Write Now! #1

BENDIS • DeMATTEIS • QUESADA • DeFALCO • BAGLEY • STAN LEE!

# $ 95

5

MONA will be my greatest Authorial Triumph Yet, Leo!

In the USA

M AG A ZI N E

1

August 2002

You Bet, Willy.

i Can Outwrite This Moron in my Sleep.

The Magazine About Writing For Comics, Animation, and Science-Fiction

Number 8, Summer 2002 • Hype and hullabaloo from the publisher determined to bring new life to comics fandom • Edited by Eric Nolen-Weathington

It’s Time to...

Last year we brought you DRAW! and received an incredible response. Now we’re turning our attention to all of you writers out there! You know, an artist can show an editor his work and the editor can evaluate it virtually on the spot. But what qualities are necessary to sell writing? What are editors looking for? What skills are needed, and what other media can these skills be used in?

This July, find out in WRITE NOW!, a new quarterly magazine edited by veteran Marvel Comics editor and writer DANNY FINGEROTH! It takes you behind the scenes, into both the creative and business processes that go into writing narrative fiction. Hear from pros ON BOTH SIDES OF THE DESK what it takes to write the stories that readers—and editors—want to read!

In the premiere issue, top professional writers discuss the practical aspects of their craft. You'll get tips and insights from interviews with: BRAIN MICHAEL BENDIS, the writer of Ultimate Spider-Man, Alias, Powers and so many more; JOE QUESADA, editor in chief of Marvel Comics, and co-writer of Ash and writer of Iron Man—he's the guy setting the writing standards at the House of Ideas today; JOSS WHEDON, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the comic Fray, and the upcoming Firefly TV series; J.M. DeMATTEIS, writer of Spider-Man, the Spectre, Man-Thing and Moonshadow; and to get an artist’s perspective on comics scripts, MARK BAGLEY, penciler of Ultimate Spider-Man, New Warriors and Amazing Spider-Man. Plus there’s an interview with STAN (THE MAN) LEE! ('Nuff said.)

The VIPs of POV TwoMorrows is proud to present COMIC BOOKS AND OTHER NECESSITIES OF LIFE, a trade paperback collection of MARK EVANIER’s POV columns! It includes Mark’s best essays and commentaries, many NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED, about the state of the art form (as only he can convey it), the industry’s LEADING PRACTITIONERS (including Jack Kirby and Carl Barks), CONVENTIONGOING, and Mark’s old COMIC BOOK CLUB (with unforgettable anecdotes)! Featuring a new cover and interior illustrations by Mark’s frequent partner, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, this 200-page trade paperback ships in July!

CBA Sold-Out No More!

Find out how their better halves live!

Will Eisner does what? Dave Sim is really like that? This August, see what its been like living with comic book creators over the past 60 years, with the people who know them best! This trade paperback explores the lives of the partners and wives of WILL EISNER, ALAN MOORE, STAN LEE, JOE KUBERT, HARVEY KURTZMAN, JOHN ROMITA, GENE COLAN, DAN DECARLO, ARCHIE GOODWIN, and more! In addition to sharing memories and anecdotes you’ll find nowhere else, their better halves have opened up private files to unearth personal photos, momentos, and never-before-seen art by the top creators in comics!

COPYRIGHT NOTICES: Batman, Joker, Phantom Stranger, TM & ©2002 DC Comics. Thor TM & ©2002 Marvel Characters Inc. Hellboy TM & ©2002 Mike Mignola.

Can’t find those CBA back issues you’re missing? The search is over! In June, simply pick up the COMIC BOOK ARTIST COLLECTION, VOLUME 2! It reprints the sold-out CBA #5 (’70s DC) and #6 (’70s Marvel) and includes over 20 NEW PAGES spotlighting STEVE ENGLEHART and MARSHALL ROGERS’ Batman work, plus DC’s ultra-rare CANCELLED COMIC CAVALCADE! Also included are interviews with and unpublished art by BERNIE WRIGHTSON, NEAL ADAMS, JOHN ROMITA SR., and more!

To get periodic e-mail updates of what’s new from TwoMorrows Publishing, sign up for our mailing list!

Go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ twomorrows

Now Shipping!

The Jack Kirby Collector #34 Alter Ego #15 Comic Book Artist #18 DRAW! #3 Xal-Kor the Human Cat

Coming This Summer!

The Jack Kirby Collector #35 (June) Comic Book Artist #19 (June) DRAW! #4 (July) CBA Collection, Vol. 2 TPB (June) Panel Discussions TPB (July) Alter Ego #16 (July) Comic Books & Other Necessities Of Life TPB (August) Write Now! #1 (July) Comic Book Artist #20 (July) Comic Book Artist #21 (August) The Jack Kirby Collector #36 (August) I Have To Live With This Guy TPB (August)

Pros and Cons The convention season is underway and already we’ve had great shows at the Atlanta and Pittsburgh Comicons. Despite two nominations (for TJKC and CBA), we didn’t win a HARVEY AWARD, but our own ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON did get to be a presenter! Thanks to everyone who stopped by our booth (especially if you bought something)! Next you can find us in Charlotte, NC for Heroes Con on June 14-16 (visit www.heroesonline.com for more info), and the biggie—Comicon International: San Diego, August 1-4 (where CBA, AE, and KIMOTA! are up for EISNER AWARDS)!

Designing? Buy the book!

When should you tilt or overlap a comics panel? What’s the best way to divide a page to convey motion, time, action, quiet? PANEL DISCUSSIONS (our new trade paperback, shipping in June) is the place to find out! It picks the minds of the industry’s top storytellers, covering all aspects of the design of comics! Learn from WILL EISNER, MARK SCHULTZ, MIKE MIGNOLA, WALTER SIMONSON, DICK GIORDANO, MARK CHIARELLO and others as they share their hard-learned lessons about the DESIGN of comics!

Verily, ’tis Thor’s 40th year!

In August, we’re celebrating the 40th anniversary of THOR in THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #36! To start things off, there’s two incredible color Kirby Thor covers (inked by MIKE ROYER and TREVOR VON EEDEN)! Inside, JOE SINNOTT and JOHN ROMITA JR. weigh in on their Thor work with new interviews, and we present a never-published 1969 interview with JACK KIRBY, conducted by SHEL DORF! Plus, we’re featuring 40 pages of Kirby Thor pencils, including an amazing Kirby Art Gallery at TABLOID SIZE, with pin-ups, covers, and more!

If you need to contact the TwoMorrows editors (or want to send a letter of comment), try e-mail!

John Morrow, publisher, JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR editor (and the one to go to with subscription problems): twomorrow@aol.com Jon B. Cooke, COMIC BOOK ARTIST editor: jonbcooke@aol.com Roy Thomas, ALTER EGO editor: roydann@ntinet.com P.C. Hamerlinck, FCA editor: fca2001@yahoo.com Mike Manley, DRAW! editor: mike@actionplanet.com And the TWOMORROWS WEB SITE (where you can read excerpts from our back issues, and order from our secure online store) is at: www.twomorrows.com

M AG A ZI N E

Issue #1

August 2002

Read Now! Message from the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 2

Alias: Spider-Man Interview with Brian Michael Bendis . . . . . . . . . . . .page 3

“Who let that #@%#&# artist in here?”

Interview with Mark Bagley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .page 21

Still STAN LEE After All These Years Interview with The Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 32

“But What Does Danny Think?” (Opinion) Why Comics Are Not Movies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .page 38

What Editors (Really) Want Interview with Joe Quesada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .page 42

Confessions of a Male Model Interview with Tom DeFalco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .page 53

The Stand-Up Philosopher Interview with J.M. DeMatteis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .page 66

Write Now! is published 4 times a year by TwoMorrows Publishing, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. Phone: (919) 833-8092. Fax: (919) 833-8023. Danny Fingeroth, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Write Now! E-mail address: WriteNowDF@aol.com. Single issues: $8 Postpaid in the US ($10 Canada, $11 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $20 US ($40 Canada, $44 elsewhere).

Order online at: www.twomorrows.com or e-mail to: twomorrow@aol.com All characters are TM & © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © the respective authors. Editorial package is ©2002 Danny Fingeroth and TwoMorrows Publishing. Write Now! is a shared trademark of Danny Fingeroth and TwoMorrows Publishing.

Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

Conceived & Edited by DANNY FINGEROTH Designer CHRISTOPHER DAY Transcribers DEANNE WALTZ and the LONGBOX.COM STAFF ANDREW SIMPSON Publisher JOHN MORROW COVER Penciled and inked by MARK BAGLEY (Who knew he was a great inker, too?)

Colored by TOM ZIUKO Special Thanks To ALISON BLAIRE ERIC FEIN STEVE KANE MICHAEL KELLY ADAM McGOVERN ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON CHRIS POWELL BEN REILLY JOHN ROBERTS RACHEL SILVERMAN VARDA STEINHARDT WRITE NOW | 1

READ Now! Message from Danny Fingeroth, editor

W

elcome to the premiere edition of Write Now! Magazine. Before we begin, go get the latest draft of your screenplay.

Gotcha!

Admit it. You’ve got a screenplay. Or a comics script. Or a novel in progress.

Everybody wants to be a writer. It’s an American national obsession. But it’s so hard to tell what it takes to be a professional (that is, a paid) writer. And even if you’re a genius, how do you get anyone to recognize your talent?

You can look at an artist’s work and pretty much get a gut feeling if it’s compelling and exciting, even if you can’t say exactly why. Drawing can be full of mistakes, yet still be moving. It’s a combination of factors that make art or craft good or bad. Same with writing—it’s just that the factors are more subtle.

We all write something every day. Birthday cards. Shopping lists. E-mails. Love letters. Complaints to a manufacturer. Most of us can express an idea well enough on paper to be at least somewhat understood. But how do you judge writing for artistic or commercial merit? More specifically, how do you evaluate how well a writer tells a coherent story that establishes beginning, middle, and end, introduces characters and conflicts, resolves everything, and—oh, yeah—tells us something about the human condition? And how do you get someone in a decision-making position to take the time and effort to evaluate your work and give it a yes, no, or even (most maddening of all) a maybe?

There’s no single answer to these questions. But clearly, many people do write stories professionally, with varying levels of success (however you define success). Write Now!’s role is to shed some light on the mysterious process of getting to be a professional, or just getting to be as good as you can be, even if you never want to show your work to anybody outside of the proverbial small circle of friends.

Through interviews with people who write for a living, we hope to show what it takes to be a professional. The people you think of as “overnight sensations” all started like you.

Hopeful, talented, driven. Many of the interviews have a similar format: What’s your background? Why did you decide to become a writer? How’d you make your first sale? Questions like that. The difference in how the subjects answer is what makes each of their stories unique.

Even if you have no desire to be a writer, but just want some insight into the thought processes of people whose work you admire (or despise), Write Now! is full of choice tidbits. We focus on craft and on strategies for developing talent and getting exposure, so we’re not treading the same territory as,

say, our TwoMorrows sister publications Alter Ego or Comic Book Artist. By the same token, WN’s interviewees are storytellers, so there are plenty of anecdotes about their lives and experiences, too. After all, you’re not going to sit in a room with Stan Lee and not ask him about his life.

Write Now! will also be a place for “how-to’s” by such greats as Dennis O’Neil, and a place to read opinions by different writers, such as my own “Movies vs. Comics” essay in this issue. And it will be a place where we discuss different books, movies and other works in ways that we hope will inspire, anger, and teach you about writing—and perhaps about life, too.

WN will also have interviews with, and articles by and about, people who are not primarily known as writers. Editors, publishers, executives, agents, and others are intimately involved with deciding who gets to talk to the public through mass media and who gets to send out e-mails from their basement (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

We’ll also talk with artists (like Mark Bagley in this issue), directors, producers, and other visual artists. Except in the case of prose stories and novels, these visual interpreters are key to a writer’s ideas literally seeing the light of day. Anyone who disregards how they think does so at his or her own peril.

There probably won’t be a lot of discussion of formats and writing software here. There’s no one comics format. Some of the other disciplines do have pretty rigid formats that you can find out about online or at the library. There are several leading screenplay software programs, and they’re all pretty good. As opposed to the playing field of my colleague, former Darkhawk cohort, and Draw! Magazine editor, Mike Manley, there’s not a lot of technical stuff you need to be a writer. An artist can tell you about pencil lead density and pen nibs and brush-hairs. To write, type your stuff neatly, and if there’s no strict format, just make sure what you write is clean and clear and easy to follow.

[I repeat, type everything on a computer or word processor or even (gasp) a typewriter. Only submit handwritten samples if you are already accepted as an eccentric genius in some other field.] Put the pages in order. A staple or clip would also be a good idea. (And, believe it or not, movies and TV scripts have specific ways they’re supposed to be clipped or stapled.) Oh, and putting your NAME and contact info somewhere on your writing would be a good idea, too, so they know where to send the checks. (Write Now! isn’t taking any unsolicited submissions, um, right now, however.)

Read Now! continues on page 37

2 | WRITE NOW

Alias: Spider-Man Interview with

Brian Michael Bendis Interview by Danny Fingeroth on 03/14/02 Copy-edited by Brian Michael Bendis Transcription by Andrew Simpson, Deanne Waltz, and The LongBox.com Staff

B

rian Michael Bendis is, to use an unoriginal but accurate phrase, the hottest writer in comics today. This “overnight sensation” put in close to a decade of hard work before fame and fortune (or Fortune and Glory, as it were) hit.

Starting out with his creator-owned work such as Goldfish, Jinx, and Torso (all of which he both wrote and drew), he developed a strong personal style that ably translated Film Noir to the comics pages. With artist Michael Avon Oeming, Bendis then created the acclaimed super-hero-noir series Powers. The quality of his work and his tenacious dedication to his craft brought him to the attention of Marvel Comics. There, in just a few years, Bendis has spearheaded the successful Ultimate Marvel line, creating and writing comics that reimagine Spider-Man and other classic characters in Marvel’s pantheon for modern audiences, and he’s also used his skills on the adult-oriented Marvel MAX line. Now, besides all that, he’s a producer and writer for the upcoming Sony Spider-Man animated series, which will appear on MTV. Brian took a significant portion of his valuable time to talk to Write Now! about the art, craft and business of writing for comics, film and television.

DANNY FINGEROTH: Let’s start off with your background. I know you had the yeshiva [Jewish day school] background.

BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS: Well, not yeshiva, but I did go to a Hebrew school. I went to the Hebrew Academy in Cleveland for ten years. I went to a private school for Jewish boys, but it wasn’t very orthodox. They wanted us to be but if you weren’t, you didn’t get kicked out or anything. So, we were really rebellious. Me and my best friend would sneak off at lunch time and go and eat barbecued pork at the supermarket. That was our big rebellion. And I was by far the greatest artist anyone in my peer group had ever met.

DF: You were?

BMB: Oh, yeah. Of course I was the only one…

DF: Did you have a bunch of comics-loving friends?

BMB: I was the guy into comics. One thing I am proud of, I didn’t pretend I wasn’t into comics. I was very proudly in comics. I still had a girlfriend.

But my comic fixation made me unique in my peer group. Then I would proudly announce that I

would be writing Spider-Man any day. As soon as Marvel sobered up and figured out the genius that is me, sitting in my bedroom at age fifteen.

DF: Did you ever bother to actually send anything to Marvel?

BMB: I sent stuff all the time and I was like, “Can’t they see?

Don’t they know?” Meanwhile, I sucked. It was terrible. It wasn’t writing submissions, it was drawing.

DF: What year would that have been?

BMB: 1984, 1985 or so.

DF: Those were some of my years.

BMB: Why wouldn’t you hire me? I was the guy who was filling up your desk full of crap and you couldn’t even get to the good stuff because you couldn’t get through the crap.

DF: You were the second choice. After John Romita, Jr. it was going to be you.

BMB: If my name was John Romita Jr-Jr, you would have.

From Ultimate Spider-Man #17. Script by Bendis, pencils by Mark Bagley, inks by Art Thibert. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] BENDIS | 3

From Sam & Twitch #17. Written by Bendis, art by Alex Maleev. [©2002 Todd McFarlane Productions, Inc..]

DF: That’s right, John Romita III. BMB: I was doing this with no training, because it was a Hebrew school that went from 7:30 in the morning to 6:30 at night. There was no chance for art classes while I was there, so I was self-taught.

DF: There were no art classes?

BMB: No art classes. I thought I was the best artist that ever lived and I had no knowledge of anatomy or perspective. So I was quite ready to go. I applied to art school and didn’t get in and was shocked. It was a big eye-opener and over that summer and my junior year I took a lot of art classes at the institute.

DF: In Cleveland?

BMB: Cleveland Institute of Art. I took all kinds of classes and I got my sh*t together pretty quickly. I got into art school and I went to the Institute of Art for five years. All five years. Time well needed.

DF: So you have a master’s?

4 | WRITE NOW

BMB: It’s an MFA; but it’s not really. I didn’t get it because I am short one history class and I had already gotten in comics and the school situation was making me irritable so I just got on with my life. No one has asked to see my diploma so…

DF: Any inspirational teachers there?

BMB: No. All of ’em had a very skewed, horrible view of comics. There was me and a couple of other people in or around my class that wanted to get into comics.

Dave McKean and guys like that were just breaking out on the scene. And our teachers did not see any difference between Bill Sienkiewicz and the guy who draws Andy Capp. I’d become such a pain in the ass about it because it was getting to the point where I was getting better with my comics, but when the semester started, no matter what, I’d have to put all my comic book stuff away. I had no problem learning, I just wanted to apply it to something I wanted to do. It was driving me nuts, so finally I got an independent study, where they go, “Here, just go away. Yeah, it looks great, leave us alone.” So I got independent study around the same time that I started working in a comic book store—which I think every comic book writer or artist should have to do, like a tour of duty. That’s the way to sober you up for the reality of the business.

DF: Can you go into a little more detail on that?

BMB: You get to see the distribution of comics. I don’t think a lot of people understand it and I do know that it certainly helped me when I was starting. Right now, I publish Powers through Image. The knowledge that I had of all this stuff—going to Capital [distributors], putting the boxes in my boss’s car. You get to now how it’s being done on every level and you really get a clear idea of how your book’s marketed to a retailer. People always like talking to the fans. You gotta talk to the retailers, man. They’ve got a lot of information they’ve got to disseminate.

DF: And they’re the ones who actually order.

BMB: The buck stops there. So just knowing all that stuff, and I know it sounds like, “yeah, duh,” but a lot of my friends who are very successful always come up against the wall when they try to publish their own material and they don’t know why. There is just the basic truth of the business you just gotta feel. You’ve got to be in there to feel it.

While I was in independent study I created a comic book as my thesis. I sold it in the stores and it was the first time, outside of my friends and family, I had gotten the work into people’s hands. I created an anthology of material that was anything but super-heroes ’cause the super-hero stuff was going to get sh*t on at school. I just knew it was. So I did an alternative comic book, not even really knowing what one was. I wasn’t reading black-&-white comics but I made one. And I actually thought I had invented something.

DF: That’s the best way.

BMB: Someone goes, “You ever read Cerebus?” “No, what’s that?” So I did my comic and I showed it to people. I got a lot of feedback as part of my thesis and in the feedback, a lot of people said, “You know, Caliber publishes material like this and Fantagraphics publishes material like this,” and I said, “what’s that?” I sent the book out to Fantagraphics and Caliber and a few other places and seven months later to the day, I heard

kind of stories you wanna tell changes. I saw my passion for from Fantagraphics and Caliber. Long story short, I went with true crime stories and crime reporting invigorating me, as much Caliber. I liked the feel of it better and I started writing and if not more so, than super-hero fantasy. And comedy writing, drawing my own stuff. and other kinds of writing instilled in me a sense of great satisDF: You started out as an artist. What made you decide you faction. Then all of the sudden you realize you’re creating an wanted to write your own stuff? alternative comic book, though only in comics is a crime novel BMB: It’s funny, I don’t see a distinction as a storyteller. It’s “alternative.” kind of frustrating or invigorating for some of my collaborators.

DF: How does writing comedy keep you satisfied?

But like, in Alias, I do all the layouts. I don’t know where the BMB: I’m fascinated by it. It’s such an ethereal thing. It’s such writing stops. I was constantly sending submissions in to a thing in the air, like, how do you tell a joke? Studying that is editors, and it became clear that I wasn’t drawing the way that fascinating to me. So there’s all kinds of stuff like that. That it the books were being done. I didn’t know how to do it. Instead, was interesting to me as much as comics but I wanted to I really got into the independent thing. My voice. Instead of make those jokes in comics. waiting around for someone to make me, I’ll just do it myself.

DF: You used the word “reporting.” There’s definitely a journalistic It’s the way my brain works. sense in your work, an attempt at gritty realism, as opposed to DF: Is that something to do with your family, your schooling or guys coming down in spaceships or boring into the center of the just some innate thing? earth.

BMB: I don’t know. I have a lot of friends waiting around for BMB: Exactly. I fell in love with the idea. There’s a certain kind someone to bequeath them. I’m not that guy. I just want to tell of storytelling that people like because it’s so real that people stories; so I’ll just tell stories. And I started writing out of know that it’s right outside their door. And they want to feel it necessity. without having to be involved in it. And I like that. That’s what My mom instilled in us a pretty heavy sense of self-reliance. I writing crime fiction is. don’t mean she abandoned us. She said, “Listen, do it, just do DF: Like a dark side of the everyday world? it smart.” She saw just how crazy in love I was with comics.

BMB: The knowledge that, if you make the wrong turn on the She was happy for me. I’d be freaking out over Judge Dredd highway, something bad might happen. It’s a little different than and the rest of it. And I wanted to do it. I just wanted to fantasizing being on board a spaceship. You really know that if publish stories. When I was a kid, I thought George Pérez was you make the wrong turn on your way to work, something freaky a rock star. There was no difference between George Pérez and could happen. I know what that rush is. It’s double that when Bruce Springsteen to me. I was like, I wanna be a rock star. you’re writing that as opposed to reading it. And there’s nothing What it is, is that feeling you get from reading a comic and I like finding a true story and adapting it into comic book form, wanted to give that feeling. There’s that tactile sensation.

Waiting around for other people to let you do it is a weird thought. Then I started meeting other people at conventions who were doing the same thing and who felt the same way. And those people are still my friends today. I think the Caliber experience of creating every single part of a comic book made me the writer I am today.

DF: Now, in telling the story it sounds like this was “the Brian Bendis master plan”? Was it?

BMB: Oh, no.

DF: How did that evolve? I think that’s the thing that would be interesting to people reading a magazine like this.

BMB: It’s funny. I don’t know how things evolved, but I knew I wanted to be a mainstream comic book artist. And in the college years, you kind of grow up.

There are certain fantasies you have for a story you think you’re going to tell. I had this Punisher story that I would write and draw like fifty times. I must have rewritten and redrawn it fifty times. As soon as it’s ready, I’ll give it to Marvel and they’ll just publish it. And then, over time, you kind of grow up and realize, that’s not how it works.

DF: The fact that you had that one story you wanted to tell fifty times is very interesting. A lot of people would say they have fifty stories they want to tell.

BMB: There were a bunch of stories like that I wanted to tell. What’s funny is that I remember drawing that Punisher story until I got it right. It was never right. Okay, I’ll do it again. This time it will be right. I think a lot of famous comic artists do that, don’t they? What’s funny is, your sensibility of the Peter Parker meets the Fantastic Four in Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #9. Story by Bendis. Art by Jim Mahfood. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] BENDIS | 5

From Fortune And Glory #1, written and drawn by Brian. [©2002 Brian Michael Bendis.]

as with Torso or some of the smaller works that I’ve done. And it kind of humbles you as a writer, because you realize that you can pull stuff out of your ass all day, but there’s nothing more interesting than something that really happened to someone.

That’s three times more imaginative than anything you would have ever thought of. And there is always something true in everything that I write, including Spider-Man, because you can’t beat it. You can’t beat reality.

DF: Now, why comics? Why not novels or movies right away?

BMB: I love comics. It’s weird because I’ve had some success in film, and I would have probably made more money in that than in comics, even though I haven’t made big film money. But little money in film is better than the best money in comics.

DF: Who turned you on to comics?

BMB: I’ve had them in my life ever since I was little. But I do know that, because I was from a divorced family, I know the psychological underpinning of having these people in my life to replace whatever.

DF: That’s why people get hooked on TV shows or whatever else.

But if comics click in your brain at the right age...

BMB: I love comics. It is a pure love of the thing.

DF: You were about six when you started reading them?

BMB: I can’t remember not reading them. I can’t remember not scribbling them. I don’t remember not doing them.

6 | WRITE NOW

DF: I was reading that you hooked up with Mike Gustovich early on.

BMB: When I was finishing high school, and then in college, Mike was there and Mike had actually posted at the college, when I was taking those courses to get my act together, that he was looking for an assistant. And I went, “Oh right, I could be his assistant.” The truth is, I was not good enough to be his assistant. But he was so nice. He would let me come to his house and pick his brain. What I loved about Mike, Mike had the attitude about comics that I admired the most which was his craftsman’s attitude. Which is to say, you know you’ve got a job to do. Mike was teaching me a lot of things that I wasn’t actually getting in college and I would go to my college classes, and I’d say, “Are we supposed to be putting together photo reference files?” And the teacher goes, “Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you guys.” I would have never known that. Mike said nuts and bolts things about comic book creation.

Eventually, I would get to do some assisting for him. First thing I ever got published was filling in his blacks or painting on his stars.

DF: I worked with him a few times way back when. What’s he doing now?

BMB: He was working in advertising in Cleveland. I saw him just before I left Cleveland. I had to look for him because he moved a couple of times and I lost track of him. I was just

dying to give him the big updates. I know he would just be thrilled to bits that I actually got to do comics. He really believed in me.

DF: If you hadn’t found him, it sounds like would have definitely found somebody.

BMB: No, [meeting Mike was] a lucky break. I think there’s a reality to the business that a lot of people don’t appreciate.

And that has helped me make some better business decisions.

Just knowing how the business works, and so on. And I am extremely grateful to Mike. Mike lettered my first comic for me as a favor. ’Cause my lettering sucked so bad that I was never going to see publication.

At age eighteen, I made the bold decision to only make a living as a writer or an artist. If it’s in advertising, greeting cards, making caricatures; as long as I’m writing and drawing for a living I don’t care. So, over the last twelve years, I have done just about everything you can do. That would include thousands and thousands of caricatures—which pays extremely well. Seventy-five bucks an hour. You can do a couple nights a week and you can work on your comic the rest of the week.

DF: Caricatures for what?

BMB: For people. It’s sickening.

DF: You’d sit on the street and do people’s portraits?

BMB: I never did that, ’cause that’s just sitting out in the sun, looking sad. I had an agent and he would get me gigs. I would go to these fancy parties or bar mitzvahs, and I would just sit there and draw the people.

DF: You needed an agent for that?

BMB: More like a talent rep than an agent. More like, “come to Funtastic Entertainment and we’ll get you jugglers and caricaturists.”

DF: And this is all in the Cleveland area?

BMB: The truth of the matter is—and this is the reality of independent comics—I’d won the Eisner Award for best new talent, but four days later I was at someone’s bar mitzvah doing caricatures. As nice as it is that people liked Torso, no one was buying it. I made no money off of it when it was a mini-series. I was fine with that. That was just a reality. You didn’t hear me bitch once. I chose the endeavor. But that’s the “glamour” of it.

DF: At least you got free food at the bar mitzvahs.

BMB: And I got punched at one once. Someone was drunk and didn’t like the way I drew her big nose.

DF: So, maybe caricatures weren’t for you.

BMB: I also worked at the Cleveland Plain Dealer for a couple years. I did a cartoon in their Sunday magazine.

DF: You walked into the Plain Dealer offices and said, “I’d like to show you my samples”?

BMB: I tried for five years and finally caught them on a good day. Anyone who published anything that had offices anywhere near me, I was so up their ass.

DF: Now, what made you stay in Cleveland as opposed to going to New York or Los Angeles?

BMB: Born and raised, had to stay there.

DF: But a lot of people don’t.

BMB: There wasn’t any way to move. Wasn’t an option. By the time it became an option, I’d scrounged up enough ways to make a living, that losing them would have hurt. A magazine would hire me, the Plain Dealer was hiring me—and that was a good paycheck—and I had a talent broker. To start over again would have been too hard.

DF: When one is on the outside looking in, there seems to be an invisible barrier to entry into comics. Is there any advice or any anecdote you can give about the conceptual and real impediments that keep, “amateurs” from becoming “professionals”?

BMB: I guess the reason I’ve no problem talking about how, even though I was in comics, I was still drawing caricatures, is that I think it’s good for people to hear that. I think there are people out there with immense amounts of talent who think that there is something wrong with them. That’s how I felt.

Even in independent comics you think that someone else in independent comics is doing so much better than you. I didn’t know Ed Brubaker when we were both at Caliber but now we know each other. Back then, I’d say, “Screw him.” Or Michael Allred was the focal point of a lot of my frustration with myself.

I know Mike now and I’ve confessed this to him, and I know he doesn’t understand it, but he humored me. And I confessed to him that, because he had yo-yos with his characters on them, and all sorts of other cool stuff, I would focus all my anger at Michael. This faceless person. But I do think it’s good for up and coming people to hear, that it’s a job. It’s a great job if you get it all together but it is a job like all other jobs. And if it looks at all glamorous, well, of all the glamorous jobs on Earth, comic book creation is the lowest.

DF: Lower than radio stardom? Howard Stern says that radio is the lowest rung on the show business ladder.

BMB: My point is, if you want to be in radio and you’re not in radio, it looks like the most glamorous job in the world. If you want to be in comics and you’re not, same thing. For some reason being on the other side of a table at a convention makes this kind of barrier. But it’s not. There’s a very fine line between a reader and a creator in comics. I think a lot of people know that and I think it’s helpful. I wish I would have known that. I think I would have been better off if I’d had a better sense of other people’s lives in comics. I think that’s why knowing Mike Gustovich was so helpful to me, as well as some of the other things you pick up over the years. You learn stuff. I think, either you are going to do it or you’re not going to do it and nothing should deter you. If you have to work a day job it doesn’t mean you can’t draw at night. If you’re going to do it, you should do it and it shouldn’t matter if someone is paying you or not. You should do it just because you have to.

It’s a good-for-the-soul kind of thing. I know it sounds really flaky. People like to pretend they were born famous and talented.

DF: Did you have a personal deadline in terms of, “If I didn’t make it by age blank, I’m going to law school”?

BMB: I didn’t have an “I give up” deadline, but if something didn’t happen by thirty I would’ve been really pissed. The thing is, I look back and I realize that I wasn’t ready. I just wasn’t ready. I didn’t have a voice yet. I was on the right track, but the way I approached it all, a lot of work needed to be done. I had to learn how to pencil and ink and letter to be a better writer and I’m so glad that it came to me when I was in my late twenties/early thirties, as opposed to my early twenties because a lot of people who get it in their early twenties, they’re not fully developed. They might be flashy, but they’re not fully developed, and they’re gone in two years. There are all these guys who were bursting on the scene when I was hoping to be bursting on the scene and they’re all gone. I don’t know where they went. In relative perspective, I’m thrilled with how it all worked out.

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BMB: Cool. When we were doing the Kraven the Hunter story in Ultimate Spider-Man, we were faced with having to try to live up to the greatest Kraven story ever, DeMatteis’ “Kraven’s Last Hunt.”

DF: You pull off a thing that a lot of people try but don’t succeed at, which is overlapping dialogue. It reminded me a lot of the way [director] Robert Altman uses it in his films.

