, because the screenplay is right before the book sees print? there. Television is more rewarding, though, because MAC: You just do your best. At times it can be really you are creating a new story from existing characters. tricky–or the Bones novel, Matt Clemens (who works with me on many of the TV tie-ins) and I had only a RG: For a tough guy writer, do you find some of the rough cut of the pilot to go on. For the second offers unexpected? I’m thinking of your work on The Criminal Minds novel, we had an early draft of the Pink Panther last year. script for the first episode with Joe Mantegna, knowing MAC: I loved doing The Pink Panther. I disliked the our story with his character would appear after many screenplay, but I loved the old movies. Again, I pictured episodes with that character had appeared. The first Peter Sellers, not Steve Martin, and made a traditional NYPD Blue novel was written before Jimmy Smits was Clouseau movie out of the remake. That book is really cast, so I wrote a prequel to the entire series, using the funny. People who skipped that one missed out on David Caruso character. The first Dark Angel was a some real laughs. I’m probably as much a humor writer prequel, too. You just do your best. as a tough guy one, so the project seemed natural to Dark Angel provides an interesting twist on your me. question. The show was cancelled, unexpectedly, before That’s really the rewarding thing about my tie-in we’d done the second and third books of the threecareer. My own byline has become fairly narrowly book contract. So, after writing a prequel to the series, I defined–in particular as a writer of historical crime fic32 | WRITE NOW

was asked to wrap up the TV series in the other two novels. Even had contact with James Cameron over it.

In the second novel, Matt and I did the first episode or two of the nonexistent third season of the show, dealing with the second-season cliffhanger; and the third novel wrapped up the long snake cult story arc and essentially wrapped up the continuity. What we invented became canon, sanctioned by the creators, who consulted with us. Those books, incidentally, were huge sellers, and I remain surprised we weren’t asked to do more.

RG: We’ve recently both contributed to Moonstone’s Zorro anthology. Is writing a short work set in someone else’s universe as challenging as a novel?

MAC: About the same–you need to know or be familiar with as much as you’d need for the longer work, so in a way it’s harder. My problem with Zorro, and I almost pulled the story because of it, was my allegiance to the original stories of creator Johnston McCulley, which the current rights holders seem to have a strange, negative attitude toward. The editor, Richard Dean Starr, was kind enough to do the continuity rewrites for me, and did a good job.

RG: Are there anyone else’s characters out there you’d like to take a stab at writing for prose or comics?

MAC: I’ve really had a shot at many of my favorite characters, from Dick Tracy and Maverick to Batman and Mulder and Scully. My biggest dream has come true, since I’m completing at least three unfinished Mickey Spillane Mike Collins has mined comics field lore to pen Hammer novtwo original prose murder mysteries set in els for the world of comics. starting with 2007’s A Harcourt.

Killing in Comics, set at a fictionalized verThere are sion of DC Comics. Longtime collaborator Terry Beatty provided the cover art. [© 2007 three more Max Allan Collins.] such manu-

scripts, and a bunch of shorter ones, waiting to keep that character going. Spillane was my hero when I was a kid, and we became good friends over the last twentyfive years of Mickey’s life. He designated me as the guy to finish his stuff, which is the greatest honor I’ve ever been paid.

I should mention Mike Danger, which was the sciencefiction version of Mickey’s tough guy that he and I devised for First Comics. We ran two years in the mid’90s and had a Miramax movie option. Terry Beatty was one of the contributing artists. Mickey had a great love for comics, and the Hammer character began in the ’40s as Mike Lancer and Mike Danger, Mickey’s original take on his famous private eye.

I have an interest in Holmes, but it would take a lot of reading for me to feel comfortable enough to take him on. But he and Watson are obviously great characters. I addressed my Archie Goodwin/Nero Wolfe fixation in my novels A Killing in Comics and Strip for Murder, which take the Rex Stout approach. I had tried out unsuccessfully for X-Files back in the day, and now I’ve done the second X-Files movie novelization–that was a real kick.

Similarly, my desire to do Agatha Christie was answered in several of my disaster novels, notably The London Blitz Murders, which had Christie herself as the Marple-ish detective. Poirot is a great character; he’d be fun to do. I did the Saint in the same series, making his creator Leslie Charteris the detective in The Hindenburg Murders.

My own pop culture TV interests right now are more British-oriented. I would love to write Life on Mars or Ashes to Ashes, or Lewis (the sequel to Inspector Morse). Of course, if I could do the sequel to The Maltese Falcon, my life would be complete. I did a Phillip Marlowe short story for an anthology, and actually turned down an opportunity to write new Lew Archer novels–I am not a Ross MacDonald fan particularly, which sometimes surprises people. I agree with Chandler that he tries too hard.

RG: Do you have a favorite novelization?

MAC: The unpublished, complete version of Road to Perdition. I was forced to publish a book that was half the length of what I submitted, and I hope one day to have the real novel published. (I was hired to write the novelization of the screenplay based on my own graphic novel, and then forbidden to write new dialogue or background for the characters I’d created.)

I’m probably proudest of Daylight.

RG: From your work on novelizations, you wound up co-founding the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. What prompted this?

MAC: Lee Goldberg and I exchanged phone calls and eMAX ALLAN COLLINS | 33

mails about the notion of awards and an industry group–we’d both had the same idea, so we threw in together. He is much more worthy of praise than I am, has worked much harder, and is as great a guy as he is a writer, which is pretty great.

RG: Two years later, it thrives and will be presenting its second annual Scribe Awards at San Diego. What do you think so far?

MAC: A good start. Miles to go before we sleep.

So-called novelizations can be terrific novels when really good writers write them, and we are working toward changing perceptions about these books and these writers. Sometimes I feel like my entire career has been spent in various popular culture ghettoes–“just” a mystery writer, “just” a comics writer, “just” a tie-in writer. But I’ve lived long enough to see both mystery writers and comics writers treated with more respect. I hope tie-in writers are next.

RG: You’ve also turned your passion for fiction to film.

What was the toughest part of writing a screenplay as opposed to a comic book or novel?

MAC: I don’t think screenplays are hard to do at all. I love doing them, and find the form very friendly to my way of thinking, my abilities. Comics writing informed this, obviously, helping me think visually and to write concisely.

The hardest thing about writing screenplays is getting the sons of bitches produced. I have sold three or four that didn’t get made, two more that did get made, and the rest I’ve done myself as indies—four features, several shorts, two documentaries.

RG: Hold on, Al, let’s explore this. You wrote screenplays and suddenly became a film director while still in Iowa. How does that work?

MAC: Well, writing screenplays was always an ambition –I loved comics, movies, TV and novels as a kid, and wanted to play in all the sandboxes. I always figured my novels would attract Hollywood attention, and they did over the years, but the opportunity to do screenplays didn’t come, not for a long time. Around 1992, filmmaker William Lustig–he did the Maniac Cop movies, among many others—optioned both the Nolan and Quarry series, and I was going to do screenplays from both. But before that could happen, he had another picture, a remake of the famous prison movie Brute Force, to complete. The well known screenwriter Larry Cohen, whose work I admire, had done a screenplay but was no longer associated with the project. I came aboard as a ghost to do another draft, with the idea that I would learn how to be a screenwriter in the process.

And it worked, only the journey was a long one. I 34 | WRITE NOW

Collins turned his research on Eliot Ness into the foundation for a one-man show about the federal agent, Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life. The 2006 DVD of the play is directed by Collins, and stars Michael Cornelison. [© 2008 the copyright holders.]

wound up writing something like 25 drafts, and the good news was that eventually the Cohen material was so far in the past that I got a sole screenplay credit. The bad news is that, after a long, long haul, I finally quit the picture, after arguing with Bill on a key plot point, and somebody else did the final draft. So the resulting film, The Expert, which wound up an HBO world premiere, doesn’t always resemble my screenplay. I do owe Bill Lustig a great deal of thanks, because I did in fact learn to write screenplays under his tutelage.

Anyway, I kind of caught the movie-making bug from that experience, although I was soured on the Hollywood approach that made the writer less important than the caterer. So I went out and raised half a million dollars in my home town, and made Mommy in 1994–what I sometimes call an “unofficial sequel” to The Bad Seed. I had the idea of using Patty McCormack, the original Rhoda, to be a grown-up monster, in fact a monster mommy, June Cleaver with a cleaver. I was able to raise the dough because I stayed in this small town and was a local celebrity of sorts, and certainly a local boy made good. They were repaying me for not leaving, I guess.

RG: How difficult is it to write with no budget or the support of a filmmaking center like Hollywood or New York?

MAC: I have to say that half-a-million dollars seemed like plenty of money. I still think good pictures can be made for that kind of dough. We did the sequel, Mommy’s Day for about half as much and that was a struggle– shorter schedule, for one thing. We only had Patty for two weeks, I believe. Later we did some real guerilla filmmaking on Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market (2000). That was a $15,000 budget! It’s a “found footage” movie, shot mostly on real security cameras. That was a one week shooting schedule, and the only name actor was Brinke Stevens. My latest feature was mounted as a play, the one-man show, Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life. We had $25,000 for that, and still shot it on high def. Michael Cornelison plays Ness, and he’s brilliant–he’s been in all four features of mine and narrated both documentaries.

RG: You’ve done fiction with Mommy and non-fiction with the Spillane documentary. Is one easier to produce than the other?

MAC: There’s nothing easy about filmmaking. The difference is, with a documentary, you write it after the fact–you have a game plan, and gather material, but you write it by going through the material after it’s shot and finding the storyline. You never know where a documentary is going. Best example would be Caveman: V.T. Hamlin & Alley Oop, which VCI is bringing out on DVD later this year. We did a lot of smart things, in particular going to the San Diego Comic-Con and inter-

viewing lots of cartoonists, even getting what turned out to be one of Will Eisner’s final interviews. We planned carefully. But the material has a mind of its own. We knew that V.T. Hamlin and his assistant, Dave Graue–who later took the strip over– had had a rocky relationship, much like Gould and Rick Fletcher. Graue did not like to talk about Hamlin in public. But we got him to agree to an interview on the strip, and brought him into Iowa City. He and I began to talk off-camera, and when he realized I was a comic-strip guy–when I had shared some stories about Gould and Fletcher–he opened up. He gave us a great, candid interview about Hamlin and the problems the two men had had.

Fantastic stuff, from a lovely man. Then, a couple months later, Graue died in an automobile accident.

That interview, and the poignancy of Dave’s fate, shaped the documentary.

RG: Have your four independent feature films led to any offers from Hollywood?

MAC: Screenplay work only, though if the current project, which is to do Road to Purgatory, the novel sequel I wrote for HarperCollins myself, pans out, that may change. I did the screenplay for a Quarry movie starring Tom Sizemore, The Last Lullaby, which is playing the festival circuit now. Good little crime picture.

Road to Perdition, of course, has led to Hollywood options—Terry Beatty and my Johnny Dynamite, our Dark Horse mini-series, was bought by Law and Order guru Dick Wolf for TV. We’ve already talked about Ms. Tree.

RG: Most recently, you’ve stepped in to complete works from your role model/mentor/inspiration, Mickey Spillane. What was he like?

MAC: Mickey was a simple soul and a complex man. Very tough, very gentle. He was funny and unpretentious but had real pride of craft. He was fun and gregarious but that Mike Hammer nastiness was there if somebody crossed him. I loved him second only to my own father—he was my son Nathan’s godfather. Knowing him is maybe the second best thing that ever happened to me, next to talking Barb into marrying me and winding up with a great son like Nate.

The Collins-written Mike Danger #1 & 2. Cover to #1 is by Frank Miller, and to #2 by Ed Barreto. [© 2008 Big Entertainment.]

RG: I understand there are several other partially complete manu-

MAX ALLAN COLLINS | 35

scripts. Will you be tackling those, too?

MAC: There will be at least three Hammers. First up is The Goliath Bone, the final Mike Hammer chronologically, and the last Hammer that Mickey was working on. He had another Hammer well in progress, King of the Weeds, that he’d set aside when he got excited about the idea of Goliath Bone, AiT/PlanetLar republished the 1994 Dark which is a corkHorse Comics miniseries, Johnny er.

Dynamite, written by Max with art– including this cover–by Terry.

Also, many [© 2008 Max Allan Collins.] years ago, he gave me two substantial manuscripts (over 100 pages each) of unfinished, unpublished Mike Hammer novels from the mid-’60s. He sent them home with me when I visited him once, and said, “Maybe you can do something with these someday.” Two weeks later, Hurricane Hugo hit Mickey’s home and those two manuscripts would have been lost. One is called The Big Bang and the other Complex 90.

Then among his papers, Mickey’s wife Jane and I found another substantial manuscript, from the late ’80s, called Death Trophy. There’s a lot of other stuff, maybe half a dozen beginnings of novels, a chapter or two each, and a substantial portion of a sequel to a good non-Hammer called The Delta Factor–the sequel is The Consummata. There’s even a rough draft of a Mike Danger science-fiction novel.

I hope to finish all of these. (The first one was Dead Street, published last year by Hard Case, a nonHammer.) The process of completing these novels varies from book to book. Goliath Bone consisted of nine or ten rough draft chapters, plus a three- or fourchapter false start, from which I pulled scenes and wove into the final book, which ran twelve chapters.

Every chapter has Mickey material in it, though I would say ultimately it was about a 50/50 collaboration.

As for why so many unfinished manuscripts, there are a bunch of reasons–for one thing, Mickey had three offices at his home, and would work on a different novel in whatever office he happened to be in!

RG: Do you have any tips for anyone reading who may 36 | WRITE NOW

be looking to get or move into the various genres and media you’ve worked in?

MAC: What has kept me alive is my ability to work in different forms–not just novels, but comics; not just comics, but film; and nonfiction, and trading cards, and video games, and columns for magazines (I’ve done a column for the magazine Asian Cult Cinema for years).

It’s all writing, it’s all storytelling. Stay on top of the shifting media.

RG: How has the landscape changed–or not–regarding breaking in as a professional writer?

MAC: It’s easier and it’s harder. With the Internet, you have venues that, while not always paying well or even paying anything, get your work out there, get you experience. But the novel market is shrinking, and comics–for all its impact on the pop culture–is already a niche market. That’s why writers need to stay open to changing tastes and changing media. Reading books may dwindle, but people need storytelling. It’s in the blood. We sat around the campfire listening to liars like me tell a whopper to excuse not going out hunting for meat. The gig of the well paid liar is not going to go away.

RG: Would you recommend a program like Iowa to aspiring writers? Why or why not?

MAC: The Writers Workshop was great for me, in a couple of ways. My inclination toward popular fiction rubbed up against the workshop’s frankly pretentious “literary” attitude, and frankly it was good for both of us. The major thing is, if you can go to college and get credit for writing fiction, have a venue to write in an atmosphere that encourages but does not stifle, that’s a program worth entering. You may never have the opportunity again to spend this much time writing and get away with it. Once you have a real job, and are writing on the side, catch as catch can, you are up against it. College programs encourage you to create.

They have snobby attitudes sometimes, but you can deal with that.

RG: Al thanks for taking the time to chat.

MAC: My pleasure, Bob. You got into some areas I’ve seldom talked about, and I hope people enjoy hearing about this stuff.

Robert Greenberger is a writer/editor who has clocked nearly 30 years in the pop culture field including work at Starlog Press, DC Comics, and Marvel Comics. When he’s not managing editing Write Now! he writes for the Famous Monsters of Filmland website and serves as News Editor for ComicMix.com. His most recent book was the novelization of Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

THE END

Fantastic Four #560 Death of the Invisible Woman Part Three of Four Script By Mark Millar Art By Bryan Hitch and Andrew Currie Final Draft: 14th August 2008 23 script pages Page One 1/ Cut to 500 years in the future and a nightmarish vision of society where ecological and environmental problems have created an eternal, freezing, barren night and things are pretty fucking horrible. Mankind has been decimated, but there’s still billions of us out there. This should be a big, wide shot with a well-known landmark in the background (anything except the Statue of Liberty).

CAPTION

[© 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

CAPTION

: “Well, let’s start with the good news. The good news is that the Earth DIDN’T die in the early part of the twenty-first century. : “It actually survived another five hundred years, thanks to the efforts of Doctor Reed Richards.

The team of writer Mark Millar and penciler Bryan Hitch gained notoriety with their work on The Authority and then The Ultimates. About halfway through their commitment to Marvel’s Fantastic Four, this sequence kicks off issue #560 (the third chapter in a four-part story arc) and begins with a panoramic establishing shot. Note how this is marked as the final draft with a date to avoid any confusion to both editor and artist over which version of the script is to be used.

Note also how Hitch put the “well known landmark” (the Empire State Building) in the foreground, not, as described in the script, the background. He moves the details of the “nightmarish vision of society” to the next pages, figuring the dramatic shot of the ESB—with supports that seem to be needed to keep it upright—combined with intriguing dialogue captions would make any reader want to turn the page.

FANTASTIC FOUR #560 NUTS & BOLTS | 37

Pages Two and Three 1/ Cut to the population trying their best to live a life in these conditions, fashioning a new society in these appalling conditions. : “But when the end times came, it was worse than we imagined. : “Twelve billion people starved to death, half the world’s cities drowned in the seas and cancer and disease affected almost every living creature.

CAPTION CAPTION

2/ Cut to the New Defenders (six of whom we’ve already seen) as they do their bit to rescue people and try to keep things going.

CAPTION

: “The rich and the powerful disappeared overnight, leaving behind a lawless mess that the world’s remaining superheroes bound together to protect.

3/ Pull back for a very long shot across a desolate horizon and we know that, despite the best efforts of everyone here, life will soon be unsustainable.

CAPTION CAPTION

: “But it was HOPELESS and we KNEW it. : “Hence the reason I built the big MACHINE.”

Mark’s script calls for a two-page spread made up of only three panels, but Bryan breaks it down into six panels to allow him to execute the instruction on this and the previous page, showing the futuristic city and what people are doing to survive.