BMB: That is very conscious. Robert Altman, I worship him. I think the present comic creator that comes the closest and is probably my biggest influence in comics is Howard Chaykin. He paved the way for all horny little Jewish men. I’ve gone on record many times by saying, with Alias, with some of the controversy which surrounded its debut, I don’t think there’s anything that Howard Chaykin From “The Young Crumb Story” in American Splendor #4. Written by Harvey Pekar, art by R. Crumb. didn’t do twenty years ago. He was creative. [©2002 Harvey Pekar.]

Reading his work was the first time that I was conscious that someone was trying to create natural dialogue DF: It worked out quite well. as opposed to plot-forwarding dialogue. He would start a scene BMB: I was literally having ramen noodle nightmares, I was so that was already going on. You’d come in in mid-sentence in a hungry. scene in Times Square. And usually that mid-sentence was a DF: It comes up in a lot of your work, the ramen noodles. very important sentence. If you weren’t paying attention, you’d BMB: I know, because it haunts me. be lost. And you’d have to read the thing a couple of times to DF: I have another fill-in-the-blank for you. Talent plus blank get something new out of it. That’s a very big influence on me. equals success, however one defines success.

What I did that I’m proud of is I would go see what influBMB: Luck. I think there’ve been some big breaks that I’ve ences him, and I started looking for my own influences outside had. Right place, right time. It’s all throwing sh*t at the wall. I of comics. A lot of guys in comics, they see something they like was constantly throwing sh*t at the wall. All my life I was in comics and steal it. Instead, what you really ought to do is always throwing sh*t at the wall. Some of it had to stick. You go back to the source. Instead of worshiping Frank Miller why can’t get anywhere not throwing sh*t at the wall. don’t you go back and worship Steranko? Or go back even DF: You can’t be afraid to fail. Changing focus a bit, I’d like to further. People don’t do that and it’s so much fun to do. I heard talk about some of your creative influences. I see a lot of Harvey a quote from Sting, that rock-and-roll is a bastard art form.

Pekar in your work, and not just because he’s a Cleveland native, That there is no one thing that makes rock-and-roll rock-andtoo. roll, that it only really succeeds when somebody makes the BMB: He’s not an influence, but he’s one of the guys in this conscious personal decision to pull something new into it from world who’s made my life very easy. He sort of broke down a outside like jazz, country, or opera. Something vital happens little wall that made my Fortune and Glory not a hard sell. I then. I think comics are the same way. There is no one thing never really considered him a writing influence or anything. that makes a great comic. Each time someone’s gone outside DF: Have you read his stuff? of comics and pulled something into it. For their own reasons, BMB: Yeah. But I read him for the wrong reason. I was a huge something really exciting happens. A lot of artists have done Letterman freak. You ever see him on Letterman? Here’s a that, but not a lot of writers. There’s a kind of writing that good comic. excites me by writers like David Mamet or Richard Price or DF: I remember when I first read his stuff in the ’70s, just mindblowing, unlike anything else.

BMB: I can’t even imagine how cool that must have been.

DF: I see a lot of J.M. DeMatteis’ non-super-hero work in your work. His Brooklyn Dreams, especially.

BMB: What knocked my socks off by him was Blood. I was at a very impressionable age as far as the kind of writing I was going to do. I would say Blood was very influential on me. It was a big eye-opener to me. Frank Miller and Allen Moore are real influences, but there were certain people that came around that surprised me, and Blood was a real surprise.

DF: Did you ever read Brooklyn Dreams?

BMB: Yeah, I did. I liked it a lot.

DF: That influence shows especially in Fortune and Glory.

BMB: It’s funny, I never made the connection. I guess you could see that. That’s an interesting thing. Not consciously, but I could see that. I’m a huge fan of his.

DF: I’m sure he’ll be happy to hear that. He’ll probably be in the same issue of the magazine that you will. [And he is. See the J.M. DeMatteis interview elsewhere in this issue.—DF]

Brian’s cameo in Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #9, story by Brian, art by Jim Mahfood. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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didn’t have words to put them in, and when I saw some of the Woody Allen. They create a naturalistic dialogue and are very people who invented film noir talk about it, it was like a focused on language as a kind of music. I just made a religious experience. I’m very influenced by the work of conscious effort to see if that could be accomplished in cinematographers and I could laundry list them if you wanted comics. That is my personal journey, which won’t end anytime me to. Janusz Kaminski, who’s worked with Spielberg the last soon. That, to me, is the big constant. If I bean my head six or seven years since Schindler’s List. John Alton invented against the wall over anything, it’s about that. the film noir look, all the classic film noir. He invented the DF: I’m impressed that you pull it off. A lot of people try it. Very theory, “don’t be afraid of the black, be afraid of the white.” often I say to myself, this guy thinks he’s writing a screenplay— Gordon Willis, who did the Godfather pictures. Conrad Hall. I but he’s not. He’s writing a comic. Not every cinematic technique could go on, but the important thing is that they have a works in a comic. But you manage to make it work. philosophy. There’s another one. No one will really know this BMB: Thanks. When you see that, they are trying to write a one but his name is Vittorio Storraro. He did a lot of Warren screenplay they either didn’t sell or they’re trying to sell it for Beatty movies. He’s got a philosophy of color theory that we’re the screen to some studio. I think, this goes for everybody, it’s applying heavily to Daredevil right now that I just value tremengot to be a good comic book. People try to make comics to sell to the movies and they’re shocked that it doesn’t work. And it never works. You always see these announcements, even some big names have announced, about some multimedia character they’ve created, and it ends up being successful in no medium. If someone likes your comic, great, good for you, maybe you’ll be able to set it up somewhere. But if you go chasing it, man, it never happens.

The same thing with creativity. Some people who want to be writers don’t want to read anything other than comics. You’ve probably More from Fortune and Glory. [©2002 Brian Michael Bendis.] heard me say this in dously. I believe that Visions of Light is the best documentary other interviews. It always becomes like those clones in on making a comic book I’ve ever seen. All the applications of Michael Keaton’s Multiplicity. His copies are fuzzy. That’s what visual storytelling are in the movie. The cinematographer’s job you get artistically and in writing. Artistically it’s very obvious, is to tell a story visually, and any comic book person should you see it right there, but in writing, writers see it, but a lot of see this and study it. fans, if it’s with a good artist, they don’t notice. As a reader, I DF: Is it rentable or buyable? blank right out when I see something like that.

BMB: I have it on DVD. It’s out. It’s killer. It’s so great to see all DF: I think you bring a fresh perspective. You sort of have the these beautiful images and hear the guys talk about ’em. I best of both worlds. You’re certainly enough of a comics fan to could watch it fifty times. know what came before, but you have these other sensibilities.

DF: Are you a big Raymond Chandler fan?

BMB: I will tell you that I take compliments very badly. So I BMB: I’m a big Raymond Chandler fan. I’m a big Elmore don’t know what to say when you say that. I crave them so Leonard fan. I tend to lean toward people that, like Richard desperately, and then when I get them I don’t know what to do Price, even though I know people like Richard Price lean toward with them.

Raymond Chandler, I kind of like Richard Price more because DF: Don’t worry about it. I’m much the same way. As far as it’s a little more contemporary and a little more lively. I like that creative influences, are there any writers, screenwriters, a little bit more. It’s stuff that excites me to no end. directors—anybody we’ve not touched on?

DF: So now you’ve got your feet in both camps. The indie camp BMB: Martin Scorsese. And an immense number of cinematogand the Marvel big-time camp. Pretty neat accomplishment. raphers that have changed my life. There’s a movie called BMB: I lucked out on the Marvel projects. I’ve been very, very Visions of Light. It’s a documentary made by the American lucky to have Joe Quesada in my life. I always saw myself as a Cinematographers Institute. They made it for themselves and character writer and it was nice that, both Todd [McFarlane] and they released it in theaters and I saw this movie just about the Joe, pretty much at the same time, read my stuff and liked it. time I started doing Goldfish. It changed my life. Because I was Then Joe suggested to Bill [Jemas] that I would be good for working on things in my head, particularly about film noir and I BENDIS | 9

Ashley Wood’s cover to Sam & Twitch Book One: Udaku. [©2002 Todd McFarlane Productions, Inc..]

Ultimate Spider-Man. Talk about luck. My DD script was on Joe’s mind when Bill asked him for writer suggestions.

DF: I’ve had projects approved because the editor needed something to read on his lunch hour.

BMB: So you know that feeling, too. You go, “Wow, that was a big thing. My life will change because of this little thing that just happened.”

DF: So, on Ultimate Spider-Man, you kind of came up with this new take on the Marvel Universe. What are you doing to make sure it doesn’t become a new formula or repetitious? How do you keep yourself on track with that?

BMB: With Spider-Man, you feel like you’re taking a classic like a Shakespeare play and you’re adapting it. The essential stories still hold up because the truths are so honest. When I got the Spider-Man gig and I really examined the character, I realized that if his story were told today, it would totally hold up. The changes we made were not thematic or characterbased, but there’re a lot of different ways you can tell a story.

Obviously there were more pages available to us to tell the story than Stan and Steve had in 1962, so we were able to really flesh Spider-Man’s origin out in a cinematic way—to use the most overused term in comics.

We had more time to spend with the characters. I think the biggest couple of decisions we made were the lack of costume 10 | WRITE NOW

for a few issues and also waiting to kill Uncle Ben for five issues. We understand that Uncle Ben is going to die, and that’s horrible for Peter. There’ve been a couple of scenes with them that build up your anticipation of the horror.

DF: But the themes are timeless.

BMB: The themes, even the wrestling is timeless. Especially today. I was looking at it and going, “Oh, look at this—wrestling is more timely today than it was when Stan wrote it.”

DF: There’s wrestling in all the early Marvels. It’s a motif.

BMB: Stan must have liked wrestling.

DF: Well, it was popular. I remember watching it when I was a kid.

BMB: But I didn’t actually answer your question. You asked me “How do you keep it from being repetitious or formulaic?” The key is, even though you’re adapting a story that someone else wrote, the characters’ new life kinda takes over. They become different characters. And even though they’re going through similar situations, the fact that it’s modern day and the changes you make kind of change the characters. They kind of take over. I guess that’s how it stays fresh. Gwen Stacey almost writes herself. She’s based on someone I know and she always surprises me.

DF: In terms of the format for comics, the traditional pamphlet versus the trade paperback—what are your thoughts on that?

BMB: I have pretty strong opinions on that.

DF: Let’s hear ’em.

BMB: My audience is split right down the middle as far as comics or trades go. We sell just as many trades for Powers as we do single copies. Same thing for Ultimate Spider-Man. Obviously there’s an audience for both, so why should we stop making comics if some people like trades? That seems silly.

Like why release a movie in the theater if half the people like to watch it at home? I don’t care how you read them. I’m very conscious of how much comics cost and I try to cram as much fun, or entertainment or whatever it is I’m selling into the book.

Even in Powers, in the letters columns, just because it’s a couple of pages of letters doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be entertaining. Cram the puppy. I do think of the overall arc and what the trade collection will be like while I’m writing, so I’m conscious of both and happy when people buy either one. It’s funny, ’cause sometimes online I see someone saying, “You know what? I’m only buying this in trade.” And I go, “Well, that’s not an insult. You’re saying it like you’re mad at me. I’m thrilled.”

DF: Well, the paradigm we used to have was the idea that every comic is not only somebody’s first issue of that comic, but maybe the first comic they’ve read, period. Is that still an operative idea, or is that considered passé?

BMB: I am a firm, firm believer in that. Even though I have side stepped it a couple times for the sake of finishing up a story, and that always happens when you get to the last chapter of a story arc, sometimes a sacrifice is made. Bill Jemas gave us the opportunity to put recap pages in Ultimate Spider-Man and now I put them in Daredevil and Alias. I’m not the kind of writer who likes any exposition. It bores me to write, I get annoyed when I’m reading fill-in-the-audience thought balloons.

The only person that was good at it was Frank Miller. In Daredevil he always found an interesting way to tell you how the guy got his powers without sounding like he was telling you.

The recap pages are, I think, a very good thing for the kind of writing that I do. So, I can go here’s the powers, here’s what happened, and now the story continues. I haven’t heard any

complaints in years.

DF: Mark Gruenwald used say that a comic should be a “complete unit of entertainment.” I feel that’s something you do well, that a lot of people don’t. A reader doesn’t want to feel they’ve read a comic, and, “Okay, that was $2.99, and I didn’t even get a chapter. I got a scene.”

BMB: I’m so sensitive to that because I bought a lot of comics. When I buy a comic and I don’t like it, it bums me out.

That’s the worst.

DF: How do you feel about captions and thought balloons as storytelling elements?

BMB: Thought balloons irk me a lot. That’s just a personal choice. Thought balloons can be a really cheap out for actual writing.

DF: You do use first person narrative captions though.

BMB: In Alias and Daredevil. The decision there was that Alias is a character study first and a plot second. So being in her mind, a little goes a long way. That’s another lesson a lot of people don’t get. A little in the mind—that’s enough. And with Daredevil, because his powers are so sensory, there are a lot of clever things to do inside of his head that you can’t do with other characters. Peter Parker we do it with, too, and that’s the classic Stan Lee thing.

DF: But really, doesn’t a thought balloon serve the same purpose? I understand that aesthetically it’s different, but narratively?

BMB: I’m talking about the thought balloons as informing the audience of something plot-wise. That is very cheap. Or when the art doesn’t show it, so you have to tell it. Not a big fan of that.

DF: I’m not advocating doing it badly.

BMB: Oh, I know. I’m just saying it’s cheap unless there’s a damn good reason for it. If there isn’t a damn good reason, then you’re probably cheating. That’s a question as a writer you’re going to have to ask yourself. “Am I lying to myself here?” Something that is important to me is the honesty with your audience and honesty with yourself as a writer. If you’re lying to yourself, you’re not being a good writer and if you’re lying to yourself then you’re lying to your audience and your audience hates being lied to. They know it’s happening, they feel something’s wrong and they start getting pissed. We all just want to be told a story. “My life was lousy today. I’ve got twenty minutes. I want to sit on the can—take me away. I’ll give you my two dollars, just give me something else to think about, and don’t be dishonest with me, I’ve had a bad day. My boss is an idiot, don’t you be one, too.” And, really, that’s the job. It doesn’t get any more difficult than that. And if you’re trying to create a movie property, instead of a comic book, you’re deceiving yourself and you’re deceiving your audience, and that goes back to what we were talking about before.

DF: Something like Spider-Man is a franchise. Do you think someone can sit down and create a franchise, or do you just get lucky?

BMB: You just get lucky. Every franchise that’s ever been created, someone just pulled it out of their ass. I’m not saying that Stan pulled it out of his ass. He wasn’t thinking that when he wrote this. Every movie that’s been made out of a book, same way. The guy wrote a book about his family, he was just trying to get rid of some demons, he wasn’t trying to set up a deal with Scott Rudin. And it never worked.

DF: I enjoy your Spider-Man, Brian, and I enjoy Straczynski’s. But in my mind, I find myself mixing up things that happened in

Compelling, yet clear, recap splash from Alias #2. Story by Brian.

Art by Michael Gaydos. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

each. Is it a problem or challenge for you and for Marvel? Does it remind people that they’re reading fiction, ruin the illusion?

Does it confuse Hollywood producers? Do you think the multiverses will have to merge eventually, or would you rather not deal with this altogether?

BMB: That’s a hell of a question.

DF: I know. It’s probably more like five questions.

BMB: To answer the question on the merging of the multiverses, it isn’t a multiverse. It’s just the two universes. And, really, it’s not even that. It’s just stories about Spider-Man from two different perspectives.

DF: Well, it is, but Marvel has a half-dozen universes, although the main ones are certainly those two.

BMB: People have no problem seeing the difference between the movie Batman and the comic book Batman versus the TV show Batman. They just want to hear a story. They don’t care.

DF: If there are a cartoon, a movie, and a TV show, I think that people understand that those are different worlds. But what if there were two Batman movies out at the same time, with one where Robin was female and one where Robin was male, or something like that?

BMB: Even if there were two different movies out, people wouldn’t care. They could tell the difference. The same thing with the comics. If Ultimate Spider-Man was an online comic instead of a printed comic, there wouldn’t be any question.

Bendis continues on page 14 BENDIS | 11

Michael Avon Oeming's translation of three pages of Brian's script for Powers: Who Killed Retro Girl #1. [©2002 Brian Michael Bendis & Michael Avon Oeming.]

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More from Powers: Who Killed Retro Girl #1. [©2002 Brian Michael Bendis & Michael Avon Oeming.]

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talent. People don’t even know that, when Ultimate Spider-Man was offered to him, his instinct was not do the book because he’d had done so much Spider-Man. He read the scripts and saw that there’s not going to be a whole lot of Spider-Man, but when there is, he said, “Well, what I want to do is every single time we see Spider-Man on panel, I want to see it from an angle I never did before, that I haven’t seen before.” I said, “Man, that’s all I want to hear.” I just got the art from issue #21, just went over it this morning. There’s big fight scene, and I never saw these angles before.

DF: Are you guys going biweekly with Ultimate?

BMB: I think the plan is later in the year to start doing eighteen issues a year. We are ahead, we can handle it. I can’t wait to write them, Mark can’t wait to draw them. I said to him, “You won’t get burned out?” He went, “No, I’m good. I’m in.” I said, “All right, let’s go for it then.”

DF: If you think about it, TV shows are weekly.

BMB: That’s my answer when people give me crap about writing too many books. I write one book a week. If Aaron Sorkin can write one episode a week, I can write a twenty page comic every week.

DF: I want to talk about adapting comics to other media in general and specifically about the new Spidey cartoon and your movie projects. Can you talk about the different needs of other media, and specifically about the new Spidey animated series?

BMB: The eye openers about the different media I covered in Fortune and Glory, where I was overwriting my screenplay of Goldfish. Because comics are novel-like, you From Powers: Who Killed Retro Girl #1, written by Brian, with art by Michael Avon Oeming. can veer off in different directions, and if you want to get [©2002 Brian Michael Bendis & Michael Avon Oeming.] off the “A” story for a while and follow the secondary characters around, you’re welcome to do so if you’re keeping it There would just be different Bendis continued from page 11 interesting. In a movie, you’ve got to move the plot forward. media. And the thing is, just Less is more. I’ve talked about the Goldfish screenplay look at the sales on the books. clocking in at 280 pages for the first draft and getting it down DF: They’re both certainly good books. to 120. Having some pieces of the comic book being lengthy BMB: People aren’t confusing them. I don’t think there’s going diatribes, just two people yelling at each other, you see it in the to be a merging. I just think it’s the interpretation of the movie script as one line. I was feeling my oats with language. character. I think we’ve proven ourselves to be honest in our Sometimes you get carried away. Today I would give it one line. care, in our quest. And I think we’ve shaken off those people I guess the best thing that happened to me as a writer is the who are screaming “New Universe” and “Heroes Reborn.” challenge of adapting my own work. It makes you take a fresh DF: That’s really not the implication I meant. I’m just sort of eye to stuff again. You look at it two months later and say, judging based on my own brain where I’ll be thinking, “I like “Hmmm, that’s an interesting thing I did there, but I shouldn’t Ultimate, I like Amazing, now which book did that thing I’m have done that other thing.” Or you see a better way to do it. recalling happen in? In which one does Aunt May know Peter is DF: It’s remarkable that you’re able to maintain that control over Spidey and in which one doesn’t she?” your work as far as getting to adapt it yourself. Most people BMB: Here’s one thing. I think there will always be something don’t get to write their own adaptations. How did you swing that? that confuses somebody. I think that the two books are very BMB: I had a great passion for film. I knew I wanted to do it. clearly defined. I certainly don’t worry too much about what And you know what, when they want what you have, the best studios might be confused about. I do know that my job was to thing you can do is say no. Once you say no, it shocks the sh*t make sure Marvel had a product that would be easily saleable out of them, and they don’t know what to do. They go, “We to people who saw the movie. Now that I’ve seen the movie, I wanna buy your book, but you can’t write the movie.” I go, “No.” feel very good about that. And Sam Raimi has nice feelings Then they go, “No?” Then I go, “I wanna write it.” They go, “Oh, about Spider-Man as well. It was wild to see, because we were okay.” It’s a little more complicated, but that’s basically what both adapting the same source material for a modern day ends up happening. The only adaptation I haven’t written is audience. So it was cool to see the similarities and the differPowers, because Sony made it clear they’ve had horrible situaences—and we actually had a little talk over that—to see tions with people doing adaptations of their own work. They did someone else have basically the same assignment that you include me as producer and have included me throughout the do, and to see what they do with it. process. I do think that will be the last time I ever do not write DF: Let’s talk art a bit. Mark Bagley has always been a terrific it myself. I could have written it ten times in the amount of artist. I think he’s doing some of his best work ever with you. time it’s taken them to write the first draft. And in the time it BMB: I’m very grateful to Mark. I find him to be a tremendous 14 | WRITE NOW

took me to explain myself to the writers and producers, I could have just done it.

DF: Are all your movie projects based on your own material?

BMB: I tend to lean toward taking the offers based on my own material. Spider-Man, of course, is not based on my material.

We’re very close to closing the deal for me to write Jinx. I’m pretty excited about that. Enough time has gone by with that where I could really carve into that thing. Carve it like a turkey.

DF: Tell me about the upcoming Spidey cartoon series.

BMB: Just yesterday, I was recording, my first ever, recording of my dialogue with real actors speaking the words out loud and acting them. To be honest, I’m still very freaked out about yesterday.

DF: Freaked out good or freaked out bad?

BMB: Good. It went extremely well but it happens very quickly—the casting and the recording. There’s a lot of development time spent on the scripts, and then all of a sudden they say, “We got our cast. We’re recording. Come on in.” Then you’re there and you’re standing in front of a cast. Promises were made to me that it would sound a certain way, that it would sound the way I had hoped. I’m not a big animation fan and I wanted the dialogue to feel theatrical, sort of like real acting was going on and not over-annunciating cartoon acting.

They said that was what they wanted and yesterday was the first day where yes, it’s true that’s what they wanted and that’s what they did. It’s recorded, it’s done, the actors aren’t coming back for a month. I’m like, “Oh, my God they did it.” The actors were all in the same room. A lot of the time they have them all do it separately. If you have them do it together, we can actually get some chemistry between them, hopefully, and it can sound like they’re talking to each other. And dammit, they did it. I was shocked. People promise this stuff all the time, but usually no one does anything.

DF: Have they approved a season’s worth or just a pilot?

BMB: We’re doing a cable season, which is like thirteen episodes. We’ve got the first six laid out pretty good. We have an arc to the series.

DF: And it’s going to be on MTV? BMB: On MTV, night time. It’s not for kids. I think they’re leaning toward “The 10 Spot” time slot. I think that’s what they call it. I don’t have any say in that.

DF: Are you writing all the episodes?

BMB: No, that’s not how it works. I’m one of the executive producers. Me and the story editor concocted the episodes. I pick the ones I really, really want to write.

DF: Who is the story editor?

BMB: Her name is Marsha Griffin. I’m the guy who knows nothing about animation, and she knows everything about animation. So we, with the other executives from Marvel and Sony, put together the arc of the series. I wrote the pilot, I’m writing the third episode, and it’s kind of a reactionary episode to the pilot. It’s a very not Saturday morning show. It’s not super-villain of the week.

DF: It’s not Spawn either, I would imagine?

BMB: No. First off, it’s on regular television. There isn’t a bunch of swearing and so on. It takes place chronologically after the event in the movie.

DF: Peter’s in high school or college?

BMB: He’s in college and trying to balance his life. There will be some similarities to the Ultimate Spider-Man comic in the ongoing process of trying to keep the balance, which is the great Spider-Man story. “With great powers must come great responsibility” is the theme of the show, and he must live up to it.

The cast was made up of my first choices from all the auditions. We have a great Spider-Man, Neil Patrick Harris who was Doogie Howser. He is the perfect Spider-Man, he’s just really exceptional. I was freaked out. Do I sound freaked out?

I’m just rambling.

DF: You sound pretty calm. So, living in Portland, you’re just a hop, skip, and a jump to LA. BMB: That was great. As soon as it was over, I got the hell out of there. When I lived in Cleveland, the few times I did have to come out, that’s a big trip and a long ride home. It’s nice now—car to the airport and then back home. You can go home with your soul intact, is what I say.

DF: Sounds good to me. Is there anything else you want to say about the show?

BMB: It’s still being animated. It’s exciting because it doesn’t look like anything else I’ve seen on television. It’s the first thing I’ve ever had produced. With my screenplays, I don’t know

Bendis continues on page 18

From Daredevil, v. 2, issue #26. Story by Brian, art by Alex Maleev. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] BENDIS | 15

From the classic Daredevil, v. 1, #171, written and penciled by Frank Miller, one of Brian's idols. Since Miller was both writer and penciler, he lettered in the script on the art boards, allowing him to see just how the size and shape of his balloons and captions would affect the finished story. Klaus Janson's inks highlight the mood set by the script and pencils. [There'll be much insight on the thought process involved when the same person writes and draw in the next issue of DFWN, when we talk with Savage Dragon and Spider-Man writer-artist Erik Larsen.] [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

16 | WRITE NOW

More Miller-Janson magic from DD, v1, #171. The nine-panel grid compresses the action dynamically.

Notice how the lettering is an important part of the page's design. Master letterer Joe Rosen captures the look and feel of Miller's own lettering, and subtly adds his own flair, while keeping the text crisp and legible.

And thought balloons give the reader novel-style insights into characters' minds. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

BENDIS | 17

Bendis continued from page 15

DF: Do you do the exercises every day, or just when you if they’ve ever been read by feel like you need a jump the people who’ve bought start? them. [The money I was paid BMB: If I feel like I’m not for them let me get] rid of my feeling it. I’m usually excited student loans that I thought to work on whatever I’m I’d have till I was 80 or 90 going to work on that day. years old. As I had come to Another thing I do that’s a big terms with the fact that I part of my writing is I’m a would just do independent bike rider. In fact, I just got comics and draw my home from my bike ride. I characters all day, I had also spend two or three hours on come to terms with the fact I a bike, riding all over town. In could write a screenplay every fact I don’t even have a year and no one would read driver’s license. I’m just it. It’s nice that a project of riding my bike. Hours are mine is actually in production. spent blowing through the air.

DF: Have you written plays?

Any writing problem, whatever BMB: My love is playwriting. the solution, whatever plot That’s the stuff I try to pull in. needed crafting, by the time I People talking to each other get home, it’s crafted better instead of at each other. I than anything I could ever haven’t tried to sell my plays. hope for. I know it’s an I actually do them as essential part of my writing. exercises for the comics.

DF: Any books or courses you DF: Do you have other writing recommend? I know you’ve exercises? Do you keep a mentioned David Mamet. journal?

BMB: There’s a book called BMB: I don’t keep a journal. I Story by Robert McKee. have many writing exercises. I DF: Have you taken his love writing. Drawing was very course? laborious and is still very hard BMB: I have not taken it. My for me to get what’s in my wife bought the course for head on paper. I love to do it, me. I have not been able to but it’s very difficult. Mike get there. I will hopefully get Mignola has said that Jim Lee Bendis and Mark Bagley combine their skills to create powerful, intimate scenes, to take it sometime. can whip out drawings and such as this one from Ultimate Spider-Man #22. Inks by Art Thibert.

DF: It’s worth taking. I think I have a party, but for Mike, it’s [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] was the first person in comics very hard. That’s me. It’s very to take it. hard. Writing is very exciting. I give myself things to do to explore BMB: Cool. I’m absolutely going to take it. The only reason I certain things about the character. This is a lesson I learned recommend Story, There’s certainly many, many other books on from John Totleben, who was someone I knew when I was young. writing, and they’re all terrible. First of all, they’re boring to read He did sculptures, his Swamp Thing sculptures, and that’s how and I just wonder, “If you’re such a good writer, then why can’t he’d figure out how a painting of Swamp Thing should look. He you entertain me right here? Why are you boring me?” McKee’s would literally craft each leaf that went on Swamp Thing’s body. book is interesting and it puts into words that you think, but He was doing that to get sort of a sense of the character. What don’t know what the words for it are. It was one of those things I’ll do is, I’ll take two characters and put them in a room and where I read it and went, “Oh, yeah! That’s right! That’s what start typing. There’s nothing going on. They don’t know each it’s called!” We’ve all grown up with the three-act story other. Eventually, one of them will start to annoy the other one. structure.

You’ll start writing and the conversation will happen.

DF: I think it’s biological. I think it’s in humans.

DF: Two characters like Spider-Man and Mary Jane or two BMB: It was fascinating to me before I knew what structure characters you pull out of thin air? was. I had written and entire graphic novel that was very close BMB: Either way. It’s an exercise that sometimes will become to complete in structure just based on instinct. That’s very Peter. If you want to know what Peter and Mary Jane will do in fascinating to me. I’m not patting myself on the back. I’m a room, then put them in a room. Write it. Don’t worry about shocked. the plot. You just write it and they’ll surprise you and it DF: Mamet, do you still recommend his book? surprises yourself. It’s also good to write not for money. You BMB: I’m still recommending his On Directing Film. It’s an kind of feel like you’re painting. You’re just slopping stuff excellent book. around and see what happens. My best stuff in mainstream [Going back to McKee] …there’s a movie coming out called comics and independent comics is when I’m writing like that.

Adaptation with Spike Jonze as the director. It’s written by the Even when Doc Ock is fighting Spider-Man, you’re feeling good. guy that wrote Being John Malkovich. [Charlie Kaufman.] It’s It should feel good. It shouldn’t feel like you’re pulling teeth.

18 | WRITE NOW

day? Are you torturing an about a screenwriter being editor? Is that what you are hired to adapt something. doing today? If you’re And he’s got to figure out supposed be writing, then how to adapt it. McKee is in write. Damn it, you get to it. It’s the craziest thing I write, man. I worked at ever read in my life. The McDonald’s for a summer main character spends the and at the end of the first half of the movie trying summer my manager put his to figure out how he’s going hand on my shoulder and to kill Robert McKee. He said, “Brian, you will always ends up in McKee’s place have a place here.” And I and McKee and him go and know he meant it as a good have a drink. It’s really thing. But every time I pass bizarre and hilarious. You’ll by a McDonald’s, I always love it. If you’ve been to his go, “There’s a place for me thing, you’ll love it. there,” and, boy, if that DF: Any suggested reading in doesn’t get you writing—! general? What are you DF: That’s the scariest story reading now? What are you I’ve heard in my life. Any tips embarrassed to be reading on breaking in, networking now? What have you read with other writers and artists, that’s inspirational in general, or with editors? Any advice on work-wise, life-wise? convention attendance, that BMB: The embarrassing sort of thing? thing I’m reading, but not BMB: I am online and embarrassed I’m reading it— available to talk to [online] it just sounds so silly—I’m at and there’s a lot of people the tail end of Steve Martin’s asking for advice. Clearly Shop Girl. It’s the most from this part of the Oprahish thing I’ll every interview, I am the last come near. It’s just person you should ask how wonderful. Just a wonderful to break into mainstream little novelette. I’m reading it comics because, good lord, thinking that I’ve never read it took me nine years. You a book that came anywhere think I’m the guy to ask? near this. My favorite book is And when I got in, it was half [Richard Price’s] Clockers.

Brian and Alex Maleev’s work in Daredevil, v. 2, #28, the “‘Nuff Said” silent issue. ass backwards, I’m freaking out on Nick [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] DF: But you did get in.