Hitch’s decision to move the details of planet-wide suffering to this spread makes for a shocking contrast with the relatively familiar shot of the Empire State Building on page one.

[© 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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FANTASTIC FOUR #560 NUTS & BOLTS | 39

Pages Four and Five 1/ Turn over for a big double page spread and we see a hundred superheroes standing with their backs to us in the frozen wastes of Florida. They’re all standing looking at a huge machine Banner (also pictured) has built. There’s a huge blizzard going on and everyone is kind of shouting over it while they’re talking here. Really make this all as frightening as you can. The FF should be a scary book sometimes and this isn’t the bright and glowing future we all might imagine.

CAPTION BANNER BANNER

: Florida, 2509: : Well? : What do you THINK?

2/ This is the first of three insert panels (just like we did in part two of the first arc).

Lightwave and the others look around at this big machine, unsure what it is. Banner’s very excited about the project and he seems to have a few friends who have been working on this with him. This is a meeting of the superheroes, however, and so everyone should be in costume.

LIGHTWAVE BANNER

: To be honest, I’m not exactly sure what we’re LOOKING at, Banner. How could this be the answer to all our PROBLEMS? : Because I’ve found a way to get us OUT of here, Lightwave.

Not just us, but every human being on the planet.

3/ Psionics seems a little confused.

PSIONICS BANNER’S PAL BANNER

: Is it a ship? Are we taking everyone off-world? : No, it’s not a ship. You’re in the right area, but there’s nowhere suitable for a million miles. : THINK about it, people. Use your HEADS. Where’s the one place we can breathe the air, eat the food and let the children drink clean water?

The “hundred superheroes” called for in the script are suggested by this wide-angle shot.

The three inset panels down the right hand page then allow Bryan to focus on the speakers and emotions.

At this point in the story, identifying each individual superhero and his or her powers isn’t important to the narrative. The only one who, at this stage, has to be identified is “Banner.” Most readers will assume he’s somehow related to the Hulk, and will find that of interest.

4/ Close on Banner, excited about what’s coming up. : We’re going back in TIME.

Significantly, despite the fact that time travel in superhero stories is commonplace, the set-up of Banner’s last word balloon—coupled with the story arc’s title, “Death of the Invisible Woman”–piques curiosity because we’re concerned that the dire situation 500 years in the future will come back to our time with fatal consequences for the Invisible Woman. The script has done its job of making us want to keep reading.

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THE END

[© 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

BANNER

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THE WORLD OF ZUDA ONLINE CREATORS ON MAKING WEBCOMICS

DC

Comics launched its major web initiative, Zuda Comics, in 2007. Run by Director of Creative Service and Online DC Comics, Ron Perazza, it’s been a much talked about and visited web destination for a year now. Along with editor Kwanza Johnson and DC SVP-Creative Director Richard Bruning.

Ron is boldly taking DC where no mainstream comics company has gone before.

Ron is deeply involved in every facet of Zuda’s development. In the online world, he’s something of a veteran, having served as Project Manager: Online at Marvel before coming to DC. On September 18th, Ron kindly gave me e-mail responses to some questions about this brave new virtual world.

—DF

RON PERAZZA DANNY FINGEROTH: What would you say Zuda’s “mission” is, Ron? RON PERAZZA: That’s easy–find and make good webcomics.

DF: What makes Zuda different from other webcomics sites? How is it similar to any?

RP: That’s a tricky question–there are so many sites with such variety. I’d like to think that we add something to that larger pool and because of that bring value to the whole thing.

DF: What’s the appeal of webcomics in general? Has their time finally come, in terms of being a major part of the comics landscape, after all these years of people trying?

RP: I don’t think there is a “time” for webcomics in a way that means that time has passed for other comics or anything like that. I think artists’ options have expanded and comic storytelling has grown because of the technology. It’s been a slow build for the last ten years or so, but its kind of growing geometrically–the bigger it gets, the bigger it can get. The trick then is maintaining quality. I like to think that Zuda offers a pretty unique combination of user submissions, community involvement and editorial input that works toward that goal.

DF: Since DC is so high profile, any ballpark idea of how many site visitors are new to webcomics and just came to the site because it is part of DC, and how many are regular readers of other comics sites?

RP: There’s really no way for us to know that–we don’t

Richard Bruning, left, Kwanza Johnson and Ron Perazza, of DC Comics and Zuda.com. [Richard Perry/The New York Times]

collect that kind of “Where did you hear about us?” information with any sort of scientific accuracy or anything. In some ways it doesn’t matter–if you’re a longtime comic fan or a comparatively new reader it’s all good. We’re trying to have enough diversity to appeal to a lot of different types of readers.

DF: Zuda is a free site. At this point in time, is it seen as an R&D site for new properties, or an exploratory site to test the online comics waters? Or something else altogether?

RP: In a lot of ways this all an experiment–but that’s not to say there’s not a plan. DC Comics has a history of leading the way with new formats–like taking a leadership role with Collected Editions and the bookstores for example–so this is a continuation of that general philosophy. We’re interested in new styles, new genres and some of the unique storytelling and reader collaboration that comes from being online. It’s a long game and fortunately we’re in a position to play that long game and see where it takes us.

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DF: Do you have a model for revenue from ads? If not, is there a revenue model in place, or one you’re thinking of for the future?

RP: It’s interesting to me how everyone is interested in how we’re looking to make money from this. My chief concern is how to make quality comics. We have ads on site, we’ve played around with the idea of sponsorships, we’re definitely interesting in collecting the webcomics for print volumes–so I guess you can say we’re taking an organic, multi-tiered approach to generating revenue.

DF: If not revenue, how would you define “success” for Zuda?

RP: There’s a lot of ways we can define succes–first and foremost is making good comics. Creative success is my main concern. I don’t know how you measure that quantitatively but I think if you’re on the right track then people take notice. We have a lot of series on site that I really believe in–like Bayou, Street Code, High Moon and SuperTron. I could go on but I think that will be the mark of Zuda’s success–the quality of our books.

DF: Does Zuda/DC own the material it puts up on the site, or just certain rights?

RP: Zuda’s contracts are very consistent with the creator-owned contracts for DC Comics’ other imprints –like Vertigo or WildStorm. It would be lengthy (and likely boring) for me to even try to get into that all here, but we offer all of our contracts on the site for anyone to read, take to their family, friends, lawyers or what have you. We strongly encourage people who are thinking about sending us a comic for the site to do

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this well in advance of sending us anything just so they are informed if nothing else. You can find them here: http://www.zudacomics.com/submission_agreement http://www.zudacomics.com/rights_agreement http://www.zudacomics.com/services_agreement DF: Being on the web, do you find yourself concerned over language, sex, violence or moral issues in the strips? Is there any material you wouldn’t put on Zuda?

RP: Yeah, obviously being available to the general public and not requiring any kind of registration to simply read the comics we have to be more mindful about what we publish.

DF: Is there any style of material you wouldn’t run, even if the content was acceptable?

RP: I can’t imagine what that might be–we’re actively encouraging style and genre diversity.

DF: Would you ever take a submission from a writer and then pair him or her up with an artist, or do teams have to submit complete packages?

RP: What we’re interested in is actively including the readers in the selection process and not creating those matches internally then presenting them to the reader.

We offer message boards in order to help artists and writers seek each other out if they don’t already have a creative team, but our primary interest is to see what stories creators are interested in telling and giving them a way to get those stories to us.

DF: At this point, do you need to go searching for talent or are you flooded with submissions?

RP: We’ve got a steady stream of submissions.

DF: How many staff people are dedicated in whole or part to Zuda? How would someone apply for a staff job there?

RP: We’ve got a full-time editor in Kwanza Johnson. Nika Denoyelle is our assistant.

Dave McCullough oversees the online group, which does a tremendous amount of work with Zuda, as you might expect, and then there’s me. We all report into the Senior Vice President/Creative Director of DC Comics, Richard Bruning. He reports right into the President and Publisher, Paul Levitz.

A screen from Zuda’s science fiction comedy series, SuperTron. Story and art is

by Sheldon. [© 2008 Sheldon Vella.]

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DF: How does one edit a webcomic versus a print comic?

RP: That’s a very complex question,

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especially given the nature of how submissions come in. Generally speaking, for our ongoing series, it’s not too much different from a print comic. We’re interested in creator-driven storytelling and we’re not interested in getting in the way of that or trying to bend the creators to our will or anything like that. So very broadly speaking, it’s like being there to bounce ideas back and forth or get an impartial opinion. There’s some nuts and bolts things like proofreading and scheduling as well. It’s very collaborative.

DF: Do your writers submit outlines or scripts in advance to check for questionable matter?

RP: For ongoing series, yes. Like I mentioned in the previous answer there’s a lot of back-and-forth between editorial and the creative team during the series–a lot of it pretty casual with e-mail and instant messaging–to help craft the best series possible.

DF: Given the web is fluid, why limit the artwork to a fixed set of dimensions?

RP: It’s like with a print comic, anything can happen on that page. It could be a splash; it could be a hundred little panels. It might be part of the story to break every page into a standard nine-panel grid. But the paper dimensions don’t change. It’s sort of like that. In part we want to offer creators a known “page size” and give them infinite freedom within that page. We also want to offer our readers a consistent reading experience that doesn’t require any scrolling or specific monitor, computer, or plug-in requirements that can vary from comic to comic.

DF: What’s in the future for Zuda?

RP: More good comics.

DF: Oh, yeah—maybe I missed this—what does “Zuda” mean, anyway?

RP: Everything–from Z to A. :)

DEAN HASPIEL Interview conducted via phone Sept. 25, 2008.

Transcribed by Steven Tice Copyedited by Danny Fingeroth and Dean Haspiel

Native New Yorker Dean Haspiel is the creator of the Eisner Award-nominated Billy Dogma and the webcomix collective Act-i-Vate. Dean is also a founding member of Brooklyn’s Deep6 Studios, and the editor of “Next-Door Neighbor” at Smith Magazine. Dean has drawn superheroes for Marvel and DC Comics, as well as Michael Chabon’s The Escapist for Dark Horse, and is best known for his collaborations with Harvey

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Pekar on The Quitter and Vertigo’s relaunch of American Splendor. This summer, Dean launched Street Code, a semiautobiographical webcomic for Zuda. This Fall, Vertigo published The Alcoholic, an original graphic novel collaboration with author Jonathan Ames, and Francoise Mouly’s Toon Books published Mo & Jo: Fighting Together Forever, Dean’s cover to his and Jonathan Ames’ Haspiel’s collabo- graphic novel The Alcoholic [© 2008 ??.] ration with underground comix legend Jay Lynch. For updates, please visit http://man-size.livejournal.com/ Dean took some time to tell me about how he’s come to be writing and drawing Street Code for Zuda.

—DF DANNY FINGEROTH: What made you decide to do webcomics, Dean?

DEAN HASPIEL: I was working on several projects that wouldn’t see the light of day for at least a year and that can be a struggle for an artist, especially one with an ego that wants people to see their stuff immediately. I had a bunch of friends that moved to California and they started blogging, which is how I discovered the blog culture. But they really were blogging about their lives. They weren’t promoting. So I would blog the same thing, and then after a while they would ask, “Show us what you’re working on.” So I would show little sneak peeks online and I realized that would get more responses when I would actually show artwork.

So, after a couple of years of doing that, I saw other cartoonists showing their stuff off online and I wrote a private e-mail to a bunch of friends and a couple other people I hadn’t met that were showing off their stuff on a regular basis, and I said, let’s try to do webcomics online, that we control and own, on a weekly basis.

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building a loyalty and a fanbase.

DF: Was there something about Street Code that seemed most appropriate for the web, and specifically for Zuda?

DH: There’re a couple of reasons why I went to Zuda.

Number one, I wrote an e-mail to Kwanza Johnson and Ron Perazza, congratulating them on this new DC Comics initiative to do webcomics. And I said, “I know it’s new for you guys. If there’s knowledge from my experience with Act-I-Vate that can be helpful, please do not hesitate to contact me.” And they wrote me back, “That’s really great of you, thank you so much.”

Act-I-vate had gotten some momentum and, I was like, “Let’s share the wealth, let’s all learn from this, and let’s engender webcomics.”

DF: So you’re still on Act-I-Vate, right?

DH: Oh, yeah. I still do Billy Dogma for Act-I-Vate. Last year I did a Billy Dogma story called “Immortal,” which got nominated for an Eisner this year, and I’m currently finishing the sequel, “Fear, My Dear,” before I take a short hiatus and hop onto the third Billy Dogma story, “As Big As Earth.” Anyway, I talked to Zuda when I went to their launch party, and I said, “Hey, I’d love to do something for Zuda someday.” Not only because I want to, again, help engender webcomics, but they also pay. And the only caveat I had was, I didn’t want to be part of the competition, the American Idol style thing that they do, although I think that’s an interesting approach to what they’re

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doing. That’s what makes them original, as well as that they can use Zuda for test marketing intellectual properties. So, they said, “Please pitch us something. If we like it, we’ll buy it from you. We’ll make you an ‘instant winner,’ and we’ll take it from there.” So I pitched them three things, and, curiously, they decided to go with Street Code, which is my return to semiautobio comics.

I had done semi-autobio comics within the pages of Keyhole, the two-man anthology I did years ago with Josh Neufeld. Later on, I compiled my “greatest hits,” as it were, and a couple of other stories, and published a one-shot called Opposable Thumbs with Alternative Comics. That was the comic that got me an Eisner nomination for being worthy of wider recognition. It put me on the map a little bit.

What I wanted to do with Zuda was to get paid to do webcomics and get more exposure because, after all, DC Comics secures a lot of eyes. For 2008, I wanted to have writing credits and editing credits. I don’t have a lot of writing credits out there besides Billy Dogma. Comic’s readers know me as an artist who collaborates with writers and does franchise comics. I needed to have more examples of my writing chops, so after a while editors and publishers would also recognize me for writing and editing, as well as drawing.

And that’s also when I decided to bring a series to Smith magazine called “Next-Door Neighbor” that I’m editing right now. That’s been running bi-weekly since March, and it’ll run for a year. So, anyway, I decided for 2008 I would still be drawing comics, but also get recognized for writing and editing so that I can get to the next level in my career.

DF: Tell me about Street Code. Is the title an homage to that autobiographical story Jack Kirby did?

DH: Street Code, in a nutshell, is basically my stories of when I first moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn. As a Manhattan native, I thought I knew everything that there was to know about living in New York City, but little did I know how much I didn’t know.

The character who is not Dean stars in Dean’s written-and-drawn Zuda strip, called—in homage to Jack Kirby—Street Code [© 2008 Dean Haspiel]

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DF: So Street Code is at least somewhat autobiographical?

DH: Street Code was originally supposed to be autobiographical but then DC, in the contract, would have to own “Dean Haspiel” and everything that Dean Haspiel ever did and lived. They would even

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own the stories I haven’t even lived yet. So I decided, “Okay, the lead character, he can basically look like the way I draw myself, but I gave him a scar across his forehead and cheek, and I named him “Jack,” after Kirby. I had come up with several other titles, but nothing was really locking in. Finally, I decided, “Let me use Street Code.” Two reasons. One, my original pitched title for Harvey Pekar’s The Quitter was Street Code until Harvey insisted on The Quitter. I had always liked that title, Street Code, because of Jack Kirby. Kirby is basically my biggest influence for writing and drawing comics, and I love the man’s work. I regret never having met him. And, years ago, as you mentioned, he had done his only autobiographical comic, which was called “Street Code”. [The story can be seen in the TwoMorrows book, Streetwise. –DF] And it always stuck with me, and I was so in love with that story that I wanted to give a nod to my favorite cartoonist, but I also I realized that some of the themes I had written in my own proposal were perfect for that title.

A lot of it takes place on the street. I learned a lot from the different neighborhood people and situations that I confronted, and that’s another reason I stuck with that title.

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able to show off what you own on your shelf, because, in a weird way, it culturally describes who you are.

DF: Is there stuff you can do in an online comic you can’t do in print?

DH: I think there are some people who do wild stuff with the medium and format. But anything I’ve done online absolutely can be done in print. I come from print. Maybe the online delivery system is a little different in that I show one panel at a time, for instance, on Billy Dogma, so you feel like you’re clicking through it.

I paced it so they get to click through. And it’s almost like “beats,” if you know anything about theatrical writing. So, at the same time, you can take six of my panels and put them on the traditional comic book page and publish it that way, as well. I’ve also been thinking about the iPhone and how to look at comics on your little monitor like a Jack Kirby “Mother Box.” Those things are going to become more powerful. You can map your way to one locale from another, you can go online, you can watch movies, read comics. One of the things I have been thinking about, and this was a discussion I had with another webcomics cartoonist named Dan Goldman, who did the graphic novel Shooting War, was to think about delivery systems like that. So, yeah, I can do webcomics one way, and take the same exact material and publish it another way.

DF: So can you make money from the web-only angle?

I guess they pay you, so you are making some money.

DH: Well, this is what’s happening. I went from being paid to draw print comics and was able to make a fullDF: When I was running Virtual Comics for Byron time freelance transition about five or six years ago. I Preiss, we would figure that a half-page of a comic was working with Harvey Pekar, then doing some franchise stuff like Batman and Spider-Man, little small projects. Nothing high profile in terms of the work, just being able to do a fill-in issue or whatever. Then bringing my relationship with Pekar to Vertigo and being able to do The Quitter there with him was great and it raised my profile.

And then I struggled. I struggled, as most normal cartoonists do, with making a living at this. But, because I had been doing webcomics on the side, and because, finally, the bigger publishers and the world at large are embracing webcomics as something vital and real, I now am one of the people who are, only recently, making a living on webcomics. The way you make a living with online comics is, either someone pays you to do it, which is fantastic, or, because you got a book deal. What I feel about webcomics right now is they’re kind of the new minicomic, and they’re also the new way to develop not only the work, but a fanbase. We still live in a culture that covets, and what I mean by that is, okay, so I can get it for free online, or I can watch a movie or Dean edits the webcomic Next Door Neighbor, a comics anthology download something, but I then go buy it when it’s that appears on the www.smithmag.net website. The screen above is available for sale. I still like looking at my shelf, and from the NDN series, “Sad Song in A-Flat,” written and drawn by Kevin Colden. [© 2008 Kevin Colden.] looking at titles. I come from that culture of being THE WORLD OF ZUDA | 45

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was the same dimensions as a computer monitor.

DH: Right, the 4:3 aspect ratio.

DF: Are you still working with that principle?

DH: I’m doing it for Zuda that way because that’s what they want. I think it’s brilliant. So when I do future webcomics for myself or other projects, I will insist on the 4:3 aspect ratio because that’s how you can see stuff best on your laptop or monitor, and you can also read it on the phone that way. And, also, you can take two screens and make them one comic book page if that’s what you want.

DF: With print, working in black-and-white is cheaper to publish than color, but now that you’re doing comics on the web, why are you doing them in blackand-white?

DH: It’s a sensibility thing. I do a two-color monochrome type solution for Billy Dogma because I think that looks best for the story I’m telling. With Street Code, I really wanted a stark contrast, because I’m writing about stark contrasts. Ergo, black-and-white. If we go to print with Street Code, I might entertain the idea of maybe adding a grayscale to it. Also, to be morbidly honest, I suck at the four-color stuff. I don’t know how to play with four colors. Thank God for really good colorists that do my color stuff, because I can’t even think in color. It’s a struggle for me.

DF: In another interview, you described your Street Code characters as being “gray.” Can you elaborate on that?

DH: Well, my characters are “blurry,” in that there are no villains and no heroes. So they’re gray in terms of characterization. I just don’t believe that anyone’s pure evil, or purely great or good. That’s how I look at myself. I know I’ve been bad. Put it this way: there’s things that you’re not willing to do before midnight that, after midnight, you change your position. [laughter] DF: You’ve done a lot of work with Harvey Pekar. Are you doing anything with him on Zuda?

DH: I have nothing planned to do with Harvey, although going back to the thing about me possibly being an editor for the future, obviously he’s in my Rolodex, so maybe I’ll hook something up. I mean, I’m always hooking Pekar up with artists. He’ll call me up for recommendations and ideas, so I do kind of collaborate behind the scenes, and that’s what I want to now possibly get paid for in public, via content editing.

DF: Finally, what’s next for you, at Zuda and elsewhere?

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DH: Well, what’s next is that I’ll hopefully be completing my Zuda contract in the next couple months, and then I’ll do my next original graphic novel for Vertigo— my third for them. And, depending on the popularity of Street Code, and/or if the editors decide to take me on for another season, I would definitely entertain doing more for Zuda. But, meanwhile, I’m working on Billy Dogma weekly, and editing Next Door Neighbor.

So that’s basically what I’m juggling right now. Billy Dogma is at Act-I-Vate, and Next Door Neighbor is in Smith magazine, which is an online publication. [www.smithmag.net/] DF: Thanks, Dean!

DH: My pleasure, Danny. Thanks for asking.

JEREMY LOVE Interviewed via e-mail Sept. 24, 2008.

JEREMY LOVE is an accomplished illustrator, writer and animator and is one-third of Gettosake Entertainment. Owned and operated by him and his brothers, Gettosake Entertainment is a pop culture company and production studio that uses animation and illustration as its primary medium. He’s the writer and artist of Zuda’s Bayou, which he describes like so: “South of the Mason-Dixon lurks a strange world of gods and monsters born of years of slavery, civil war, innocent blood, hate and strife. The daughter of a poor black sharecropper, Lee Wagstaff, joins a bluessinging swamp monster name Bayou on a southern odyssey through a mythic combination of Depressionera Mississippi, African mythology and American folklore in order to rescue her childhood friend and save her father’s life.”

Here, Jeremy tells us about making comics for Zuda…

—DF

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DANNY FINGEROTH: Why webcomics?

JEREMY LOVE: Why not?! The medium is perfect for introducing readers to radical new ideas. Bayou is something that the average comic book reader would not be inclined to buy sight unseen. The Internet allowed to us to build a large and vocal fan following.

Webcomics are definitely here to stay.

DF: How did you come to bring your work to Zuda?

Was there something specific about Bayou that seemed appropriate for the web?

JL: Kwanza Johnson contacted me and invited me to pitch to Zuda. I had this pitch for Bayou laying around for about a year so I decided to send it in. They loved it and the rest is history.

Bayou is different, which makes it less of a gamble when presented first online. Other than that, there’s nothing that makes Bayou specifically suited for the web. I’m just trying to present a group of compelling characters with an intriguing story. So my focus is on storytelling, not the medium.

DF: What can you get from working with Zuda as opposed to other sites or a site of your own?

JL: Besides piles of cold hard cash?! All kidding aside, it takes a lot of time and effort to run an effective website, and with Zuda I can focus my attention on the art and story. Having the DC Comics marketing machine behind doesn’t hurt.

DF: Can you make money from the web-only angle?

If not, how?

JL: Zuda does pay, which is a big bonus for the struggling artist. DC has a great IP generator and a bunch of potential new graphic novels to sell.

Online, they can afford to be a lot more daring than they can in print.

DF: What can you do online that would be difficult in print? What can’t you do online that you can do in print?

JL: You can control the reading experience more carefully online. The reader won’t be able to accidentally flip to the end and spoil a big surprise.

That part has been really fun. You can’t take the online comic home and read it in your bed or on your sofa.

That’s a big drawback that will be rectified once Bayou is in print.

DF: How do you prepare your scripts for the editor? Do you do thumbnails?

JL: I usually send a page-by-page breakdown or script of each chapter. I do thumbnails, but they’re a road map for me, not the editor.

Title screen and a story screen from Zuda’s Bayou, written and drawn

by Jeremy Love. [© 2008 Gettosake.]

DF: Given the web is fluid, do you find the fixed set of dimensions limiting?

JL: Not at all. I see each page or “screen” as a Sunday comic strip. The dimensions are no more limiting than a print comic book change.

DF: How has your life changed since winning the Zuda award?

JL: I’ve gotten a lot less sleep, that’s for sure.

DF: How much historical research was required for Bayou?

JL: I was lucky in the fact that this is a time period I’ve been studying for quite sometime. I try to absorb as much fact and history from the Depression-era South as possible. I also look to family members for stories and anecdotes.

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how you approach your work?

JL: I never take advice on the story from the readers.

But I do get a huge amount of inspiration and drive when they respond well to the comic. The energy I get from the positive audience reaction has been invaluable. It has definitely made Bayou a better comic and kept me on my toes.

DF: What’s next for Bayou and for you?

JL: Bayou will take another year-and-a-half to complete. In the meantime I am working on an animated television show for one of the Big Three kids’ networks. I’m also setting up a few more comics with various publishers. The goal is to remain busy!

DAVID GALLAGHER Interviewed via e-mail Sept. 22, 2008 Among the first generation of Zuda creators, David Gallaher and Steve Ellis made a mark by winning the first competition with their vampires in the Old West series High Moon. Since then, Dave has been parlaying that success by writing other comics stories and interviewing fellow creators to spread the joy of webcomics and creative freedom. He recently spoke with me by e-mail about what Zuda means to him.

—DF DANNY FINGEROTH: Tell us a little about yourself and your work.

DAVID GALLAHER: I grew up as an army brat and traveled across the country during my formative years. I taught Special Ed for a few years and attended a series of colleges until finally majoring in comic studies at Goddard College in Vermont. From there I started writ-

Promotional art for David Gallaher and Steve Ellis’ High Moon. [© 2008 David Gallaher and Steve Ellis.]

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ing professionally on a series of textbooks and went on to work for Marvel Comics for a few years. I’ve written several other horror and noir comic projects for Moonstone Books and Harris Comics, including Johnny Dollar and Vampire the Masquerade. Right now, I write High Moon, a weekly western series for Zuda, DC’s webcomics initiative. In addition to comics, I also write television, radio, print ads, and speeches for The New York City Police Department, which is really rather awesome.

DF: Can you talk a bit about High Moon?

DG: High Moon is a werewolf western webcomic that details the adventures of Macgregor, an unchanging man in a changing time during the 1890s. I write the series and co-creator and artist Steve Ellis illustrates it.

Scott O. Brown letters the series for us and provides some behind the scenes production work. The series itself is a little bit of horror, a little bit of steampunk, and a little bit of mythology all packed into a pair of six shooters.

DF: Why webcomics?

DG: Why not? Webcomics provide a level of accessibility that you don’t find in print. Every user of the world wide web is your potential audience. You don’t need to have a comic store in your area, just an Internet connection and you are ready to go. Heck, these days there are close to 19,000 webcomics floating around in the digital ether–and every one offers its own unique voice. Better yet, most of them are free.

Webcomic creators also have an opportunity to cultivate an audience with minimal costs, where as with print, the distribution and start-up costs–if you don’t make certain numbers, you’re likely to be dropped by your publisher or distributor–all of that can be emotionally and financially exhausting.

DF: Why Zuda?

DG: I chose Zuda over other traditional publishers because it was the chance to be on the forefront of something new, unique, and different. I had a background in webcomics from my days working at Marvel, and when Zuda was being incubated, editor Kwanza Johnson gave me the chance to pitch a few ideas to him. The idea of DC moving further into the digital age was something that I found rather intriguing. Initially, the program was pitched to me as something similar to a “television pilot”—where creators would come up with various ideas, and the readers and the Zuda community would determine what series they’d want to support. With the full resources of DC Comics behind them, Zuda seemed like a great opportunity to try something completely different.

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DF: How did you come to bring your work to Zuda? Was there something specific about High Moon that seemed appropriate for the web?

DG: I was invited to be part of the opening round of creators at Zuda. And, with the full resources of DC Comics behind them, it seemed like a great opportunity to try something completely different. The 4:3 ratio landscape format of Zuda provided a nice cinematic widescreen effect that I thought would be great for a western. And, if you have seen Steve Ellis’ art on the series, I think you’ll agree.

DF: What can you get from working with Zuda as opposed to other sites or a site of your own?

DG: Powered by DC Comics, Zuda offers far A story page from High Moon greater exposure in terms of attention and [© 2008 David Gallaher and Steve Ellis.] resources. Certainly, I do a fair share of marketing for my own strip, but DC augthat and what did you do on them? How has the webments that marketing with all the tools in their toolbox, comics landscape changed since then? including promotions, print ads, and web banners.

DG: I worked at Marvel Interactive back in January of Certainly, I could do some of that myself, but the guys 1999, as an intern, writer, and editor. Back then, webat Zuda let me focus on what matters most–creating comics weren’t nearly as prevalent or abundant as they High Moon. are today. Ours were a blend of animation and static Non-specifically, interested creators can submit their content—more like what you’d find in the 1960s strip through the Zuda website. And unlike the stanMarvel animations of yesteryear—the most famous of dard comic submissions process you’ve probably heard which was probably the Daredevil #0, which was a horror stories about, the Zuda editorial process ensures supplement to Kevin Smith’s run on the series. We had that your strip will be read, reviewed, and evaluated other comics on the site written by the likes of D.G. within 90 days of your submission. If your strip is choChichester, Joe Kelly, and Fabian Nicieza. And I spent a sen to advance beyond the initial submission it only lot of time reading their scripts, sorting through the art, gets better with the opportunity to earn a year-long did some scanning and eventually went on to write a contract at DC Comics. pair of Iron Man and Spider-Man stories for the site.

DF: What does the Zuda contract include?

DG: In a nutshell, winning the contract means that our team is paid about $15,000 to continue the adventures of High Moon–in exchange for joint ownership of the property, as stipulated by the contract.

DF: How has life changed since winning the Zuda award?

DG: Winning the Zuda contract has been nothing short of fantastic. I’ve been a part of the comic industry for nearly a decade–and I’ve never had a better experience. I work with the best talent, the best editors, and have the best fans in the world. It is actually a rather dizzying level of attention, but I don’t have a lot of time to think about it because the schedule we’re on keeps me extremely busy.

DF: You worked on webcomics for Marvel. When was

When I would explain to people the type of work I did at Marvel, I was met with a lot of blank stares.

Back then, comics had it hard enough–as though they were some bastard stepchild of film and television, and webcomics were looked upon with an even greater degree of disdain.

Now, of course, webcomics aren’t nearly as culturally radioactive. There’s a huge degree of diversity in terms of genres, storytelling, and approach that is unheard of in print. You also have a plethora of auteurs, collectives, and communities promoting the webcomics– Act-I-Vate, Transmission X, Drunk Duck, Half Pixel, Webcomics Nation, Zuda, The Chemistry Set, ComicMix, Amalgamated Artists, and so many more.

I find it all rather inspiring.

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you all about the extraordinary amount of research and reference I put into every page of script, complete with footnotes and hyperlinks. I write full script complete with camera angles and crude thumbnails, keeping Steve’s strengths as an artist in mind. Steve has a tremendous mind for story and he brings everything to life with exceptional clarity.

DF: What’s the role of the readers/web community in how you approach your work?

DG: With the feedback you get on Zuda, it is almost inspirational, because you know there are readers–and their feedback is nearly instantaneous. It’s not like the current print model where you complete a comic and have to wait months for it to hit the stands, never really knowing if anybody is buyA screen from Zuda’s Night Owls by Peter Timony and Robert Timony ing it. [© 2008 Peter Timony and Robert Timony.]

The key to webcomic longevity is not can’t you do online that you can do in print? to just have readers, but to have fans. And the key to DG: To me, that’s like asking “Do you prefer watching building a dedicated, passionate fanbase is to create a television or film?” It’s just a different experience. I love level of engagement and interaction. With a passionate working in both mediums. Honestly, books don’t fanbase, you don’t need an ad campaign, because your require batteries. Let’s face it, there’s a certain sense of users have essentially become evangelists talking legitimacy that comes with seeing your name on a about their passion—creating a word-of-mouth buzz. book in your local Barnes & Noble. And, there’s still Zuda makes that possible with a series of ratings, a personal and physical attachment to a book, that sharing capabilities, and comment threads. When a tactile component you can’t quite achieve through a reader has feedback, positive or negative, they can computer. have their say… and when they have a question, we But, with more portable devices making their way to address it fairly and openly. market, I think there is a growing demand for online It all fosters a greater level of trust than you’ll find comics. The demand for greater accessibility is awealmost anywhere else in comics. some, if you stop to think about it. While I don’t think “print is dead,” I do think that we’ll see many more DF: What other webcomics do you read on a regular publishers developing mobile comic content within the basis? coming months. The Internet is such a great tool and DG: Off hand? Well over two dozen. Some of my resource for trying out new processes and materials favorites from Zuda include Bayou, The Night Owls, that you might not have a chance to do in print–but Street Code, Black Cherry Bombshells, and they are both very different experiences.

Supertron. I’m also really enjoying Molly Crabapple’s series Backstage, Warren Ellis’ Freak Angels, Danielle DF: How far in advance of the artist must you work?

Corsetto’s Girls With Slingshots, and James Hatton’s DG: Steve Ellis and I work a couple of weeks ahead.

In His Likeness. But, really–that’s just a handful of the I’m incredibly fortunate that he lives about ten minutes really top-notch strips I follow. away by foot–so two or three times a week we’ll meet over coffee or in his studio and layout the pages for DF: What’s next for High Moon and for you? the coming weeks.

DG: In August, High Moon moved to a weekly schedDF: How do you prepare your scripts for the editor and artist?

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ule, which means every Tuesday there are several new pages of content up on Zuda. We wrap up out second season on December 2nd. And, while it’s too early to announce what the future of High Moon will bring

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after the second season, I can say that fans of the series will not be disappointed with what’s in store for 2009.

Outside of that, Steve and I are already talking about another project, one that looks to be every bit as fun as High Moon.

TONY TROV & JOHNNY ZITO Interviewed via e-mail Sept. 18, 2008.

Tony Trov is an artist in the Philadelphia television and film community. He is a graduate of Temple University and enjoys the color red.

Writer/Cartoonist Johnny Zito lives in a big South Philadelphia row home with his childhood friends where they jump on beds, bake cupcakes and stay up real late reading comic books.

Their Zuda strip, The Black Cherry Bombshells, is about an ultra-violent girl gang fighting for survival in a world where all men have been mutated into zombies.

I got Tony and Johnny to e-mail me about doing BCB for Zuda.

—DF

Black Cherry Bombshells by Tony Trov and Johnny Zito. [© 2008 John Zito & Anthony Trovarello.]

DANNY FINGEROTH: Why zombies?

JOHNNY ZITO: Zeitgeist?

TONY TROY: What?

JZ: You know, “in the now” or “topical”…

TT: Oh. Oh. I thought you meant the Illuminati conspiracy movie on the Internet.

JZ: No. We needed a device to plausibly remove all the men from the story to achieve our ultimate goal: superimposed female characters over traditionally male action movie roles.

DF: BCB is a mix of crime and horror. What led to this?

TT: Our love of gangster films and Bruce Campbell.

JZ: I think of the crime as a natural outgrowth of the horror elements. It’s just how the new society comes together. Limited resources make theft, graft and murder favorable traits for survival.

TT: I think of it as political more than criminal, although, I can see where you’d mix them up.

Tony Trov (left) and Johnny Zito.

DF: How did you come to bring your work to Zuda?

Was there something specific about BCB that seemed appropriate for the web?

JZ: I read about Zuda online. I was impressed that DC was coming to the Internet and playing by the THE WORLD OF ZUDA | 51

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that makes any sense.

JZ: Sacha was just way right for the project. She understood what we were going for immediately.

The cartoony style of the strip isn’t her natural form. She’s much more classically oriented but she modified her approach because she gets it and she’s so talented she can translate it to this style.

A Trov-Zito screen from from Black Cherry Bombshells. [© 2008 John Zito & Anthony Trovarello.]