Hornby. You know what else BMB: The only advice, and this is business advice for the I’m freaking out about? This playwright who’s also a screenbusiness end of it, you’ve got to take off your creator’s hat and writer now. His name is Kenneth Lonergan. put on your businessman’s hat or publisher’s hat and you’ve DF: He wrote the movie You Can Count on Me. got to figure a way to market yourself, apart from what you are BMB: He’s got a couple of plays. He’s written some movies, creating. Like, when I was doing Jinx, I would have to write and too. But, man, can he write. Chills down my spine. If you go to draw Jinx as pure of heart as I possibly could and then after a good book store, he’s got two plays, one of which they’re that I had to take off the creator’s hat and talk to people as if I reviving with a big cast and I just love it, love it, love it. wasn’t the one who created it.

DF: You don’t sound like a guy who’s ever had writer’s block.

DF: Was that hard for you to learn to do, or was it something BMB: I keep my rainy day notebooks for the inevitable writer’s that came naturally? block. I have my little storage chest in case I freak out. There BMB: It’s just a necessity. I have no budget for marketing or were so many obstacles in my way for so long that having the advertising [my independent work]. You’ve got to get up and go opportunities that I do have now, it’s like a floodgate’s opened. to conventions. You’ve got to sell. You’ve got to become a You know, while I was doing Torso, I had to draw and letter it, name. You’ve got to become a face, even if you just want to do and though I was working just as many hours a day as I do mainstream comics or don’t want to take the dive into now, I was only writing for a little part of that time. Now all that publishing your own comic. You have to have a certain type of time is being spent writing. I’m way ahead on everything, so personality to gear up for that kind of abuse. With selfthat means that whatever I’m in the mood to write, I can write. publishing, everything’s against you. The system of distribution, If I wake up in a Daredevil mood, I’ll be in a Daredevil mood, no the system of markets—it’s all backwards. If you want to fight one needs something else tomorrow. That’s always the best upstream, that’s a good fight, but you’ve got to be a certain writing, when I’m not cranking for a deadline. kind of person for that.

DF: That’s an admirable, professional attitude.

DF: You’re clearly an extroverted person. Were you always, or did BMB: Thanks. But if you are an artist or a writer and you’re not you have to train yourself to be? writing or drawing, then what are you? What are you doing all BENDIS | 19

The Hulk and Spidey from the Bendis-written Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #3 (art by Phil Hester & Ande Parks).

The Thing from Brian’s UMTU #9 (art by Jim Mahfood). [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.

BMB: I’m only extroverted for stuff like this interview, I will now not talk for a day.

I’ve heard interviews where people were boring, so I see that I have to be a little extroverted right now.

DF: And I imagine you also do it at conventions and when you have to sell yourself to editors and producers. Is that a self-training process?

BMB: You train yourself to be like this, so I’m now acting like a guy who is selling. But I’m not talking when I’m writing. I’m very, very quiet. Most writers have to spend a great deal of the time listening.

DF: Do you read your dialogue out loud?

BMB: Yes, but now [since the animation recording sessions] I’m spoiled and I will have to hire actors. That was a big eyeopener too. I’ll have to buy a troupe. I’ll have to have Bill Jemas buy me a troupe.

DF: That’s something Marvel will be happy to shell out for, I’m sure. Not counting the money, do you enjoy equally doing the mainstream, work-for-hire stuff and the personal, creator-owned stuff?

BMB: None of this is about money for me. I did it for nine years for no money, so I know clearly it’s not about money for me. I know I love working on these characters for Marvel. I love the opportunities that Marvel has given me, because they are opportunities that, when I was little, I would literally sit in bed and wish for. If I could only write Daredevil and Spider-Man, that would be cool. There’s that, and then there’s the tactile sensation of owning characters and having the freedom that gives you. It’s funny, because there’s me, and a couple of other guys, like David Mack, who got into mainstream comics based on our creator-owned work. We’re supposed to bring it all and I think I actually treat Spider-Man and Daredevil the same as if I owned them. I kind of trick myself into thinking that I own them. I think that my job is to give it everything that I have and I know what that feels like because I do it with my own stuff, so I have to match that feeling.

DF: So it sounds like both personal and mainstream nourish your brain and your soul.

BMB: I’ve been taking a hard long look at what I’m doing because I never intended on being one of those guys about who people say, “Look how much he can write!” That’s not one 20 | WRITE NOW

of my goals, to be one of those guys. I can look at what I’m doing, and each project gives me the opportunity to do something else. Daredevil and Spider-Man couldn’t be more different as books and as far as what can be accomplished with them and what my goals are for them. The same thing with Alias and Powers. There are just different sides of me and different sides of what I want to accomplish. My personal goals are so much more than what anyone is expecting from me.

DF: Anything else you want to say in the realm of advice or guidance for aspiring writers or to people interested in the craft?

BMB: I said this in the intro to the Powers script book. One of the choices you make is whose advice you take and whose advice you don’t take, whose philosophy you think applies to you and whose doesn’t. There are no rules, and what you have to do is clearly decide what it is that you want to accomplish and what kind of writer you want to be and make those decisions for yourself. There’s no one right way to do everything.

There’s no surefire way to make it to the top.

There’s no map and there’s no saying, “If I take this class and apply for this job and I do this right, then I’ll be the president of Marvel Comics.” That’s not how it works.

You’ve just got to make choices, and the hardest are the career choices, like what gig to take and what gig not to take.

Those are very hard choices and they never get easier.

DF: And you never know which chance meeting is going to lead to some big, exciting project and which supposed surefire thing is never going to take off.

BMB: You’ll never get anywhere not writing. So you’re playing video games and drinking beer, someone else has just written your ass off. Do you want to be remembered for your video game playing, or to be remembered for how well you wrote, and how you brought something interesting into the world.

DF: Exactly. Anything to plug coming up?

BMB: Around San Diego time, I think, we have some awesome collections coming out. We have the first Alias hardback. It collects nine issues. I’m extremely proud of Alias and I’m extremely happy about the hardbacks because I love them and I buy them, and now this one I don’t have to buy because maybe Marvel will give me one.

DF: Maybe even two if you ask nicely.

BMB: And what I’m doing in Daredevil is a big, big story I hope people check out. I’m attempting the impossible with Daredevil, which is to do something post-Miller that rocks the book.

DF: That’s a lofty aim.

BMB: I’m aiming high because I think that book deserves the best that someone can bring to it.

DF: Cool. My last question—and you can answer for the Ultimate or regular Marvel Universe—who’s stronger: the Thing or the Hulk?

BMB: I’ve prided myself on never answering questions like that, and I’ll tell you why. Questions like that are why God invented the Internet.

DF: Makes sense to me. Thanks for your time, Brian.

BMB: My pleasure, Danny, and good luck with Write Now!

THE END

“Who let that #@%#&# artist in here?”

Interview with

Mark Bagley Interview by Danny Fingeroth on 3/21/01 Edited by Danny Fingeroth Copy-edited by Mark Bagley

M

ark Bagley has drawn comics written by four of the writers profiled in this issue: Stan Lee, Brian Bendis, J.M. DeMatteis, and Tom DeFalco. Heck, he’s even drawn a few stories I wrote. He won the Marvel Tryout Contest, drew most of the first 25 issues of The New Warriors (with writer Fabian Nicieza), and many issues of Amazing SpiderMan (with David Michelinie, DeMatteis and DeFalco). From there, Mark went on to Thunderbolts (with Kurt Busiek and then with Fabian), and today is riding the crest of popularity and hipness as the artist of the Brian Bendis written Ultimate Spider-Man. With a dance card like that, we figured Mark would be a perfect guy to talk about what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a writer’s plot and script. What does he look for in a plot, in a writer, and in comics in general? His insights will be an eye-opener for writers and fellow artists alike.

fraternal. He doesn’t draw, doesn’t read much, he’s never been married. I’ve been married 22 years.

DF: Did your parents, your family, encourage your work, your art or discourage it?

MB: They were concerned about it because I was so focused on it. I had wanted to do comics since I was a little, little kid. I was so focused on it that I let a lot of things go by the wayside. They were worried about my development.

DF: But they didn’t discourage the art?

MB: You know, they would get me some art lessons and that sort of thing. Dad was just concerned about my overall stability.

I love my dad, he’s a great guy, but he didn’t get comics. We’d fight about how much money I’d spend on them. I would be “Hey! You play golf. How much does golf cost every year?

Come on, come on!” And he didn’t really have an argument from then on.

DF: Did you have anybody, friends or family who were into drawing, who encouraged you?

MB: I was never a member of a comics community or anything like that. Everybody knew me because I had five brothers who were all jocks and I was one of the best artists in the school and that’s got its own weird little notoriety in school. If they wanted a mural painted, it was either me or a guy named Mark Chapman, who was a lot more talented than I ever thought

DANNY FINGEROTH: I’m here with Mark Bagley, the world famous artist on Ultimate Spider-Man as well as, of course, Amazing Spider-Man, New Warriors and Thunderbolts, and the unforgettable, “What if Spider-Man Had Been Possessed by His Alien Costume”?

MARK BAGLEY: Which was written by Danny Fingeroth.

DF: Well, yeah, I didn’t want to mention that.

MB: Yeah, you wanted me to. [laughter] DF: Let me start off the official interview here to get some idea of your background. What did your folks do Mark?

MB: My mother was a housewife with seven kids, you know, a good Catholic family. My dad was in the Army Corps of Engineers. He was an officer. I’m officially an Army brat. I was born in Frankfort, Germany and lived in Hawaii, Japan, Florida a couple of times, Ohio a couple of times. You know, just staying one step ahead of the mortgage guy.

DF: Where did you fit in there?

Oldest, youngest, middle?

MB: I’m the second oldest. I have a twin brother, very Ultimate Spider-Man #22 with words by Brian Bendis, pencils by Mark Bagley, and inks by Art Thibert. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

BAGLEY | 21

the school was having some real staff about being. problems. Within about three months I There were one or two others who, if realized that the school was falling something needed doing in the school, a apart. It has since recovered, and it’s banner or mural or something or other, going strong today. I basically got they would come to us or we would all my money back, including the work together on it, that sort of deposit on the dorm, and went to thing. the Ringling School of Art. The Mark was a heckuva lot more Ringling Brothers started it talented than I am. The last because they were patrons of time I saw him, he was the arts. It was a total fine selling furniture. So, we can arts school, at the time. Very talk about discipline and little graphics or commercial sticking to it and that sort of art. So, I just took fine arts, thing. because I really wanted to learn DF: Your parents got you some to draw as well as I could. art classes, you said?

DF: You didn’t take cartooning? Just MB: Every now and then I’d took fine art, painting and so on? sign up for some summer art MB: It wasn’t like the Kubert School. You courses and I took all the art couldn’t take comic book art courses. I just I could in school. They give us took drawing and painting and I took precious little art in schools sculpting. these days, but back then, they DF: Did being in the Army affect your attitude were actually fairly well-funded. toward work and career?

Especially in high school, I had a Spidey and Puma have it out in this detail from the MB: My dad, I think had more to do with us really influential teacher who was cover of Amazing Spider-Man #395 by Mark and learning discipline, that when you got a job, funny as hell and weird as hell. Mr. Larry Mahlstedt. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] you get it done and do it right, that sort of Daniels. He cared about you a lot. thing. I picked a lot of this up from comics, the whole idea of He was a good guy. “with great power comes great responsibility,” that sort of DF: Did he encourage your comics stuff? thing. The idea that, you’ve got a goal, you reach for it. You MB: He didn’t quite understand it. But he encouraged drawing don’t step on somebody while you’re going for it and that sort and encouraged art and anything that was really motivating any of thing. I always had a plan of, “This is what I want to do and kid that wasn’t giving him a hard time in class. If you were into this is how I want to do it.” art and that sort of stuff, he was there for you. You know, DF: Cool. teachers take so much crap from students, especially those MB: But when I got out of art school, I had the typical story. who were, you know, not interested.

It’s tough to find work in the art field, and I had few other DF: Well, to have someone like you who was interested must skills. Most of my brothers-in-law are carpenters and that sort have been great for him. of thing, so I banged nails with them for two or three years. I MB: Those few, he would really enjoy and go all out for. think every art student, everybody who has a dream of doing DF: Now, after high school, what was your education? something, should spend a year banging nails in the MB: I went just shy of three years to the Ringling School of Art summertime in Georgia and thinking that’s what they’re going in Sarasota, Florida. I joined the Army when I got out of high to be doing for the rest of their lives. Just to teach them, “Hey school so I could afford art school. I was in the army for three if you’re lucky enough to get a job you love or even a job you years and had top secret clearance and all that good stuff. I like, don’t pee it away.” ended up in a top secret compound, doing slide shows and DF: What stands out in your memory as far as cultural influthings like that for generals. ences on you?

DF: So, even in the army, you’re still “the art guy”?

MB: For me, growing up, all I read was science-fiction. I illusMB: For graphics, yeah. My training was Cryptological Traffic trated the Tarzan novels and Edgar Rice Burrow Mars novels. I Analyst, but I couldn’t do that in the States, so for a year-and-awas always illustrating. I never really felt like an artist, I felt like half, at Ft. Bragg, I was basically doing slide shows and things.

I loved telling stories visually.

DF: What is Cryptological Traffic Analysis?

DF: What do you mean “illustrated”?

MB: Basically I would take either voice or code intercept. And MB: I would do five or six pages of panel by panel breakdowns my job was to break it down for any military— of stories, illustrating them. Or I would do spot illustrations like DF: Code intercept from who? From what?

Roy Krenkel or Al Williamson used to do.

MB: Chinese, Koreans, Russians at that time. Like I said, I had DF: At what age were you doing this? top secret clearance. When I was stationed at Ft. Bragg, they MB: Twelve, fourteen years old. found out I was an artist, and they’re like, “Okay, you can work DF: Nobody suggested it, you just decided to do it out of the with this one guy in this office here.” And we did top secret blue? briefings and things like that. Like I said, I did the army stint so MB: I was always drawing.

I could afford art school. After the army, I moved to Atlanta and DF: Any TV shows or movies influence you? started at the Art Institute of Atlanta, which is part of a chain MB: Not really. I hated the Batman TV show. I hated the Hulk of art schools. I paid my tuition, and I never took a dime from TV show. I hated the Spider-Man TV show. A couple of the my parents after I left the house, which was kind of nice. But 22 | WRITE NOW

cartoons were okay. The Spider-Man cartoon show with the Ralph Bakshi stuff, the first season was decent, and the second season was an acid trip nightmare and I was thirteen.

It was weird. I don’t think anything I watched on TV changed me as a person. Although, I did cry at the end of “Brian’s Song.”

I’d get up early on Saturday morning and watch cartoons, the old Gladiator movies, if they re-showed them, dubbed real badly. Those were the closest to super-hero movies that we’d ever gotten, so I thought those were kind of cool.

DF: And did you write your own stuff then, or did you work with friends who were writers to do a complete comic?

MB: When I was a kid, I would write my own stuff. It started off with just ten pages of fight, and then when I started finally writing my stories, it was “borrowed,” shall I say, heavily, from Marvel Comics, that sort of thing.

DF: But you did do your own writing at one point?

MB: Yeah. I had characters with really creative names like the Defender and the Night Stalker and maybe that was when I realized, “You know, I don’t think I want to write full time.” I started writing them just as a way to draw, to have things to draw and to draw different things.

DF: And this was at what age?

MB: I started doing this when I was like probably thirteen or fourteen.

DF: Did you ever hook up with a writer or was it always your own stuff?

MB: It was basically just my own stuff. And like I said, in the service, I hooked up with this guy Jay King and couple of other guys and we actually wrote a Batman meets Spider-Man story.

We turned out like 35 pages. Spider-Man has to fly to Gotham City because somebody’s climbing walls and killing people.

DF: So, from a very early age you knew you wanted to make a living at comics.

MB: A little kid picks up a comic book and reads it for the first time, or he looks at the pictures and thinks, “This stuff comes out of the air.” Nobody thinks of people sitting down and doing this. For whatever reason, I always did think that, “Somebody had to be doing this and, boy, I’d love to be one of those guys.”

From age nine, as I remember it, I wanted to do comics. The first comic book I ever remember getting was, while we were on a west coast/east coast road trip in the middle of the summertime, my dad and me and two or three of my brothers.

My mother had flown with the younger kids. And we pulled into this store, it was in the southwest someplace, 100 degrees, no air conditioning in the car. We got warm Dr. Peppers, and the store had a comic book rack and Dad bought us a couple of comic books. The first one I read was a Superboy comic where there’s a dragon from Krypton. I remember reading it, thinking, “This is really cool.”

DF: That’s when it dawned on you that people made these things?

MB: That’s how I remember it now. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know.

DF: Your big break was the Marvel Tryout Contest?

MB: Yeah. I was 27. I was working at Lockheed. I had a daughter and a house. I was doing technical illustration for Lockheed. At that stage, I was new at it, and was basically taking black-&-white photographs of aircraft engine parts and exploding them out. Meaning, if there was a nut that goes into a washer that goes into a into a lock spring, I would “explode out” the parts for a technical manual, so guys look and it and go, “Oh, yeah, that’s how that goes together.”

DF: How did you get the Lockheed job? Did you just show them that you could draw?

MB: My sister-in-law worked for Lockheed and said, “You ought to apply.” I was banging nails for a living and my back was killing me. I had fallen a couple of times, I could barely bend over with a tool belt around me. I would come home and go, “What the hell am I gonna do?” I wasn’t getting anywhere in comics. My wife swears I was working every night practicing. I don’t think it was that extreme. At this point I didn’t yet have a daughter. She was born the same year, or the year after, I started working at Lockheed. So, I just applied for the job and they had this little test: draw a circle, draw an ellipse, draw something very simple. I had never done anything like this before, and my sister-in-law walked me through it once and I practiced it for like ten minutes, “Oh, yeah. I’m ready.” It’s really an entry level draftsman-type job. Now that work’s all done on computers I was working at Lockheed trying to get in, and Marvel came out with a Tryout Book.

I was 27 years old and getting kind of burnt out on trying to break into comics, and I swore that I wasn’t gonna be one of these 35 year old guys with a ten-year-old portfolio, walking around conventions going, “Would you look at my stuff?” If it wasn’t going to happen, it wasn’t going to happen. I wanted to have a social life. There wouldn’t have been any bitterness about it. The comics store I go to was owned by a friend of

Gotham’s protector and Flushing’s web dude, by Bagley and Mark Farmer.

Story by J.M. DeMatteis. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc. and DC Comics] BAGLEY | 23

Mark’s first rush of fame came with The New Warriors, here at the mercy of their greatest foe, The Sphinx. Inks by Randy Emberlin. Story by Fabian Nicieza. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

mine named Cliff Biggers. He publishes the Comic Shop News. And Marvel came out with the Tryout Book, which cost 20 bucks, which was a lot of money at the time, and I said, “I’m not gonna buy it, it’s a gimmick. It’s just Marvel taking money from the little kids.” And Cliff said, “Look if you don’t do this, you’re gonna hate yourself.” And he gave it to me. I won first place. It got me a trip to New York, and I met all the Marvel editors and I got thrown out of all their offices. The last editor I saw on the last day, Mike Higgins, with the New Universe line, was desperate to get people to work on that fading imprint. It got me part-time work. I worked for a yearand-a-half part time, living on about four hours of sleep a night. I started drinking coffee. About that time, Lockheed was laying off, and I got laid off.

DF: The job that that Higgins gave you, what was that?

MB: I did a couple of issues of Nightmask. It’s a teenage kid who goes into other people’s dreams. Roy Thomas was writing it. For a year-and-a-half, I did New Universe stuff, and then I got shot at Visionaries, a toy tie-in. It was supposed to be an ongoing series, but it didn’t last very long. But before it was cancelled, I got an opportunity to do a Strikeforce: Moritori fillin. I was halfway through issue #7 of Visionaries, and they said, “Oh, we’re canceling the book.” Carl Potts had called me the next day, or the day before they cancelled Visionaries, 24 | WRITE NOW

saying, “We need someone full time on Strikeforce. You wanna take it over?” So, I did the last eight pages of Visionaries overnight and then I took over Strikeforce: Moritori.

DF: And then I inherited Strikeforce and also gave you a shot at New Warriors. You’d also drawn two stories I had written. You drew a What If story I wrote, and you also drew a Justice story that never got printed.

Do you think you would’ve made it anyway if it hadn’t been for the Tryout Book?

MB: No. DF: Wow. MB: I didn’t know anybody.

DF: You knew Cliff. He must have known a lot of people.

MB: At the time, I don’t think Cliff was connected like he is now.

I was just getting tired of trying.

DF: What was Plan B if you hadn’t gone into comics?

MB: At the time I thought my job at Lockheed was pretty solid.

Plan B would be, work at Lockheed, raise my kid and take up some hobbies.

DF: Is there any similar thing to the tryout contest today?

MB: Marvel redid the Tryout Contest recently.

DF: Aside from that, is there anything like that, or is that pretty much a once-in-a-lifetime thing?

MB: I think it’s a once in a lifetime sort of thing. For a while it was much easier to break in, because there was so much work out there. And now it’s back to where there’s not nearly as much work, so it’s a bit tougher to break in. But they’re always looking for new talent. I think it’s easier if you can move to the New York area, move, at one point, to the Chicago area to get to know people. I was bound and determined not to do that.

DF: Chicago? For what company?

MB: First Comics. And there were a couple of other, smaller companies out of Chicago also.

DF: In terms of translating someone else’s ideas into pictures, was that exciting, off-putting, scary, challenging?

MB: Kind of all of the above. Not too scary, because I’d been working at it for so long.

DF: But it sounds like for a long time you did your own stories.

MB: Yeah. In the Army it was more of a collaborative thing, we all just kind of worked together on our stories, noodled them out. It was good practice. One thing about comics is that it is a collaborative thing, and you need to learn how to work with people on stories, have some give and take. Something else I was doing that I didn’t mention before, I had started, I was eighteen or twenty, when Marvel was putting out some paperback short stories and novels, I would take a couple of those and actually turn them into comic books. The one I did the most of was this Ultron story that had to do with the Avengers. I did the entire story. I did 40 or 50 pages of art.

The cool thing was, years later, they actually did a comic book version. George Pérez drew it. My drawing wasn’t nearly as accomplished as his, by any means. But my storytelling was very similar. Different angles here and there, but roughly very similar panel breakdown. And that was kind of cool. It gave me the idea that “Maybe I’m heading in the right direction.”

DF: Who were your big influences?

MB: Well, as comic artists I think the two biggest influences on me were Gil Kane and John Buscema. Later on, it was Neal Adams and I had a big Jim Starlin phase for a while.

DF: How about outside comics? Who were your influences?

MB: Andrew Wyeth, some of the other illustrators who I’m

drawing a blank on right now.

DF: Sounds like movies weren’t a big influence.

MB: Not too much. I never really equated the two that closely together. The director of a movie’s got so much more time to play with, actual moments of time, than a comics artist or writer does. Comics have to just highlight the key moments in a scene.

DF: That sounds like storyboards.

MB: Yeah, exactly. In fact, the first that I actually related the two was when I was working with Carl Potts on Strikeforce: Moritori. He sent me this ream of xeroxes of some moviemaking course in college that either he had taken, or he just ran across this book or something. It was fundamental storytelling ideas.

DF: About not violating the 180 degree rule and all that stuff?

MB: Yeah, exactly. If you’ve got a convoy or a caravan of vehicles or camels going left to right, you keep them going left to right. You don’t turn them around every other panel. You’ll just confuse the eye, that sort of thing. And it taught me about shadows. It was the first time anybody ever taught me about the idea of using shadows in a comic book page to show depth, and that sort of thing.

DF: Now, more to the topic of this actual magazine, talk about how you deal with writers, what you look for in a story you draw.

Do you like a lot of detailed instructions? Do you like loose detail? Do you like action more than character bits?

MB: When I read a plot or script for the first time, I’d like the thing to make sense. It sounds silly, but every now and then you run across a story, and you’re going from Point A to Point C, and Point B is just this weird sideways detour. To me, it’s the biggest challenge sometimes. And it’s understandable.

Professional writers have to write so much that, every now and then, you come across something and go, “You know, this just doesn’t make any sense at all.” If the editor hadn’t caught it, then the writer’s got to be flexible enough to go with the penciler on it, storytelling-wise, and let him change it, or the penciler has got to call up and say, “Hey, something needs fixing.” I’ve run across writers who were very resistant to that sort of input.

DF: Nah, never happens.

MB: Most of them are pretty cool about it. I just got done doing a four-issue Fantastic Four story arc. Karl Kesel was scripting it, but Carlos Pacheco and his writing partner were plotting it. There are places in this four issue plot that I was saying to myself, “What the heck is going on here?” That slows me down terribly. If I’m clicking on exactly what’s happening, and then it’s suddenly not making linear sense, then it really just takes me out of my rhythm of drawing, because I noodle over it and I sweat over it and think about it, and I don’t draw quickly at all. Luckily, since Karl was scripting it, I could call Karl up and say, “Hey Karl, I’m gonna do this, that, and the other thing.” I wasn’t gonna call Carlos. I would call [editor] Tom [Brevoort] about it. I’d say, “Hey, Tom, you read this?” He’d usually say, “Well yeah, do what you have to.”

DF: Was part of that just a translation problem?

MB: Some of it was a translation problem, some of it, I think, was that Carlos was a little burnt out on the project. I don’t know. Especially, on the last issue, it was like, “What is up with this?” No disrespect to Carlos, he’s a great artist and he’s written some really good stories on his run on Fantastic Four, but it was just a struggle. Luckily Karl Kesel, by the fourth issue, was like, “Well, everything you’ve done so far is great, so

go ahead.” I didn’t change how it ended up. It’s just some kind of weird things in the center that didn’t make a lot of sense.

DF: You’re a thinking artist, which writers really appreciate, as do editors.

MB: Thanks.

DF: It’s an important thing for someone to offer input like that.

Now, as far as “Marvel style” [plot first, then pencils, then script] or full script, any preference in that department?

MB: Brian Bendis does full script. But, once again, he trusts my storytelling enough that if I want to tweak something out, he doesn’t have a whole lot of problems with it. I think he’s changed only one panel in my entire 20-issue run so far, to where I had to restructure something. With a full script, there’s less danger of that.

Needless to say, a full script is fairly detailed. Bendis goes as far as to say “camera angle b,” that sort of thing, which I feel fully free to ignore, depending on how I’m pacing it out.

DF: My memory is that you used to enjoy looser plots where you could make more stuff up.

MB: Especially with a team book, Strikeforce, New Warriors,

From Thunderbolts #1, story by Kurt Busiek, art by Mark and Vince Russell. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] BAGLEY | 25

Thunderbolts or besides my New Warriors, and besides my Amazing Spider-Man work. Jemas really wanted me. He was a fan of mine.

He was in charge of the trading card series I did in the 1990s. So that’s what got it in his head that he really wanted me for this book. I don’t know how Brian felt about it. I’m much more mainstream than Brian’s used to working with. I look back at the first issue or two and I can tell, maybe a lot of people can’t, but I can tell that I wasn’t that into it. But it did turn Here and the next page: From Ultimate Spider-Man #13. Bendis and Bagley team up to get the most from this important scene— fairly quickly into this kinda ably abetted by Art Thibert’s inks—as Peter reveals his greatest secret to his best friend... [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] guilty pleasure of redesigning everybody in the Spider-Man universe that I could.

Thunderbolts, I feel I have to have more leeway to choreograph And the fan reaction to it has just been phenomenal. When the things, because it’s so damn complicated doing a team book. first issue came out, my friend, Cliff Biggers, once again, he Working with Fabian Nicieza and Kurt Busiek on those two says, “You know, you need to keep doing this book. It looks books, they actually both plot very tightly, and they both have a great.” I’ve always kinda trusted his instincts. I had actually pretty good visual sense, but they also give me free rein to do officially said that I was off. I was done; I was drawing issue what I think best, especially in the fight scenes. The more #5, the next to last issue I had committed to. That afternoon, I character-oriented stuff they were both a little bit tighter about, called back. “You know, if it’s not too late, I’d like to stay on because they like to set it a certain way, and I can understand this book, I think.” that. Those scenes really reflect on how their writing comes DF: You, personally—and artists in general—what do you love to across. draw? What do you hate to draw? I’m asking this to enlighten DF: Back in, say, the ’70s, if a writer and artist had a good aspiring writers in the audience. How does a writer make an intuitive relationship, you would sometimes see “they fight” in a artist their friend? How does a writer make an artist their plot, instead of detailed choreography. Is that something you like enemy? Based on what you give them to draw, not personal to get? differences.

MB: I never had that. I do kinda like having some input with, MB: Avoid crowd scenes, crowd scenes, crowd scenes. say, fight scenes, ’cause after a while, you do Spider-Man for [laughter] I enjoy drawing girder work. I just had to draw the five years, you can run out of ideas for a new way for Spidey to Queensboro Bridge in New York. I love Brian to death, but it’s whump somebody. Bendis, working full script, he’ll make me like every time I turn around, crowd scenes full of camera and think about it. He’ll write something like, “Okay, I want Spidervideo equipment and scene after scene like that, which is just Man to flip off this building, coming around and pulling down exhausting to draw. Or he’ll throw in this panel… Oh, I can Doc Ock’s pants with his webbing, while Spidey’s also doing quote from the script. “It’s basically, a limo heading to New something else.” It makes me kinda noodle it out. So I end up York City through the Queensboro Bridge. You’re outside the with maybe a different angle or a different take than I normally limo, looking across the top of the limo into the city. The sun is would have taken. going down.” So through the girder work of the Queensborough DF: Well, when I interviewed Brian, he was very complimentary Bridge, you have the city behind it and a limo, and you have the about your work. sun. I didn’t have a clue how to start. So I, basically, did a shot MB: I appreciate that. of the Queensboro Bridge and then showed a limo. [laughter] DF: He also said that one of your conditions for coming back DF: What kinds of scenes do you love to draw? onto a Spider-Man project was that you get to draw angles and MB: I love drawing emotional scenes. And I don’t get to do viewpoints that you never did before, that you want to have enough shadowy, moody scenes, although I have a hard time something new in every issue, if not on every page. just adding shadow for no purpose at all. I’m always aware of MB: I don’t know if I ever said anything like that. They dragged how much light is in the scene, so I can’t just add shadows. me back onto Spider-Man. I didn’t want to do it to begin with.

DF: That issue #13 of Ultimate Spider-Man [where Peter reveals “Okay, I’ll do the six issues and then I’m gone. Then they his secret to Mary Jane], I was just floored by how much you decided to make it ongoing, and I decided I was enjoying it, and brought to that. As well as it was written, and it was really terrifiI stayed on. I had never really heard of Bendis, because I don’t cally written, I was just in awe of how you brought that alive, I read very many alternative comics. I didn’t know how good he thought it was incredible. was at dialogue and storytelling.

MB: Thanks, I enjoyed the hell of that. Something like that, as DF: Was there extra pressure because the president of the much fun as it was, it would have been more fun to do if was company had helped plot it? just a plot, with a rough breakdown of what Brian wanted on MB: I was always looking for extra work besides my 26 | WRITE NOW

every page.

DF: Really?

MB: Yeah, because it would have made me work a little bit harder. Brian and I have a little bit different sense of visual storytelling in a lot of ways, because he’s very cinematic and film noirish and I would have broken it down in different ways. I enjoyed the hell out of it and it was incredibly well written. I don’t know if I could do it any better, but I might have done it a little differently. That’s the difference between a plot and a script.

DF: Whatever the combination was there, I thought you brought out the best in the writing and I thought he brought out the best in your art.

MB: Well, thanks.

DF: What makes for a good or bad artist/writer relationship?