Internet’s rules. Creator-owned, user-submitted… sounded about right for a webcomic imprint to me.

TT: We’d been writing together since college—short films, one acts and features that went nowhere. Zuda was our opportunity to take one of those ideas through to fruition. The disposability of the Internet gave us a freedom to throw lots of different ideas in the mix.

DF: What can you get from working with Zuda as opposed to other sites or a site of your own?

JZ: Guidance. The editors and other creators have been an invaluable resource.

TT: Zuda is its own social network. There’s a community aspect and crossover audience we wouldn’t have if we went it alone.

DF: What can you do online that would be difficult in print? What can’t you do online that you can do in print?

JZ: There’s nothing you can’t do online.

TT: There are censorship, space and printing issues to consider in a regular comic book that we don’t have to worry about.

JZ: The Internet allows us to release our strips at a quicker and more consistent clip. It helps to maintain the audience and the pace of the story.

DF: How did you find artist Sacha Borisch?

JZ: On the now defunct ComicJobz.com–RIP. TT: We weren’t looking for a female artist, but we’re very lucky to have found one.

JZ: We’re very lucky to have found Sacha.

TT: Of course. I’m just saying if we had gone with a male artist the strip might appear more cheesecakey—if 52 | WRITE NOW

DF: Any tips for aspiring writers who need to find an artist to team up with?

TT: But be sure to check out ComicSpace.com for artists, colorists and letterers. Don’t forget DeviantArt.com. Johnny’s on both of those sites, look him up.

JZ: Find someone who can make deadlines. Fast is better than perfect.

TT: Trust your artist. Some people are very nitpicky and that can discourage an artist.

JZ: Yeah, it’s about teamwork. You have ideas, so does the artist. If it isn’t crucial don’t be a control freak.

TT: Collaboration, recognize.

DF: Black Cherry Bombshells has a MySpace page, Facebook account, and so on. Is such viral marketing necessary on your part? What’s the role of the readers/web community in how you approach your work?

JZ: It is absolutely necessary. There are a million webcomics out there and we’re not special just because we’re on DC’s imprint. If we want people to read we have to let them know the comic exists.

TT: Besides, being famous on the Internet is the only place worth being famous anymore.

JZ: There’s definitely something super cool about the interaction we have with the audience that you’d never get with a TV show or movie.

TT: We get to take the audiences’ temperature. We can respond to trends more quickly. I don’t think it directly impacts the story, though.

DF: How far in advance of the artist must you work?

JZ: We work very closely with Sacha. Her input is very important. We’ll run ideas by her all the time.

TT: Generally, the scripts are in her hands and being drawn as soon as we finish writing them. She works very fast.

DF: How do you prepare your scripts for the editor and artist?

JZ: It starts with Tony and me yelling ideas at one another. We distill that into a simple plot synopsis and then break down into very detailed panel descriptions

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and dialogue.

DF: Given the web is fluid, do you find the fixed set of dimensions limiting?

TT: Zuda’s specific aspect ratio is its own unique challenge. We’re always looking for ways to exploit their page. Sacha’s come up with some pretty interesting layouts.

JZ: I really like when she cuts the action diagonally across the page top right to bottom left. We did a few splash pages and I really got a kick out of that, too.

TT: There’s a lot of creativity working within rules.

DF: Have your lives or careers changed since winning the Zuda award?

TT: We work harder.

JZ: Writing and producing The Bombshells takes up a good chunk of our time. Promotions take up even more.

TT: This was an amazing opportunity and we take it very seriously. We don’t want to look back and say we could’ve or should’ve anything.

DF: Can you make money from the web-only angle? If not, how?

JZ: Well our business model is way different then your average webcomic. DC pays us by the strip. There is no hustling books and merch like an indie webcomic.

TT: You shouldn’t commit to web-only or print-only. Be

Call us now to participate either buying, selling or for an insurance or estate appraisal!

Let us help you realize the highest prices possible for all your prized possessions!

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open to new ventures in revenue and promotion. Your comic can be reprinted, rebroadcast and reformatted endlessly. Be open to those possibilities if they exist.

JZ: DC just resold me Watchmen as a Motion Comic and I thanked them for it.

DF: What’s next for BCB and for you, individually and/or as a team?

JZ: By the time this sees print the Black Cherry Bombshells should be coming up on their first season finale, which—unless something has changed between now and then—means a cliffhanger.

TT: Then, hopefully, another season! We have four seasons of 60 strips plotted out right now. We’re eager for the opportunity to tell the rest or our story.

JZ: If we get picked up for season two, Sacha has already agreed to come back on.

TT: I have more ideas for season two than I did for season one.

JZ: I always feel like the second season is a real test for a serialized story. Sopranos killed it, so did BattleStar Galactica, Buffy and Star Trek TOS. The groundwork is laid; crazy experimentation in the charted landscape can take place.

TT: Right. More girl gangs and zombies.

JZ: Right.

[Find out more about BCB at BlackCherryBombshells.com]

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STREET CODE: "Awful George" SCREEN 5 5,1 Jack’s horrified expression centers the page while panels of each caption as described below surround his terrified head.

Bloody towels and bowls of water with archaic metal instruments of varying degrees of horror were strewn about the space.

CAP2

Crowding the space were metal cages housing two-to-three cats in each one. The cats were either halfway to heaven or halfway to hell.

CAP3

Some cats were missing an eyeball or a tail.

Others were missing a limb and/or teeth. All of them were in pain and suffering greatly.

CAP4

Bikes and boxes of valuables were sitting safely in the back of the basement. Nothing had been stolen from the premises, only added to.

Dean Haspiel writes and draws Street Code for DC’s Zuda comics website. Dean works in a variety of ways, depending on the project. For Street Code, he prefers to work in full-script mode, describing each panel and then doing a thumbnail sketch to see how the text and art will work together.

Dean then pencils the strip and, in a nod to a nearly lost tradition, actually pencils in the dialogue and captions. As writer and artist, he is able to make sure each copy unit goes in exactly the spot he wants it. The inks are also by Dean.

Zuda’s stories are presented screen-by-screen. The screens each have the height to width proportions of half of a standard comic book page. These proportions are more or less those of an average computer screen.

54 | WRITE NOW

[© 2008 Dean Haspiel.]

CAP1

Note how some angles, perspectives, and characters are modified from layout to final pencil art, adding more dramatic impact, especially in the first panel.

SCREEN 6 6,1 Close-up of the woman, shrieking!

WOMAN here!!!

Shut that damn door! I’m trying to save lives

6,2 Close-up of a cat being stitched up from its gut wounds.

SFX

SLAM!

6,3 Close-up of Jack standing by the closed door, revolted yet curious.

JACK

W-wh-what happ--?

6,4 The Woman scowls. Jack is more confused.

[© 2008 Dean Haspiel.]

WOMAN JACK

Awful George did this!!!

Awful…who?

Also, check out how, after writing the script, Haspiel decided, when drawing, to split what was supposed to be panel four into two panels. This heightens the feeling of misunderstanding between Jack and the woman, and emphasizes what they’re each feeling.

THE END STREET CODE NUTS & BOLTS | 55

AMAZING TRUE STORIES:

WRITING NON-FICTION COMICS J

by Jim Ottaviani

im Ottaviani has been writing comics about true facts and real people for a long time. He has the gift of making history and science—and the history of science—come vividly alive for his readers. Some of his many works include Suspended in Language, Fallout, and BoneSharps, Cowboys, and ThunderLizards. Here, Jim tells us how he does it—and how you can, too!

—DF [Not that it matters, but most of what follows is true.—Jim Ottaviani] Write Now! EIC Danny Fingeroth has asked me to write about telling true stories (history or non-fiction if you’re a civilian, historical fiction if you’re a real life historian) in comics form, but because we’re talking about a visual medium, and because in my previous life I was an engineer, I should show rather than tell.

So here’s a flowchart that shows how it’s done:

Jim Ottaviani self-portrait. [© 2008 Jim Ottaviani.]

If you believe that, I can skip the research steps on my future books, since you apparently don’t need something to look like a duck (much less walk, quack, paddle, fly, and eat stale breadcrumbs) to believe it is in fact a duck. To torture the metaphor, most readers, regardless of whether they know it, do in fact require an incredibly lifelike simulation of a duck, though. So here’s what the process, or at least my process, really looks like when broken down into its component parts, beginning at the beginning: 56 | WRITE NOW

You may think I’m kidding, but after that initial idea you do have to decide to be a writer. If you don’t, you likely won’t get much further into the process, much less to the end, and the process is where the fun is.

Like you, I had ideas galore before making this decision. Many came from that background I mentioned above, and that’s why I write about science. In the process of getting a bachelor’s and master’s degree in nuclear engineering and then working as a researcher and consultant to the electric power industry, I learned plenty of science in class and on the job. Outside of class and work, I enjoyed reading biographies of scientists. I also read a lot of comics. I’m pretty good at math, but pretty slow on the uptake sometimes, so it took me another ten years to put one and one together and merge these two interests.

Our first cliché: I’ve just described the classic “write what you know” scenario, and I recommend it. The only caution I would add to that is that if all you know is video games or comics from the big two superhero industrial complex manufacturers, you have a lot of competition in between you and your goal. Lucky for me, I wanted biographical stories about scientists in comics form by the time I decided to start writing them. If you can find your own, wide-open field like this one, you’ll also find yourself with many more options for getting published.

Jim’s book about Niels Bohr and his work, Suspended in Language, features art by award-winning artist Leland Purvis, and illustrated short pieces by Jay Hosler, Roger Langridge, Steve Leialoha, Linda Medley, and Jeff Parker. [Suspended in Language © 2004 Jim Ottaviani and Leland Purvis. Cover © 2004 Leland Purvis Courtesy G.T. Labs.]

you’re a genius multitasker (I’m not) only after writing down the new ones you encountered along the way.

From there on out the process gets messy, but fun, because if you do true stories, you get to do research.

And because if you’ve decided to go down this path it means you have many loves: you love reading, love visiting unusual places, love writing letters to people you admire, and love doing this repeatedly. You like Wikipedia, but don’t love it. (See sidebar: “What’s Wrong With Wikipedia?”) You love your library and books and reference lists/bibliographies at the backs of books, and love following trails and paths that lead you far away from your original idea. And you love returning to that original idea you had, but unless

All of that sounds like another, though more extended, cliché, but I’ve found that for non-fiction work there is no substitute for reading stuff, digging up original sources, and whenever possible talking to the people who were there. The project I’m working on now, a book about the space race, is a case in point. When the publisher accepted the proposal, my wife immediately suggested that we watch the acclaimed HBO series From the Earth to the Moon. Tempting, but exactly the wrong thing. For one, I don’t want to unconsciously swipe imagery from someone else. For another, as good as I know this series is, accepting someone else’s condensation of such a sprawling story by passively absorbing it through TV can’t substitute for actively engaging the original material that would excite my visual and storytelling imagination. So it’s off to the library, out to Building 12 at NASA’s Garber Facility in Suitland, Maryland, and plenty of time working with primary sources. Going straight to the source will provide you with the best possible original ideas WRITING NON-FICTION COMICS | 57

and imagery for your script—you’ll be amazed at what other writers chose to leave out. And you’ll be amazed at who will be willing to help you out—next time you see me at a convention I can tell you about seeing “Aldrin, Buzz” on my voicemail…

As you accumulate more and more information, at a certain point you also have to know when to stop.

Many of us collect things—comics, books, action figures, art—and the quest for more in these realms never ends. The hunt is fun! But when it comes to script-writing you can indeed get enough. As Fred (Action Philosophers) Van Lente put it so aptly in Write Now! #14, you can’t include everything you found out. Any person’s life, or any topic, will prove too rich for you to include all of it. Storytelling means picking your moments, and even though comics are as flexible a medium as any out there, economics—even if it’s simply the economics of reader attention—will place limits on the length of your story. So you have to make decisions, and they’ll be hard ones. Sorry.

I didn’t arrive at this step right away, but it’s become one that I can’t live without. It’s about writing dialogue snippets, some panel descriptions, and some scenes.

And most importantly, it’s writing the biography of each of your characters, fictional or otherwise. You don’t want them to all sound the same, or sound like you, so writing a one-page life story for each (what religion do they practice, their favorite food, where they went to school, etc.) will help you determine how they will act, and react to each other. It will also give them the individual voices they need to stand out from each other in your mind, and for your artist, and eventually for your readers.

Remember hard decisions? Well, here’s another one: you know a lot of stuff now, but at this point you’ll no 58 | WRITE NOW

doubt find that you don’t know certain things you need to. You can fudge a little—I did that with Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards—and I’m not telling you where—but too much messing around with the facts, or chronologies, and you’ve crossed over into the realm of fiction. Nothing wrong with that, of course, and I wouldn’t try to stop my sister from dating a novelist. But that’s not the kind of writing you’re doing—so back to the research.

Here’s the biggest diagram of them all, and it has the most white space staring back at you. There’s a whole lot of blank… whatever… in front of you now, and you have to fill it, starting with Page 1, Panel 1. (Or wherever you start. But start!) You’ve read enough issues of Write Now! to know that there’s no One True Format for your script, and you can see some examples of mine on the pages that follow. However you do it, though, plant yourself in a chair, face down that blank page or that blinking cursor, and start writing.

This will bring you to the exception that tests the rule, and that will test your nerve, because at some point in the midst of writing you’ll get stuck, and reading more books by other people will be more fun than writing your own. The heat and passion you started with will have cooled, and cooled considerably. You’ll be tempted to try and find it again in the work of others. Resist this as much as you can, stick with your original sources, and press on. You have enough material now. I promise.

Once you’ve finished, let it cool all the way down to room temperature. If you don’t, you will risk a LOPA. That’s an acronym repurposed from my engineering days, when I worked on preventing problems at nuclear power plants resulting from a Loss-OfPumping-Accident. It’s a big danger, because if you can’t constantly pump cooling water through these places, they overheat and, you know, melt. Down. In writing, LOPA stands for a Loss of Perspective Accident, and you’re in danger of it because by the time you reach the last page of your script you’ll be overheated again and unable to tell good writing from bad. And there’s some bad writing in there. I promise.

So set the script aside, do something else for as long as it takes to forget that you wrote it, and wait until you can read it as if your imbecilic arch-nemesis wrote it. Because you need to be brutal when it comes time for the next step.

Two Fisted Science, Jim’s Xeric Award-winning and Eisner Award-nominated original trade paperback, features true stories from the history of science. All were written by Jim, with artwork by Mark Badger, Donna Barr, Sean Bieri, Paul Chadwick, Gene Colan, Guy Davis, Colleen Doran, David Lasky, Steve Lieber, Lin Lucas, Bernie Mireault, Scott Roberts, Scott Saavedra, and Rob Walton. [Two-Fisted Science © 1996 Jim Ottaviani and Paul Chadwick. Cover ©1996 Paul Chadwick. Courtesy G.T. Labs.]

Artists are your allies, but they won’t be unless you give them a good, and drawable, script. So after waiting until I can’t remember how great it felt to describe that panel on page 27, or how beautifully I turned that phase on page 134, I take out the script and draw it.

Stick figures. Minimal backgrounds. Small. But I draw it, to see if that great panel description—the one with three aircraft carriers in formation approaching a bunch of killer whales in the foreground from behind as they bear down on the Radio City Rockettes dancing on the deck of an inflatable life raft—is actually drawable.

What I don’t do is worry about whether I make my renditions of the panels visually exciting. Linda Medley of Castle Waiting fame, pointed out that my layouts are all medium-distance images—not too close to the subjects, not too far. That’s my default mode of depicting things when I’m at the drawing stage, and she said it’s because I’m polite and respectful of my characters.

Perhaps… or perhaps its because I’m lousy at compoWRITING NON-FICTION COMICS | 59

sition, or lazy, or just want to make sure that there’s at least one possible way to lay out a panel. I think it’s all of the above, but mostly the latter. That boring, middle-distance layout isn’t often the right way to depict a scene. Closer in… further away; these almost always prove more interesting and effective, but I rarely specify them.

Which is okay! Another pal, Jeff Parker, recently wrote up a two-part article called “The Devil Went Down to Georgia: Writing for Artists.” You can find it at http://www.parkerspace.com/2007/11/15/writing-forartists/, and you should find it. One of the key things he talks about is whether you should call the camera shots for your artist. Jeff argues, convincingly, that you shouldn’t, unless you have a specific effect in mind. So middle distance it is, and can be, and maybe even should be, at this stage. Unless you have something in particular in mind, perhaps to set up a subsequent panel/scene, leave the composition to the artist.

Regardless, send your layouts or thumbnails, embarrassing as you might find them, along with the script. I always hesitate to do this, but every time I ask artists whether they want them, they say yes. Why? Because sometimes they’re at the drawing table at two in the morning, they’re tired, and they’d rather use what energy they have left to make a good picture than solve a knotty storytelling problem. Every little bit helps.

After this step, there’s often another editing step in there, since I usually enlist comics-savvy friends to give me a reality check on storytelling, plot, and dialogue.

Here again, you need honesty, so may you be blessed with family and friends as brutal (in this regard) as mine.

Wait with Bated Breath 60 | WRITE NOW

Dignifying Science focuses entirely on Jim telling the stories of women pioneer female scientists including Marie Curie, Emmy Noether, Lise Meitner, Rosalind Franklin, Barbara McClintock, Birute Galdikas, and yes, even actress Hedy Lamarr. The art is by, among others, Donna Barr, Carla Speed McNeil, and Linda Medley. [Dignifying Science © 2001 Jim Ottaviani, Ramona Fradon, and Linda Medley. Cover © 2001 Ramona Fradon and Linda Medley. Courtesy G.T. Labs.]

Then it’s off to the artist, where the real heavy lifting begins. Sounds simple, but how do you hook up with artists? That’s worth a sidebar of its own: “Finding Artists Before They Find You.” Once you’ve put the script in their hands, you wait until the artist delivers a masterpiece. Which he or she will… but don’t just wait. Stay in touch, discuss story points, and prepare to change things to suit the situation on the ground. It’s their show once they have the script, and artists will have their own ideas on storytelling. Believe it: many of those ideas are as good or better than yours and mine. For myself, the only thing I ask is that they tell me about their ideas so I can try and articulate what I was trying to get at in my script. If I can explain what I had in mind (but maybe didn’t describe well enough) and why, it may end up looking like what I envisioned in the first place. If I can’t explain why I want something a certain way, then I can’t very well say “my way or the highway”!

What’s Wrong With Wikipedia?

Nothing. But you need to use it judiciously so as not to cheat yourself or your readers.

Wikipedia, because it’s edited anonymously and is mostly un-sourced, rarely gives you first-hand information you can count on. And original sources, from people who were there or who talked to people who were there, are the lifeblood of non-fiction. So don’t cheat yourself out of the fun of research, the joy of finding something new. Accept no substitutes for eyewitness accounts, and Wikipedia is almost always second-hand information.

Your readers will also feel cheated because if every historical fact in your script came from Wikipedia, they’ll wonder why they bothered. And why you bothered.

But I like it, and I use it constantly for on-thespot checks when I’m in the middle of writing (e.g., did this happen before or after that?) and rely on it for easy to verify facts. If there’s a dedicated fan base for the information I’m interested in, I can rest assured that those rabid folks keep each other honest. If the subject is more obscure, though—and writing about cool stuff everybody doesn’t already know about is always the best— then I want to go to the original source material.

Manuscripts, letters, interviews, eyewitnesses. In other words, if you want to know about lunar module guidance computers, talk to Neil Armstrong. And for lunar orbit rendezvous, get Buzz Aldrin on the phone. (He knows what graphic novels are…)

The Ottaviani-penned graphic novel Levitation, with art by Janine Johnson, was described by newsarama.com like so: “…Penn & Teller would be proud of the skewering magic takes in the name of science.” [Levitation © 2007 Jim

And sometimes changes will come right out of the blue with no discussion. So far that’s worked out great.

I’ve had artists who took my pacing and dialogue and threw out everything else, with the results at least as good as the way I wrote it.

The other thing you should do at this point, particularly if you’re self-publishing, but even if you’re not, is make sure you have your prepress ducks in a row.

Books don’t go straight to the printer from the artist: you have title and copyright pages, endnotes, a bibliography, and other text pieces. You have rights clearance issues (working with dead, public figures makes those easier, but getting permissions from stakeholders like family members or descendents is good ethics even when it’s not legally required). And you want to make sure that what you deliver to the printer will reproduce accurately in batches of thousands. This means making use of the unholy trinity of prepress: Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign (or Quark, I suppose). So use the time while the artists work to make sure the book will look as good as it can once they’ve delivered that last page. Even if you don’t take part in the final assembly, knowing what’s easy, hard, and impossible to achieve on a press is invaluable. There are practical limitations to what a printer can do, and you’ll want to consider them unless you aim to produce hand-crafted, expensive limited editions and not mass-market formats with mass-market pricing.

And you’re done. You have a book—now, to market, which is a whole other game altogether, so I’ll stop there and put it all together on the next page:

Ottaviani and Janine Johnson.

Cover © 2007 Janine Johnson.

Courtesy G.T. Labs.]

WRITING NON-FICTION COMICS | 61

62 | WRITE NOW

Together, the neat little steps become a glorious mess—but a mess with underlying structure and room for diversions, following your interests wherever they might lead you (at least for a while), and lots of work.

But as you can see, even though I promised you an “end of the process” back at the beginning of this article, I lied. There is no end, because once you get that book done, you’ll find yourself heading right back to the next book you want to do. You might take a direct route or you might wander about some, but that’s where you’ll end up. I’ve glossed over some of the complexities here and there, but the flowchart is nonfiction, at least for me, and should clear up where the going often gets rough… at least for me. You might find it easier to stay focused on just one story and get off the research treadmill than I do, for instance, though I’d bet that you’ll find the agony of waiting through the drawing process similarly excruciating.

As for where we’ve ended up in this article, by now you, the astute reader, have figured out that the title is also a lie. At the very least, it’s the lie’s more respectable and profitable cousin, fiction. But William Goldman had it right when he offered that as the opening to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: it does matter when things are true, and your readers know it in their guts.

Further to true stories mattering, and harking back to that wise Van Lente fellow we invoked earlier, they matter not only to the readers, but to their intermediary: the marketplace. It’s no secret that you’ll see a lot more of this kind of graphic novel in the years to come, as the well known and established prose publishing houses get into the act. I know this because there’s a great deal in the pipeline right now.

The world outside the comic book direct market reads and understands non-fiction, and seeks it out.

Even as late as 2002, when I attended Book Expo America in search of better trade distribution, booksellers literally did not know what a graphic novel was, and expressed surprise that there could even be such a thing as a non-fiction comic book. Things are different now, and better! Librarians, bookstores, you name it; we’ve taught people that comics work for all kinds of stories and all kinds of readers. Now we can go ahead and make all kinds of comics.

JIM OTTAVIANI is the author of many graphic novels about scientists, ranging from physicists to paleon-

Finding Artists Before They Find You When people hear I started as a self-publishing writer of non-fiction comics, the very first question they ask is “Are you crazy?” (Answer: Yes. And I probably seemed even crazier in 1997 when I started this in the face of the Direct Market’s distribution collapse and the absence of a market for original, non-fiction, graphic novels.)

The second question is “How do you find your artists?”

The answer to that one is easy, too: I find them by reading a lot of comics, and a wide variety of them. It’s not hard work, since I love the medium, and I assume you do, too! So I think that question really means “How do you convince artists to work with you?” That’s more complicated. If the only artists you know of, or can imagine working on your scripts, are marquee names working for Marvel and DC, you’ll probably be delighted with their professionalism, politeness, and receptivity to your ideas, but disappointed in their lack of availability.

(And they might find your inability to afford their page rates disappointing!) So read a lot of comics—you’ll find many folks who do excellent work, and can bring just the right visual style to your story.

Speaking for myself, when I first started out, script in hand bearing a name on top (mine) that meant nothing to Paul Chadwick, Colleen Doran, Guy Davis, Steve Lieber, and all the others who worked on Two-Fisted Science, I had nothing going for me except for the following: • a completed script tuned to each individual’s sensibilities.

• The fact that I’d re-written and field tested that script via my own stick figures. I brought them something complete. [“Finding Artists” continues on next page…]

WRITING NON-FICTION COMICS | 63

[“Finding Artists” continues from previous page.]

• a script that nobody could read and say “Ho hum, just another story about _______.”

• reference images. This was more important back in 1997. A world without image searching on the web meant doing many hours of advance work and photocopying to make the artist’s life easier. I still do my homework so artists have less of it do for themselves.

Wild Person in the Woods is currently out of print but was one of Ottaviani’s early efforts to bring science to comics readers—and vice versa. Art is by Anne Timmons. [Wild Person in the Woods © 1998 Jim Ottaviani and Anne Timmons. Cover © 1998 Anne Timmons. Courtesy G.T. Labs.]

tologists to behaviorists. His books are probably the only ones to have received acclaim from both Physics World and Vampirella magazines… and everything in between, including The Comics Journal, Discover, Entertainment Weekly, Time, and Variety. His books are used in middle schools, high schools, and colleges, but people read them for fun, too.

Jim comes to comics via careers in nuclear engineering and librarianship, and when he’s not writing or running trails, he gives talks on comics and science in venues ranging from public libraries in small Michigan towns to the Nobel Museum in Stockholm.

Upcoming titles include biographies of Richard Feynman and the “Trimates” (Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas) for First Second, and TMinus, a story about the space race to be published

by Aladdin, Simon & Schuster’s young adult imprint, in 2009.

THE END

64 | WRITE NOW

• a contract spelling out payment upon completion (no “just wait… when the book makes a zillion dollars you’ll get rich, too!”), co-ownership, and royalties. I only needed one page for that contract, and with only a few tweaks over the years it’s the one I still use. I modeled it on the creator-friendly Writer’s Guild of America template Donna Barr sent me. And when I say creator friendly, even though I’m the writer, here I position myself as the publisher and the artist as creator.

To recap, bring them something fun and complete and new, do some of the boring work for them, and be professional in your approach to payment and deadlines and ownership, even if you’re working with a friend. (Especially if you’re working with a friend—this will help assure you’re still friends by the time you’ve finished the book.) All of these made it easier for artists to say yes. As did approaching everybody I could in person, and being willing to take “maybe” or “no” for an answer. And I heard “no” plenty of times— you should prepare to hear it as well. So you have to be persistent, lucky, and (here I go quoting again; F. Scott Fitzgerald this time) when it comes to artists, don’t be someone who “paid a high price for living too long with a single dream.” Many people can do a good job with your script.

Eventually, artists will find you!

THE END

Cowboys and Dinosaurs

©2003, Jim Ottaviani

Page 7 (Splash, with two insets in the lower right) Panel 1 Big panel, with Barnum now in the baggage car and standing over the box holding the Cardiff Giant. It’s packed in with straw all around it, and looks sorta dumb. And obviously fake. But, if you please, don’t make it so ludicrously bad and caricatured that we can’t visually refer to it in some way all the way at the end of the story (P136)…

Anyway, in one hand Barnum’s waving around his cigar, whose smoke is filling the car from the ceiling on down. In the other he holds the crowbar he used to pry open the box.

CAPTION (upper left): And so…

BARNUM (launching into full Barnum-esque font, a la Walt Kelly): Behold, the Cardiff Giant , miracle of the age, exhumed directly from the hunting grounds of the !fierce tribe" of the Onondaga!

BARNUM (still huckstering): concrete proof and demonstration of the physiognomy of early man, from an era when giants walked the earth.

BARNUM: He is the !one and only reminder" of a race that history has left in its wake!

MARSH (off): Ahem. Sir, I must tell you…

Art to the cover of Bone Sharps, Cowboys and Thunder Lizards is by Mark Schultz and Big Time Attic. [Script © 2005 Jim Ottaviani. Interior art © 2005 Big Time Attic. Cover is © 2005 Mark Schultz and Big Time Attic. Courtesy G.T. Labs.]

Panel 2 Close in on a smug Marsh, waving away the cigar smoke.

MARSH: What you have there is most decidedly a fake.

MARSH: Even worse, it is a lackluster copy of a fake.

Panel 3 Marsh, still smug.

MARSH: I myself am an expert on antiquities and I have examined the original, if you want to call it that.

MARSH: This… this “Cardiff Giant” upon which your crude reproduction is based, is a humbug.

8 of 163

Here we see some of Jim’s script and thumbnail sketch, as well as the artists’ rough and finished art for a page of one of his stories. Here’s what Mr. O. has to say about the process: “Bone Sharps, Cowboys and Thunder Lizards: A Tale of Edward Drinker Cope, Othniel Charles Marsh, and the Gilded Age of Paleontology is a tale, by which I mean by the time I finished researching the story I decided to put some fictional frosting on the cake of fact.

[© 2005 Jim Ottavi ani. Courtesy G.T. Labs.]

“So looking back on this book, it’s interesting to see how much the pages changed as well, even when I thought they were done.

WRITING NON-FICTION COMICS | 65

“The first big change: I thought of the book as the usual taller-than-itis-wide (“portrait”) aspect ratio all the way until the artists of Big Time Attic suggested we do it landscape, instead. Obvious, for a book about the wide expanses of the western United States and the dinosaurs that used to live there, and something I’d not even thought about while writing.

THE END 66 | WRITE NOW

[Script © 2005 Jim Ottaviani. Art © 2005 Big Time Attic. Courtesy G.T. Labs.]

“Note that even after that, things still changed between BTA’s approved rough and their finished work, and all for the better.”

WRITING ABOUT COMICS: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF THE POP CULTURE WRITER

E

by Evander Lomke

vander Lomke was the editor on my non-fiction books Superman on the Couch and Disguised as Clark Kent. A seasoned publishing professional, Evander has edited—from inception to finished book— an extremely wide variety of nonfiction manuscripts.

While writing about comics is perhaps not as glamorous as writing comics, there’s what seems to be endless curiosity about the making and understanding of comics—and of all pop culture. And why not? We spend so much of our time devouring the popular culture of our (and earlier) eras, it makes sense we’d be curious to hear what “experts” of various types have to say about it. As editor of those experts, Evander is his own kind of expert—and here he shares some of his inside info with us.

—DF

You walk into your favorite comics shop or bookstore, and you can’t help but see the plethora of books about popular culture, including comics and graphic novels. These books aren’t comics or GNs (with a few exceptions such as Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics), but are about them. If you’re a writer, the thought may occur to you: “Wow! Someone’s taken their obsession and made it into a book that someone else was willing to pay them for and to publish. Writing books like that seems like it might be an enjoyable way to spend some of my time.

After all, I have a lot of opinions about the comics I read.”

But after that realization, there come the inevitable questions: • How do I find a publisher—and how do I know if that is the best publisher for my book?

• Should I write a book and submit it, or work with an editor to develop an idea into a book?

• What kind of advance and royalties can I expect from doing that kind of writing? Must it be a labor of love, or is it a career path of any kind?

• What kind of audience is there for such books? Is it only college professors and other academic types, or is there a chance my book could be seen and read (and bought!) by a significant number of people?

You want and need to be armed with important information before embarking on writing one or more of such books—or, for that matter, articles with similar content. Once you have that information, you can decide if writing non-fiction, critical works is for you.

I’ve spent a long career as an editor of academic and trade books for more-or-less well defined sets of audiences. My office desk, shelves, and floor are amazingly cluttered. There are manuscripts and proposals of all WRITING ABOUT COMICS | 67

shapes and sizes. The days of legendary editors like Max Perkins wading through a crate and discovering Thomas Wolfe’s latest work, a manuscript that cries out for editing to find the hidden masterpiece within, are probably gone forever. But a book editor’s job has not changed much. It is one that calls for keen judgment with no time to spare for error.

Which of these manuscripts and proposals in my large pile or today’s mail has what it takes to get by committees of marketers, publicists, salespeople, and even other editors and into the hands of readers? What distinguishes the successful project from the one that is returned to the author? What do editors and publishers look for?

Mainstream book publishers may have been slow to pick up on the world of scholarly writing about the history and impact of comics and graphic novels. But as the graphic-novel universe has expanded into the book trade (trade publishing means the dissemination of books found in chain bookstores, on the New York Times Bestseller lists, and are probably those in the largest number in your home), so have academic and trade publishers jumped in, finding there is a large and expanding audience for books about these books— about their authors, their subjects, and what these subjects tell us about our cultural psychology. In addition, think about what a large industry media about other media is. Just about any TwoMorrows book or magazine—including Write Now!—is media about media.

There’s even an NPR show called “On the Media.”

For many years, there have been a handful of presses that specialized in popular culture. One is Bowling Green University Press. Bowling Green has published on pulp-fiction writers as well as the history and significance of the pulps themselves—which is interesting, considering how few people these days read pulps!

Many publishers, both university presses and for-profit enterprises, publish about the serious side of pop culture. These presses include Syracuse University, Wayne State, Columbia, California, and others. Book publishers of all sorts are keen to promote these interests further. The publishers attend annual conventions from the annual Modern Language Convention (MLA), traditionally held between Christmas and New Year, to Comic-Con International in San Diego each summer, and the New York Comic-con, a new entry that meets each year in late winter or early spring. You can meet representatives of such publishers at these and other venues.

The authors of these publishers’ accessible yet schol68 | WRITE NOW

Evander edited Write Now! EIC Danny Fingeroth’s non-fiction books Superman on the Couch and Disguised as Clark Kent. Cover art on Couch is by Mark Bagley and Scott Hanna. Drawn figure on Disguised is by Bagley. [Couch © 2004 and Disguised © 2007 by Danny Fingeroth. Photo © 2006 Varda Steinhardt.]

arly books on pop culture come from several walks of life. Not surprisingly, some are from the “publish or perish” world of academia. Others, more interestingly (I might argue), came out of the comics profession itself. These authors have hands-on experience in comics and/or write regular columns in newspapers and magazines dealing in popular culture. The subjects are as diverse as the writers themselves: superheroes, manga, comic strips, “literary” graphic novels—and the usually submerged sociologic, psychological, even religious impact of comics on our lives.

As far as, “Can I make a living—or even a decent supplementary income—writing these kinds of books?”, the answers are all over the map. I would say that, with rare exceptions, such as well known movie critics who also write books, the income derived from writing a book about popular culture varies but is usually not beyond several thousand dollars in the first year of

publication, and declining after that. Of course, having a well reviewed and talked-about (if not necessarily purchased) book can be valuable in terms of building your own personal “brand,” as well as the satisfaction of seeing your take on an aspect of popular culture out in the world, quoted in other books, etc.

As an editor of books for some 30 years, I can say one thing with certainty: time is money and it is precious to decision-makers. There is virtually no time to review new authors and subjects, so publishers often fall back on known quantities: people they’ve worked with before. Sound discouraging? Although the market for scholarly publishing on comics is large and growing, it is important to realize the average editor spends most of his or her time juggling deadlines, budgets, and other administrative tasks. A fraction of his or her time is spent reading manuscripts and proposals–especially those sent “over the transom”—that is, the ones that arrive unsolicited.

The ideas in those proposals and manuscripts may be great. But until they are read, they do not exist.

How then is the potential author, especially the firsttimer, to get his or her foot into the door?

For the author who has an idea for a scholarly or quasi-scholarly book on the subject of comics, here are six steps to get your foot in the door and sell that idea.

(1) Research your subject. It is critical to know you are the one and only to broach a specific take on your subject. Searches through library catalogs, Google, Amazon, even in your local superstore will alert you to similar books on your topic. There is a school of thought that goes something like this: “Why open a café where there is none?”—the theory, of course, being you might want to open that business where others have succeeded. If you are not the first or the one and only to explore a subject, you need to define how and why your book would be better than any of those existing.