MB: What makes for a good relationship is if you get along on a personal level, if both sides realize that it’s a collaborative thing. If the writer understands that, yeah, he’s writing the story, but I’m visually telling it, and if something visually isn’t going to work, he’s got let me fix it. And it’s not that he’s done anything wrong, it’s just that I may have a different sense of how to get it to work. There’s always three or four ways to do something, but you have to give the artist the right to do it the way he feels best. An exception would be, say, J.M. DeMatteis.

When we worked together, every now and then, he would absolutely insist on a nine panel grid page because that’s a storytelling device that he really wanted to bring to the page.

And I’m not going to argue with him about it. I said, “Sure.” I never thought that was the strongest way of doing something, but hey, there’s people who don’t like my artwork. Go figure.

99% of the time, there’s tons of give and take back and forth.

So every now and then, when the writer puts his foot down and says, “Hey, this is really what I want,” I’m not gonna go, “Hell no.” And J.M. was the same way. We ended up, I think, with a good working relationship. I did some of my best stuff in my Spider-Man career with him.

DF: Amazing #400 [The Death of Aunt May—although she later got better.—DF] just to name one. So a bad relationship with a writer would be somebody who doesn’t take any input and just wants what they want.

MB: I started out with a bad relationship with David Michelinie. I remember, on the second issue I did with him, he called for a splash page which just didn’t work storytellingwise. I did something without calling him. I split it up into two large halfpage panels, and he went ballistic. I had to call him and tell him he had to trust me to tell the story, he had to let me tell the story visually. I told him I wouldn’t screw him out of his plot or what he wanted to do, but I had to have the freedom to visually tell it. It only took an issue or two before he finally relaxed and let me do what I felt I had to do. I have a lot of respect for what writers have to do. I swear that they’ve got the harder job. Mine is more in your face,

it’s visual, you can look at it and say, “There’s a lot of work there.” But a writer has to think about the story all the time.

They always have to be coming up with what’s going to happen six months down the road. Me, I draw for the day, and then I’m done. I go shoot pool, drink beer and flirt. To me writing’s a hard job.

DF: All us writers appreciate that.

MB: I know you do.

DF: In terms of a relationship between an artist and a writer, how does an editor affect that and, on a broader level, a company culture or personality affect it?

MB: That really depends on the personalities involved. Tom Brevoort is really a hands-on type of editor. He’s involved in the storylines and he’s always talking to the writers. He’s a lot more closely involved in the writing process than I think he is in the artistic process. There are other editors that are basically just paper shufflers, you know? They make sure the pages get from the penciler to the inker to the colorist to the letterer.

DF: Do you like having editorial participation?

MB: I love having it. I’m down here in Georgia, all by myself, and if I’m doing something wrong I want to know about it.

You’re so close to your work, and then you don’t see it in print for three months. I really enjoy when an editor calls me up and says, “Hey, this is great, you’re doing great on this,” or if he calls me up and tells me there’s a specific problem. I don’t want him to call and say, “You’re really screwing this up.” I’d say, “Why did you hire me in the first place?” But if an editor calls me and says, “You’ve gotten into this thing of, say a 3⁄4 view on a face, the eye on the face that’s away from the reader is always a little low,” then that’s something that I may not see when I’m doing it, but I look back on it and I go “ohhh.” That was always something good about working with you as an editor. It just lets me know that I’m not working in a vacuum.

DF: Some artists have become identified with one writer, for instance, Loeb and Sale, DeFalco and Frenz. With you, over the

...who isn’t sure he’s not pulling her leg. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] BAGLEY | 27

Cover to Amazing Spider-Man, v. 1, #369, part of the “Invasion of the Spider-Slayers” story arc, by Bagley and Randy Emberlin.

David Michelinie wrote it. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

years, when you think of Mark Bagley, you think, Fabian and now Bendis.

MB: Busiek, too. I’m a rare bird in the industry, because I’ve had long runs, and if you have a long run, especially with the same writer, it’s inevitable you’re kinda connected to them.

DF: Do you like that? Do like having relationships like that?

MB: Yeah, why not? Especially if they’re people of quality.

DF: Do you like to be involved in plotting and character development?

MB: I like to be involved, but most of the things I’ve worked on have come to me pretty well fully developed. They’ve decided on the visual style and they call me and at that point, then I’m involved. But plotting-wise, it’s usually, especially with Kurt and Fabian and Bendis, it’s pretty set up. When it comes to character development and that sort of thing, I’d love to talk to the writer about it. Fabian and Kurt both, Fabian more than Kurt, would send me sketches. “Okay, this is kinda where I was going with this” and I would take the—admittedly by themselves—crude sketches and tweak the crap out of them.

DF: I guess I was thinking more of the characters’ personalities, literally their character development, their own personal story arcs, their loves and hates and so on.

MB: I don’t get that much involved. Like I said I love drawing the stuff, I don’t like thinking about it that much, to be honest with you. The one time I remember doing that was with J.M. DeMatteis and the Stunner character in Amazing Spider-Man. We had this totally set-up idea of who she was and what she was and what her motivation was, and all this stuff. And within 28 | WRITE NOW

three issues, it was totally gone, because Amazing was crossing over with the other three Spider-Man books every month, and when you get other writers in there, our original ideas just went away. Plus, I think both of us were off the book by the time they established her history. To me, my job is the visuals, bringing to the table, the best that I can, the writer’s idea.

DF: Any writers that you’ve never worked with that you’d love to?

MB: I’d like to work with Mark Waid. I’d like to work with Mark Millar. I’d like to work with Chuck Dixon. I really like what he does a lot. Mark Millar does these incredibly large, violent storylines. It’d be fun to that cut loose and see how much blood I can leave on the floor. [laughter] DF: Ever consider writing for yourself or others?

MB: Nah. DF: No interest at all?

MB: No, not really. I’m an educated person, I can write a story or two and have a plot and an ending, the whole nine yards.

But I just don’t have the drive to be a scribe.

DF: If someone put a gun to your head and said you had to write a story, what would it be? What character? What kind of story?

MB: A Superman story. He’s such a big character, I think it would be easy to come up with a story for him. I think that with a less iconic character, the harder it might be for me to do that. I think I’d have trouble coming up with a Daredevil story unless it was, “Daredevil is walking down an alley and gets jumped on.” But I like to have something with a little more depth than that.

DF: What does the story gain or lose by having the writer and artist be the same person?

MB: If it is a really good team, I think the total package may be better than if it’s just one guy, unless they’re phenomenally talented like Will Eisner or Frank Miller. Unless a guy is phenomenally talented, then there’s gonna be a weakness in a story where the writer is the artist. And with few exceptions, people aren’t that talented.

DF: If you had a character or characters that you wanted to create and put into a story, would you try to do it? Has that ever happened?

MB: No. DF: No characters in the back of your mind that you’d like to see in print?

MB: Not really. Sorry, man.

DF: Ever considered taking a staff job as an artist or art director or, God forbid, an editor?

MB: No, I like doing what I do.

DF: Should aspiring writers try to hook up with artists to get a break and/or to pitch a project?

MB: I think so. Go to conventions, or swing by an art classroom in school. I think people know who around may be involved in this sort of thing. When it comes to breaking into comics, it’s tough for writers to break in. It’s a much more subjective discipline than art is. The advice I heard, which makes the most sense, is if you want to become a comics writer, you get involved in the business somehow, whether you come at it sideways through self-publishing or come in as an assistant editor, doing something along that line. It’s hard for a writer just to walk into the Marvel or DC offices and say, “Hey, hire me.”

DF: Any major factors since you started in comics that you think have changed for writers or artists trying to make their way?

true at all. The longer I do comics, the more I think, “Yeah, MB: I think it’s easier now for writers in just a technical sense. okay, it should have some visual sense, storytelling sense, that Laptops and word processing has made the actual mechanics whole sequential art idea.” But the words play a very important of writing so much easier. Artist-wise, the visuals have gotten place in grounding it. People complain when a scripter will to where the paper’s better and the coloring’s so much better. “over-script,” say, if a guy is jumping in a panel kicking Aside from that, for writers, comics have become a stepping-off somebody in the face and there’s that word balloon going, “He point to other stuff, whereas it used to be, if you were in just jumped in the panel and kicked him in the face!” That’s an comics, that’s what you were going to do. There seems to be a easy thing to complain about, but there’s a way to do it that lot more of an open field for moving on, whether writing movies adds to the story, whether it’s with humor, or with irony, or or TV or product placement ads. whatever. I think a really good comics artist is the one who DF: I guess, over the years, Spider-Man will be the thing you’re does the visual stuff that tells the story, but also puts enough most identified with. Do you like being identified with one extra of a twist in the work that the writer has to look at it and character like that? go, “Okay, now what would be really exciting copy to have MB: Can’t hurt. If it’s a character like Spider-Man, why not? It here?” has kinda limited me, you know. In the years that I wasn’t DF: That’s very cool to hear from an artist. I think it goes back to working on Spider-Man, people were hesitant to hire me to do that thing about you, in particular, being a thinking artist. certain stuff. Like, I would love to do the Hulk for a while. I MB: It’s why I never lay out an entire book before I start don’t know if I could do him for as long as I’ve done Spiderdrawing it, or half a book or a quarter of a book. I started out Man, but some people have the impression that I can’t do a laying out entire books or half of a book before I started big character. Which was kinda of fun doing Thunderbolts, drawing. But then I realized that, as I ’cause I could do a huge muscular guy was working, I was spending so much like Atlas, or tiny little girls and everytime on an entire panel, during which I thing in between. would be thinking about the next DF: Is there a typical reader you imagine panel, and about the panel after that, when you are drawing? and I can always figure out a better MB: This is silly, because I know the way of doing it than I had originally laid demographics have changed over the out. So, to me, if I lay out the entire years, but when I think about comic book, it’s a waste of time. By the time book fans, I think about kids. I think I get to the end of the book, it’s not how excited I was as a kid when I going to bear any resemblance to what would get to the comic store and, I laid out.

“Man, there’s a new Dave Cockrum DF: That hold for full script, too? comic,” “There’s a new Green Lantern MB: Usually not.

by Gil Kane.” I’d get this visceral DF: I know you’re a well-read charge, and I’m like, “Man, I can’t wait gentlemen. You reading anything now to get home and read this thing.” That’s you want to talk about? What are you who I see myself drawing for. I don’t enjoying reading? What are you most really see myself drawing these for a embarrassed about reading lately?

45-year-old accountant that still reads MB: The embarrassing part is that, comics. I’m glad he’s doing it, but… of what I read, how much is forgetDF: Would you ever be interested in table. drawing a quote, unquote, adult—I don’t DF: That’s not embarrassing for you. mean pornographic, but an indy type— For the authors, maybe, but not for you. comic?

MB: I don’t read as much as I’d like.

MB: Yeah, I would. For me, right now, DF: Yeah, who does? not that it’s not fun, but I have more MB: I read The Adventures of Kavalier fun doing regular stuff, drawing regular When Symbiotes Ruled! Cover to Venom: Lethal and Clay. That was really good. Have stuff like people conversing in hallways Protector #5, by Bagley and Sam DeLaRosa. you read that? and people sitting down, people having Story by Michelinie. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] DF: I’m about halfway through it. a sandwich, you know, having emotional MB: I enjoyed it. It drags, it’s a little bit long and a little bit discussions, than I do drawing Spidey punching somebody out. wordy. Because it’s a Pulitzer Prize-winner, they all are. I Because right now, it’s a like of work for me, trying to make enjoyed the hell out of that. What else have I read? Recently I sure I come up with at least somewhat new figures. I want read Science Is a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan. It’s a badly to make sure I’m not drawing the same figure. helluva book about, talking about how the idea of science as DF: I wanted to explore a little more how you feel about the just this pure thing based on evidence, throwing away the idea similarities and difference between comics and the movies, since of myths. It’s pretty cool. that’s a pet obsession of mine.

DF: What else are you reading?

MB: Like I said, with movies, you have a lot more time, increMB: I’m reading Nelson DeMille. He writes action thriller sort ments of time to play with so you can go from scene to scene. of stuff. He wrote a really good thing called the Lion’s Game, Comics is a matter of choosing that moment of time that tells about an Arab terrorist coming over here and hunting down and it either dynamically or as emotionally as powerfully as you can. killing the pilots who bombed Mohmar Khadafi’s encampment.

I was always told the axiom you should be able to tell what’s This happens just after they bombed the World Trade Center going on in a story without the words, but I don’t find that to be BAGLEY | 29

the first time, in 1993. He wrote this a just a couple years after that, and I just started reading this after 9/11. That was really weird.

DF: Any classes or books you recommend for writers or artists?

MB: Eisner’s Sequential Art book is great. Real basic. How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way is actually a really good basic primer on the philosophy of drawing an action comic.

DF: Think that would be good for writers to read as well?

MB: Probably. Give ’em a way of thinking visually. Scott McCloud’s book, Understanding Comics, was terrific. I think a writer could really get a lot from that. Eisner’s book is really good for a writer. The only trouble with Eisner is he does things that nobody else can do. They work perfectly well for him, but nobody else can do it. That’s true with Kirby and that’s true with a few other people too.

DF: Have you ever thought about teaching or have you ever taught?

MB: Not really. I’ve had really weird experiences teaching. I’ve come in for visiting day and taught and talked about comics to kids. I had fun with the elementary age kids ’cause they’re enthusiastic as hell. But I went into a high school class. I do a fairly interesting thing for a living, I can make it interesting, standing up there talking. But looking at this sea of about twenty just absolutely bored, couldn’t give a damn faces… I couldn’t do that every day.

DF: If you were teaching in an art school…?

MB: That might be interesting. I was going to say, when my daughter was in high school, she was in an advanced class and they were all doing their personal projects. I was my daughter’s personal project, and she brought me in, so I did a class on comics, and the kids were all sharp and quick and interested, even if they didn’t necessarily give a damn about comics. That was fun. If I could have that sort of experience…

How selfish of me, I only care about the kids that care.

DF: It’s just “me, me, me” with you. Any interest in or advice about animation, storyboarding, any other comics-related fields

that somebody aspiring to be a comics artist or writer might be interested in?

MB: I’ve thought about doing storyboarding. I’ve got a friend who does a lot of storyboarding here in Atlanta, and he’s been after me for years to come in and do some stuff. He does commercials. He’s done some movies and things like that, too.

But I’ve been so busy with comics. For storyboarding, usually you’ve got to come in and work three days overnight, and I’ve just not been able to do it. I’d be interested in doing it. I was talking to Bendis, and he’s doing this Spider-Man MTV cartoon show. They just storyboarded the first script, and I said, “That would be kind of fun to do. They could ask me to do it, hint, hint.” He said, “No, you don’t want to do this.” That was the first sequence, which is basically a Brittany Spears-type singer in this record store doing an appearance, and then she gets kidnapped in a limo, and fights some bad guys. Apparently, it took, like, eighty pages of storyboarding to do this five-page sequence. I thought, “Man, that would not be fun.” And that’s why I don’t know if I could do animation or not. Unless you’re the main guy, just sort of designing the whole thing, I think it would be the most tedious thing in the world.

DF: I think it’s a problem-solving thing. You have this story point to diagram out or to storyboard out. I think that’s how people approach it.

MB: That’s kind of how I approach comics. Visually storytelling, how can I do it in the best way. I just watched Atlantis: The Lost Empire on satellite last night. It got me thinking about doing animation, how tough it can be. There’s this one scene where the character’s voice is Michael J. Fox’s. He’s without a shirt and he’s gesticulating, and he’s talking. He’s animated as hell and, man, the anatomy is just great. Just the way the shoulders and the chest and the hips and the neck move.

Drawing that would just be so much fun, having it come out looking that good. But the amount of work that went into getting it looking that good—I don’t know if I’d have the patience for that.

DF: The future of comics? It will always be around, I suppose, but do you think it’s gonna go more mainstream, or stay a niche the way it is?

MB: I think it’s getting maybe a bit more mainstream. It seems to be coming around some. There seems to be a market for a lot of different sorts of comics. It’s a small market, but it seems to be viable.

The hemorrhaging has stopped after the heyday. There’s always this big pendulum swing back and forth. You know, my biggest worry about comics is that there is so much other stuff out there to spend money on entertainment-wise. When I was a kid, if you wanted this sort of adventure—fantasy, science-fiction, superhero stuff—you bought comic books.

That’s all you got. But now, between video games and the movies, who knows? The movies may be a curse to comics rather than a boon. This Spider-Man movie looks so spectacular. Have you seen a trailer for it yet?

DF: Yeah.

MB: Good God! It’s exactly how I envision

More Bendis/Bagley/Thibert dramatic storytelling from USM #22. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] 30 | WRITE NOW

Spider-Man in my head!

DF: I still think there’s a magic in comics that exists nowhere else. So, you think comics will become mainstream again?

MB: I hope so. I tend to be a fairly positive person, and during the implosion that happened a couple of years ago, It was so bleak and so negative. So many people got out of the business. There’s a lot of guys who are not working now. I’m talking mainly creators, pencilers and inkers and writers who, when things were great and there was more work than you could put your hands on, they would blow projects right and left. They wouldn’t show up, they wouldn’t bring it to the table.

When there was work there to be done they wouldn’t do it. And now that much work’s not there, and they’re scrambling, looking for work, and they can’t find any work. They’re whining and bitching and moaning that there’s no work there for ’em. I think the only reason I’m working now is because I kept working really hard even through the boom years.

DF: And you’re really good.

MB: But there’s lots of really good guys out there that you don’t hear from ’em anymore cause you couldn’t depend on ’em.

DF: Dependability and talent.

MB: Dependability, talent and…

DF: And good people skills, I think, help.

MB: Exactly, those are the three things you need. And speed, too. Being able to do a project and have it get done on time. If an editor needs a job done really quickly, they’ve got to have a guy they can really depend on to get it done, and when the job gets printed, it’s not gonna look like hell.

DF: You’ve mostly, or I guess entirely, worked on company-owned characters. Any feeling or desire to work on something that you’ve co-created or that’s owned by you and/or a writer?

MB: If Bendis or Fabian or you were to come up with something that was really interesting, and I had the time to do it—because right now, between houses and mortgages and things like that it’s hard for me to donate a lot of time if it isn’t paying up front—I’d be more than willing to look at something like that and think about doing it.

DF: If the bottom did fall out of the market, any idea what you would go back to doing? Or start doing?

MB: I’d call my buddy up who wants me to do storyboards. I would go knocking on doors at print places. I don’t know what I’d do. That would be something, at 44 years old. That would be an interesting thing to have to change. I might just live off savings for a year, go back to school and learn something else.

What that would be, I have no idea. I would love to work at a bookstore. I would love to do things like that. I like dealing with people. After my daughter finishes college and I get my other house sold, who knows what I’ll do?

DF: This is going to be coming out around midsummer, around San Diego Comicon. Is there anything you want to plug that you’re doing, that you’re exited about, that will be out then?

MB: What I’m doing? Well, Ultimate Spider-Man is going to eighteen issues a year. Which is a hell of a compliment to Bendis and me and the whole team, ’cause I don’t think they’ve ever done this before with a book. That’s gonna keep me pretty much busy, at least for awhile, ’til I get fairly well caught up. The nice thing about doing a book like Ultimate Spider-Man, it’s a single character book, with a lot of dialogue, a lot of character interaction, which I draw faster then action sequences. I enjoy it also. It’s a win, win.

DF: Any other words of advice for aspiring writers or artists?

Bagley and DeLaRosa’s Spidey from Spider-Man Unlimited #2, the final chapter of the 14-part “Maximum Carnage” storyline. Words by Tom DeFalco. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

MB: If you manage to break in, to start doing this as a living, treat it as a profession. I have no time for dilettantes. I have no time for people who, “Oh I just don’t feel like working today.” Everybody has a day or so like that. My respect goes to people who stay busy, love what they do, and really develop a body of work. There are lots of really, really, really talented guys out there that put out one project a year. And yeah, it’s a really beautiful project, but you know what? Give me an entire year to work on a project and it will be as good as anything anybody else has ever done. To me, that’s not what I do for a living.

What I do for a living is to entertain people every month.

DF: Or now, eighteen times a year.

MB: Or eighteen times a year. I think that’s one of my appeals to the fans, the fact that they can look forward to seeing a quality comic from me every month. It’s a matter of respect, I think, from me to them, and from them to me. [laughs] Listen to me blowing my own horn.

DF: And my last question: who’s stronger, the Hulk or the Thing?

MB: The Hulk is stronger than the Thing, of course.

DF: So far, everybody’s in agreement, so I might have to come up with a better last question.

MB: How about, “Is Aunt May dead or alive?”

DF: Depends. What time is it? Thank you, Mark Bagley.

THE END

BAGLEY | 31

Interview with The Man

Interview by Danny Fingeroth Edited by Danny Fingeroth / Copy-edited by Stan Lee

S

tan Lee started as a writer and editor at Timely/ Marvel in 1939. He was editorial director of Marvel, then became the company’s Publisher and is now Publisher Emeritus. As a writer, Stan created or co-created icons of Marvel—and of American pop culture—including Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Incredible Hulk and countless others. He has represented Marvel in Hollywood for the past three decades, helping create the movie and TV versions of Marvel’s characters, among many other projects.

Currently, he heads up POW! Entertainment, an independent developer of entertainment properties. He is one of the handful of people in entertainment media who can truly be called a Living Legend.

Stan gave some of his valuable time to be interviewed for Write Now! on February 21, 2002. He talks about the craft of writing for entertainment media in general, and about his own writing in particular. His answers are peppered with fascinating stories from his illustrious and ongoing career. The interview was conducted by Danny Fingeroth at Stan’s Los Angeles Pow! Entertainment offices.

From Amazing Spider-Man v. 1 #32, by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko. [©2002 Marvel.]

32 | WRITE NOW

DANNY FINGEROTH: Stan, you’ve been writing comics for more than sixty years.

How would you say the craft has evolved over the years?

STAN LEE: The difference between writing comics today and years ago when I was doing them, there’s more competition now. I think the writer today has to be more careful what he writes, has to try to be more literary, has to try to think more cinematically. Because there are many people in the field now who are film writers and novelists and so forth who decided they’d like to do comics. So I think the quality of writing just has to be better than it was years ago. I think that, today, the people creating comics are luckier than years ago. When I was doing them, nobody ever thought, “Oh boy, if I do a good job, they’ll make a movie out of this.” Today, I think that’s uppermost on the mind of every writer who creates a new character. The first thing he thinks of is how much will I ask for the rights when Warner Brothers decides to make this a big budget film.

DF: Will comics themselves, not the characters, but the medium ever be as big as it was?

SL: I’m not sure comics will ever be as really big as they were decades ago.

Nothing to do with the quality of the comics, it’s just that there’s more competition now. When I started doing comics they didn’t have video games, there wasn’t television, there weren’t computers. Now there are so many other things to attract a potential reader’s interest. I do think, however, that there will always be comics. They’ll have their highs and their lows as far as sales are concerned but I think they’ll always be with us.

DF: When you write, is there an ideal, “typical” reader you see in your mind?

SL: In the movie and television business, I’m considered something of an oddball because all that studios talk about, and TV networks talk about, is the demographic. We need a show for this demographic and that demographic. When I wrote comics and the few times that I still write some, I never think

[©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Still STAN LEE After All These Years

ulous that a character like Spider-Man could maintain a of any demographic. Frankly, I would just write stories that I reader’s interest all this time. Because I’m guessing that, with thought I would enjoy reading. And that’s the only audience I’ve a character like James Bond, if a movie came out once a ever written for. I write for an audience of one, myself. That’s month for so many years. eventually people might get tired of what makes it easy. I know how to please myself. it.

DF: In a lot of your writing, I notice you commenting on the work DF: If you were a writer starting out today, what media and world in general, and the publishing and entertainment indusgenres would you pursue? tries in particular, especially in the relationship between Peter SL: As a writer today, I really don’t know what I’d go into. I Parker and J. Jonah Jameson. Their constant verbal jousting feels would probably go into whatever I thought I could write the best very real, and in ways both older and younger readers could or the quickest. I think relate to. I’d love to know if comics might seem too you remember what you were difficult for me. Years ago, thinking when you wrote Mario Puzzo, who wrote The those types of scenes, and Godfather, used to work at more generally your feeling our place. Not on comics, he about the relationship worked on different between creators and magazines. But before he business people in Hollywood wrote The Godfather he and in publishing. really needed some money SL: I don’t know what was in and he came to me one day my mind when I wrote the and he said, “Stan could relationship between Peter you give me a few comics to and Jonah Jameson. But I write? I can use the dough.” think I have always felt there Well, he was a good writer is always friction between an and I said: “Sure, Mario.” I employee and an employer. I gave him an assignment. He mean, I was very close and brought it back about two a good buddy with my boss weeks later. He said, “Stan I Martin Goodman who was can’t do it. I didn’t realize it the publisher when I was the was this hard. The time it editor and art director, but would take me to write this there was still friction damn comic book I could between us. Also, I always write a novel.” Well sure tried to inject humor in the enough, after that he wrote strip when I could. I couldn’t The Godfather. So comics think of anything funnier are not everybody’s cup of than to have a guy who he tea and I think if I were worked for hate Spider-Man starting out today, I would and not know that he really try to write a screenplay or was Spider-Man, and even maybe try to sell a TV hate Peter Parker because series, because it’s as hard this guy didn’t like teenagers to succeed at one as the to begin with. I think Jonah other. But if you succeed in Jameson was just an TV or the movies, the amalgam of all of the One of Stan’s first published comics scripts, from 1941’s All Winners Comics #1. rewards are just greater. narrow-minded adults that I Art by Al Avison and Al Gabriele. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] DF: You’ve been living in L.A. knew, and I knew many. for twenty or more years now. Do you like the town, or do you DF: Can you compare how Marvel’s flagship characters, just feel it’s where you have to be to do TV and movies? especially Spider-Man, have evolved over the decades compared SL: I’m just fine with Hollywood and I don’t mind saying it. to say, James Bond, the Hardy Boys, or other longstanding serial When I lived in New York all I used to read about were those fictional characters? wild parties with the stars and the starlets jumping naked in SL: Spider-Man and James Bond have a lot in common. There swimming pools and those mad, wild orgies. I’ve been here are a lot of differences, too. The James Bond movies were twenty-one years, I’ve been to a lot of parties, and they’re more based on a number of novels that were written by Ian Fleming. conservative then the ones we had back home. Now maybe I’m Now I am no authority on that. I don’t know how many novels too much of a square to be invited to the good ones, I don’t he wrote but I’m sure it wasn’t as many as a hundred. Probably know, but it’s been a great disappointment. For God’s sake if less than fifty. Maybe less than twenty five. Whereas a you write this please say “He said it with a laugh.” character like Spider-Man, ever since 1962, I think, has needed DF: He said it with a laugh. So, Hollywood… one complete story a month and that was just the Spider-Man SL: You always hear that people in Hollywood are all backmagazine. There were also all the spin-off Spider-Man stabbers, they’re the worst people in the world, they’d shoot magazines. So you really can’t compare a comic book hero with their mother for a nickel and so forth. But I gotta say, I guess any hero in literature or movies simply because of the sheer maybe I’m unusual or I’m lucky but I love the people I’ve met. volume of the number of stories that are required. It’s miracSTAN LEE | 33

would lecture at a college or something, I’d mention the story about Orson Welles and me being in the WPA Federal Theatre, and I’d always mention that I wished that he was giving a lecture somewhere and he was saying, “Oh yeah, I used to act with Stan Lee.” But I kind of doubt that he ever did.

When I was in the army I was part of a screenwriting unit, and with me were [novelist] William Saroyan and [director] Frank Capra and people like that. Of course, I don’t know what That’s the Thing talking, in this classic sequence from Fantastic Four, v. 1 #16 by Lee & Kirby. Inks by Dick Ayers. happened to them after the [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] war. [laughter] DF: I hear you’re doing your autobiography…

I’ve made a million friends here. And it maybe is, again, ’cause SL: That was a very strange thing, that biography. Someone I don’t really associate with that many businessmen. Most of was supposed to write it and he did. He interviewed me and he the people I deal with are artists, writers, screenwriters, wrote all my quotes down and when you read your own quotes, directors, people like that. It’s just like the bullpen back at it doesn’t sound like you. When you’re talking to someone, you Marvel New York when I was there. They’re people who are just give them facts, but when you write you try to put a little doing the best that they can, they love the work they do, they style in it. When I read the thing as he had written it, it read so help the guys they work with and I think that they’re great guys dry that I rewrote the whole thing. So it ended up as more of so I can’t think of anything bad to say about the movie or TV an autobiography than a biography. In fact, I gave it a new people whom I’ve known, made friends with and worked with. name. It’s a bio-artography. It’s coming out about the same DF: I’ve read that you were in the WPA Federal Theater. Is time as the Spider-Man movie comes out. I would imagine it’s studying acting helpful to writers? How about reading dialogue one of the best bio-artographies, and one of the most amusing aloud? ones ever written. Of course, I might add in all honesty, it’s SL: I was one of the shining stars of the WPA Theatre project probably the only bio-artography on Earth, but that shouldn’t back in the—gee, I don’t know—back in the Forties, Thirties. I cloud my judgment. It’s called Excelsior. And then underneath was a teenager, back in those days the WPA Theatre project they embarrass me by writing, “the Amazing Life of Stan Lee.” was sponsored by the government. It stood for the Works I’d better do something amazing before I die not to make a liar Progress Administration which was started by Franklin out of ’em.

Roosevelt to give people jobs because there was a depression.

DF: I don’t think you have to worry. What advice would you give So for people in the creative line of work, he started the aspiring writers on learning and practicing their craft? Any how-to Federal Theatre which was the theatre project sponsored by the books? Courses? government. Orson Welles was a member, I was a member. I love saying that, ’cause people think I acted with him. I really didn’t. He was a member of one group and I was a member of another one, but we were both members. I loved acting and I was damned good at it, too, but it didn’t pay much. That’s why I eventually gave it up and turned to writing.

I’ve always missed being an actor because, as you probably know, I’m a real ham.

One thing I used to love to do when I Peter Parker wises up in Amazing Spider-Man v. 1, #33 by Lee & Ditko. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] 34 | WRITE NOW

SL: I think that just living is the best training for a writer, because every minute of your life you have a new experience.

You hear people talk, you see things happening. And I think you kinda have to record them somewhere in your memory, somewhere in your mind. Sure, having acting training is good, but being in anything is good training for a writer. The big thing, I think, is to be aware of other people. To notice how they differ from each other. How they resemble each other. To notice how no two people have the same speech pattern. I always try to write so that, even if you didn’t see a picture, you’d still know who was saying the dialogue because the characters didn’t talk

write them so that, even though they were continued, you had one whole incident that you could enjoy by itself. Today, comics are still that way but a lot of them, as you mentioned, they have in mind that this would be a trade paperback later on, and they try writing them as a novel, so that each issue is really just a segment of a longer story. I think that’s fine for the people who are following, for the fans who buy every segment and who probably enjoy it. It makes it very hard to sell those books to the new, transient reader because a new reader picks it up and doesn’t know what the hell is going on. I don’t condemn it because there is a market for those kinds of

Do ya think he knows? From Stan and Steve’s “The End of the Universe,” in Tales of Suspense #41. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

like each other. But of course that’s me and I’m perfect. [laughter] DF: What are you reading now, Stan?

SL: That’s embarrassing. I haven’t done any good reading in years. I used to read everything. I was a voracious reader.

Anything I could lay my hands on. I’d read science-fiction. I’d read a novel, I’d read a biography, a history, anything that was good. I had very catholic tastes but right now I am incredibly busy. I used to have a book or two at my end table. When I went to sleep, I’d read for a half-hour or an hour. Now I’m asleep before my head hits the pillow. The only thing I have time to read now, in the morning when I have my breakfast, I read the newspaper—if I have time. I don’t even read the whole thing. And I used to read Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. I don’t have time to read those anymore. I regret that, I just do not have time to read ’cause I spend all the time reading scripts and proofreading everything I’ve written.