(2) Have a hook or angle. This relates to “Research” above. It involves “voice.” Are you coming to the topic as one who has an overview from years of study? Or are you an industry insider with hands-on wisdom to impart? The most compelling authors combine both. Every good book has a point of view. The more directly your “voice” is conveyed, the more attention your potential editor will give. Your proposal’s opening paragraph, your opening sentence, must be a “grabber.” Otherwise, any potential editor will likely say to himself or

herself, “Next!”

(3) Identify the right publisher and the right editor working for that publisher. The Literary Market Place (LMP), an annual Bowker publication available in almost every public-library branch, lists publishers by category. It also opens with a full listing of all publishers in the Bruce Cassiday’s Modern United States. If you are Mystery, Fantasy and keen on foreign publicaScience Fiction Writers is tion, based on your subject a book Evander oversaw. matter, there is the [© 1993 Bruce Cassiday.]

International Literary Market Place (ILMP). Many publishers today are headquartered in foreign countries, with distribution in the United States and around the world. A search through a large bookstore or comparable website for scholarly books on similar topics will also give you many ideas for potential publishers.

Once you have identified the most-appropriate publishers, the LMP identifies senior editors to whom you would submit your work. A search of publishers’ websites often gives even more up-todate information in this regard, as would a subscription to the bible of the publishing industry, Publishers Weekly.

(4) Consider getting the representation of a literary agent. The LMP lists them, but not by area of interest. I have seen this work: write to ten per week until one responds positively. Why an agent?

Many of the larger trade-book houses have a policy of not considering manuscripts or proposals that are not submitted by agents. Editors are so busy today that agents and so-called book packagers do the screening job formerly done by publishers’ editors. Some agents even get involved in the editing process before they represent the work and submit it for consideration by trade-book editors. (Many university presses and academic houses, however, still do not require agent-representation.)

(5) Keep it short. If you are submitting a proposal rather than a full manuscript, the proposal only needs to be two or three pages long. This would include a tentative table of contents, reasons you are the most qualified to write on your subject, and most importantly, what you consider the marWRITING ABOUT COMICS | 69

ket for your book to be. You are not trying to do the editor’s job for her or him, nor are you simply tooting your own horn. You are attempting to frame your work and position it in the marketplace with respect to other similar books. Your potential editor needs to know when you will complete the manuscript. No proposal should put completion further into the future than two years.

(6) Know something about book marketing. It would be good for any proposal to include a statement on how you, the potential author, would work with a publisher and on your own to publicize your book, for instance by supplying lists of reviewers to whom you may be known, or an eagerness to do bookstore and other signings.

Every editor would be impressed by the author who is already “on the circuit” or has a good chance of becoming a “talking head.”

Most publishers frown on receiving full manuscripts via e-mail. Many feel the same way about proposals.

As a matter of etiquette, if you mail the proposal, include a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) either for a reply or, if you prefer, for return of the work you submit. Of course, the hope is that such a measure will not be needed and the publisher will accept your work and offer a contract. The same is true for full, finished manuscripts: send a SASE. As for whether an editor prefers a short proposal or a full manuscript, that varies from editor to editor, so inquire first. Of course, a fully polished manuscript that needs no editing is the dream of all publishers. But a crafted proposal with a reasonable time period for completion would interest any editor just as well.

Bear in mind, however, that the rate at which manuscripts are declined is high. Rejection should not be taken as the end of the line. I worked for a publisher that had declined What Color Is Your Parachute.

Now, that evergreen job and career guide sells millions of copies each year, and has a huge online presence, as well.

There are many reasons for an editor or publisher to decline a project. Not all reflect on the quality of the author or proposal. Sometimes, a publisher has recently signed a book that is similar in theme and scope, Other times, a publisher may have made internal decisions about the size of its future lists or their makeup.

There is no way to know. Try to remain positive.

Another publisher may find your book to be exactly what they’re looking for. And in this era of print-on70 | WRITE NOW

demand, especially if you’re good at self-promotion, then self-publishing—no longer the disdained option it used to be—may be the way to go.

Ultimately, you write a book about comics (or any other topic) because you feel you have something significant and unique to say about the topic. You have to be willing and able to back your opinion up with well researched As editor, Evander proof and/or well articulated shepherded Television’s personal feelings. Like writing Second Golden Age, by fiction, or just about anything Robert J. Thompson. else, you have something you [© 1997 Robert J. Thompson.] feel needs to be said and believe that you are the one who has to say it.

As in writing fiction, even if you do get your book of cultural criticism published, the odds of it selling tens or hundreds of thousands of copies are relatively low.

But you will have said what you had to say and put something out into the world that may influence people for years to come. And that’s no small achievement.

EVANDER LOMKE is a former vice president and senior editor of Continuum International, a publisher specializing in serious trade and academic books. He has edited a wide range of authors from Danny Fingeroth and Dr. Ruth Westheimer to William F. Buckley. He was the editor of David Bianculli’s Teleliteracy: Taking Television Seriously, Robert J. Thompson’s Television’s Second Golden Age, Emanuel Levy’s Oscar Fever: Seventy Five Years of the Academy Awards, and Bruce Cassiday’s Modern Mystery and Science Fiction Writers.

Currently, Evander is Editor at Large for Lantern Media and directs the American Mental Health Foundation (AMHF) as well as being publisher of AMHF books. Although his present editorial and publishing work takes him outside of the pop-culture and comics universes, he is happy to advise anyone with a book proposal. He may be reached at: elomke@americanmentalhealthfoundation.org.

THE END

Feedback

Letters from our readers

th

Write Now! #18—our Stan Lee 85 Birthday tribute was enthusiastically received by our readers…

Hi Danny!

Just finished reading that incredible Stan Lee 85th birthday issue [Write Now! #18]—talk about flashbacks! Every time I got to a new article I was immediately transported to my backyard, circa 1966, reading the new Daredevil, or staring open-jawed in the local candy store at the new Marvel releases and wondering how I was going to afford all of them with just 25 cents in my pocket! The piece by David Kasakove on the history of the letters section and Marvel Bullpen Bulletins was priceless.

Irv Goldfarb via e-mail

NEXT ISSUE: WRITE NOW! #20 focuses on THE SPIRIT movie, featuring interviews with key players, including producers MICHAEL USLAN and F.J. DeSANTO! Also: a passel of experts looks at just what makes THE SPIRIT so special!

Issue #20 will also feature an interview with writer-artist COLLEEN DORAN, creator of A DISTANT SOIL! And, of course, there’ll be Nuts & Bolts (including SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY script and pencils by DAN SLOTT and STEVE McNIVEN), and some amazing surprises!

And here's a nifty cartoon by Marc Bilgrey, author of And Don’t Forget to Rescue the Princess, who told us about that book in WN! #13:

Hi Danny, I wanted to compliment you on a sensational issue of Write Now! As someone who has been writing and studying the history of comics in general and Marvel comics of the 1960s in particular (I’ve written articles in numerous magazines, including Alter Ego and The Jack Kirby Collector), I’ve read quite a bit about Stan Lee. Much of it has been the same old stuff, but you’ve gone in a different direction and put together a mag that actually had something new and interesting to say about Stan, spotlighting his often neglected editing and teaching skills.

Best, Nick Caputo via e-mail Thanks, Irv and Nick. It’s gratifying that so many people enjoyed the offbeat but important angle WN#18 took on Stan’s career past, present, and future.

SPECIAL NOTE: The photo of Dan Buckley that appeared on page 25 of WN! #17 is © 2007 Jeffrey O. Gustafson.

Please let me know how you liked this dark, brooding issue of WN!—and anything else you want to say about the world of writing! E-mail me at: WriteNowDF@aol.com, or snail-mail me at Danny Fingeroth, c/o TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Road, Raleigh, NC 27614.

—Danny Fingeroth FEEDBACK | 71

WRITE NOW! (edited by Spider-Man writer DANNY FINGEROTH), the magazine for writers of comics, animation, and sci-fi, puts you in the minds of today’s top writers and editors. Each issue features WRITING TIPS from pros on both sides of the desk, INTERVIEWS, SAMPLE SCRIPTS, REVIEWS, exclusive NUTS & BOLTS tutorials, and more!

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

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

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

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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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!

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DC Comics president PAUL LEVITZ on the art, craft and business of comics writing, STEVE ENGLEHART’s thoughts on writing for today’s market, survey of TOP COMICS EDITORS on how to submit work to them, Marvel Editor ANDY SCHMIDT on how to break in, T. CAMPBELL on writing for webcomics, plus a new GEORGE PÉREZ cover!

X-MEN 3 screenwriter SIMON KINBERG interviewed, DENNIS O’NEIL on translating BATMAN BEGINS into a novel, Central Park Media’s STEPHEN PAKULA discusses manga writing, KURT BUSIEK on breaking into comics, MIKE FRIEDRICH on writers’ agents, script samples, new RON LIM /AL MILGROM cover, and more!

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Strange Tales 23” x 29”

Super Powers 17” x 22” color

Annual Membership with one of $ these posters: 50 In The US The Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center is organized exclusively for educational purposes; more specifically, to promote and encourage the study, understanding, preservation and appreciation of the work of Jack Kirby by: • illustrating the scope of Kirby's multi-faceted career • communicating the stories, inspirations and influences of Jack Kirby • celebrating the life of Jack Kirby and his creations • building understanding of comic books and comic book creators To this end, the Museum will sponsor and otherwise support study, teaching, conferences, discussion groups, exhibitions, displays, publications and cinematic, theatrical or multimedia productions.

Marvel 14” x 23”

Galactic Head 18” x 20” color

Incan Visitation 24” x 18” color

JOIN THE JACK KIRBY MUSEUM: www.kirbymuseum.org Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center • PO Box 5236 • Hoboken, NJ 07030 USA • Telephone: (201) 963-4383

HOW-TO BOOKS & DVDs

WORKING METHODS: COMIC CREATORS DETAIL THEIR STORYTELLING & CREATIVE PROCESSES Art professor JOHN LOWE puts the minds of comic artists under the microscope, highlighting the intricacies of the creative process step-by-step. For this book, three short scripts are each interpreted in different ways by professional comic artists to illustrate the varied ways in which they “see” and “solve” the problem of making a script succeed in comic form. It documents the creative and technical choices MARK SCHULTZ, TIM LEVINS, JIM MAHFOOD, SCOTT HAMPTON, KELSEY SHANNON, CHRIS BRUNNER, SEAN MURPHY, and PAT QUINN make as they tell a story, allowing comic fans, artists, instructors, and students into a world rarely explored. Hundreds of illustrated examples document the artists’ processes, and interviews clarify their individual approaches regarding storytelling and layout choices. The exercise may be simple, but the results are profoundly complex!

(176-page trade paperback with COLOR) $21.95 ISBN: 9781893905733 Diamond Order Code: MAR073747

HOW TO CREATE COMICS FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT

HOW TO DRAW COMICS FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT DVD

REDESIGNED and EXPANDED version of the groundbreaking WRITE NOW!/ DRAW! crossover! DANNY FINGEROTH and MIKE MANLEY show step-bystep how to develop a new comic, from script and roughs to pencils, inks, colors, lettering—it even guides you through printing and distribution, and the finished 8-page color comic is included, so you can see their end result!

PLUS: over 30 pages of ALL-NEW material, including “full” and “Marvelstyle” scripts, a critique of their new character and comic from an editor’s point of view, new tips on coloring, new expanded writing lessons, and more!

Documents two top professionals creating a comic book, from initial idea to finished art! In this feature-filled DVD, WRITE NOW! magazine editor DANNY (Spider-Man) FINGEROTH and DRAW! magazine editor MIKE (Batman) MANLEY show you how a new character evolves from scratch! Watch the creative process, as a story is created from concepts and roughs to pencils, inks, and coloring—even lettering! Packed with “how-to” tips and tricks, it’s the perfect companion to the HOW TO CREATE COMICS FROM SCRIPT TO PRINT book, or stands alone as an invaluable tool for amateur and professional comics creators alike!

(108-page trade paperback with COLOR) $13.95 ISBN: 9781893905603 Diamond Order Code: APR063422

(120-minute DVD) $29.95 ISBN: 9781893905399 Diamond Order Code: AUG043204

BUNDLE THE BOOK & DVD TOGETHER FOR JUST $35.95 (SAVE $8)

NEW FOR 2008

FREE! FREE!

COMICS 101: HOW-TO & HISTORY LESSONS TwoMorrows has tapped the combined knowledge of its editors to assemble How-To and History lessons including: “Figure Drawing” and “How To Break Down A Story” from DRAW!’s MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS, “Writing Tips” from WRITE NOW!’s DANNY FINGEROTH, plus ROUGH STUFF’s BOB McLEOD provides “Art Critiques” of promising newcomers! There’s even a “Comics History Crash-Course”, assembled

by ALTER EGO’s ROY THOMAS and BACK ISSUE’s MICHAEL EURY! (32-page comic book) FREE! (shipping charge applies) • Diamond Order Code: FEB070050

COMICS GO HOLLYWOOD TwoMorrows unveils secrets behind your FAVORITE ON-SCREEN HEROES, and what’s involved in taking a character from the comics page to the big screen! It includes: Storyboards from DC’s animated hit “THE NEW FRONTIER” (courtesy of DRAW! magazine)! JEPH LOEB on writing for both Marvel Comics and the Heroes TV show (courtesy of WRITE NOW! magazine)! Details on the unseen X-Men movie (courtesy of ALTER EGO magazine)! A history of the Joker from his 1940s origins to his upcoming appearance in the Dark Knight film (courtesy of BACK ISSUE! magazine)! And a look at Marvel Universe co-creator JACK KIRBY’s Hollywood career, with extensive Kirby art! So before you head to your local cineplex this summer, make sure you pick up your FREE copy of this must-have item from your local retailer on May 3, 2008!

(32-page comic book) FREE! (shipping applies) or FREE at your local comics retailer on May 3, 2008

BEST OF DRAW! VOL. 1

BEST OF DRAW! VOL. 2

Compiles tutorials, interviews, and demonstrations from DRAW! #1-2, by DAVE GIBBONS (layout and drawing on the computer), BRET BLEVINS (figure drawing), JERRY ORDWAY (detailing his working methods), KLAUS JANSON and RICARDO VILLAGRAN (inking techniques), GENNDY TARTAKOVSKY (on animation and Samurai Jack), STEVE CONLEY (creating web comics and cartoons), PHIL HESTER and ANDE PARKS (penciling and inking), and more! Cover by BRET BLEVINS!

Compiles tutorials and interviews from issues #3-4 of DRAW!, with ERIK LARSEN (savage penciling), DICK GIORDANO (inking techniques), BRET BLEVINS (drawing the figure in action, and figure composition), KEVIN NOWLAN (penciling & inking), MIKE MANLEY (how-to demo on Web Comics), DAVE COOPER (digital coloring tutorial), and more! Each artist presents their work STEP-BY-STEP, so both beginning and experienced artists can learn valuable tips and tricks along the way! Cover by KEVIN NOWLAN.

(200-page trade paperback with COLOR) $24.95 ISBN: 9781893905412 Diamond Order Code: AUG078141

(156-page trade paperback with COLOR) $17.95 ISBN: 9781893905580 Diamond Order Code: APR063421

NEW FOR 2008

COMICS ABOVE GROUND

SEE HOW YOUR FAVORITE ARTISTS MAKE A LIVING OUTSIDE COMICS

BEST OF WRITE NOW! Whether you’re looking to break into the world of comics writing, or missed key issues of DANNY FINGEROTH’S WRITE NOW—the premier magazine about writing for comics and related fields—this is the book for you! THE BEST OF WRITE NOW features highlights from the acclaimed magazine, including in-depth interviews about writing from top talents, like: BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS, WILL EISNER, JEPH LOEB, STAN LEE, J. M. STRACZYNSKI, MARK WAID, GEOFF JOHNS, TODD McFARLANE, PAUL LEVITZ, AXEL ALONSO, and others! There’s also “NUTS & BOLTS” tutorials, featuring scripts from landmark comics and the pencil art that was drawn from them, including: CIVIL WAR #1 (MILLAR & McNIVEN), BATMAN: HUSH #1 (LOEB & LEE), ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #47 (BENDIS & BAGLEY), AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #539 (STRACZYNSKI & GARNEY), SPAWN #52 (McFARLANE & CAPULO), GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH #1 (JOHNS & VAN SCRIVER), and more! Also: How-to articles by the best comics writers and editors around, like JOHN OSTRANDER, DENNIS O’NEIL, KURT BUSIEK, STEVEN GRANT, and JOEY CAVALIERI. Professional secrets of top comics pros including NEIL GAIMAN, MARK WAID, TRINA ROBBINS, PETER DAVID, and STAN LEE! Top editors telling exactly what it takes to get hired by them! Plus more great tips to help you prepare for your big break, or simply appreciate comics on a new level, and an introduction by STAN LEE! Edited by Spider-Man writer DANNY FINGEROTH.

COMICS ABOVE GROUND features comics pros discussing their inspirations and training, and how they apply it in “Mainstream Media,” including Conceptual Illustration, Video Game Development, Children’s Books, Novels, Design, Illustration, Fine Art, Storyboards, Animation, Movies and more! Written by DURWIN TALON (author of the top-selling book PANEL DISCUSSIONS), this book features creators sharing their perspectives and their work in comics and their “other professions,” with career overviews, never-before-seen art, and interviews! Featuring: • BRUCE TIMM • BERNIE WRIGHTSON • ADAM HUGHES • JEPH LOEB

• LOUISE SIMONSON • DAVE DORMAN • GREG RUCKA AND OTHERS!