DF: In today’s hit TV shows—Buffy, Alias, 24—it’s clear that the style you developed in comics has become the storytelling standard, and for good reason. It allows complex stories to be told in a way that both new and regular viewers can enjoy an episode. Yet many current comics seem to purposely go against that standard. Do you see that as a problem or as an evolution?

SL: When I was doing the comics we tried to make every story complete in itself. We did have continued stories, but I tried to

things. And if I were writing today, I’d probably be doing a lot of stories like that myself.

DF: So you think that the comics medium is evolving away from the pamphlet-model and toward the trade paperback?

SL: I have no idea whether the 32-page book will last or not.

I’m guessing it will because I think it’s the easiest type of publication to sell at a reasonable price. Now admittedly they used to be a dime when I did them. Now, they’re closer to three dollars each. But still, compared to everything else, comics are a cheap means of entertainment.

When I went to the movies, it used to cost a quarter. Jesus, when I think back… I remember I bought a second-hand Rolls Royce, years ago. A friend of mine had bought a brand new one. I’m going back about thirty, forty years. He paid thirteen thousand dollars for it and my wife and I said, how can he do that, you can buy a house for that! And then we bought a similar car, but many years later. It was second-hand, and we paid about eight thousand for it, and I felt, I’m the most extravagant guy who ever lived. So things really have changed. Now, I’ve forgotten the question. It doesn’t matter. What I’m saying is probably more interesting than answering any questions anyway.

DF: Thanks for the vote of confidence, Stan. You’ve had some significant Internet experience. Do you think the Internet can succeed as a storytelling medium on its own, or will it always be STAN LEE | 35

Stan’s takes on classic DC heroes from the recent Just Imagine Stan Lee... series. Above, Batman, with art by Joe Kubert, and, on the right, Superman, drawn by the late, great John Buscema. [©2002 DC Comics]

an ancillary medium to TV, movies and print?

SL: I’m always wrong on predictions so I’ll probably be wrong on this. I don’t think the Internet is as good [as the other media] as a storytelling medium. I know Stephen King tried selling a book on the Internet. Personally, I don’t think it’s pleasant to read a story on a screen. I know for myself, if I read a book, I want to sit down comfortably, hold it in my lap, turn the pages.

As far as watching movies and things like that on the Internet, I think that, in the not too distant future, your large television screen will also be part of the Internet and part of your telephone. Everything will all be in one unit. Your radio, your TV, the phone, the Internet, the 36 | WRITE NOW

computer. You’ll probably have one keyboard that will manage everything. It probably won’t even be a keyboard. It will probably be something you speak into. Then, I think, the combined medium will be successful. But right now, I don’t see the Internet as a medium of entertainment at all. It’s the greatest medium for communication—and soon for commerce—in the world, but I just don’t see it for entertainment.

DF: You just wrote all those Just Imagine projects for DC Comics. Was that as much fun as it seemed?

SL: I’ve just finished the tenth, so thank God I’ve only got two more to do and I’m finished. What a job this was! Geez. I loved it, but what a lot of work.

DF: Any new comics work coming up for Marvel, DC or anyone else?

SL: I loved doing those DC books. If I had the time I would love to do more of those and any books for Marvel, too, but I don’t have the time. When I took the DC assignment, I didn’t realize I’d get as busy as I have. You just have no idea how difficult it was to sandwich in the time to finish those books. But I do like them and it was great working with those artists. They were terrific. I enjoyed working with Mike Carlin, as well as with Paul Levitz, who’s now the president [of DC Comics]. He’s a great guy. He was very cooperative and as helpful as Jeanette [Kahn, former president of DC] was. It was a very pleasant experience.

DF: What projects do you have coming up in other arenas, Stan?

SL: Well, there’s my bio-artography. There might still be a few copies left unsold. I would hope everybody will run to buy ’em.

Also, I have this novel out, which might still be around somewhere called The Alien Factor. Have you heard of it?

It’s been out for awhile. If anybody wants to buy that, it won’t break my heart. If you see these books, go out and buy ’em. Just so you can say, “Jesus, what made us think he could write?” [laughter] Then, here at POW! Entertainment, I’m working on movies and TV shows. I’m doing an animated show starring Pamela Anderson. We’re doing motion capture of her body, so even though it’s animation it will really be her figure animated.

And she’ll be doing the voiceover. It’s gonna be a great show. It’ll be like the Simpsons but a lot sexier than the Simpsons.

DF: And finally, because the world wants to know, who’s stronger, the Hulk or the Thing?

SL: Why don’t I guess and say that the Hulk is stronger. But that doesn’t make it official because, who the hell knows?

DF: Thanks so much for your time, Stan. Best of luck with POW! And thanks for the last sixty years, too!

SL: Hey, if you think they were something, just you wait—the best lies just ahead!

THE END

comics creators and Write Now! mascots William Shakespeare and Leonardo DaVinci (or Wayout Willy and Laughin’ Leo, as their fans know them) working on the first Renaissancerific issue of Mona, Warrior Princess!

Read Now! continued from page 2

I look forward to hearing your ideas on what else Write Now! should be covering. After all, if there’s one thing a professional writer knows how to do, it’s to have other people come up with ideas for him. You can reach me at WriteNowDF@aol.com.

Thanks for checking out Write Now! We’ll be here every 90 days, maybe more if time (and demand) allows. Hope you enjoy the mag and that you learn something from each issue that you didn’t know before.

P.P.S. Special thanks also to publisher JOHN MORROW for taking a chance on the wacky idea that resulted in the magazine you’re holding in your hands. Hope we’re both here for issue #100, John!

Write Away!

Danny Fingeroth P.S. Special thanks to superstar artist and great friend, MARK BAGLEY, for this issue’s sensational cover featuring famous

Danny Fingeroth is an editor and writer whose credits include running Marvel’s Spider-Man line during its all time highest sales years, and writing hundreds of comics stories. He’s also published novels and short stories and worked as a development executive at Virtual Comics and at Visionary Media, home of WhirlGirl. Aside from conceiving, editing and packaging Write Now!, Danny is currently writing graphic albums for Platinum Studios and other companies, consulting on various internet and animation projects, and developing fiction and non-fiction book projects.

NEXT ISSUE: YOU'LL GET MORE INSIDE TIPS ON WRITING FROM TOP PROFESSIONALS, INCLUDING:

DENNIS O'NEIL M AG A ZI N E

#

2

ALL NEW COVER

BY ERIK LARSEN!

Legendary writer and editor of BATMAN, GREEN LANTERN, and AZRAEL

ERIK LARSEN Creator, writer and artist of Image's SAVAGE DRAGON

STAN BERKOWITZ Writer and story editor of Cartoon Network's JUSTICE LEAGUE ADVENTURES

TODD ALCOTT Screenwriter of ANTZ

ANNE D. BERNSTEIN Writer of MTV's DARIA

LEE NORDLING One of the world's foremost authorities on syndicated comic strips—and the editor of PLATINUM STUDIOS' comics line.

Plus: • An overview of BOOKS ON WRITING What's worth the dough, what's not.

• Your reactions to our first issue.

• And a couple or three surprises.

Seeya in 90 days!

Savage Dragon ©2002 Erik Larsen; Green Arrow/Green Lantern & Justice League ©2002 DC Comics READ NOW! | 37

“But What Does Danny Think?”

Why Comics Are Not Movies

By Danny Fingeroth, editor

L

et’s do a little math.

An average movie costs eight dollars.

An average comic costs $2.50.

A typical cable TV bill is $40.00 a month.

If the movie is two hours long, then it costs an audience member $8.00 divided by 120 minutes = 6.67 cents per minute to see the movie.

If a comic has 22 pages of story, then you’re paying $2.50 divided by 22 = 11.36 cents per page to read it. If it takes between 15 and 60 seconds to read each page—let’s say it averages 30 seconds—then that comic costs about 25 cents a minute to read.

If the average drama TV drama is 44 minutes long (assuming you TIVO or fast forward the commercials), and you pay a cable bill of $40.00 a month and watch ten hours of TV a week, then you’re paying a dollar an hour (or less than two cents per minute) for your TV entertainment! Even less if you watch more than ten hours a week, and I bet you do.

Let’s see those figures again: TV costs 2 cents a minute. (And if you don’t have cable—it’s FREE!) Movies cost 6.67 cents a minute.

Comics cost 25 cents a minute!!!!! That’s over twelve times more than TV. Almost four times more than a movie.

It’s pretty clear where you get the most bang for your buck.

I hate to put the above so crassly, but it touches on something that I think is a real problem in many comics today.

Namely, the (mistaken) belief that comics are more like movies or TV (that is, moving picture media) than they are like books.

Comics borrow elements from moving pictures as well as from prose, but they are their own unique medium. And while the financial equation is one way to measure it—if a person gets a bigger bang from their discretionary buck from something else, why read comics?—I do, of course realize that cost is not the only factor in a human’s entertainment choices.

That aesthetic area is where I find this confusion of media really troubling. Instead of utilizing comics’ unique qualities to tell stories to their utmost, many comics writers, perhaps in an effort to show how “cutting edge” they are, continue to treat comics as if they were movies on paper. (In comedy, this is what’s called “playing to the band”—a comedian decides that his real audience is his fellow performers, and makes his routine up of jokes that only the musicians in a club’s band and other insiders will get. These are people who are often well reviewed and not very popular. The Dennis Millers of the world, who can play to the band and still make an audience laugh, are few and far between.) Comics (the paper kind, not the standups) are not movies. They are as much novels or short stories on paper as they are movies. Actually, they’re not any of those things.

They’re comics. That’s why we love them.

38 | WRITE NOW

Here are some factors that I think make comics unique, and some thoughts on how those qualities are best utilized (in pursuit of creating a mass entertainment experience; artistes need not take offense, unless it makes you feel good): TIME Comics can mess with time in ways motion pictures can’t. In the millisecond between a punch being begun and landed, a comics character can recite Hamlet’s soliloquy. In a movie, the most you’re going to hear is a syllable. Time in comics can expand as we like it to. Movies carry you along at their speed.

The movie you and the guy sitting next to you are watching takes the same time to unfold for both of you. Find something confusing you want to see again? See something you’d like to linger over? Tough.

In a comic, the reader controls the pace. You can speed through, you can linger, you can reread panels or pages that you find confusing or engaging. (Note: this does not excuse the writer from writing clearly. It just means that if the writer screws up, the reader has a fighting chance to figure things out.) You can go back to see if the end does indeed make sense. You can read the story over and over and then you can give it to someone else to read. And the story you see in your head will be yours alone. The next person reading it will arrange the images and words to suit their inner brain wiring, probably in a way similar to your experience, but not exactly. Cool, huh?

INTERIOR MONOLOGUE If a movie character speaks in voiceover, it can take a while for the audience to get used to it. In the hands of a lazy writer, voiceover is just a way to get exposition across. In the hands of a talented and thoughtful writer, it adds a novelistic aspect.

You become the character, see things through his or her eyes, understand things in a way that only that character can.

In comics, part of the vocabulary inherited from prose is the interior monologue, the voiceover, whether it be as narrative captions or the (currently underused and out of fashion) thought balloon. After distribution problems, the abandonment of the thought balloon may be the second most serious problem facing comics today. The first? I’m glad you asked. It concerns…

NARRATIVE CAPTIONS There are writers who philosophically are opposed to the use of narrative captions.* “Movies don’t have narrative captions,” they say. So go write a movie. Why would you not want to use one of the most effective tools in the comics writer’s chest? I don’t mean that you should do it badly. Used well, narrative captions can ease transitions, add dramatic or comedic color, emphasize a point, or cover for confusing art, among other things. Some writers think it’s too “artificial.” Uh… these aren’t newsreels. They’re artificially created stories. *This includes footnotes, too, which can be informative and entertaining. They’re a great, unique comics device. They spill over from the magazine part of comics’ genetic code. Again, a great tool, why not use it?

effective. Yet many writers continue to insist that artists draw DIALOGUE them.

Unless a given movie is “about” language, such as a film of FACIAL EXPRESSION a Shakespeare play, there’s a limit to how long most movie or Marlon Brando’s face can express a thousand different TV dialogue is. Especially in an action film, there are rarely emotions. His raised eyebrow can mean he’s amused, he’s in more than a couple of dozen words per unit of dialogue. In love, or he’s about to have you killed. But there are so many many scenes, there are few or no words. In a comic, the subtleties of facial musculature and skin movement, it’s dialogue can be as dense or sparse as the scene dictates. As unlikely that such a gesture could be conveyed by even the with the example of the speech-before-a-punch above, a comics greatest comics artist. Again, many writers still insist on trying. character can go off on all sorts of dialogue jags while doing TONE OF VOICE things that would take a filmed character only a second or two You know what I’m going to say here. It’s a great element in to do. They can even think those things. A silent scene in a movies. John Wayne had one tone, but it worked for him. Al movie takes as long as a talking scene of the same length.

Pacino has a hundred. Nearly always backfires in comics which The viewer is (ideally) being entertained and engrossed either are, in case you hadn’t noticed, silent. way. A two minute scene that cuts between a thief silently MUSIC AND SOUND EFFECTS trying to open a safe while the police, sirens wailing, speed Similarly, so many things can be highlighted or accented in toward the scene of the crime, engages an audience for as movies with the right soundlong as a two minute scene track. When James Bond of two lovers having a enters a room accompanied heated quarrel. This is not by the James Bond theme, so in a comic. Even the it sends shivers up your masters of comics can’t spine, even if it’s George make their readers eyes Lazenby playing Bond, even linger on a textless image if his dialogue consists of very long, unless the viewer him hacking up phlegm. is admiring the art, in which Sound can very often cover case, he or she is probably for weaknesses in a movie not involved (at that scene. In a comic? You get moment) in the story. the idea. Same with nonThey’re, in effect, at a musical and non-dialogue museum. sound. Lots of explosions This brings me back to my and the sound of thundering rant about time and money hoofs can make you believe that started this piece. You something exciting is want to write a comic with actually going on in a no dialogue, that’s your movie. In a comic, you don’t right. It’s also my right to have those elements to rely read it at the store in 30 on. Sound effect open seconds and put it back on lettering can serve the the rack, unbought. If you same function as real don’t think enough of me to sound. Yet, many writers want to entertain me for a continue to write as if the decent amount of time, why The FF go Hollywood. From Fantastic Four, v. 1 #9, by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and lapses in their scripts can should I fork over my dough? Dick Ayers. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] be saved by great actors or Even if you wrote a inspired soundtracks. Science says they’re wrong. thousand words in your plot outline so that the artist would put a zillion nuances in each panel, the reader has no way of Bottom line: Comics are a great medium with a magic that knowing that. And why should they care? Times are tough. no other form has. I implore the comics writers out there (and There are video games to be bought. You want me to spend my with the editors and publishers who work with them) to be allowance or my salary on 30 seconds of entertainment that I proud that they are writing comics. You’re not writing movies or can’t even figure out?

TV shows. You shouldn’t be writing solely to impress your peers with how hip you are. You’re writing to entertain a reader and to Additionally, writers who believe that comics are movies on make that reader and his friends want to come back next time paper seem to selectively forget the advantages that movies to your (and other people’s) comics. You want to create an have over comics that can never be duplicated. These include, experience that’s pleasurable, habit-forming and entertaining. but aren’t limited to: You wouldn’t expect a car to fly. Why do so many writers expect GESTURE comics panels to move and talk?

Whether large or small, gestures say a wealth of things.

Negotiating over dry goods at an outdoor bazaar or dancing at Agree? Disagree? Couldn’t give a rat’s ass? Send your a hot new club are broad gestures that can look great in a comments to WriteNowDF@aol.com or snail mail them to movie but, as often as not, look silly in comics. A wiggle of Danny Fingeroth, Write Now! Magazine, c/o TwoMorrows, fingers or a jerk of a head are small gestures that convey 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605. volumes in movies, but in comics are generally too small to be “BUT WHAT DOES DANNY THINK?” | 39

On this page and the next: Two consecutive pages from Darkhawk #37. Todd Smith drew this page from Danny Fingeroth's plot. Danny then wrote the text, reproduced here, with the penciled art in front of him. This is what's known as "Marvel style" (because it was popularized by Stan Lee and his artists at Marvel in the 1960s) or “plot first” style. The script was then lettered by Jim Novak, guided by Danny's balloon placement indications done on photocopies of the art.

Todd's pencils were then inked by Ian Akin. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

40 | WRITE NOW

Note the artist's role in the storytelling here. Instructed

by Danny's plot to draw Chris Powell transforming into Darkhawk, Todd decided that a big, bold panel of Darkhawk, followed by a moody shot of his silhouette flying away against a full moon, was the best way to tell the story. It certainly was effective, but another artist might have made entirely different choices, such as, for example: a couple more panels of Chris agonizing over whether changing to Darkhawk would indeed kill him, multiple images of the transformation, or maybe seeing the flying hero through the cables of the bridge. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Even with a full script, where the writer would describe all panels and dialogue for the artist, there would still be many decisions for the penciler to make, but the writer does control the story's pacing to a greater degree. What's lost is a measure of the spontaneity the penciler would bring. Neither way of working is necessarily better or worse than the other. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

“BUT WHAT DOES DANNY THINK?” | 41

What Editors (Really) Want Interview with

Joe Quesada Interview by Danny Fingeroth 3/22/02 Copy-edited by Joe Quesada Transcription by The LongBox.com Staff

J

oe Quesada has done it all in comics. Starting as a colorist for Valiant Comics, his estimable penciling skills were soon discovered, and Joe became the artist on DC Comics’ The Ray and then on Azrael, a character he also designed.

Moving to work at Marvel Comics such as X-Factor, Joe became one of the top pencilers in the industry. With partner Jimmy Palmiotti and few of other folks, including his now-wife Nanci Dakesian, Joe started Event Comics, whose foremost character was Ash, the super-powered New York City fireman, created in stories co-written by Jimmy and Joe, penciled by Joe and inked by Jimmy. Ash is currently in development as a feature-length animated film at DreamWorks. While still with Event, Joe and Jimmy launched the Marvel Knights editorial imprint for Marvel. Aside from his editorial duties, Joe was penciler on an acclaimed run of Daredevil, working with writer and director Kevin Smith. Joe’s editorial work on that line so impressed the powers that be, that in 2000, Joe was elevated to Editor-in-Chief of the entire Marvel line. Since then, hardly a day goes by when Joe, often in tandem with his partner-in-crime, Marvel COO Bill Jemas, doesn’t grab some kind of industry headline. As Editor-in-Chief, Joe sets policy about what does and doesn’t get published by Marvel Comics.

So he seems like a person whose inner thinking you’d better get to know if you aspire to write for the House of Ideas, or if you’re just wondering about the philosophy that drives the top editorial dog at the biggest company.

DANNY FINGEROTH: I thought that you, for the obvious reasons, would be a good person to interview for a magazine about comics writing. You have been on both sides of the desk, and you’re now involved in setting editorial policy for the number one comics company.

JOE QUESADA: All right, man, I’m ready.

DF: The orientation of Write Now! is less towards inside gossip, although I’m always happy to have as much of that as you want to provide. Think of it as Entertainment Weekly meets Writer’s Digest.

JQ: Me gossip? I never gossip.

DF: [laughs] It’s always pure fact. The basic structure will be some background on you and your work, some general questions about the business and breaking in, and some specific questions about craft, plus a few beyond that. So… to begin… what did your folks do? Did they encourage creative work? Discourage it?

JQ: My parents were your basic nine-to-five working folk. My father was born and raised in Cuba, and he understood at a very young age that he had an aptitude for drawing, which basically had to be snuffed out because of the fact that he was one of these kids that, unfortunately, at the age of thirteen had to go work to be the sole support for a family.

42 | WRITE NOW

Cover to Daredevil, v. 2, #8 by Joe Quesada & Jimmy Palmiotti. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

Although that was taken away from him, he saw the aptitude in me and was always very encouraging. I can’t remember a time when I ever lacked drawing paper.

DF: That’s cool and pencils, too, I would hope. Those would have helped. [laughs] JQ: I drew in blood, actually.

DF: Well, whatever it takes. [laughs] JQ: There were no pencils in my day. I drew the hard way—with blood.

DF: [laughs] Were any of your siblings or friends in school into art or comics or writing or things like that?

JQ: I was an only child, so no siblings.

DF: Any teachers who inspired or encouraged you?

JQ: Sure, absolutely. Very early on in grammar school, I had a teacher who was very attuned to the arts. Mrs. Dorothy Cohen of PS 19 in Corona, Queens. We were going to Broadway plays

From Iron Man v. 3 # 28, “The Mask In The Iron Man” story arc, written by Joe, with art by Sean Chen and Rob Hunter. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

in the third grade. We were being taken to things like Godspell and to real sophisticated stuff at a very young age.

DF: You grew up in what part of New York?

JQ: Queens, New York, 95th Street between Roosevelt and 37th Avenues in Jackson Heights to be exact. I was really exposed to a lot of theatre and a lot of stuff very, very early on in my life.

DF: But you always drew, and the writing and editorial part of your brain and attitude came in later? The drawing was your first love?

JQ: The editorial part came in much, much later. Although I did write a lot of creative stuff in school, I wouldn’t have called myself a skilled writer to any extent, but I did have a very, very, very active imagination and I used to put that stuff down on paper. I think, inevitably, that was one of the things that originally attracted me to comics when I was a very young child.

Although I didn’t necessarily focus on the writing portion of my brain, I was always putting stuff on paper.

DF: Did you go to art school or major in it in college or anything?

JQ: After high school, it was art school. I went to the School of Visual Arts in New York City. I received a partial scholarship and basically I went to art school because I didn’t really know what else to do.

I wasn’t really 100% sure that I wanted to be an artist because, for me... I know people who draw all day long and just love to draw, but drawing didn’t come easy to me. I couldn’t just sit there and draw a bowl of fruit. I got bored very easily and I would draw it and say “a million people have drawn bowls of fruit,” and I would always try to draw something that no one had ever seen. Again, I guess that was the appeal of comics, the fact that you get to draw things, just create them from scratch, create worlds and characters and things that people have never seen. And you get to do multiple images on a page as opposed to one stagnant image that you work on for weeks and weeks. This is a lesson that I learned the hard way because I majored in illustration, and in the world of illustration, they ask you to focus on one image and draw that image and make it as fine-tuned as possible before submitting

it to the client. I think that, again, one of the reasons I eventually graduated to comics was that you get to draw and also to tell the story through still images. I guess, mentally, as an artist, I was very impatient. Drawing is not as much a pleasure to me as it is to some other people. Sometimes it’s a very painful act to draw for me.

DF: Your drawing is very detailed and very ornate. I can see that you don’t just dash off your drawings.

JQ: I have very little tolerance for my own stuff. So I get very, very bored. I hate doing a cover layout for a project that I know I’ve done before and it just torments me. I feel like I’m cheating the reader, I’m cheating myself. I’ve always been that way. That’s why comics, for me, is a painful creative process, because I work so hard at the layout stage. I do layout after layout after layout until I finally realize that I’ve got something that is either unique to me, or something that I figure, I can’t do anything else but this derivative piece that I’ve already done before but I’ve explored every option. Mind you, the latter has rarely happened. I think that’s why the writing half of it came later for me, too, because I saw so many great people writing such wonderful stuff that, damn it if I can’t do anything as good as Frank Miller is doing, why bother?

DF: Then nobody would be in the industry but Frank Miller. Was it always comics that turned you on, or was there something else? Did you know from the time you were a kid that that’s what you wanted to do?

JQ: It wasn’t always comics. It was comics early on, and then it became girls and sports.

DF: So that was the gigolo and professional baseball player period?

JQ: Actually, I left comics almost at as early a stage as I picked them up. I read them for a few years and then I dropped them, and then actually music became my first love. I taught myself how to play a bunch of instruments and I taught myself how to write music. I performed a lot for many, many years. It was a bigger part of my life than comics. I’ve spent more time being a musician than I have in the comics industry.

DF: Were you earning a living as a musician?

QUESADA | 43

“Sure.” So he showed me the floor plan for his studio, and said, “Here’s where my library is. Here’s where my art table is.”

I’m thinking to myself that this guy’s an artist. I didn’t bother asking what kind. It was none of my business. He said, “I’ll come back next week, show me what you’ve got then.” So, as I’m designing a lighting plan for this guy’s studio, it occurred to me that I needed to ask him what type of art he was doing. It would have affected what type of lights I would have put in that area. So the next week he came back in and I said, “Listen, I’ve worked out everything except your table-area workspace, because I need to know what type of lighting to put in there. What kind of work are you doing? Is it photography? Is it full-color illustration?” He said, “No, I’m in comic books” and I was like, “That’s hysterical, I just started reading comic books again.” He said, “Oh, you’re a fan,” and I said, “Well, yeah, I’m a fan of the craft. I really appreciate the good stuff. I used to be an artist myself, but I don’t do artwork anymore.” He said, “What kind of art do you do?” and I replied, “Well, I used to do fully painted illustration.” By the way, the guy’s name was Art Nichols.

DF: Oh, of course. I know Art. JQ: And Art said, “I’m working for this brand new company we’re starting up. It’s called Valiant and we’re doing fully painted coloring. Why don’t you bring your portfolio in?” I said, “It might be fun,” so I did, and I got hired there on the spot, and that was really kind of the beginning.

DF: Were you on staff at Valiant?

JQ: I was on staff at Valiant when they were doing Nintendo comics, but it was kind of like freelance/staff. I was there every day. They hadn’t even started their super-hero line at that point. It was just before the comic glut started, and everyone started getting rich. Actually people were just starting to get rich at that point, and I came in as a colorist and I worked in the in-house coloring group which was about six of us, led by Janet Jackson.

[Not the pop singer.—DF] They were paying their colorists on an hourly basis, and it was an outrageous amount of money. So here I was, coloring four or five pages a day, and we had guys that were coloring half a page a day. Guess how long that was going to last?

DF: [laughs] I want that job.

JQ: It was amazing. And then, finally, the investors at Valiant decided to send in a guy from the bank to check out how they were doing things, because it just seemed they were bleeding money and not making much of anything. The Nintendo stuff was a huge bomb. The guy from the bank looked and said, “We’ve got people here that we are paying on an hourly basis, this is insane.” So we had a big meeting and we found out that 60% of the staff had to be laid off and it had to be based on seniority. People with seniority got to stay, and I was one of the newest people, so I was laid off.

Literally, I had a month-and-a-half of funds left in my bank account. I could survive for about a month-and-a-half with rent and food and what have you, before I would have to go find a regular day job. While I was there, I was watching guys come in, and really getting to see what real comic book penciling looked like. At that point we had guys like Rodney Ramos, who is still in the industry, as a Azrael (designed by Joe) from Batman: Sword of Azrael #4, written by Denny O’Neil, with pencils by very prominent inker, doing some pencil work for JQ: I was earning some money but not enough to support my cocaine habit. Joke!

DF: [laughs] …he said with a smile.

JQ: Since I was doing nothing but original material, it was very tough to earn a living with your sole means of support being a musician. But I did it for a long time and fell back into comics later in life. Actually, it was in my mid-to-late 20’s when I rediscovered comic books—precisely at the same time that Watchmen and Dark Knight came out, so it was very serendipitous for me. That’s what got me back into the comics world.

DF: How did you make a living before you were in comics? If it wasn’t in music, what did you do?

JQ: Everything from working at the Gap to working at FAO Schwarz, the acclaimed toy store. Retail was my life and hell.

One of the best jobs I had was working for a company that designed lighting and sold lighting for residential and museum spaces. That allowed me to use the creative portions of my brain and it was just a lot of fun, because you are dealing with people who had a lot of money to play with to do cool things.

So that was the last job I had before I threw myself into the comics medium.

DF: Did you start getting assignments as soon as you jumped in? Did you know anybody to get your foot in the door? Your teachers or classmates from school?

JQ: Well, no what actually happened was that I knew nobody in the comics industry because, remember, I was an illustration major, and this was now many, many years after I graduated from college. So what happened is that, when I was working at the lighting design store, a guy who came in and said, “Listen, I need some small interior lighting designs for my studio.” I said,

Joe and inks by Kevin Nowlan. [©2002 DC Comics] 44 | WRITE NOW

comics are advertised. us. You’d see guys We really learned a lot like Rodney and Art about, and quite Nichols and guys like frankly we wrote the that who are really book on, how to get a solid guys. I was lot of promotion with looking at their very little money. technique and I was DF: You guys were thinking, “I know I can great at that. do this. I know I can JQ: And meeting, do this.” I put together greeting and talking to a penciling portfolio in the guys at Wizard. a month-and-a-half, We really condensed and Art Nichols our effort to get a lot hooked me up with a of press. I mean, brand new editor at Event Comics was DC, a guy named Jim three people, that’s all Owsley, who only had it was. We did quite a two books in his decent business with stable at that time. I just a few books, and went to DC, and he books that shipped gave me an inventory late no less— cover to do. I came completely my fault, back with it the next I’ll take the blame for day. He loved my stuff, that—but it was a and he said, “Kid, I cottage industry, and I love your stuff, but think we did pretty I’ve only got two good at the time. books and you’re DF: Before that, you’d basically spit out of never done any writing luck. But I’ll see if or plotting? anybody else needs JQ: No, none. any pencilers. Why DF: What made you don’t you just wait in decide that writing and the lobby?” So as I editorial was the waited in the lobby, I direction you wanted get a call from the The title character strikes a pose in Ash # 2. Written by Joe Q. and Jimmy Palmiotti. Pencils by Joe, to go in? Part of it was receptionist a little inks by Jimmy. [©2002 Joe Quesada & Jimmy Palmiotti.] a necessity, it sounds while afterward and like, with the Event structure. she said, “Mr. Owsley wants to talk to you.” I went back to his JQ: It was really more that the people that I really admired at office and he looked at me and said, and I never forgot this, that point were Alan Moore and Frank Miller. They’re the ones “You know what? You are the luckiest son of a gun in comics. whose work brought me back to comics. Alan’s writing was just What are the odds that while you’re sitting out there in that amazing, but Frank’s combination of being able write and draw hallway, one of my two pencilers calls me up and tells me to go the story was really fascinating to me. I felt deep down inside kill myself? I need a penciler on this book. Do you want it?” I that I could do that. I could tell a story like that and I could do was like, “Yeah,” and I have never stopped working since. that kind of rhythmic pacing. It was just something that was DF: That was The Ray, right? attractive to me because I felt it was something that, if I was JQ: No, actually that was a TRS book called Spelljammer. The going to do comics, it’s probably they way I was going to do it. I Ray came afterwards. I’ve never stopped working since that eventually had writing in mind as a goal. I just wanted to tell day, and since that day I’ve been the luckiest son of a gun in stories that were worthwhile. I didn’t want to tell run-of-the-mill comics. super-hero stories. There were way too many people doing that, DF: Did you did you do any co-plotting or co-writing in the early and I just didn’t want to do that. days?