(168-page trade paperback) $19.95 ISBN: 9781893905313 Diamond Order Code: FEB042700

(160-page trade paperback with COLOR) $19.95 ISBN: 9781893905926 Diamond Order Code: FEB084082

NEW FOR 2008

NEW FOR 2008

PANEL DISCUSSIONS

TOP ARTISTS DISCUSS THE DESIGN OF COMICS

BEST OF DRAW! VOL. 3

BEST OF DRAW! VOL. 4

Compiles more of the best tutorials and interviews from DRAW! #5-7, including: Penciling by MIKE WIERINGO! Illustration by DAN BRERETON! Design

by PAUL RIVOCHE! Drawing Hands, Lighting the Figure, and Sketching by BRET BLEVINS! Cartooning

by BILL WRAY! Inking by MIKE MANLEY! Comics & Animation by STEPHEN DeSTEFANO! Digital Illustration by CELIA CALLE and ALBERTO RUIZ! Caricature by ZACH TRENHOLM, and much more!

Cover by DAN BRERETON!

More tutorials and interviews from DRAW! #8-10, spotlighting: From comics to video games with artist MATT HALEY! Character design with TOM BANCROFT and ROB CORLEY! Adobe Illustrator tips with ALBERTO RUIZ! Draping the human figure by BRET BLEVINS! Penciling with RON GARNEY! Breaking into comic strips

by GRAHAM NOLAN! Lettering by TODD KLEIN! International cartoonist JOSÉ LUIS AGREDA! Interviews with PvP’s SCOTT KURTZ and Banana Tail’s MARK McKENNA, and more! Cover by MATT HALEY!

(256-page trade paperback with COLOR) $29.95 ISBN: 9781893905917 Diamond Order Code: JAN083936

(216-page trade paperback with COLOR) $24.95 ISBN: 9781605490007 Ships May 2008

Art professor DURWIN TALON gets top creators to discuss all aspects of the DESIGN of comics, from panel and page layout, to use of color and lettering: • WILL EISNER • SCOTT HAMPTON • MIKE WIERINGO • WALT SIMONSON • MIKE MIGNOLA • MARK SCHULTZ • DAVID MAZZUCCHELLI • MIKE CARLIN • DICK GIORDANO • BRIAN STELFREEZE • CHRIS MOELLER • MARK CHIARELLO If you’re serious about creating effective, innovative comics, or just enjoying them from the creator’s perspective, this guide is must-reading!

(208-page trade paperback with COLOR) $24.95 ISBN: 9781893905146 Diamond Order Code: MAY073781

MODERN MASTERS SERIES Edited by ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON, these trade paperbacks and DVDs are devoted to the BEST OF TODAY’S COMICS ARTISTS! Each book contains RARE AND UNSEEN ARTWORK direct from the artist’s files, plus a COMPREHENSIVE INTERVIEW (including influences and their views on graphic storytelling), DELUXE SKETCHBOOK SECTIONS, and more! And don’t miss our companion DVDs, showing the artists at work in their studios!

MODERN MASTERS: IN THE STUDIO WITH GEORGE PÉREZ DVD

MODERN MASTERS: IN THE STUDIO WITH MICHAEL GOLDEN DVD

Get a PERSONAL TOUR of George’s studio, and watch STEP-BY-STEP as the fan-favorite artist illustrates a special issue of TOP COW’s WITCHBLADE! Also, see George as he sketches for fans at conventions, and hear his peers and colleagues—including MARV WOLFMAN and RON MARZ—share their anecdotes and personal insights along the way!

Go behind the scenes and into Michael Golden’s studio for a LOOK INTO THE CREATIVE MIND of one of comics' greats. Witness a modern master in action as this 90-minute DVD provides an exclusive look at the ARTIST AT WORK, as he DISCUSSES THE PROCESSES he undertakes to create a new comics series.

(120-minute Standard Format DVD) $29.95 ISBN: 9781893905511 Diamond Order Code: JUN053276

(90-minute Standard Format DVD) $29.95 ISBN: 9781893905771 Diamond Order Code: MAY073780

Volume 1: ALAN DAVIS

Volume 2: GEORGE PÉREZ

Volume 3: BRUCE TIMM

Volume 4: KEVIN NOWLAN

by Eric Nolen-Weathington (128-page trade paperback) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905191 Diamond Order Code: JAN073903

by Eric Nolen-Weathington (128-page trade paperback) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905252 Diamond Order Code: JAN073904

by Eric Nolen-Weathington (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905306 Diamond Order Code: APR042954

by Eric Nolen-Weathington (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905382 Diamond Order Code: SEP042971

Volume 5: GARCÍA-LÓPEZ

Volume 6: ARTHUR ADAMS

Volume 7: JOHN BYRNE

Volume 8: WALTER SIMONSON

by Eric Nolen-Weathington (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905443 Diamond Order Code: APR053191

by George Khoury & Eric Nolen-Weathington (128-page trade paperback) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905542 Diamond Order Code: DEC053309

by Jon B. Cooke & Eric Nolen-Weathington (128-page trade paperback) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905566 Diamond Order Code: FEB063354

by Roger Ash & Eric Nolen-Weathington (128-page trade paperback) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905641 Diamond Order Code: MAY063444

Volume 9: MIKE WIERINGO

Volume 10: KEVIN MAGUIRE

Volume 11: CHARLES VESS

Volume 12: MICHAEL GOLDEN

by Todd DeZago & Eric Nolen-Weathington (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905658 Diamond Order Code: AUG063626

by George Khoury & Eric Nolen-Weathington (128-page trade paperback) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905665 Diamond Order Code: OCT063722

by Christopher Irving & Eric Nolen-Weathington (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905696 Diamond Order Code: DEC063948

by Eric Nolen-Weathington (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905740 Diamond Order Code: APR074023

NEW FOR 2008

NEW FOR 2008

Volume 13: JERRY ORDWAY

Volume 14: FRANK CHO

Volume 15: MARK SCHULTZ

Volume 16: MIKE ALLRED

by Eric Nolen-Weathington (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905795 Diamond Order Code: JUN073926

by Eric Nolen-Weathington (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905849 Diamond Order Code: AUG074034

by Fred Perry & Eric Nolen-Weathington (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905856 Diamond Order Code: OCT073846

by Eric Nolen-Weathington (120-page TPB with COLOR) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905863 Diamond Order Code: JAN083937

MODERN MASTERS BUNDLES

NEW FOR 2008

NEW FOR 2008

Volume 17: LEE WEEKS

Volume 18: JOHN ROMITA JR.

by Tom Field & Eric Nolen-Weathington (128-page trade paperback) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905948 Ships May 2008

by George Khoury & Eric Nolen-Weathington (128-page trade paperback) $14.95 ISBN: 9781893905955 Ships July 2008

BUNDLE THE GEORGE PÉREZ VOLUME & DVD TOGETHER, OR THE MICHAEL GOLDEN VOLUME & DVD TOGETHER

ONLY $37.95 EACH (SAVE $7 PER BUNDLE)

MODERN MASTERS VOLUMES ON MIKE PLOOG AND CHRIS SPROUSE ARE COMING IN FALL 2008 SEE OUR SUMMER CATALOG UPDATE!

NEW ITEMS: Vol. 19: MIKE PLOOG

MODERN MASTERS SERIES

(120-page trade paperback with COLOR) $14.95 US ISBN: 9781605490076 • Ships October 2008

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!

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Vol. 20: KYLE BAKER (120-page trade paperback with COLOR) $14.95 US ISBN: 9781605490083 • Ships December 2008

MORE MODERN MASTERS ARE COMING IN 2009, INCLUDING CHRIS SPROUSE!

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KIRBY FIVE-OH! LIMITED HARDCOVER EDITION! Limited to 500 copies, KIRBY FIVE-OH! LIMITED HARDCOVER EDITION covers 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 19381987! The BEST COVERS from each decade!

The 50 BEST EXAMPLES OF UNUSED KIRBY ART! His 50 BEST CHARACTER DESIGNS! And profiles of, and commentary by, 50 PEOPLE 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 half-century oeuvre, a previously unseen Kirby Superman cover inked by “DC: The New Frontier” artist DARWYN COOKE, and an introduction by MARK EVANIER! This LIMITED HARDCOVER EDITION includes a full-color wrapped hardcover, and an individually-numbered extra Kirby art plate not included in the softcover edition! It’s ONLY AVAILABLE FROM TWOMORROWS, and is not sold in stores!

Edited by JOHN MORROW. (168-page Limited Edition Hardcover) $34.95 US • Now shipping!

Only available from TwoMorrows!

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JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #52

COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR VOLUME 7

Spotlights KIRBY OBSCURA, uncovering some of Jack’s most obscure work! Learn about such littleknown projects as an UNUSED THOR STORY, his BRUCE LEE comic, animation work, stage play, and see original unaltered versions of pages from KAMANDI, DEMON, DESTROYER DUCK, and more, including a feature examining the last page of his final issue of various series BEFORE EDITORIAL TAMPERING (with lots of surprises)! Color Kirby front cover inked by DON HECK, and back cover inked by PAUL SMITH!

Reprints JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #27-30, with looks at Jack’s 1970s and ‘80s work, plus a two-part focus on how widespread Kirby’s influence is! Features rare interviews with KIRBY himself, plus Watchmen’s ALAN MOORE and DAVE GIBBONS, NEIL GAIMAN, Bone’s JEFF SMITH, MARK HAMILL, and others! See page after page of rare Kirby art, including a NEW SPECIAL SECTION with over 30 PIECES OF KIRBY ART NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED, and more!

(288-page trade paperback) $29.95 US ISBN: 9781605490120 Ships January 2009

(84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 US Ships January 2009 BRICKJOURNAL magazine is the ultimate resource for LEGO enthusiasts of all ages.

It spotlights all aspects of the LEGO Community, showcasing events, people, and models in every issue, with contributions and how-to articles by top builders worldwide, new product intros, and more. Edited by JOE MENO.

BRICKJOURNAL COMPENDIUM 3 VOLUME 3 compiles the digital-only issues #6-7 of the acclaimed online magazine for LEGO enthusiasts of all ages — for the first time in printed form! This FULLCOLOR book spotlights all aspects of the LEGO COMMUNITY through interviews with builders KNUD THOMSEN (builder of a LEGO city), ANTHONY SAVA (castle and dragon builder), JØRGEN VIG KNUDSTORP (CEO to the LEGO Group) and the duo ARVO (builders of many incredible models), plus features on LEGO FAN CONVENTIONS, such as BRICKFEST, LEGO WORLD (the Netherlands), and 1000STEINE-LAND (Germany), reviews and behind the scenes reports on two LEGO sets (the CAFE CORNER and HOBBY TRAIN), how to create custom minifigures, instructions and techniques, and more! Edited by JOE MENO. (224-page trade paperback) $34.95 US ISBN: 9781605490069 Ships January 2009

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FULL-COLOR issue #3 has LEGO Event Reports from BRICKWORLD (Chicago), FIRST LEGO LEAGUE WORLD FESTIVAL (Atlanta) and PIECE OF PEACE (Japan), a spotlight on the creation of our amazing cover model built by BRYCE McGLONE, plus interviews with ARTHUR GUGICK and STEVEN CANVIN of LEGO MINDSTORMS, to see where LEGO ROBOTICS is going! There’s also STEP-BY-STEP BUILDING INSTRUCTIONS, TECHNIQUES, & more!

FULL-COLOR issue #4 features interviews with top LEGO BUILDERS including BREANN SLEDGE (BIONICLE BUILDER), Event Reports from LEGO gatherings such as BRICKFAIR (Washington, DC) and BRICKCON (Seattle, Washington), plus reports on new MINDSTORMS PROJECTS, STEP-BY-STEP BUILDING INSTRUCTIONS and TECHNIQUES for all skill levels, NEW SET REVIEWS, and editor JOE MENO shows how to build a robotic LEGO Wall-E!TM

(80-page magazine) $8.95 US (Digital Edition) $3.95 (or FREE to subscribers) Diamond Order Code: JUN084415

(80-page magazine) $8.95 US (Digital Edition) $3.95 (or FREE to subscribers)

DIEDGITIIOTANSL BLE AVAILA

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.

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.

ALTER EGO #81

ALTER EGO #82

ALTER EGO #83

ALTER EGO #84

New FRANK BRUNNER Man-Thing cover, a look at the late-’60s horror comic WEB OF HORROR with early work by BRUNNER, WRIGHTSON, WINDSOR-SMITH, SIMONSON, & CHAYKIN, interview with comics & fine artist EVERETT RAYMOND KINTSLER, ROY THOMAS’ 1971 origin synopsis for the FIRST MAN-THING STORY, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

MLJ ISSUE! Golden Age MLJ index illustrated with vintage images of The Shield, Hangman, Mr. Justice, Black Hood,

by IRV NOVICK, JACK COLE, CHARLES BIRO, MORT MESKIN, GIL KANE, & others—behind a marvelous MLJ-heroes cover

by BOB McLEOD! Plus interviews with IRV NOVICK and JOE EDWARDS, FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

SWORD & SORCERY PART 2! Cover by ARTHUR SUYDAM, in-depth art-filled look at Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian, DC’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Dagar the Invincible, Ironjaw & Wulf, and Arak, Son of Thunder, plus the never-seen Valda the Iron Maiden by TODD McFARLANE! Plus JOE EDWARDS (Part 2), FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

Unseen JIM APARO cover, STEVE SKEATES discusses his early comics work, art & artifacts by ADKINS, APARO, ARAGONÉS, BOYETTE, DITKO, GIORDANO, KANE, KELLER, MORISI, ORLANDO, SEKOWSKY, STONE, THOMAS, WOOD, and the great WARREN SAVIN! Plus writer CHARLES SINCLAIR on his partnership with Batman co-creator BILL FINGER, FCA, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Ships October 2008

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Ships December 2008

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Ships January 2009

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Ships March 2009

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.

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. THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

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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.

DRAW! #17

ROUGH STUFF #10

ROUGH STUFF #11

WRITE NOW! #20

Go behind the pages of the hit series of graphic novels starring Scott Pilgrim with his creator and artist, BRYAN LEE O’MALLEY, to see how he creates the acclaimed series! Then, learn how B.P.R.D.’s GUY DAVIS works on the series, plus more Comic Art Bootcamp: Learning from The Great Cartoonists by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY, reviews, and more!

Interview with RON GARNEY, with copious examples of sketchwork and comments.

Also features on ANDY SMITH, MICHAEL JASON PAZ, and MATT HALEY, showing how their work evolves, excerpts from a new book on ALEX RAYMOND, secrets of teaching comic art by pro inker BOB McLEOD, new cover by GARNEY and McLEOD, newcomer critique, and more!

New cover by GREG HORN, plus interviews with HORN and TOM YEATES on how they produce their stellar work. Also features on GENE HA, JIMMY CHEUNG, and MIKE PERKINS, showing their sketchwork, and commentary, tips on collecting sketches and commissions from artists, a “Rough Critique” of a newcomer’s work, and more!

Focus on THE SPIRIT movie, showing how FRANK MILLER transformed WILL EISNER’s comics into the smash-hit film, with interviews with key players behind the making of the movie, a look at what made Eisner’s comics so special, and more. Plus: an interview with COLLEEN DORAN, writer ALEX GRECIAN on how to get a pitch green lighted, script and art examples, and more!

(80-page magazine with COLOR) $6.95 US • Ships Fall 2008

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Ships October 2008

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Ships January 2009

(80-page magazine) $6.95 US Ships Winter 2009

BACK ISSUE #29

BACK ISSUE #30

BACK ISSUE #31

BACK ISSUE #32

BACK ISSUE #33

“Mutants” issue! CLAREMONT, BYRNE, SMITH, and ROMITA, JR.’s X-Men work, NOCENTI and ARTHUR ADAMS’ Longshot, McLEOD and SIENKIEWICZ’s New Mutants, the UK’s CAPTAIN BRITAIN series, lost Angel stories, Beast’s tenure with the Avengers, the return of the original X-Men in X-Factor, the revelation of Nightcrawler’s “original” father, a history of DC’s mutant, Captain Comet, and more! Cover by DAVE COCKRUM!

“Saturday Morning Heroes!” Interviews with TV Captain Marvels JACKSON BOSTWICK and JOHN DAVEY, MAGGIN and SAVIUK’s lost Superman/”Captain Thunder” sequel, Space Ghost interviews with GARY OWENS and STEVE RUDE, MARV WOLFMAN guest editorial, Super Friends, unproduced fourth wave Super Powers action figures, Astro Boy, ADAM HUGHES tribute to DAVE STEVENS, and a new cover by ALEX ROSS!

“STEVE GERBER Salute!” In-depth look at his Howard the Duck, Man-Thing, Omega the Unknown, Defenders, Metal Men, Mister Miracle, Thundarr the Barbarian, and more!

Plus: Creators pay tribute to Steve Gerber, featuring art by and commentary from BRUNNER, BUCKLER, COLAN, GOLDEN, STAN LEE, LEVITZ, MAYERIK, MOONEY, PLOOG, SIMONSON, and others. Cover painting by FRANK BRUNNER!

“Tech, Data, and Hardware!” The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, WEIN, WOLFMAN, and GREENBERGER on DC’s Who’s Who, SAVIUK, STATON, and VAN SCIVER on Drawing Green Lantern, ED HANNIGAN Art Gallery, history of Rom: Spaceknight, story of BILL MANTLO, Dial H for Hero, Richie Rich’s Inventions, and a Spider-Mobile schematic cover by ELIOT BROWN and DUSTY ABELL!