DF: Was there any way you and Jimmy split up the writing duties JQ: Very little, I didn’t feel it was my place. I’m working with on Ash? guys like Denny O’Neil at the time, and then later on at Marvel JQ: No. What we did was, we talked to Howard Chaykin at one with Peter David and people like that. It’s like “hey, man, I know point. Howard had described to us how, when he writes or he my place. I’m an artist. Let these guys write me a story. I’ll co-writes—because he did a lot of co-writing—you sit around learn as I go along.” and you spitball ideas, and you use an index card system. You DF: You co-wrote Ash, right? put your ideas on index cards and then you break those ideas JQ: Ash was when I first started to co-write stuff, with Jimmy down into even more index cards. Then, you pretty much know Palmiotti, at the time when we started to publish our own stuff. what’s going to go into an issue. You figure your standard That’s really where we got sort of a baptism of fire with respect comic book is 22 pages of art and story, so you pull out 22 to structure, as well as to how comics are solicited, how QUESADA | 45

wiped out. We had 20-foot-long rows of index cards all over the floor. By the time we were done, we probably didn’t really need the index cards, because we knew the history so well. Then we started to break the backstory down into story arcs, and then we started breaking those story arcs down into issues arcs. If we had to do it over again, I’d re-think it a bit, because we wrote this linear story, the story of Ash on these index cards, and then we decided to do something that I now see as a very big problem in the comic book industry. Instead of telling the storyline early, we decided to tell the story in bits and pieces, time jumps and things like that. It’s something that I now fight against every day at Marvel. But it’s something that I fell into very early on as a beginning writer. It is a problem that I even see today’s best writers fall into.

DF: Sounds like good editorial training, to take things apart and put them together like that.

JQ: Oh, sure. Again, in retrospect, looking at the Ash story, it’s still a fun story, but we could have told it so much better. It was growing pains. You’re looking at two guys who were doing it for the first time.

DF: So from that “learn while you earn” writing, the next thing the public knows about you, beyond drawing, is the Marvel Knights line. You guys were the editors, not writers. What did you think you could bring to the party that was different?

JQ: The first thing that we thought we could bring to it was the fact that Marvel—and we knew this coming from the freelancing perspective—Marvel was kind of a closed shop.

There were people that were working here who were friends of Marvel, so they got work. We wondered why Marvel didn’t hire other creators who were out there, who we knew could do good work on certain books. We could never figure it out, and it wasn’t our job to figure it out. It was just our job to start bringing in some of these people we thought were good. The real surprise to us, compared to the independent publishing world, from Image to Event Comics, everybody was coloring stuff heavily on the computer. Marvel was still using the colorguide to color-separation-house method, because Marvel had very a big color separation house over in Ireland. Marvel was doing a lot of its production in the stone age, as opposed to the independent world where colorists were doing everything on the computer, putting it on disk, and ending up with a better product.

So when we came to Marvel to start Marvel Knights, we noticed that the whole bullpen area, the production area, was years behind us, and we were just a tiny company. A footnote to this is Marvel has caught up, but our next of kin competitor DC still does it like the dark ages. So it’s interesting that sometimes the comic book industry has a hard time catching up to the rest of the world.

Even as editors, it was a different world for us, it was something new, because we were used to editing our own stuff. Now we were working with somebody else’s characters, so you have to play the politics of dancing here at Marvel because—and underDaredevil takes to the roofs in Daredevil, v. 1 #227, from Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli’s “Born Again” storyline. index cards. Then you start breaking down that book and you have to make sure it fits on those 22 index cards. When you are done, you end you with several series of index cards. So when I’m ready to draw, I end up with 22 index cards, each one basically indicating what’s on the page. We had reams of these things. We would be in my studio apartment, and we’d clear the floor of everything, and we would put the cards down on the floor and plot out the issue.

DF: Can you go into some detail on that process?

JQ: We would start with “Who’s Ashley Quinn? What’s his origin? Let’s talk about him, his mother, his father, how his mother and father met.” We’d have all these index cards going from left to right, and the next row, and the next row and we would have his entire family history in front of is. Who his father’s friends were and things like that. And then we would figure out the future of Ash and how all the time elements came into play. So by the time we were done we had the entire back-story written down. One of things that was also very important was that I decided early on that I wanted to take the Robert McKee [Story Structure] course. Anybody who is reading this interview should make sure that they are very aware of Robert McKee’s book called Story, which is an adaptation of his weekend-long seminar.

DF: It’s a great seminar.

JQ: Robert McKee is a writer who never really wrote anything of tremendous significance, but as a teacher he’s taught some of the best screenwriters in Hollywood. The best comics writers have taken McKee’s course.

I heard about it from Denny O’Neil. It was a great course. I had taken it early on, so I had learned a lot about structure, but I didn’t feel I knew that much about writing at the end of it.

Jimmy and I both knew that we had to understand Ash’s world before we could write the characters. So we created the world of Ash, and we studied the world of firefighters, things like that.

So, like I said, it was comical. People would walk into my apartment and I’d have to warn then: “Be careful where you step.” One false move and a character’s entire past could be

[©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] 46 | WRITE NOW

standably so, I don’t blame people here one second for this—but you have to put this into an historical timeline. When Marvel Knights came in, I believe it was only perhaps a year after the Image guys did the whole Heroes Reborn thing and, although that was a commercial success, it was a disaster for company morale.

Editors here hated it. They had their books taken away from them! So when we From Black Widow v. 1, #1, written by Devin Grayson, art by J.G. Jones. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] came on board, they looked maintaining of the franchises, the icons. You don’t want Garth at us as more of the same. “Here come these guys with their Ennis to go and turn the Punisher into something that you big swinging egos!” So we were very conscious of that, and don’t want the character to be. You do have to be a protector that is one of the reasons we asked for office space at Marvel. of the properties and, yes, there is the steering, pleading, and We wanted people to accept us as part of the company, manipulating of certain story arcs to be as commercial as because we weren’t operating on behalf of Event Comics. If we possible. If you are an editor who is really on the ball, you’ll be were operating solely for the benefit of Event Comics, you able to create certain arcs and certain spikes in arcs that would have seen an Ash crossover with Spider-Man very early continue the reader’s interest, and you are able to help your on. We really wanted to work with Marvel because, at the end writer with that. It all changes from writer to writer. Some guys of the day, we were all very much of the same understanding require a lot of babysitting and some guys and gals do not. that as Marvel goes, so does the rest of the comics industry. If Some writers just hand in their stuff and go away and never this company wasn’t healthy, there would never be a healthy come back, and the same thing with certain pencilers. Some Event or DC. The industry could very well have fallen apart and creators really need to hear feedback instantaneously. It’s kind we wouldn’t be having this interview right now. of like having a family, and you’re sort of the paternal portion of DF: So was it that more than any innate desire to be an editor? that family. You want to keep everyone in your family happy as Certainly, it seems like a big jump to go from “here’s your pages, much as possible, and that’s really the way I’ve always seen my give me my check” to “I want to now be the hub of the wheel of job. Just to give you a really quick anecdote: I always communiall the things that go into a particular comic.” Was that a big cated with Joe Straczynski via e-mail, and I sent him an e-mail conceptual leap for you? a couple of weeks ago, jokingly saying, “Joe, I’m really kind of JQ: A lot of this was also ego. Who amongst us in the creative pissed at you because, quite frankly, you’re one of the few guys community doesn’t play Monday morning quarterback, or who that works for me at Marvel that I have never ever met doesn’t play fantasy comic books and doesn’t think, “Boy, if I personally. So gosh darn it, the next time we are together at were in charge of Marvel, I could fix things by doing X, Y, and the same place we better have lunch or I’ll never speak to you Z.” We all do it. We’ve been doing it for years. We’d all sit again.” I’d like to have the type of working relationship with around at a bar and have a couple drinks and say what we people where it’s professional, but it’s personal, too. It’s just an could do with X-Men or what we could do with this or that extension of how I ran my business as a freelancer. I want series. This was an opportunity for Jimmy and I to put our them to be aware that the person who is Editor-in-Chief is very money where our mouths were. We could get a little piece of aware of the work that they are doing and proud that they the pie here and try to do something really good with it, and we chosen Marvel as the place to do their work because were confident enough—and maybe we were egotistical ultimately, they have taken a leap of faith, and they have put enough—to assume we could make a difference. I think we their trust in me, and that I can deliver on the things that I did. A lot of it was just controlling our own destiny. Being given promise. a couple of icons is nothing to sneer at. When they said, DF: When you have that lunch with Joe Straczynski, will you talk “Yeah, you can have Daredevil,” I was in. They could have paid about a Spider-Man plot or script, or will you leave that to the me next to nothing I was already in. line editor of the book?

DF: The editor’s job, in a nutshell, how do you see it and how JQ: First of all we did have the meeting. He was in New York has it changed over the years? If you want to address the Editorand he took me up on it. Basically, I try to let the line editor in-Chief job, what had it been, what is it now? discuss the direction of a book a little bit more with the JQ: You’re asking me a question that I’m not equipped to creator. With Joe and me it was broader strokes. “We’ve got answer because, keep in mind, I’ve only been editing for three you on Spider-Man, what else do you want to do? Let’s talk years and I’ve only been Editor-in-Chief for a year-and-a-half. I strategy and let’s talk timing. Okay, you’ve got this idea for don’t know how the job has changed. I can tell you the way Spider-Man, cool. Let’s try to plan it for sometime this year or that I used to do the job at Marvel Knights, which was basically next year so that we can promote it correctly,” and things like a lot of getting out of the way, especially when you’re dealing that. With Joe, basically all I have to do is say hello to the guy with very, very top creators who really know their craft. If you’re and tell him how much I appreciate the great job he’s doing hiring Garth Ennis to do The Punisher, well, basically, get out of and then get out of his way. Okay, so I did go a bit fanboy on his way and let him do The Punisher. Then there is the QUESADA | 47

the guy and tell him what a huge fan I was of Spider-Man, Babylon 5, and now [Showtime’s series] Jeremiah. That’s my geek mentality showing. Beyond that, it’s more of a strategy meeting, more of meeting to find out, “Are you cool with Marvel, what can we do if you’re not cool, give me your general impressions, how do you think we’re doing out there and what can we do to make it better?” That’s kind of what I speak to Joe about. When it comes to story, he can speak to his editor about it. If there’s ever questionable content in the story or a questionable story arc or a questionable direction, the editor will come speak with me, and if we need to have a meeting, we’ll meet with Joe. The last time this came up was when, in the most recent issue of Amazing Spider-Man, it was revealed to Aunt May that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, and we had a bit of a conference on that. Joe was not included—he just sort of put the story out there and Axel and I wrestled with the possible repercussions and the positive outcomes and where it could all lead. We weigh the options and then we decide, go or no go. In this particular instance we decided go.

DF: That’s a good, clear rendering of the internal editorial workings. I think it’s helpful for people to know this kind of thing.

JQ: With respect to editorial policies, I’ve told my editors the same thing over and over again, which basically is the same philosophy as the way I ran the Marvel Knights business. If we’re hiring Grant Morrison to write X-Men, let him write X-Men. This doesn’t mean that Grant has carte blanche to go out there and turn Scott Summers into an axe murderer. These guys know what these icons can do and where they can go, and sometimes I encourage editorial to steer the writer onto the track if they get off track. One of the things that I heard a rumor of when I was a freelancer was that, if an editor didn’t get what they wanted from the writer, they would just rewrite it because they had to get it out. I soon found out that that was the case and not just rumor, as some editors freely admitted to me. That’s not a policy that we have here anymore. Basically, if writer X, for example, was to submit something and we thought it wasn’t clear, if we felt that the language wasn’t proper or the character didn’t sound like the character, then the first thing to do is to call writer X and ask them to change it. If writer X doesn’t get back to you within a certain amount of time to meet the deadline, then we change it. But our creators have that understanding walking in. It’s our agreement with everyone.

DF: Sounds like it’s a rational policy.

JQ: Like I said, I was very surprised that the rumor that I heard was actually true and something that was done at one point.

So we don’t rewrite the X-Men books anymore. I often tell my editors, if we are hiring the best creators, I’ll allow my editors to edit if they allow their creators to create. So I very rarely come down on an editor and say, “You have to hire so-and-so for this book, I demand it.” I will suggest people and I will try to steer editors in a certain direction, so it’s a pretty low pressure situation. The only time I’ll step in is if a book is really, really in trouble and I feel like I need to stick my nose in and give my observations as to why this book is in trouble, and perhaps offer suggestions as to how to steer it out. The only place where I really have a strong visible hand is with art directing our covers.

DF: You’re a resource. Why should they not make use of it?

JQ: Right, there are no hard and fast rules. I used to hear this rumor that there was no green allowed in Marvel covers.

DF: [laughs] That’s an old folk tale.

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JQ: Things like that don’t exist. We try to focus on a certain style of covers, but for the most part, anything goes if it’s an eye-catching cover.

DF: I know that Marvel has a policy that says none of your editors can write as well as edit. Obviously, in the history of comics, some great work has come from editors who write. I was wondering what the thinking on the policy was?

JQ: It’s an absolute policy and just to add a footnote to it, if there is an editor here who feels, “I’ve got this really great story and I feel the need to get it out there, they cannot get paid freelance for it. It is forbidden. The covers that I do for Marvel, I do not get paid for. I don’t make freelance money here any longer. The reason for that is that I believe one of the things that was the downfall of Marvel’s creative juice for a while was that we became so insular. One editor would give the editor next door to him a job in lieu of another writer, and eventually, when guys like Grant Morrison came here looking for work, guess what? Grant couldn’t get work because all the books were taken up or just the fact that it was a boys’ club of the worst order.

DF: There have been editors who are great writers in the history of the business. Stan Lee is the most notable example, but there were also Archie Goodwin, Jim Shooter, and Denny O’Neil. I understand your reasoning, but I wonder if you worry about missing potential quality writing from somebody on staff who

A pivotal moment in J. Michael Straczynski’s Amazing Spider-Man, v. 2, #35.

Art by John Romita, Jr. and Scott Hanna. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

going on. understands the process in a unique way?

DF: And I have many disagreements with JQ: No, I really don’t feel like that. I feel your perception, but this is not an in today’s world that it’s different. Writers interview with me. weren’t making very much money years JQ: There was a point when Marvel was ago. In today’s world, you can very easily producing 100 titles a month or so— support your family on a book or two DF: 140. books a month. My feeling is, if someone JQ: 140. And at that point, maybe they here is really that good a writer, they can needed to give some editors some work show me their stuff, and if they are that because there probably weren’t enough good, I will work out a deal for them freelance writers to go around. But it’s where they can make a significant amount not the way we do our business now. of money writing for us, so much that they DF: Let’s segue into something else. would not want to edit again. I mean Someone looking to break in as a writer really, it’s that simple. Every once and a or as an editor today, is there any recomwhile you will get a Denny O’Neil who mended way? happens to be on staff, but keep in mind JQ: If you want to do something while what happened here at Marvel. You ended you’re in college or college age, my up with people running the business of recommendation still stands. Come in comics who weren’t businessmen, they and be an intern, perhaps come in and were comics fans. People came in as work as an assistant editor and get an interns because they felt that, “If I can idea what it’s like. If you are a good break into Marvel, I can get a job writing.” enough writer when you do leave the And for a lot of people that was the editorial corps, you’ve already estabultimate goal of editing here. It wasn’t to lished relationships here. It would be edit, it was to become a writer. I want to considerably easier to get a job as a separate that. If you want to be a writer, writer if you’ve got good, established then be a writer. If you want be an editor, relationships with editors already. The then be an editor. I don’t want to have way I see it, there is nothing better than situations where I have people editing working as an intern at Marvel with books who are sort of thinking, “If I was respect to getting connections and writing this thing I would write it this way.” learning the ropes.

It’s not going to work and, quite frankly, DF: What about conventions, sending in it’s also a terrible way to run your submissions, working in other media, company. You can’t even budget properly doing self-publishing, all that stuff? what the company is earning at the end of JQ: All that is all very helpful, if you have the year because you’ve got people here resources. To be honest with you, one of who are working and double-dipping by the best avenues is to try to get yourself making money on the side. At the end of self-published, or published anywhere, the day, think about how many good because realistically, when you send a writers came out of it, and then also how portfolio in cold, if you’ve been published many terrible books were produced, also somewhere else, it’s taken a lot more by internal people. There was a time in seriously. Even if you’ve published it the comics industry when all you had to More from JMS, JR Jr, & Hanna’s Amazing yourself, it shows a that you went for it, know in order to get a good job in comics Spider-Man #35. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] you tried. You believed enough in was comics. Also, remember that in Stan’s yourself to publish yourself, or you believed enough in yourself day, many of the writers and artists weren’t weaned on comics. to go to a small publisher and let them rip you off or whatever.

They wrote for magazines, illustrated commercially, they had a DF: One of the big issues in comics right now is, who are comics better grasp of the art of story structure and illustration for? When you’ve got your creator’s hat on, is there someone you techniques. They didn’t come from a place where all they knew, write towards? And from the Editor-in-Chief’s perspective, who do lived and breathed were comics. They didn’t want to be the you think your audience is these days? next Stan Lee because that was meaningless to them at the JQ: I think we learned from Stan that you don’t write down to time and had no historical weight. Flash forward ten, twenty your audience because you feel that kids are reading it. Write years and you have this new crop of guys coming in knowing good stories. Stan wrote stories that worked on several levels. exactly how to make comic fans happy, unfortunately it was They were entertaining enough that I understood them as a kid. only comic fans like themselves and not new fans who may They were sophisticated enough that I felt like I was reading want to join our medium. It all became way too insular and as something that was meant for my older cousins. That still much as I have affection for some of the editors that edited applies today. Obviously, I think we can get away with a bit and wrote here, it was a cancer on the comics industry. This more edginess than back in the day. But who the audience is, can also bleed into the editing portion if the editor is too mired it’s always been a problem. We’ve never really done proper in the way that comics “should” be done. demographic research to find out who reads these books. You DF: [laughs] I’ve been biting my tongue, I’ve been very good. look back to the ’40s and people like to think that there were JQ: I understand. You were here when that sort of stuff was QUESADA | 49

twenty, but we know for a fact that we definitely have 50-yearold readers out there.

DF: A pet peeve of mine is that I see a lot of comics written as if they were screenplays. Whereas, in a movie, because you have motion and color and music and camera movement, you can get away with a minimalist approach to dialogue. I’ve seen that tendency in comics, where the story points don’t get conveyed with those film elements, and also don’t get conveyed with text.

That’s my pet peeve. I’m wondering if you have any thoughts on that or thoughts in general on how comics are like movies and how comics are not like movies?

JQ: If you are referring to the minimalist nature of some comics, I tend to agree. There are some books out there that are critically acclaimed that have this minimalist attitude towards the comic. They never get around to introducing the characters. The writer just assumes that because you are versed in the language of comic books, you know that the guy with the black leather outfit is sort of the Batmanesque character of the group, and so on. So I understand what you’re saying. If you look at movies and dissect them, you’ll notice that the same formula that we use in a good comic is in a good screenplay. They introduce the world of the story. They introduce the characters very succinctly. Again,a master at doing that was Frank Miller. There was no one better at this particular function, when he was writing Daredevil: Born Again. In every issue, he introduced Matt Murdock in a unique and interesting way, where we were completely unconscious of how Frank did it, yet there it was. By the time you got to page three, you knew exactly who Matt Murdock was.

Another artful way of doing it was when Mark Waid, in his first Captain America run, managed to do the exact same thing with introducing us to Steve Rogers. Mark also really masterfully introduced all the players in a way that didn’t seem forced. There From Daredevil v. 2 #12, written by Quesada and Palmiotti, art by Rob Haynes. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] weren’t characters coming on to camera, and the character next to them saying, “Hey, Thunderbird, how Comic Book Artist magazine [#18], and I was surprised to are you and how are your powers today?” learn that Rolling Stone actually did an exposé on Marvel back Now, with all that said there are exceptions to every rule, and in the early Sixties. Why, you ask? Well, because Marvel was we are adapting with the times, but more on that later. huge on college campuses! Go figure. Maybe we’ve never really DF: I think we’re both saying that the craft should be practiced been a kids’ medium and that’s what’s holding us back. I know well as opposed to badly. for a while there was this attempt to have the Disneyfication of JQ: Now, I don’t see a need for a word on every page if we can Marvel which, thank God, didn’t work. What a disaster that get the action across visually, which is one of the big, big would have been! stumbling blocks that new writers have. They like to write in DF: I assume you’re not including the Vertigo line in this caption. A new writer will script: “Panel One: Spider-Man is comparison to DC. swinging from building to building. His arm is in a sling JQ: No, that’s a mature readers imprint. I’m talking about the because it is broken.” And the art will show Spider-Man mainline super-hero stuff. I think the message of X-Men is swinging from building to building with a balloon saying, “Thank much more sophisticated than the message of Superman. goodness my arm is in a sling because it’s broken,” when it’s Superman is Superman. X-Men is about prejudice, it’s about very obvious to us that the damn thing is broken and in a sling. tolerance, working as a team, it’s about ethnicity, it’s about so I see a lot of those mistakes very, very often, because comics many different things. And although these stories can be told are the visual medium that they are. with enough simplicity for a child to understand, the underlying DF: A lot of comics today seem to be part of a whole, intended messages are quite complex. They’re Shakespearean in nature. to be collected in trade paperbacks. What’s the thinking behind I think Marvel readers tend to be a little bit older. I would that? venture to say that our key age range is probably twelve to like so many kids reading comics. Well I talked to [legendary artist and former DC Comics Publisher] Carmine Infantino recently, and he said, “You know, the bulk of our readership, was in the 17-20 year old range, because a lot of them were servicemen.” Sometimes I wonder if, with respect to super-hero comics—and I don’t mean the quaint old-time Superman-type stories, I’m talking about Marvel—there’s a misconception that a majority of our readers were eight- and ten-year-old kids.

When I picked comics up early on, I was handed many comics from my older 16-year-old cousin who was love with Kirby’s Fantastic Four. It’s really tough to say, but I think that Marvel Comics in general are a bit more sophisticated than our Distinguished Competition for the most part.

I just read this interview with Flo Steinberg in, I believe

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JQ: We had to make a conscious decision as to how we break our stories up and how we told our stories. Back when the newsstand was a real business—this has very little to do with comics, just that the newsstand in general is a dying business, magazines are dying—the newsstand was the traditional feeder system for the direct market. Before there was a direct market, newsstands were the number one place where comics did their business. So the theory back in those days, in respect to constructing a story, was first of all, a cover with enough cover copy that readers understood that this was the following issue from the month previous. Number two, page one had an explosive action, so that when someone turned to page one, they knew that they were getting something that would just punch them in the face and they had to take that issue home.

And number three, every comic needed a compelling cliffhanger at the end of the issue to make sure the reader came back the following month. This dictated a certain formula in the way the stories have to be told. So let’s say, for example, that I wanted to tell a story about the Fantastic Four in which they go on a picnic and in the middle of the picnic, Galactus shows up.

DF: I hate it when that happens, don’t you?

JQ: Chances are that as a writer, I would have to do a couple of things but in order to get that “punch in the face.” I would either have to have Johnny and Ben getting into a fight during the picnic and make that my first page, or I would have to show Galactus landing on Earth, and then have Reed say, “Hey, I bet you’re wondering how he got here.” Then we’d flash back to the picnic. So the punchy opening dictated structure, from that point of view. And then, of course, the cliffhanger ending at the end of each issue dictated that we were telling stories in which there was an ending that was so compelling that you had to get back there next month. But if you put these books together as one whole, they didn’t really work as a trade paperback. Of course, back in those days, who cared about trade paperbacks? Our business was month-to-month-to-month, and you had to make sure that the following month’s sales were at least equal if not better than the previous month’s. We don’t want sales to go down, so make that cliffhanger a killer.

Now, as we get into the world of trade paperbacks, we realize that that structure does not make for good trade paperbacks.

So we don’t have to reinvent the way we write comics. We just have to modify the structure a little bit and understand that that the first page is not quite as important with respect to the punch in the face as it once had to be. Chances are the person who is going into the direct market shop is focusing on the cover image now more than on the first page. And you have to realize that the ending, although it could be a cliffhanger, especially a decent enough cliffhanger if you’re on issue two or three of a six-issue story arc, you have to eventually realize that somewhere, there’s going to be an issue that doesn’t end with an incredible cliffhanger. It has some sort of satisfying end. This doesn’t mean that you can’t have dangling plot lines, but you have to solve the macro story.

Now this brings up the exception to the recap rule I brought up earlier. What we’re discovering at Marvel is that, much like TV shows that do a one minute recap at the beginning of their episodes, we will eventually go to recap pages. The reason is twofold. In our never-ending quest to strive towards a naturalistic approach to storytelling and dialogue, we find that the recap pages help considerably. The fans seem to enjoy them better because it lessens those awkward moments of characters meeting and having to cumbersomely introduce

themselves and their powers. The second reason is that it makes for better trade paperbacks. No matter how much of a master Frank Miller was at recapping, in TPB form, when you read all those issues together, there’s only so many times that you can read, “My name is Ben Urich. I’m a reporter,” without saying to yourself, “Enough already!” The recaps are wonderful in this fashion because they can be easily removed for the TPB versions and the stories will read much smoother in the end.

We’ve changed the basic structure of writing a story for the month-to-month comic books, because it does make for better trade paperbacks. The way I see it, bookstores are going to replace the newsstands in a few years. Bookstores will become the feeders for the comics shops. Because what we are discovering, and actually it’s a wonderful discovery, is that we have a casual fan that really craves the material that we are producing. If you’re a non-casual fan, you actually get your ass up once a week on a Wednesday and go to your local comics shop. That takes a lot a of effort or it takes a certain mentality, a club mentality. There’re only two things that I can think of that most humans do on a weekly basis. One of them is your laundry, and the other one is you go to the supermarket. The supermarket isn’t a club mentality. It’s a survival thing. You have to go get your food. It’s not something that we do on an habitual basis because it’s fun.

And not everyone finds going to a comic book shop on a regular basis fun. But a lot of people find reading the product is fun. So we are providing for the casual reader who enjoys XMen, who likes the fix, but would get it whenever they go to the bookstore, which may be once every three or four months. We find that when readers go to the bookstore, they have to have their X-Men, but those people don’t want to be at a comic book shop every week. So they’re getting their X-Men from the TPB section, or wherever they find it. But what we’re finding is that there is the casual fan who says, “I can’t wait this long for a trade paperback. I’m going to go to the comics shop [for the next regular issue],” and that’s when they become serious comic book collectors.

DF: It sounds like the whole system of distribution and consumption of the stuff is evolving. You also don’t want to shortchange the person that does go for that monthly or weekly fix and have them feel that they are getting just a part of a story.

But you don’t want to weigh the paperback reader down with repetitive detail. That’s got to be a delicate balancing act.

JQ: What we find is that no matter what they say, a person who is at the comics shop every week to get their books is a collector. It doesn’t mean they are collecting the book for monetary value. They’re completists. They like to have every issue. So that reader doesn’t care what format they get it in.

They’ll just as soon read it on their computer screen, a paperback, a handed-down, crumpled up copy from a friend, they don’t care, they just want to read it. That is the reader.

There are very few of those in comics shops because the people in comics shops don’t like to have the corners of their comics crinkled. It’s a very delicate balance—and now we are getting into the business side of comics—and that’s why Marvel went to this no overprint policy. What we found is if we didn’t give the single issues an intrinsic value, people would just buy the trade paperbacks.

DF: Information about the business side is good for aspiring writers to hear. What skills does a professional comics writer have to bring to the table, at least in terms of how stories are structured, especially in this evolutionary period?

QUESADA | 51

Quesada cameo from Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #9, written by Brian Bendis with art by Jim Mahfood. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

JQ: What we’ve done in respect to the monthly periodical, is, while other companies are watching their monthly periodicals shrink in sales and shrink in value, we’re seeing an up-trend in sales and an up-trend in value and an up-trend in trade paperback sales as well. Readers want their single issues and they want their trade paperbacks.

DF: Just a few final questions. You mentioned the McKee course, the McKee book. Are there any other books or courses that you would recommend, either about writing or just with general life-enhancing content?

JQ: I find that DVDs with directors’ commentaries are very, very helpful.

And any books that you can find from any of the classic directors that talk about storytelling are very, very important.

DF: Directors as opposed to screenwriters, or both?

JQ: If you can find a director that is also a screenwriter, that’s even better.

But for me, directors, because comics are such a visual medium and what directors are dealing with is adapting a script and turning it into storyboards. I find that, relatively speaking, when it comes to writers, I would focus less on screenwriters and more on TV writing. This best writing on the planet is currently on TV. There’s no question about it, because TV is the only place where they have to produce almost as much volume as comics. TV writing can be done as a collaboration, when From Daredevil v. 2 #8, written by Kevin Smith, with art by Joe & you look at people like David E. Kelly, Jimmy. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] for instance, he writes every episode of every one of his shows and he’s amazingly prolific. And here’s a little footnote: he writes it all longhand.

DF: Wow. JQ: He doesn’t type. TV writers are an amazing breed. You look 52 | WRITE NOW

at individual TV episodes, and they are better than 90% of the stuff that’s in the movies. TV’s also closer to a purer vision.

There’s so much money behind a movie that a screenplay gets rewritten by a dozen different people. The ultimate purity of that vision is gone by the time it hits the screen. The real art to screenwriting is to try to keep the vision intact.

DF: There aren’t as many comics coming out today as there were ten years ago. If somebody has comics writing skills but they don’t make the cut, or they don’t bathe enough, do you have any suggestions as to where they can take those skills and use them if not in comics?

JQ: I think the best thing you can do is to try to get yourself published, whether it’s do-it-yourself or going with the smaller companies. I’ve had guys who submit stuff who are Hollywood TV writers—and it wasn’t that they weren’t good writers, they were writers for TV shows. But they were part of a TV-style ensemble writing team. Some people work better in that type of an atmosphere, because they weren’t the idea guys, they were the facilitators. Somebody comes up with the concepts and these guys were the writers that put it down on paper and added the structure to it. So they were looking for work at Marvel, and although their work was sound, it was flat for comics because the ideas weren’t there.

DF: The skills don’t always translate.

JQ: Right. So just because you didn’t make it at Marvel doesn’t preclude you from becoming an Emmy Award-winning writer.

There’re a million different roads out there, but quite frankly, the structure is the same. Learning to write for comics is very similar to learning to write for TV. The format becomes a little bit longer when you work on screenplays or stage plays, and of course there’re novels which is a whole other world.

DF: This will be coming out most likely at the end of July.

Anything you want to plug or talk about or put in people’s minds for that period of time?

JQ: Nah. Just buy more Marvel comics.

DF: Anything for Joe Quesada personally that you want to plug or talk about?

JQ: Man, I don’t need any more plugs. People are sick of me by now.

DF: One last question—this has become my traditional last question—who is stronger, the Hulk or the Thing?

JQ: The Hulk.

DF: So far everyone’s in agreement on that. I’ve got to come up with a better last question.

THE END

Confessions of a Male Model Interview with

Tom DeFalco Interview by Adam McGovern in mid-2001 Updated by McGovern in late 2001 and

by Danny Fingeroth in May 2002 Edited by Danny Fingeroth Copy edited by Tom DeFalco May 2002

F

rom Betty and Veronica to a certain well-known webswinger, to the hybrid of all three known as Spider-Girl, Tom DeFalco is comics’ jack of all trades, and master of them all, as well. Well, okay, he can’t draw—but he’s regularly aligned with the top artists in the business, including Ron Frenz, Pat Olliffe, Al Williamson, Ron Lim, Sal Buscema and Mark Bagley. And that’s not even mentioning Tom’s seven year stint as Marvel’s Editor-in-Chief during the company’s highestselling period since the halcyon days of the 1940s! Today, Tom’s splitting his time between Spider-Girl, creator-owned projects such as Randy O’Donnell is The M@n, and his usual cryptically-alluded-to secret projects that will make the world bow before his genius… or at least enable him to finally open that pizzeria he’s always talking about.