“Teen Heroes!” Teen Titans in the 1970s & 1980s, with CARDY, GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, PÉREZ, TUSKA, and WOLFMAN, BARON and GUICE on the Flash, interviews with TV Billy Batson MICHAEL GRAY and writer STEVE SKEATES, NICIEZA and BAGLEY’s New Warriors; Legion of Super-Heroes 1970s art gallery; James Bond, Jr.; and… the Archies! New Teen Titans cover by GEORGE PÉREZ and colored by GENE HA!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Ships July 2008

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Ships September 2008

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Ships November 2008

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Ships January 2009

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Ships March 2009

“HOW-TO” MAGAZINES Spinning off from the pages of BACK ISSUE! magazine comes ROUGH STUFF, celebrating the ART of creating comics! Edited by famed inker BOB McLEOD, each issue spotlights NEVER-BEFORE PUBLISHED penciled pages, preliminary sketches, detailed layouts, and even unused inked versions from artists throughout comics history. Included is commentary on the art, discussing what went right and wrong with it, and background information to put it all into historical perspective. Plus, before-and-after comparisons let you see firsthand how an image changes from initial concept to published version. So don’t miss this amazing magazine, featuring galleries of NEVER-BEFORE SEEN art, from some of your favorite series of all time, and the top pros in the industry!

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ROUGH STUFF #1 Our debut issue features galleries of UNSEEN ART by a who’s who of Modern Masters including: ALAN DAVIS, GEORGE PÉREZ, BRUCE TIMM, KEVIN NOWLAN, JOSÉ LUIS GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, ARTHUR ADAMS, JOHN BYRNE, and WALTER SIMONSON, plus a KEVIN NOWLAN interview, art critiques, and a new BRUCE TIMM COVER!

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ROUGH STUFF #2

ROUGH STUFF #3

ROUGH STUFF #4

The follow-up to our smash first issue features more galleries of UNSEEN ART by top industry professionals, including: BRIAN APTHORP, FRANK BRUNNER, PAUL GULACY, JERRY ORDWAY, ALEX TOTH, and MATT WAGNER, plus a PAUL GULACY interview, a look at art of the pros BEFORE they were pros, and a new GULACY “HEX” COVER!

Still more galleries of UNPUBLISHED ART

by MIKE ALLRED, JOHN BUSCEMA, YANICK PAQUETTE, JOHN ROMITA JR., P. CRAIG RUSSELL, and LEE WEEKS, plus a JOHN ROMITA JR. interview, looks at the process of creating a cover (with BILL SIENKIEWICZ and JOHN ROMITA JR.), and a new ROMITA JR. COVER, plus a FREE DRAW #13 PREVIEW!

More NEVER-PUBLISHED galleries (with detailed artist commentaries) by MICHAEL KALUTA, ANDREW “Starman” ROBINSON, GENE COLAN, HOWARD CHAYKIN, and STEVE BISSETTE, plus interview and art by JOHN TOTLEBEN, a look at the Wonder Woman Day charity auction (with rare art), art critiques, before-&-after art comparisons, and a FREE WRITE NOW #15 PREVIEW!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: AUG063714

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: NOV064024

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: FEB073911

(116-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: APR063497

ROUGH STUFF #5

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ROUGH STUFF #6

NEVER-BEFORE-PUBLISHED galleries (complete with extensive commentaries by the artists) by PAUL SMITH, GIL KANE, CULLY HAMNER, DALE KEOWN, and ASHLEY WOOD, plus a feature interview and art by STEVE RUDE, an examination of JOHN ALBANO and TONY DeZUNIGA’s work on Jonah Hex, new STEVE RUDE COVER, plus a FREE BACK ISSUE #23 PREVIEW!

Features a new interview and cover by BRIAN STELFREEZE, interview with BUTCH GUICE, extensive art galleries/commentary by IAN CHURCHILL, DAVE COCKRUM, and COLLEEN DORAN, MIKE GAGNON looks at independent comics, with art and comments by ANDREW BARR, BRANDON GRAHAM, and ASAF HANUKA! Includes a FREE ALTER EGO #73 PREVIEW!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY073902

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: AUG074137

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Features an in-depth interview and cover by TIM TOWNSEND, CRAIG HAMILTON, DAN JURGENS, and HOWARD PORTER offer preliminary art and commentaries, MARIE SEVERIN career retrospective, graphic novels feature with art and comments by DAWN BROWN, TOMER HANUKA, BEN TEMPLESMITH, and LANCE TOOKS, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: NOV073966

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ROUGH STUFF #9

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ROUGH STUFF #8 Features an in-depth interview and cover painting by the extraordinary MIKE MAYHEW, preliminary and unpublished art

by ALEX HORLEY, TONY DeZUNIGA, NICK CARDY, and RAFAEL KAYANAN (including commentary by each artist), a look at the great Belgian comic book artists, a “Rough Critique” of MIKE MURDOCK’s work, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: FEB084188

Editor and pro inker BOB McLEOD features four interviews this issue: ROB HAYNES (interviewed by fellow professional TIM TOWNSEND), JOE JUSKO, MEL RUBI, and SCOTT WILLIAMS, with a new painted cover by JUSKO, and an article by McLEOD examining "Inkers: Who needs ’em?" along with other features, including a Rough Critique of RUDY VASQUEZ! (100-page magazine) $6.95 Ships Summer 2008

4-ISSUE SUBSCRIPTIONS: $26 US Postpaid by Media Mail ($36 First Class, $44 Canada, $60 Surface, $72 Airmail).

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DRAW! (edited by top comics artist MIKE MANLEY) is the professional “HOW-TO” magazine on comics, cartooning, and animation. Each issue features in-depth INTERVIEWS and STEP-BY-STEP DEMOS from top comics pros on all aspects of graphic storytelling. NOTE: Contains nudity for purposes of figure drawing. INTENDED FOR MATURE READERS. TWO-TIME EISNER AWARD NOMINEE for Best Comics-Related Periodical.

4-ISSUE SUBSCRIPTIONS: $26 US Postpaid by Media Mail ($36 First Class, $44 Canada, $60 Surface, $72 Airmail).

DRAW! #4

DRAW! #5

DRAW! #6

Features an interview and step-by-step demonstration from Savage Dragon’s ERIK LARSEN, KEVIN NOWLAN on drawing and inking techniques, DAVE COOPER demonstrates coloring techniques in Photoshop, BRET BLEVINS tutorial on Figure Composition, PAUL RIVOCHE on the Design Process, reviews of comics drawing papers, and more!

Interview and sketchbook by MIKE WIERINGO, BRIAN BENDIS and MIKE OEMING show how they create the series “Powers”, BRET BLEVINS shows “How to draw great hands”, “The illusion of depth in design” by PAUL RIVOCHE, must-have art books reviewed by TERRY BEATTY, plus reviews of the best art supplies, links, a color section and more! OEMING cover!

Interview, cover, and demo with BILL WRAY, STEPHEN DeSTEFANO interview and demo on cartooning and animation, BRET BLEVINS shows “How to draw the human figure in light and shadow,” a step-by-step Photo-shop tutorial by CELIA CALLE, expert inking tips by MIKE MANLEY, plus reviews of the best art supplies, links, a color section and more!

(88-page magazine with COLOR) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: JAN022757

(88-page magazine with COLOR) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: APR022633

(96-page magazine with COLOR) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: FEB032281

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DRAW! #8

DRAW! #10

DRAW! #11

DRAW! #12

DRAW! #13

From comics to video games: an interview, cover, and demo with MATT HALEY, TOM BANCROFT & ROB CORLEY on character design, “Drawing In Adobe Illustrator” step-by-step demo by ALBERTO RUIZ, “Draping The Human Figure” by BRET BLEVINS, a new COMICS SECTION, International Spotlight on JOSÉ LOUIS AGREDA, a color section and more!

RON GARNEY interview, step-by-step demo, and cover, GRAHAM NOLAN on creating newspaper strips, TODD KLEIN and other pros discuss lettering, “Draping The Human Figure, Part Two” by BRET BLEVINS, ALBERTO RUIZ with more Adobe Illustrator tips, interview with Banana Tail creator MARK McKENNA, links, a color section and more!

STEVE RUDE demonstrates his approach to comics & drawing, ROQUE BALLESTEROS on Flash animation, political cartoonist JIM BORGMAN on his daily comic strip Zits, plus DRAW!’s regular instructors BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY on “Drawing On LIfe”, more Adobe Illustrator tips with ALBERTO RUIZ, links, a color section and more! New RUDE cover!

KYLE BAKER reveals his working methods and step-by-step processes on merging his traditional and digital art, Machine Teen’s MIKE HAWTHORNE on his work, “Making Perspective Work For You” by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY, Photoshop techniques with ALBERTO RUIZ, Adult Swim’s THE VENTURE BROTHERS, links, a color section and more! New BAKER cover!

Step-by-step demo of painting methods by cover artist ALEX HORLEY (Heavy Metal, Vertigo, DC, Wizards of the Coast), plus interviews and demos by Banana Sundays’ COLLEEN COOVER, behind-the-scenes on Adult Swim’s MINORITEAM, regular features on drawing by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY, links, color section and more, plus a FREE ROUGH STUFF #3 PREVIEW!

(96-page magazine with COLOR) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: DEC032848

(104-page magazine with COLOR) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: DEC043007

(112-page magazine with COLOR) $5.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY053188

(96-page magazine) SOLD OUT (96-page Digital Edition) $2.95

(88-page magazine with COLOR) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: OCT063824

DRAW! #16

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DRAW! #14

DRAW! #15

Features in-depth interviews and demos with DC Comics artist DOUG MAHNKE, OVI NEDELCU (Pigtale, WB Animation), STEVE PURCELL (Sam and Max), plus Part 3 of editor MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ COMIC ART BOOTCAMP on “Using Black to Power up Your Pages”, product reviews, a new MAHNKE cover, and a FREE ALTER EGO #70 PREVIEW!

BACK TO SCHOOL ISSUE, covering major schools offering comic art as part of their curriculum, featuring faculty, student, and graduate interviews in an ultimate overview of collegiate-level comic art classes! Plus, a “how-to” demo/ interview with B.P.R.D.’S GUY DAVIS, MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS’ COMIC ART BOOTCAMP series, a FREE WRITE NOW #17 PREVIEW, and more!

(80-page magazine with COLOR) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: MAY073896

(80-page magazine with COLOR) $6.95 Diamond Order Code: AUG074131

Features an in-depth interview and coverage of the creative process of HOWARD CHAYKIN. From the early ’70s at DC, STAR WARS, and HEAVY METAL, to AMERICAN FLAGG and now WOLVERINE, we catch up with one of comics most innovative artist/storytellers! Also, we go behind the drawing board and animation desk with JAY STEPHENS, from JET CAT and TUTENSTEIN to his new Cartoon Network show, SECRET SATURDAYS! Then there's more COMIC ART BOOTCAMP, this time focusing on HOW TO USE REFERENCE, and WORKING FROM PHOTOS by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY. Plus, reviews, resources and more!

(80-page magazine with COLOR) $6.95 Ships Summer 2008

Don’t miss our BEST OF DRAW volumes, reprinting the SOLD OUT ISSUES!

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NEW STUFF FROM TWOMORROWS!

BACK ISSUE #31

ALTER EGO #81

ROUGH STUFF #10

DRAW! #17

BRICKJOURNAL #4

“STEVE GERBER Salute!” In-depth look at his Howard the Duck, Man-Thing, Omega the Unknown, Defenders, Metal Men, Mister Miracle, Thundarr the Barbarian, and more!

Plus: Creators pay tribute to Steve Gerber, featuring art by and commentary from BRUNNER, BUCKLER, COLAN, GOLDEN, STAN LEE, LEVITZ, MAYERIK, MOONEY, PLOOG, SIMONSON, and others. Cover painting by FRANK BRUNNER!

New FRANK BRUNNER Man-Thing cover, a look at the late-’60s horror comic WEB OF HORROR with early work by BRUNNER, WRIGHTSON, WINDSORSMITH, SIMONSON, & CHAYKIN, interview with comics & fine artist EVERETT RAYMOND KINTSLER, ROY THOMAS’ 1971 origin synopsis for the FIRST MANTHING STORY, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, and more!

Interview with RON GARNEY, with copious examples of sketchwork and comments.

Also features on ANDY SMITH, MICHAEL JASON PAZ, and MATT HALEY, showing how their work evolves, excerpts from a new book on ALEX RAYMOND, secrets of teaching comic art by pro inker BOB McLEOD, new cover by GARNEY and McLEOD, newcomer critique, and more!

Go behind the pages of the hit series of graphic novels starring Scott Pilgrim with his creator and artist, BRYAN LEE O’MALLEY, to see how he creates the acclaimed series! Then, learn how B.P.R.D.’s GUY DAVIS works on the series, plus more Comic Art Bootcamp: Learning from The Great Cartoonists by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY, reviews, and more!

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Now shipping

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US Now shipping

(100-page magazine) $6.95 US (Digital Edition) $2.95 Now shipping

(80-page magazine with COLOR) $6.95 US • (Digital Edition) $2.95 Ships Winter 2008

FULL-COLOR issue features top LEGO BUILDERS including BREANN SLEDGE (BIONICLE), Event Reports from gatherings such as BRICKFAIR (Washington, DC) and BRICKCON (Seattle, Washington), plus reports on new MINDSTORMS PROJECTS, STEP-BY-STEP BUILDING INSTRUCTIONS and TECHNIQUES for all skill levels, NEW SET REVIEWS, and editor JOE MENO shows how to build a robotic LEGO Wall-E!TM

KIRBY COLLECTOR #51

EXTRAORDINARY WORKS OF ALAN MOORE:

HAWKMAN COMPANION

BRICKJOURNAL COMPENDIUM, VOLUME 1

Bombastic EVERYTHING GOES issue, with a wealth of great submissions that couldn’t be pigeonholed into a “theme” issue!

Includes a rare KIRBY interview, new interviews with JIM LEE and ADAM HUGHES, MARK EVANIER’s column, huge pencil art galleries, a complete Golden Age Kirby story, two COLOR UNPUBLISHED KIRBY COVERS, and more!

(84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 Now shipping

COLLECTED KIRBY COLLECTOR VOL. 6 Reprints KIRBY COLLECTOR #23-26 plus over 30 pieces of Kirby art never published!

(288-page trade paperback) $29.95 ISBN: 9781605490038 Now shipping!

Indispensable Edition The definitive autobiographical book on ALAN MOORE in a NEW EXPANDED AND UPDATED VERSION! Includes new interviews covering his work since the original 2003 edition of the book. From SWAMP THING, V FOR VENDETTA, WATCHMEN, and LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN and beyond – all are discussed by Alan. Plus, there’s RARE STRIPS, SCRIPTS, ARTWORK, and PHOTOGRAPHS, tribute comic strips by NEIL GAIMAN and other of Moore’s closest collaborators, a COLOR SECTION featuring the RARE MOORE STORY “The Riddle of the Recalcitrant Refuse” (newly remastered, and starring MR. MONSTER), and more! Edited by GEORGE KHOURY, with a cover by DAVE McKEAN! (240-page trade paperback) $29.95 US ISBN: 9781605490090 Diamond Order Code: JAN088702 Ships December 2008

Go to www.twomorrows.com for FULL-COLOR downloadable PDF versions of our magazines for only $2.95! Subscribers to the print edition get the digital edition FREE, weeks before it hits stores!

Behind a fabulous CLIFF CHIANG cover, this collection documents the character’s history, and contains interviews and commentary from many who have helped Hawkman soar through the ages, including JOE KUBERT, GEOFF JOHNS, SHELLY MOLDOFF, TIMOTHY TRUMAN, JUSTIN GRAY, JIMMY PALMIOTTI, RAGS MORALES, STEPHEN SADOWSKI, DON KRAMER, BEN RAAB, TONY ISABELLA, DAN JURGENS, ROY THOMAS, STEVE LIEBER, MURPHY ANDERSON and many other top comics creators. Also included is a copious image parade, profiles on the Hawks through the ages, as well as their allies and adversaries, and a timeline of Hawkman's storied existence throughout the DC Comics Universe. With insight into the character and the creators who made him what he is, the HAWKMAN COMPANION is certain to please any Hawkfan.

Written by DOUG ZAWISZA.

FULL-COLOR! Compiles the first three digital-only issues of BRICKJOURNAL, the ultimate magazine for LEGO enthusiasts of all ages! Features interviews with LEGO car builder ZACHARY SWEIGART, JØRGEN VIG KNUDSTORP (CEO of LEGO Systems, Inc.), Mecha builders BRYCE McLONE and JEFF RANJO, paraplegic LEGO builder SCOTT WARFIELD, BOB CARNEY (LEGO castle builder extraordinaire) and RALPH SAVELSBURG (LEGO plane builder), REVEREND BRENDAN POWELL SMITH (author of the LEGO version of the Bible), NASA Astronaut Trainer KIETH JOHNSON, JAKE McKEE (Global Community Director for The LEGO Group), features on the BIONICLE universe, how to make your own custom bricks, instructions & techniques, and more!

(256-page trade paperback) $39.95 ISBN: 9781893905979 Diamond Order Code: FEB084083 Now shipping!

(208-page trade paperback) $24.95 ISBN: 9781893905931 Now shipping

SUBSCRIPTIONS:

Media Mail

(80-page magazine) $8.95 US (Digital Edition) $3.95

MODERN MASTERS VOLUME 19: MIKE PLOOG

(120-page trade paperback with COLOR) $14.95 US • ISBN: 9781605490076 Ships November 2008

VOLUME 20: KYLE BAKER

(120-page trade paperback with COLOR) $14.95 US • ISBN: 9781605490083 Ships December 2008 Each features an extensive, career-spanning interview lavishly illustrated with rare art from the artist’s files, plus huge sketchbook section, including unseen and unused art!

1st Class Canada 1st Class Priority US Intl.

Intl.

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR (4 issues)

$44

$64

$64

$91

$152

BACK ISSUE! (6 issues)

$40

$55

$63

$91

$112

DRAW!, WRITE NOW!, ROUGH STUFF (4 issues)

$26

$36

$41

$60

$74

ALTER EGO (12 issues) Six-issue subs are half-price!

$78

$108

$123

$180

$222

BRICKJOURNAL (4 issues)

$32

$42

$47

$66

$80

For the latest news from TwoMorrows Publishing, log on to www.twomorrows.com/tnt

TwoMorrows. Celebrating The Art & History Of Comics.

TwoMorrows • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 • E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com