In this interview with Adam McGovern, we focus on the writing side of Tom, especially since (a) that’s how he primarily sees himself (when he’s not pursuing his true vocation of male modeling, that is) and (b) that’s what this blamed magazine is about! But, of course, with the unique insider’s view Tom’s had at Marvel, and before that, at Archie, it’s impossible to have his observations of the craft and business of writing not be informed by his experience as a suit—or, at least, as a tie. (I don’t think I ever remember Tom wearing a suit to the office when I worked for him as Group Editor of the Spider-Man line.

But he did have the most garish collection of ties I’ve ever seen, which he proudly displayed for all to see.)

Best known as a writer for his distinguished stints on various Spider-Man series—and generally considered one of the finest interpreters of the webslinger since Stan Lee himself, Tom tells it like it was, is, and maybe even how it will be. A lifelong lover of the comics medium, he’s trying hard, on a daily basis, to figure out how to keep the medium going and growing well into the future. If you’re curious how to work both within and on the outside of “the system” to get your ideas to a mass audience, as well as how to become a professional writer and have a successful career at it, then Tom has some insights that you just may find enlightening.

ADAM McGOVERN: You’ve had a Zelig-like career as the power behind a number of pop-culture phenomena that ended up being much better known than you yourself; for instance, one of Marvel’s longest-running editors started at Archie Comics.

TOM DeFALCO: I started working at Archie doing… I don’t even know what! [laughs] Working in their editorial production department. I remember the first thing they told me to do was open up the mail for “Dear Betty and Veronica.” That’s how I started, opening mail, and things just got crazy from there!

AM: And you were the architect of their digest format?

TD: Yes. But I didn’t create the format. I believe that Gold Key was the first publisher to do digest-sized comics. I saw the format, and proposed it to John Goldwater, the company’s publisher and one of its owners.

He called me an idiot, and told me not to waste his time. [laughs] I was convinced that the format was perfect for Archie, so I kept bugging him. He came in one day and decided to give it a shot. Since I had been pushing the idea, the very talented Victor

Tom and Ron Lim’s creator owned Randy O’Donnell is The M@n #2. Inks by Robert Jones. [©2002 Tom DeFalco & Ron Lim.]

Cover to DeFalco written Amazing Spider-Man, v. 1, #260.

Penciled by Tom’s longtime collaborator Ron Frenz. Inked by Joe Rubinstein. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] DeFALCO | 53

Gorelick, who is still Archie’s managing editor, dropped the digests in my lap—and I was in charge of them until I left the company.

AM: And then what route did you take from Archie to Marvel?

TD: After writing for Archie Comics for awhile, I began to freelance for Charlton Comics. I was assigned to write stories for the various Flintstones titles and books like Scooby-Doo, Hong Kong Phooey, and Wheelie and The Chopper Bunch.

Somewhere along the line, I met Paul Levitz who was an assistant editor at DC at the time and he introduced me to the legendary Joe Orlando, one of the finest editors this industry has ever seen. Joe used me for a few custom comics and recommended me to the other editors at DC. I still remember when Denny O’Neil called out of the blue and gave me my first real DC assignment. He was editing a love comic, and told me to write a story based on the title “I Won’t Kiss That Evil Way!” I think I showed up with four or five different pitches. [laughs] Denny okayed one, and liked my finished script enough to offer me some other assignments. I eventually showed some of my DC work to the equallylegendary Archie Goodwin who was in charge of Marvel at the time. Archie gave me an assignment, a five- or six-page story starring The Vision. Others followed. Charlton eventually stopped making new comics, and I continued working for DC until they had their implosion [after the ill-fated “DC Explosion,” in late 1978].

AM: Did you always harbor dreams of reaching certain points and working for certain companies, or did you just throw yourself into what you were doing at a given time?

TD: I only know one way to write: I have to be 100% committed to my current project on an emotional level, or it’s like pulling teeth. You’re talking to a guy who can pour just as much enthusiasm into a story with Yogi Bear as one with Spider-Man. As far as my career went, I knew which companies paid the best rates, and kept hoping that I would eventually be good enough to get regular work at DC or Marvel.

AM: How did you get into things like toy development?

TD: It’s more the editorial background of the toy development.

At one point, Marvel made a deal with Hasbro. Hasbro was going to relaunch the G.I. Joe toys. Someone realized that there were all sorts of restrictions on advertising a toy—you could only show exactly what the toy could do—but there were no restrictions on advertising a comic book. So they came up with this bright idea of getting Marvel to do a comic book: They would advertise the comic, and use animation to show all sorts of exciting things and special effects. Hopefully, people would be so intrigued by the comic book, they’d buy the toys. The plan worked. G.I. Joe became a best-selling comic book and toy line. The plan also convinced me that television advertising would never for be feasible for the comic book industry. Hasbro spent millions on television commercials. While G.I. Joe eventually became one of Marvel’s top-selling titles, the profits never equaled the cost of the commercials. The only reason the plan worked was because Hasbro was using the commercials to support a major toy line.

AM: That’s interesting. I didn’t remember that the tie-in had predated the actual toys.

TD: Oh, yeah. Jim Shooter was Marvel’s Editor-in-Chief at the time. He put me in charge of the creative team for G.I. Joe. Larry Hama, who is one of the industry’s most underrated writers, did all of the early character biographies, and basically set the standard for all the toy biographies that came afterwards.

AM: I was kind of surprised, actually, when I realized you’d been involved with that particular project; looking back, it doesn’t seem quite in line with your current characters’ ideas on conflict resolution.

TD: Well, you’ve got to try a bunch of different things! [laughs] May Parker [Spider-Girl’s peacemaking alter-ego] has her ideas, but different characters have others. Part of the fun of being a writer is that you get to explore many different personas.

AM: After that you had some connections in both industries?

TD: For a few years, I had feet in both industries, and occasionally still do. Hasbro was a small company at the time, and now they’re one of the biggest! We had a terrific relationship with them, and it lasted many years. They were

DeFalco, Frenz and Rubinstein depict a nasty Peter Parker nightmare in ASM, v. 1 #258. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] 54 | WRITE NOW

President and the like. Is this just a device not to have a lot of great guys. I’m using this in the past tense, but I’m sure they wacky predictions that’ll be outdated on arrival, or can I take it still are great guys! [laughs] to be some kind of tacit wish for a parallel present at a less AM: And part of the beautiful friendship was that other ’80s formulaic company? icon, The Transformers…

TD: You can take it however you want. [laughs] When we first TD: After the success Marvel had with G.I. Joe, toy companies started working on this alternate universe, or whatever you kept showing up and asking us to establish their fictional want to call it, a bunch of the other creators started getting universes and write their character bibles. At one point Hasbro upset—“Oh, man. Are they going to use my cast of characters? asked Marvel to see what we could come up with for a new Are they going to touch my series?” So in the first issues, I property called Transformers. They liked the resulting bible, and basically said, “The MC-2 books are just fiction. They’re all just Transformers was a go. stories.” [laughs] “Don’t worry about them! They don’t really AM: You’ve also made reference to doing straight fiction in your count.” And they don’t! But the free time. Is that anything you truth is that all comic books are typically get published, or is it for fiction! [laughs] some later lifetime?

AM: It seems that you hit a stride TD: As far as comic book fans are like never before with the whole concerned, I’ve written some MC-2 line. There were certain prose stories featuring the Marvel things beforehand that you’d tried characters and even co-wrote a and seen get shot down, like the couple of novels. I’ve also introduction of baby May in the consulted or worked on various “real” Spider-Man continuity; the television and movie projects that 2099 line, which was another involved the Marvel characters. kind of next-generation thing; and And I’ve also done a few things the shuffling of characters’ that have nothing to do with identities as in Thunderstrike comics, they don’t really belong in [the star-crossed average-Joe this interview. I actually exist in stand-in for Thor], which perhaps different forms on many planes of didn’t get a lot of attention from reality and manage to scrape a fandom at large. Do you see MCliving together.

2 in general as a kind of culmiAM: Do you still primarily make nation of these things that you’d your living from writing comics, or almost nailed before? is it more a collaboration between TD: Well, I don’t know if I see it your alter-egos in comics, toys, as a culmination… Have you games, and TV? talked to my doctor? Have you TD: I make my living as a male heard something? [laughs] model. Everything else is just for AM: [laughs] Crescendo, let us fun! say, not culmination!

AM: I’ve long admired the MC-2 TD: Actually, at the time it was books’ [the line that Tom cancelled, Thunderstrike was packaged for Marvel, of which the outselling Thor and The surviving title is Spider-Girl.—DF] Avengers combined! Why was avoidance of formula, how you Thunderstrike cancelled? The have this readiness to dispatch powers-that-were said, “You can major characters and scrap plot Mayday Parker realizes that with great power there must also come great only have one guy with a devices that you could’ve milked responsibility. Art by Pat Olliffe and Al Williamson. hammer.” Well, that’s it; you for years on end—like May’s [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] have to let one go. parents’ disapproval of her doubleAM: If it had been DC, they might’ve cancelled the other guy! life—but are willing to let go of before they get into ruts.

They’ve at least shown some courage in having a different guy TD: Things have to be constantly moving. The dynamic totally with a green ring. changes in every couple of issues of Spider-Girl. You have to TD: Well, you know… their attitude might have worked a lot do that, otherwise it gets boring! If you’re going to try to aim for better. Marvel might not have gone bankrupt if they had paid an illusion of realism, you’ve got remember that real people are more attention to what was actually selling, instead of reading constantly growing and their reactions change as they get new reviews. information. In many regards comic book readers are getting [As for Spider-Girl] When we were working on Spider-Man and very lazy. They become locked into the way a certain character discovered that Mary Jane was pregnant, I could immediately should be and how a certain type of story should play out, and see a future where Spider-Man would be going out and having they get very upset if you don’t follow all the standard clichés. adventures with his daughter. For assorted reasons, that period AM: So it’s clear that those books in particular are a reaction of writing Spider-Man wasn’t my favorite, so I spent a lot of against certain kinds of set-in-stone expectations among certain time imagining the adventures I’d rather be writing! [laughs] At fans. I’ve also always found it interesting that even though they one point, they needed some material for What If…?, so I saw nominally take place in the future, basically all the references the opportunity to get Spider-Girl off my chest. Ron Frenz, who’s and settings are contemporary except for a fictionally named DeFalco continues on page 58 DeFALCO | 55

This page and the next: Tom and penciler Pat Olliffe work Marvel style. In this case—in Spider-Girl #41—there are no captions or dialogue (besides title and credits and whatever in real life would have text on it—the newsman's name, for example) because this story was part of Marvel's experimental ‘Nuff Said Month, where the creators tried to tell their stories “silently.” [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

56 | WRITE NOW

Pat excitingly tells the story Tom describes in the plot. In some situations a writer might have been more specific in the details asked for, especially for a “silent” issue, but Tom and Pat have worked together for a long time, and also talk frequently, so they have a generally clear understanding of each other's thought processes. Inks by the ever-incredible Al Williamson. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

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DeFALCO | 57

TwoMorrows publications should only be downloaded at

www.twomorrows.com

DeFalco continued from page 55

In an homage to Tales of Suspense #39, Ron Frenz and Joe Rubinstein depict the return of Spider-Man’s classic duds on the cover of ASM v. 1, #258. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

one of my favorite collaborators, had some free time. So hey! We figured we’d get together and finally tell Mayday’s story—and we thought there would be one and only one Spider-Girl story. [laughs] Imagine our surprise!

AM: I know. For all of the early Marvel homages that went on to appear in the MC-2 books, the weirdest was this coincidental way you spawned an accidental hit from a story you just had to get off your chest in a soon-to-becancelled book, just like Stan’s stashing of Spider-Man’s debut in the last

issue of Amazing Fantasy decades before.

TD: This has been an incredible experience. When we were getting ready to launch MC-2, one of the higher-ups said to me, “You’ll be lucky if you get eight issues out of this dog.” [laughs] That executive is now working in another industry and Spider-Girl is still chugging along—HOO-HA! It’s been a lot of fun, and I’m glad that most of the readers seem to be having as much fun as we are.

AM: Absolutely. It’s good to see. From looking at the letters page, more of those readers than with most current comics seem to be female, which is refreshing nowadays. I’m wondering how consciously you go after that audience, because much of this industry, bizarrely, seems to have written off that 52% of the marketplace.

TD: Here’s more DeFalco stupidity. [laughs] In general, I think that men want to see what happened, and women want to know why it happened. Based on that very simplistic theory, I’ve always thought that Marvel was a much more femaleoriented company, because we are dealing with the characters and their reaction to why things are going on. I just think of Spider-Girl as a typical Marvel comic! I’m getting the impression that a lot of the Marvel comics these days are no longer traditional Marvel comics.

AM: [laughs] ’Nuff said! Speaking of one of the other recent Marvel comics that I definitely consider a Marvel comic: What coordination if any was there between the creative teams on MC2 and Earth X? There seemed to be an interesting amount of parallelism, particularly with both having a supernatural heir to Daredevil and a prominent May/Peter Parker psychodrama.

TD: None. I have never read any of the Earth X material, and the creators have never tried to contact or coordinate with me.

AM: That’s too bad; Alex Ross could always use another male 58 | WRITE NOW

model. [laughs] [Interviewer’s Note: The Paradise X series and the Paradise X: Heralds miniseries, each featuring Spider-Girl herself, were announced after this interview was conducted. Tom confirmed that the character’s appearance in these series was also news to him.]

But seriously, this leads to an interesting behind-the-scenes question: As a rule, do you find that most comics creators read a lot of each others’ stuff, or more often find their energies taken up with their own work?

TD: Most comics creators really do love comics! We spend eight to ten hours a day working on comics, and usually spend our weekends reading them. I guess it’s a disease.

AM: I was always curious about the legalistic can of worms that the MC-2 stuff opened up in terms of things being adapted from older characters. I know that finally on the two miniseries, they began to give you in one case a “created” line [for The Buzz], and in the other a “developed” line [for Darkdevil]. How does it all work out in terms of your ownership of these characters, and royalty issues?

TD: [laughs] That’s so complicated. I… I don’t know. [laughs] I’ve always had a really ridiculous attitude about this sort of thing, and it’ll show you what kind of a jerk I am.

AM: I’ll be the judge of that! [laughs] TD: I’m not that concerned about getting credit for anything I’ve done. I just want the company to pay me the amount they promised, and to live up to the deal we made. I don’t worry about what I’ve created in the past because I’m going to create something new tomorrow. A lot of people don’t like work-forhire. Well, there are advantages and disadvantages. One of the advantages is that doing work-for-hire material generally pays a lot better! And yes, there are trade-offs. Like I said, I was never all that concerned as to who owns what as long as I was getting what I thought was my fair share. Overall, I have no complaints.

AM: Certainly this material is a gray area, because it’s based on existing concepts, even though fleshed out and varied in what I consider to be very inventive ways. I was also wondering if that caused any reluctance on Marvel’s part to introduce any characters that weren’t clearly based on earlier ones, because they’d be afraid of having to pay out. Or is that not an issue?

TD: I really don’t think it’s an issue because the Marvel royalty system is based on sharing of the wealth, if there is wealth. If something goes out there and makes a lot of money, hey! We all get a share! If it doesn’t make any money, hey! None of us get anything!

AM: The Titanic principle. The movie, I mean. [laughs] TD: With things like The Buzz, which was something brand-new, it’s easy to put “created by.” For something like Darkdevil, I suggested “developed by,” because he is based on a lot of different pre-existing characters.

AM: At least among your own creative teams, it’s been very noticeable how your books take great care to acknowledge the co-creation and co-plotting role [shared by] writer and artist.

TD: I want everybody to have input! Comics are really a team effort. I’m not going to walk around and tell you what a genius I am, that I have this great vision, full of this fabulous stuff. I’m nothing without the artists who save my butt and make sense out of my ridiculous plots. A penciler is nothing without an inker to clarify that artwork and make it printable. Without the colorist to step in there and make everything look beautiful and three-dimensional with colors, a comic book just doesn’t work!

once in a while, a young editor will comment in one way, shape This is really a team sport! or form that I’m getting too old for this stuff, and this exchange AM: I understand that in your collaborative process, even the will just prove they’re right. [laughs] inker has input.

I’ve reached that age where I have older nephews and TD: I try to have all my comics lettered on the board… which nieces. Since I’m the kid who’s never grown up, they confide in shows you what an old fart I am. Nobody letters comics on the me all the time and spend a lot of time talking to me. Being a board these days! I do it this way so that the inker knows what grandparent is probably the best job in the world, but after that the story’s about while he’s inking it. He’s relating to the it’s great being an uncle—especially if you’re the uncle the kids characters, and getting emotionally involved in the story. I know talk to about what’s bugging them, and their problems, and how it works with Spider-Girl, because [legendary EC Comics they can’t deal with their parents, and that kind of stuff. Some veteran and Spider-Girl inker] Al Williamson occasionally calls of the conversations that Mayday has had with Peter Parker me and says, “I really don’t like what this guy’s doing here,” or, were ripped cold from situations with one of my brothers and “I really like this character and I have some ideas for her.” Al one of my nieces. Reality is all around us! [laughs] Its all Williamson gave me some ideas for [recovering villain] Raptor, there! I freely admit that I’m basically a journeyman writer. I’m because he was touched by the character. still learning the craft. So, I pick and choose out of real life.

AM: That’s interesting to know.

AM: Another of your central tools is what I might call variety of TD: The guy’s been in the business 50 years. If the story can voice: The different MC-2 books maintain a mix of first-, secondtouch a guy like that, hey! and third-person narration, and in dialogue you have a connoisAM: Even though you’ve chosen to work mainly in the superseurial ear for generation- and genre-specific speech patterns, to hero mold, there’s an interesting focus on ordinary people in always distinct and often hilarious effect. What would you say your work. Books like your Thor run were perhaps most distinabout this? guished by their carefully fleshed-out supporting casts, and TD: I think you need to get out more. you’ve tellingly answered questions about who your favorite AM: [laughs] Awright, awright. But I still think you’re one of the characters are by listing their secret-identity names. Is there a five all-time best dialogue-writers in comics, along with Alan frustrated literary figure hiding in the super-hero scribe, or just a burning desire to humanize adventure fiction?

TD: I believe that fiction is supposed to illuminate the human condition, and that comics should try to simplify the chaos of existence into a few rational pages of words and pictures. As a writer it’s my job to bring structure and meaning to life. Real life is very messy and often confusing, but fiction is organized and full of purpose. And that’s why people like to read Peter’s symbiotic costume first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #252. Plot: Roger Stern. Script: Tom D. Pencils: Ron Frenz. stories and watch Inks: Brett Breeding. Letters by the great Joe Rosen. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] movies.

Moore, Mike Allred, Brian Michael Bendis, and Steve Gerber.

AM: Do most of your characters have a basis in people you TD: To be totally honest, I consider myself to be a student of really know? the craft and I’m rarely happy with my own work. I keep trying TD: Every character I write about is either somebody I know or to make it better. Every time I think I’m getting close to somebody I want to know. “Mayday” Parker, many of her traits achieving my goals as a writer, I realize that I just set them too are based on someone I know. Phil Urich, when I was doing the low.

Green Goblin series, he was somebody I knew. Peter Parker is AM: You’re an entertainer, but your books can work on many somebody I wish I knew. Stan Lee did such a great job on levels, be it the generational tension in Spider-Girl or the tricky Peter Parker, I actually feel like I know the guy! [laughs] line between fantasy violence and reality consequences in The [Thunderstrike alter-ego] Eric Masterson was kind of a blend of M@n and Mr. Right. Are there usually certain themes that you’re me and Ron Frenz—all of Ron’s optimism and all of my incomburning to put into a story, or do you just plunge ahead and petence. [laughs] realize what was on your mind once it comes out on the page?

AM: The mention of Mayday points up how youth are a theme TD: It works different ways. I am not scene-oriented. Every and a target audience of your best work. What attracts you to once in a while, I have an idea for a scene, and it’s burning in this subject, and how do you keep in touch with the concerns my brain; I sit there and write it out, and most of those times and enthusiasms of young people? when I finish the plot I have to delete the scene, because it TD: I know that this is going to come back to haunt me. Every DeFALCO | 59

doesn’t really fit into the theme. I’m mainly theme-oriented. I usually have something I really want to discuss when I lay out my plot. Most of the time, my first pass at a 22-page story runs 32, 33 pages. [laughs] AM: I can believe it.

TD: Then I go back and pull out everything that doesn’t absolutely fit the theme. The nice thing is that I get the joy of crafting scenes; whether or not the scene makes it into print is immaterial to me. It’s the difference between a professional and an amateur. An amateur loves everything he does, and has to get it into the story, while a professional loves everything he does, but cuts anything that doesn’t fit the story.

AM: That’s his principal loyalty, exactly.

TD: I owe it to the reader! I’ve often thought that these DVDs with all these uncut scenes are a great way to learn about the process of storytelling. Most of the time, if you look at those deleted scenes with a certain degree of objectivity, you can see why they didn’t make the final cut.

AM: I know. I can’t stand that whole trend, that “more is more” ethic.

TD: Right. I look at some of these scenes and go, “Boy, that really slowed up this thing!” Another unpopular tack I take is that I think most of today’s comic books move too slowly. A

“Maximum Carnage” began here, in Spider-Man Unlimited #1. Script by DeFalco.

Art by Ron Lim & James Sanders III. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] 60 | WRITE NOW

regular comic book story usually runs four or five issues, whereas the rest of the mass market entertainment industry tells a single complete story in every discrete unit. If you’re watching television, every episode is usually a complete story.

If you’re buying books, every novel is a complete adventure.

Yes, there are exceptions but they’re as rare as a single issue comic book story. The average kid will see three or four complete stories in fifteen minutes on MTV! He is not going to wait four months for a single comic book story.

AM: It’s true, some super-hero books are like a sequential version of those hypertext DVDs, with everything stopping for endless exposition and description of abilities—like you’re reading the back of a toy box.

TD: You’ve got to move these stories along. Okay, stories are all about characterization, but character bits do not necessarily add up to a story! Many times, I pick up a comic book and I realize that there is no story here; this is just one extended character bit. The writer forgot to add a theme and a plot.

AM: It’s this strange mix of instant gratification and nothing happening. [laughs] TD: Yeah! I think a lot of comic books are aimed at an audience that isn’t really reading the stuff, that is more admiring the material. Somebody, I think it was Jim Shooter, once said he feared that the comics industry would eventually become like opera—where everybody knows what the story is, they just want to applaud or deride the performance. In many regards, comic books are becoming like that, where you know how the story’s going to turn out, and the discussion is just whether or not my version of the Galactus story is a good or a bad performance. It’s always interesting to me when guys take over a book and basically run through the top ten villains of that book.

AM: Opera and comics—when you think about it, the comparison of shrinking audiences is not so far out. It’s like this recent Simpsons comic where a comic-store guy is telling Bart, “It’s people like us who took a mass medium and made it what it is today—a subculture!” [laughs] TD: I’m just a fan of the medium, and I appreciate things like the Simpsons/Radioactive Man comic book, and the Archie comic books... I think there should be everything!

I think the industry’s made some very bad turns. When I was 12 years old, comics were all aimed at kids, and there was nothing for adults. Now the vast majority of comic books are aimed at adults, and there are very few you could feel comfortable giving to a kid!

AM: Actually, there’s very few that I’m comfortable giving to an adult, either! [laughs] It’s for more like adolescents.

TD: I have to tell you something. I maintain that characters like Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, The XMen—these characters should really be aimed primarily at ages 13-16. I used to refer to them as 16-year-olds of all ages, because that’s what they’re structured for. The fact that I’ve grown up doesn’t mean Spider-Man necessarily should’ve grown up with me!

AM: And yet, in one of your own books, he has!

TD: And yet, in one of my own books, he has.

AM: [laughs] What do you say to that?

TD: I’m two-faced! [laughs] AM: Well, in your book, he didn’t grow up so much as grow, which is what the mainline version of the character did until about 1975 anyway, and I liked it better when that was happening.

TD: If Spider-Man continued to grow naturally, he’d be around 55 now, and [laughs] his adventures wouldn’t be too interesting! It’s funny: For the longest time we were getting a lot of complaints on Spider-Girl that “Peter Parker would never retire. He’d be out there.” And I kept thinking, “He already appears in three books each month. You don’t need him here!” [laughs] If there were super-heroes in real life, they would be like football players, who would basically have careers that would extend for four or five years, at the end of which they’d be so beat up they wouldn’t have the option of going out there anymore!

That’s what it would really be like to grow old with super-powers. They’d be lucky if they could walk out of their backyard.

AM: It’s interesting that you should be characterizing it with such humor. One thing that definitely stands out both in the MC-2 books and your new The M@n is the same kind of thing which I think helped the X-Men movie work so well for a mass audience: that it slyly acknowledged the general public’s misgivings about comics and incorporated them as jokes. And certainly, a book like The M@n seems to regularly stop in its tracks to make fun of its own conventions. Is that a conscious Randy O’Donnell does his hero thing in The M@n #2, courtesy of DeFalco, Lim, & Jones. [©2002 Tom DeFalco & Ron Lim.] part of the plan to welcome new known, “I’m interested in branching out”? readers?

TD: Yeah.

TD: I guess. I’m poking fun, but I’m doing it in a loving way. I AM: So these didn’t start life as Marvel proposals? don’t want to give the wrong impression, because I love this TD: Nope! We came up with the ideas after we heard that medium! I still read my Marvel Masterworks when I get a Image would entertain proposals. chance; I think it is just such an honor and a privilege to be AM: What’s your take on the irony of getting a new lease on life able to do comic books. This really is, after being an uncle, the from Image after the great Image exodus happened on your greatest job in the world.

Editor-in-Chief watch at Marvel?

AM: So what was the genesis of The M@n and Mr. Right?

TD: It’s funny; I always felt that the “Image exodus” was an You’ve spoken a little bit about what it was that got MC-2 inevitable evolution. Jack Kirby, Neal Adams, Steve Ditko, all of brewing in your mind when you were working on some of the these guys became superstars in the industry and, at some more mainstream Marvel titles. How did these new Image books point or another, decided to go their own way. I knew that this get brewing in your mind while you were working on the was inevitable. It didn’t take me by surprise, and it didn’t preceding stuff? particularly bother me. In point of fact, I thought it was great TD: I had a discussion with certain people at Marvel who when the guys went out and formed their own company! These indicated to me that it may be time for me to retire from the are people who’d made money in the industry, and they were comic book field. And I spoke to a number of my pro friends giving back to the industry: Instead of going off and forming who were still working and also finding it difficult to get work, other kinds of companies, they were forming a comic book finding doors being closed and such. We felt that we still have company! They basically said to every creator in the industry, things to contribute to the industry. What can I say? I’m still a “If you get popular enough, you can own your own company fool in love with the medium. [laughs] I got in touch with Jim someday.” One time I was at some convention, and somebody Valentino who is running Image Comics. To my surprise and said, “In the comic book industry people can make money, but delight, Jim welcomed us with open arms. He was just so they can’t be like Lucille Ball, who at one point formed Desilu supportive. I turned to [The M@n artist] Ron Lim and [Mr. Studios.” Well, actually, they could, and they did.

Right artist] Ron Frenz and said, “Hey, guys, if we can come up Around the time that Image was created, Marvel lost market with some stuff, Jim’ll publish it if he likes it.” Things share, but didn’t lose profits. In fact, X-Men and Spider-Man progressed from there! sales continued to go up! In many ways, the Marvel balance AM: So you didn’t shop around concepts first, you just let it be DeFALCO | 61

sheet improved after the Image guys left. I think a lot of that was because the whole Image explosion got a lot of new people paying attention to the industry. Okay, maybe a lot of these people were speculators who were only going to be there temporarily, but there was an incredible infusion of cash for everybody involved in the industry. Those were heady days; everybody was doing great. Yeah, that was a bubble that was eventually going to burst, but it was the biggest bubble we’d ever had until then. I maintain that when the bubble burst, the industry would’ve been fine if the companies hadn’t gone stupid. But, unfortunately, certain people panicked and did dumb things.

AM: Would you care to itemize any?

TD: Oh, I’ll name a couple of things. One was pulling away from the mass market and ignoring the newsstands. Some people saw that they could make more profit with the direct market, and didn’t see any purpose in dealing with the mass market.

With the direct market, your profits are better since you’re printing to order, but the mass market brings in the new readers. I think a number of people in the industry are still fooling themselves, thinking the direct market is going to come back; but that won’t happen until you get a strong mass market presence. Until you get a strong mass market, the direct market will not come back.

AM: Exactly. The model I think of is the way that in most supermarkets you now will have at least a little best-sellers shelf—but obviously, it’s not as if people have stopped going to bookstores; if they want to find the collected works of Shakespeare or something, they’re not going to get it in a Pathmark. And in just the same way, if people want to delve into back issues, that’s really what the direct market should be for, and then put the contemporary stuff out where people can actually access it.

TD: It’s not only the back issues. The comic books racks in a typical mass market outlet can only carry about 24 different titles. If you enjoy the medium, and enjoy those 24 different titles, you’re ultimately going to have to end up in a comics

More M@n—and WoM@n—derring-do by Tom, Ron L., and Robert Jones. [©2002 Tom DeFalco & Ron Lim..]

62 | WRITE NOW

store, because that’s where you’re going to get the greatest diversity of material.

AM: But it’s got to be out there to make you want it.

TD: Yeah. It has to be out there, and it has to hook you at the appropriate age! I don’t believe many people start reading comic books in their 20s. It is a fascinating medium that uses both sides of the brain simultaneously; we use our conscious side as we read the words, and our subconscious side as we look at the pictures. In many ways, you have to be trained how to do that. Most of us don’t even know that we slowly learned how to read comic books over a period of time. In my generation, we learned from looking at the Sunday comics; we got hooked on the Sunday comics, and eventually went to comic books.

AM: That’s an interesting way of looking at it. And how would you itemize the ways in which you see your new Image books as addressing the problems you see in the industry, in terms of readership, the medium’s general survival, etc.?

TD: Well, my Image books are appropriate for a mass market. I consider myself an entertainer, and I want to entertain anybody who picks up these comics. The goal is to hook the hardcore comic book readers with material that will also work for the mass market… because I intend to distribute these comics to the mass market someday. Many comic books today just aren’t suitable for the mass market.

AM: Absolutely. You have to have read the last 240 issues, or pick up the eight other books that contain part of the plot, such as it is.

TD: This may blow up completely in my face, but The M@n will be complete one-issue stories and each issue will contain all the information you need. Every issue of Mr. Right will contain two 11-page stories. I think the direct market will be a little puzzled by my books, but the mass market will probably like them a lot!

AM: Yeah. When you were talking before about how every other form of mass entertainment is contracting in terms of giving the most information in the briefest amount of time, I was thinking about how, at least since J2, your affinity for that kind of shortstory format has been clear. And it’s funny: Fans seem to have embraced it since then in Alan Moore’s Tom Strong and Tomorrow Stories, but I think J2 went kind-of unsung as the first comic in a long time to really go out on that limb. So is that pretty much the rationale behind it, that you think it’s more concentrated information for a mass public?

TD: I guess. [laughs] Archie Comics has been doing this for years, and I think that a lot of people in the mass market think of Archie when they think of comic books. If Archie can give you four stories every month in a single comic book, the least a super-hero book can do is give you two—as opposed to one-sixth of a story.

AM: That’s certainly how it seemed to work in the greatest heyday of the medium, the ’40s.

TD: Yeah. I think those of us who’ve been buying comics for a long time are spoiled. We know where to pick up the next issue, and how to pick up the next issue. A lot of civilians don’t. So it is incumbent upon us to make it easier for them.

AM: Of course, a big part of making it easy is not just having something for them to enjoy and comprehend once they get there, but really getting the stuff out to them—expanding distribution. What inroads have you made with Image in that regard? ’Cause obviously they seem to be the better hope for your master plan at this point than Marvel.

DeFalco continues on page 64

Remaking Mr. Right projects.

Shortly after this review was AM: Has Randy been well received? conducted, Tom DeFalco’s sophomore TD: The people who have read The offering from Image Comics, Mr. M@n seem to like the book. We’ve Right, underwent a major overhaul gotten some great reviews, and a lot on its way to the shops, morphing of very positive letters. However, we’re from regular series to stand-alone not breaking any sales records. trade paperback. Tom and I sat down AM: Were orders higher on Randy one last time to trace a tale of bizarro than Mr. Right, or did Image simply direct-market economics which, while start to circle the wagons a bit more? handing his mass market dreams a TD: Orders on the first issue of The major setback, gave powerful proof of M@n were significantly higher than his points about the sorry state of those on Mr. Right #1, and it’s kind current comics affairs. —AM of puzzling. Ron Frenz and I have had AM: The August release date came great-selling runs on Amazing Spiderand went. I guess Mr. Right had a Man, Thor, Thunderstrike and Achange in plans?

Next—and we thought our fans were TD: Yes, Mr. Right had a major still out there! change of plans. The retailers didn’t AM: This piques the curiosity about order enough copies of Mr. Right #1 two things: How much time elapsed to inspire Image with any confidence between the Randy and Mr. Right about the title’s future—so we solicitations? (i.e., Did retailers have a decided to try something new. Instead chance to see the good response to of publishing a regular comic, and Randy before deciding on Mr. Right, or eventually collecting everything into a did they just choose between the two trade paperback, we’re going to start simultaneously?) off with a 64-page trade paperback, TD: There were about three months which will collect all the material that Cover to Mr. Right #1 by Ron Frenz and Sal Buscema. between the two—Mr. Right was we originally planned for issues #1 & [©2002 Tom DeFalco & Ron Frenz.] solicited the month after the second 2—plus some other goodies. issue of Randy was solicited. It takes retailers a looooong I know it’s kind of a backwards way to go about it. while to base their orders on actual sales. They guess how Unfortunately, the retailers aren’t ordering new independent many copies they can sell of a first issue, and cut the order in comics. They wait for the trade, figuring there will be one if the about half for the second no matter how well or poorly the first series is any good. As a reader I’ve kind of fallen into that issue sold. They cut more for the third, and occasionally habit myself: I’m not buying certain series because I know increase orders on the fourth or fifth if the title has done really there will eventually be trades and I can wait. On the other well. A possible problem with Mr. Right #1 is that retailers hand, I’ve also planned to buy certain trades—and lost interest ordered it as if it were the third issue of Randy. by the time they were published. [laughs] AM: Also, was A-Next a good seller after all? I know you’ve AM: It’s funny; I love (Randy O’Donnell is) The M@n, but of revealed that Thunderstrike was outselling Thor when Marvel course we all play favorites, and I could tell from the pre-publicancelled it for other arcane reasons; was something similar the cation proofs that Mr. Right’s wrong-side-of-the-tracks atmoscase with A-Next? phere was gonna make it my favorite of the two. So the retailers TD: I believe that A-Next was selling in the 40,000 to 45,000 nixed my tastes even before it came out—a new record. range when it was cancelled, and it was cancelled because of [laughs] What do you think appealed to the retailers more about our then-publishing plan to keep rotating the titles.

Randy than Mr. Right?

AM: Is Mr. Right now planned as a series of TPB’s, or will they TD: I really couldn’t say. Randy is a wilder concept; there’s bring out one and then wait and see? really nothing else like it in comics or television. Mr. Right, on TD: We’ll come out with one this year, and see how well or the other hand, is a much more traditional super-hero—and poorly it is received before we start the next one. If it sells well people don’t look to Image for that sort of thing. enough, we’ll probably come out with one every year.

AM: Do you think this will affect the type of subject matter you AM: You had certain distribution ideas for the kind of TPB you choose for future creations, or just where you pitch which kind of originally expected. Do you envision any of them being applied project? with this one?

TD: Probably both. While I am committed to doing all-ages TD: My plans to break into the mass market require a lot more material, I also like to do other material on occasion. If the material than I currently have at my disposal. So I need some comic book industry is to survive, we have to reach beyond the new plans... direct market. I haven’t given up on that dream. While I enjoy AM: But nothing to reveal yet, I take it? working with the guys at Image and have a lot of respect for TD: That’s it for now! them all, I’m not sure what the future holds for me or my DeFALCO | 63

DeFalco continued from page 62

M@n continuing while earlier issues of them are being repackaged outside?

TD: I applaud Jim Valentino.

TD: Yes. That’s the goal.

I’ve had a number of AM: Are you going to try to conversations with him, and involve other creators in he is actively trying to your budding empire’s expand distribution and get inventory, or just build up into other marketplaces. enough material of you and AM: He’s certainly laid some your collaborators’ own to groundwork in terms of get this started? variety. He really seems to TD: I have to start small, be committed to expanding and build slowly. Step One the kinds of stuff that’s is to produce comics that produced. people will enjoy—and I’m TD: Yeah. I give Jim a really hoping that The M@n tremendous amount of and Mr. Right are those credit. I always thought he comics. At some point I’d was a sharp guy; he’s even love to include other writers sharper than I thought! and collaborators, but [laughs] My plan is to that’s a few years in the produce enough material to future. be able to reformat this AM: The Image books will stuff, and slam it out to the have to run long enough in mass market at a later Why did these kids ever split up? From Spider-Man Unlimited #2 by DeFalco, Bagley, the direct market to be date. and Sanders. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] repackageable for the mass AM: This gets back to market. If Spider-Girl’s success is any indication, it seems like repackaging plans past: You’ve said that the MC-2 books were they’ll have no trouble doing so. That book must be connecting originally meant for nontraditional but high-profile markets like with a wider audience than most mainstream comics. Who are department stores. What plans got made and how did they go these people, how do you think it’s reaching them, and how do wrong? you foresee maintaining this momentum for the Image stuff?

TD: Three titles were supposed to be bagged together, and sold TD: From the letters I’ve received, a lot of serious comic book at a discount. I know that Marvel had a special distributor for readers have given my work to their children or young relatives, the mass market, but I have no idea what eventually went hoping to foster an interest in comics. I’ve also gotten a lot of wrong. letters from the wives and girlfriends of serious fans, compliAM: And the further details of what you had in mind include the menting me because they can actually follow Spider-Girl. They fascinating story-within-a-story that Spider-Girl, one of the most also like the high school cast because it kind of reminds them popular books of your career and longest-running books in of an Archie comic. We need to introduce more readers to the recent comics history, was originally slated for suicide. hobby if we are to survive as an industry, and there should be TD: I was guaranteed eight issues, but hoped everything would comics for every type of fan. run at least twelve. I originally planned to replace all three Along with the Image books’ letter columns, we also have a titles, but Spider-Girl was selling too well to be cancelled. Since text feature, a little section on How to Write Comics. I’m trying I never expected the direct market to support these books, I to give back to the craft. I want the next generation to know was totally focused on mass market distribution. I planned to how to do this the right way. I believe the medium will survive release the three titles in bags, produce a maximum of twelve and grow stronger over time, although the current comic book issues, and then repackage each title in a format similar to the companies may eventually go away. I think there are a lot of Marvel Essential series of affordable trade paperbacks. Then people who would really like to learn the craft, and I just want I’d come out with three new titles and continue to build a to help them. I even plan to teach them the correct ways to library of my own Essential-style books. In my third year, I’d attract an editor’s eye with their submissions. I’m going to tell look at the overall sales and decide if J2, A-Next or Spider-Girl them all the secrets I know. It’ll probably take about three, four deserved a “second season” or if I needed three new titles. paragraphs! [laughs] Yeah, I was planning way in advance, but that’s the publishing AM: So what else is on the horizon? biz!

TD: For the past few months I’ve been working on a coffeeAM: When you repackage the Image stuff for mass market distritable book called Spider-Man, The Ultimate Guide… a sort of bution, what formats and locations are you contemplating, and “Handbook of the Marvel Universe” companion to Peter what strategies for getting them placed there?

Sanderson’s Ultimate X-Men book. [The book appeared in TD: I am going to be working with a mass-merchandiser who stores last year, and is still available. Tom’s now working on specializes in distributing material to stores like Wal-Mart, Ka book called Comic Creators On Spider-Man which will be Mart and Costco. I envision stand-alone volumes with a semiavailable in July from Titan Books—DF] permanent shelf life, but the format will depend on each AM: Cool—that’ll really put you further on the map. Did they client’s needs and racks. I really don’t care what format comics mean it to sync with the movie? And speaking of promo synergy, take in the future, as long as the craft and medium thrive.

I hope this book does Peter the courtesy of giving some good AM: Do you foresee the regular, comic-shop issues of say, The 64 | WRITE NOW

An Even Dozen Follow-ups for Tom

those kinds of things.

DF: Any advice to aspiring writers of comics or anything else in the current climate?

TD: Write what you love and love what you write, and you’ll Danny Fingeroth: What’s new and exciting in the DeFacloverse always be happy! It’s very hard to break into the comic book these days, Tom? industry these days, but the world will always need storytellers.

Tom DeFalco: For the past few months I’ve been working on a Learn your craft and be open to any opportunity—even if it isn’t book of interviews called Comic Book Creators On Spider-Man. in the comic book industry!

It features interviews with Stan Lee, John Romita, Gerry DF: What’s right with comics today?

Conway, J.M. Dematteis, Brian Bendis, Paul Jenkins and a TD: When they’re done well, they’re wonderful. When they’re whole bunch of other guys. It will be published by Titan Books done poorly, they’re still a lot of fun. and should go on sale in July 2002. I’ve also done a Phantom DF: Fill in the blank: If I had it to all over again (re: my writing graphic novel for a company called Moonstone and contributed career), I’d:__________________. a story to one of their horror anthologies called Vampire TD: I’d be a weekend writer, instead of a writer who had to work Vixens. I also consulted on the new Spider-Man Monopoly on weekends. game, which was a real blast. And, of course, Spider-Girl is still DF: What are the top ten books aspiring writers should read? chugging along. I have to write the plot for issue #52 next TD: In no particular order… The Stars My Destination by week.

Alfred Bester… A Princess Of Mars by Edgar DF: What’s your take on the success of Rice Burroughs… The Hour Of The Dragon by the Spider-Man movie?

Robert E. Howard… Legend by David TD: The rest of the world has finally Gemmell… Bang The Drum Slowly Slowly by learned something that we comic book Mark Harris… The Elements Of Style by fans have always known—Spider-Man is William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White… Story by a great character!

Robert McKee… The Facts On File Visual DF: Did you enjoy it?

Dictionary by Jean-Claude Corbeil… Fearful TD: I sure did. The are a lot of nits to Symmetry: Kraven’s Last Hunt by J.M. pick if you’re inclined in a picky mood, DeMatteis, Mike Zeck and Bob McLeod… but I think it’s a fun film. and, of course, Comic Book Creators On DF: Any thoughts about how the success Spider-Man by Tom DeFalco. of the movie will affect comics and DF: What’s the best advice you ever got comics creators in general? as a writer?

TD: I’m not sure the film will have a TD: Denny O’Neil told me to save my money material effect on the industry. While and build up at least a six-month cushion so civilians may become intrigued with that I could afford to take on fun projects Spider-Man, it isn’t easy for them to find, and not have to worry about supporting buy or read comics these days. As for myself. Larry Hama told me to remember comic creators, I just know that I’ve been that my words become permanent once pretty busy since the movie came out. they’re printed—they will always exist in DF: What’s happening with your Image someone’s back issue bin or closet—so I’d projects? better believe in everything I write. And, of TD: Ron Lim and I are still working on Warrior Toads? It doesn’t get any better course, people like Victor Gorelick, Joe Randy O’Donnell Is The M@N and Ron than that! Art by Lim & Robert Jones.

Orlando, Jim Shooter and Stan Lee taught Frenz and I are still working on Mr. Right. [©2002 Tom DeFalco & Ron Lim.] me everything that’s good about my writing.

I’m still trying to set up a way to The bad stuff is my own fault. distribute this material to the mass market, but things are just DF: Who’s stronger—Ben Reilly (before he dissolved) or taking a little longer than anticipated.

Chester Reilly (William Bendix or Jackie Gleason—your call)?

DF: What other projects have you got going on—besides the TD: Are you off your medication again? modeling, of course?

DF: Thanks, Tom. You’ve turned our hopes and lifted our spirits.

TD: I plan to organize my old comics, clean out my basement TD: Thanks for being there! and paint my deck. Oh, and I’m also negotiating to do a few writing projects… books, television, major motion pictures,

via e-mail in May, 2002.

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space to his daughter.

TD: The X-Men book came out in sync with the movie, and we were supposed to do the same—but then the movie was delayed until next year. No big deal! And yes, Mayday gets a two-page spread.

AM: Well, good luck with everything, Tom, and thanks for giving so generously of your time and insights.

TD: This was fun, Adam. I have to ask you to go over this interview and take out all the “you know”s and “yeah”s—and make sure I talk in complete sentences. [laughs] I’m a writer; I communicate best in second draft.

AM: Any other last warnings?

TD: I should’ve had a caveat at the beginning of this interview: These are just my opinions, I could be totally wrong. [laughs] Hey, if I knew what I was doing, maybe I’d have a job today!

A self-styled connoisseur of the unfashionable, Adam McGovern regularly tries the patience of editors at such websites as SonicNet and CDNow, as well as primo print publications Comicology, The Jack Kirby Collector, and now, Write Now!

THE END

DeFALCO | 65

The Stand-Up Philosopher Interview with

J.M. DeMatteis Interview by Danny Fingeroth 4/15/02 Copy-edited by J.M. DeMatteis Transcription by The LongBox.com Staff

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rooklyn-born J.M. DeMatteis has been one of the top writers in comics, both critically and commercially, for twenty-five years. This combined success has given him the freedom to pursue many sides of his creative nature, writing both mainstream super-hero comics, including SpiderMan, Superman, Batman, and The Spectre, and personal, idiosyncratic works including Moonshadow, Seekers Into the Mystery, and Blood. Along the way, J.M. has also found time to write for TV series such as Superboy and Earth: Final Conflict and even to write and record his own music. Here, J.M. talks to Write Now! about how he has consistently pursued his creative dreams, even when it would have been easy to abandon or compromise them.

DANNY FINGEROTH: Let’s start with a little bit of background on J.M. DeMatteis, unless it’s none of my damn business.

J.M. DeMATTEIS: I’m Brooklyn born and bred. I would say working class Brooklyn, apartment building living, a lower middle class kind of neighborhood in Brooklyn.

DF: Did your family encourage your creative work, or discourage it? Were you doing creative stuff early on?

JMD: My father’s thing was always, “You should take the civil service test.” He worked for the [New York City] Parks Department, “Good health plan.” “You should be a teacher,” that was his other thing. “Be a teacher and work for the city.” It was always “work for the city or work for the state,” because that’s what my parents did. My mother was a switchboard operator. She worked for the state parole board.

DF: The city and state were not likely to go out of business.

JMD: They were not likely to go out of business, true. On the one hand they were totally clueless as to the type of person I was. When I was a kid, from the time I could pick up a pencil, I was drawing. Then I was drawn to music and I was playing music and got into rock-and-roll bands, and then I got into writing. That’s always what I wanted to do, basically, since I was little, tiny kid. I knew that’s what I wanted to do, if not specifically just one thing, I knew it was going to be one of those creative fields. I remember when I was fourteen years old, talking to a friend on the phone, and going, “I’m never going to have a nine-to-five job. I could never do that. I have to do something creative.” I always knew that, and I always felt very lucky and very blessed that I knew that and God made me basically incapable of doing anything else. Because every time I’d get a real job, I couldn’t bear it and I would always quit them after fifteen minutes.

DF: What kinds of real jobs?

JMD: Most of the time I was playing in a band, so we made enough money playing. Not a lot, but enough. Periodically, I’d have to go get some job somewhere. The longest job I ever had 66 | WRITE NOW

From “Kraven’s Last Hunt,” part 3, “Descent,” from Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #131. Story by DeMatteis, art by Mike Zeck and Bob McLeod. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

was, I used to work in a place called Barron’s Books near Brooklyn College. Whenever we’d run out of money, some of us [in the band] would go there and get our jobs back and work there for three months or six months. I don’t even know if we lasted six months. That was the longest lasting thing that I had. But a lot of the time, I would just go and get these temp jobs. They’d put these ads in the paper saying, “Get wonderful jobs in publishing. Work at Random House.” Then they’d stick you at Random House with six crates of paper that you had to collate. I had one job that obviously could only have existed before computers. It was at some publishing company, and they published a lot of magazines. They had subscription lists, and you had to go through this list and look at every single name. And if I saw “Danny Fingeroth” on page twelve and I saw “Danny Fingeroth” on page 362, I’d have to go back and check and cross out the duplicate name.

The narrator of Brooklyn Dreams, from issue #1. Script by JMD. Art by Glenn Barr. [©2002 J.M. DeMatteis and Glenn Barr.]

DF: How would you remember it?

JMD: I really couldn’t, but I got a great list of names for characters. I would go to some of these jobs and, literally, it would be a two-day temp job and it would be two o’clock on the second and I’d go, “I can’t bear being here anymore.” And I would go over to the boss and say, “I’m sorry but I have to leave,” and I’d just leave. I just couldn’t bear it. I did not function well in that world at all. Thank God that I had the talent to keep me going otherwise. But, going back to the subject of my parents, on the one hand, my father was like, “You should work for the city, you should do this, you should do that.” But they were never in any shape or form negative about my creativity. They were very pleased about my creativity and perhaps not encouraging the way I’m encouraging with my kids because it’s of my life and it wasn’t part of their lives, but they were very supportive of it. They never understood me going into the comic book business, I’m sure. They spent so many years saying, “What are you reading that for?”, and suddenly it was my career.

DF: Any friends in school that you’d hang out with, a bunch of kids who did writing or drawing?

JMD: When I was in grade school, I was “the drawing guy.” I was the guy you went to for the picture. And actually, my best friend growing up was also an extremely creative guy. Very smart, very creative. I remember being kids and doing comics together. We wrote the script, and I did the pictures and we

both colored it. We did the whole thing, and we just grew up together sharing our creativity. It was good to have a friend who was also very creative. Growing up in an apartment building, we had tons of kids in the building. You never had to worry about, like I do with my kids, play dates, because there were a million kids. You’d just go outside and there would be 40 kids there and you’d play. In the summer, I didn’t go to camp or anything.

It was “Camp Ocean Avenue.” We’d go outside and play in front of the building or go across the street to the churchyard, or around the block. My friend Bob Izzo and I would create these scenarios, like what you’d call role-playing games now. We would create a plotline, and everyone would get a character, and we would then act it out. Sometimes we’d pick one plotline and carry it out for the entire summer.

DF: With characters you’d invented or characters in comics?

JMD: Characters we invented. And we would just create situations, and it would be the son of the prince versus the rebels.

The son of the prince joins the rebels and they fight, and it would go on all summer long.

DF: Did you make Super 8 movies of these things?

JMD: No, we never did... it would be a great thing to see, but we never did. There was this creativity, and this friend of mine was a very important part of that growing up. But I was also the guy that spent a lot of time in his room, just because I used to like to be in my room and draw or read or whatever it was. I spent a lot of time in my own head, in my own imagination. I had a lot of friends, as I said. All I had to do was go outside and there were plenty of friends. But I was always someone who would just go off, and I was very comfortable living in my own head and heart, dreaming. And then I got to grow up and dream for a living.

DF: Accompanied by a can of potato sticks and a glass of milk.

It doesn’t get any better than that.

JMD: I was thinking more of a stick pretzel and an egg cream myself.

DF: Also good, although the potato sticks had the advantage of being fried. [laughs] Any teachers who were inspirational or classes or anything like that?

JMD: I was not a great student, and by the time I was in high school, I was a sullen, cynical, psychologically damaged, and frankly, drug-taking angry guy, which is all in Brooklyn Dreams, so I don’t care if it’s in this interview or not. So I did not do well in school. In those days there were three types of high school diplomas you could get in New York: an academic diploma, a commercial diploma, and there was the real basic thing, which was the general diploma. I slowly, in the course of high school, went from the academic to the commercial to the general.

I don’t know if they have that any more, but the point is that it was a struggle. I also had a lot of learning disabilities which made it difficult for me in school. So, between all my own psychological problems and my learning disabilities, it was really, really tough for me at the time. Which explains the drugs. I’m not romanticizing drug-taking or promoting it in any way. I was a kid in pain and drugs provided... or appeared to provide... an escape. When I began to get myself together... find my answers, I realized what a dead-end drugs were.

Anyway, I would be struggling with these dummy classes, but they put me in Honors English. There was this very weird dichotomy, and I had one teacher in the 11th grade, Mrs. Kimmelman, who saw who I was—and that was the frustration for me, hardly anybody saw who I was. I knew who I was. I DeMATTEIS | 67

knew what I was capable of. I knew what I could do. I knew my intelligence and my creativity, but I was the guy who sat in the back of the class and just glowered at people. [laughs] She saw me for who I was, and really encouraged me in that, and let me know I had something. She was the one who, in senior year, put me in an Honors English class. And it was in senior year that I had this one teacher who became a real mentor to me both creatively, and actually spiritually, as well. He was someone who really got me, and we would just go and sit during a lunch break and talk for thirty or forty minutes, where I spilled my guts out. He was the first one who told me to keep a journal, and that was the most freeing thing I did for myself. I would just write and write and write and write and write.

Whatever I was thinking or feeling, I would write. I never could complete a short story, so I would write these bizarre things that you would write when you were 17. Two pages long, which usually ended up with somebody killing their parents or turning into a monster and exploding. [laughs] Some hate-filled, despair-filled, adolescent angst things. It really helped me as a writer to just be free and open and put things on paper.

DF: And are you still in touch with this person?

JMD: No, I’m really not. I think about him, Benowitz was his name, and I obviously wrote about him in Brooklyn Dreams. He was a great guy.

DF: And you were doing music at the same time?

JMD: Yes, and like almost everyone else of our generation, I also loved music. And when the Beatles showed up on Ed Sullivan’s show when I was in fifth grade, it was like, “Oh, my God.” My little mind was blown. By sixth grade I was having

From Brooklyn Dreams #4. By JMD and Glenn Barr. [©2002 J.M. DeMatteis and Glenn Barr.]

68 | WRITE NOW

guitar lessons, playing in bands, and I continued to play in bands well into my 20s. It wasn’t a lot of money, but I made my living out of it, enough to pay one-fifth of the rent or whatever it was.

DF: You were living with four other people?

JMD: In my early 20s, I was living with my bandmates, practicing in the basement and having a great time. It was a great life.

DF: Did you go to college at all?

JMD: Yeah, I went to community college. [laughs] This is going to be very encouraging to readers who are total academic screw-ups. [laughs] That’s why I don’t have attachments to this whole academic thing for kids. Not that I don’t want my kids to do well, but I want them to do well for themselves, not to meet someone else’s specification of what they are. Essentially, I came into this life knowing who I was and what I wanted to do, and I did it. All the people that thought I wasn’t that and told me I couldn’t do it were wrong; with those notable exceptions that I mentioned, I had the opposite of people who encourage you. I had a grade advisor in the 11th grade, and I went to her, and this woman used to just complain. You’d go to her, and she’d say, “I don’t why I took this job. I got kids of my own and I can’t stand it.” She’s probably long dead by now. But what a disservice, what a crime, to treat young people that way. But that’s all she did. I went to her one time, and she said to me, “So what do you want to do when you get out of school?” I said I either want to go into art or writing. “Look at these English grades,” she said. “Forget being a writer. Go into art.” [laughs] I always wanted to find her. Take a look, lady. Take a look.

What was the question before that?

DF: Had you gone to college?

JMD: I went to Kingsborough Community College, and then I went to Brooklyn College, but I never finished there. I took eight months off, and then I actually went to a school called Empire State College, which is not the same school that Peter Parker went to. Although I guess I’m the only Spider-Man writer who can claim that he went to Empire State. It’s part of the State University of New York. It’s a university without walls.

DF: Must’ve been very drafty.

JMD: It was very drafty, but it was very good, especially for somebody like me, who had a lot of credits and knew what I wanted to do. I had a wonderful mentor there, his name was Mel Rosenthal. He was a left-wing radical, really into Castro and that kind of thing, but he was also one of the country’s foremost authorities on Herman Melville. I would meet with him once every couple of weeks. We’d go over my writing and we would read Melville and Dostoevsky, and things like that.

DF: Interesting. I took a Melville course in college and with a guy named Rosenthal who was not named Mel. I wonder if he...

JMD: I wonder if the whole family is Melville experts? He was a great. But that, to me, was the most valuable academic experience I ever had. Rosenthal really helped me with my writing. He helped me shave off a lot of the bullsh*t and to focus, because by that point I was in love with guys like Tom Robbins and Richard Beautigan, and all their smarmy, quasipoetic, weird, hippie prose. I would ape the style of their work, but I hadn’t gotten my basic skills together, and Mel really helped me shave away the bullsh*t and really understand what I need to do as a writer. That was a very valuable experience.

DF: What were you doing fiction or nonfiction?

JMD: I was doing fiction. At that point, I would play in the band

1980s adaptation of the movie Xanadu. JM had the unenviable task of translating a musical to comics. Art (printed from the pencils) by Jimmy Janes and Co. [©2002 Universal Studios.]

at night, and during the days, very often, I would be up in my room writing bad short stories that I would be sending out to magazines, and getting rejections. Sometimes very encouraging rejections—but rejections nonetheless. I still have a lot of them in a folder somewhere, all my rejections from 1977, 1978, I spent a lot of time writing. Even as a kid, I remember being in the 5th grade or 4th grade, and deciding to write a novel, and going to the yellow pages to find a publisher. “Random House, they’ll do.” I don’t think I ever wrote the novel, but I enjoyed fantasizing about it.

DF: Want to talk about which comics you loved as a kid?

JMD: I’ve said this before, and it’s true. I don’t remember ever not reading comics. I don’t remember exactly who turned me on to them, but I do remember I had a cousin who used to give me comics. And I remember there was this couple who lived in my building, the kind of adults you would find reading comics in the ’50s and early ’60s. [laughs] Smiley, rotund people, and they had comic books and they used to give me comic books.

But I also remember my cousin giving me all these comic books. Just laying them out on the floor, and I used to enjoy staring at the covers as much as I liked reading the comic books. I don’t know if you had the same experience as a kid. I would just stare at them.

DF: The garish colors have a soothing quality.

JMD: And the word balloons, the whole thing. My parents, whatever their faults, they were very generous people. We didn’t have a lot of money but I never felt materially deprived. I

would go with my father, and he’d buy a paper every night.

We’d walk downstairs after supper. We’d go to the candy store, which is a phrase that I don’t think means anything to people any more, what a Brooklyn candy store is, and he would buy a newspaper and he would buy me a comic book, just about every night.

DF: Ten cents a night—that’s seventy cents a week.

JMD: And then it went up to twelve cents, and it was really expensive. I remember walking into the candy store when they went up to twelve cents and my mother and the lady that owned the candy store were just shocked.

DF: I remember being shocked. That was a 20% price raise.

JMD: They had been ten cents for 30 years.

DF: It was like the candy bar size reduction thing—the price stayed the same, but the number of pages got smaller and smaller.

JMD: Anyway, I just always read comics and I always loved them. There was just something about them that I adored, and as a little kid I remember reading everything from the Harvey Comics to Dumbo and Hot Stuff and Casper to Sad Sack. Of course, when we were kids, there were so many different types of comics. There were comic books based on TV shows and movie stars. I have very fond memories of reading Jerry Lewis comics and Bob Hope comics. I loved those. I would love to go and get a stack of them and really see what they were like, because as a kid I thought they were great. Someone should do Jim Carrey comics, in the style of those old Bob Hope comics.

DF: I can only imagine that the contracts with those guys were maybe half a page long. You could only imagine what a star of that magnitude today would demand, even if it wasn’t money, just the complexity of the paperwork would probably be insane.

JMD: The Bob Hope comic ran for like 15 years, 20 years, and the Jerry Lewis comic started out as Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis comic.

DF: Did it really?

JMD: I’m almost positive. Dean and Jerry broke up so I guess there couldn’t be Dean Martin comics any more. [laughs] Imagine doing a comic in the ’50s starring a womanizing guy drinking martinis.

DF: And singing. You pioneered singing in comic books with Xanadu. [laughs] JMD: I loved the Dell Comics, and of course the DC super-hero comics, I totally loved. We took it for granted that everyone loved Superman and Batman but then you had your special favorites. Mine were the Justice League and Green Lantern.

Even in the days when nobody knew who anybody was I somehow knew the name Gil Kane and I knew John Broome and Mike Sekowsky. Even if I couldn’t pronounce it.

DF: Green Lantern was great for a kid to fantasize being. All you needed was some sort of a ring, and you could pretend you were Green Lantern.

JMD: It’s the simplicity of the idea, the simplicity and the elegance of the idea. You just think it, and you make it so. And Gil Kane’s artwork was extraordinary. Before I discovered Kirby, Gil Kane was the guy, more than anybody, whose work made a big impression on me.

DF: More than Carmine Infantino? Carmine was the big pre-Kirby one for me.

JMD: Kane was it. I used to draw the flying figure of Green DeMATTEIS | 69

have a clue about what Stan Lantern, the way he had it with created. Forgetting about who one leg cut back so it looked like did what in the stories, even if, it was amputated. [laughter] hypothetically, Kirby plotted DF: He didn’t have to draw the every single one of those bottom of the leg. [laughs] stories, Stan created the vibe JMD: I love his stuff so much. and the mythos of Marvel. He DF: When Marvel came along, was created it with cover copy and that a big deal for you? the bullpen page, the footnotes, JMD: People now do not have a and the style of the captions. clue how different that Marvel As we’ve discussed before, you stuff was, because the DC stuff really felt like you were entering was pristine and sculpted and had into this special little world that a real shine to it. And then you was tailored just for you by this look at the Marvel covers, guy Stan, your pal Stan, Uncle especially in the early days, Stan. It was a great thing. It everybody in a Kirby story looked was a wonderful feeling. like a monster, even the regular DF: I even felt he was talking people looked like monsters. The personally to me in the Bullpen covers had colors that seemed Bulletins. positively lurid, and there were the The Man of Steel from Superman: Where Is Thy Sting? by JMD and JMD: It was very personal, and word balloons with the big, thick, Liam McCormack-Sharp. [©2002 DC Comics] it had a great sense of humor. black borders around them, and You layer all that over these wonderful stories and this extraorStan was writing these big, screaming captions. It was like, dinary artwork, and it was an amazing thing. There was nothing “What is that stuff?” It looked dangerous. I remember going like it. It was very magical. I remember coming home from out one day, and I bought Avengers #1. It was scary and fascijunior high school, and I knew Tuesday was when the new nating at the same time. And then I read Marvel Tales Annual comics came out in the candy store, so I’d get off the city bus #1, which reprinted stuff from the year before, with the origin of a stop early, and it didn’t matter if it was pouring rain, you’d get Spider-Man—imagine a young mind accustomed to Curt Swan off the bus and you’d go. I remember at the beginning of the and Wayne Boring encountering Steve Ditko—the origin of Hulk. month, the only thing that would come out would be Millie the I remember reading the Hulk and thinking that Thunderbolt Model and Thor and the Rawhide Kid. You’d buy Thor the first Ross must be the Hulk, because he looked like a grotesque week and each week you’d buy a few more, because there were monster, the way that Kirby drew him. I think, at that point, I only 12 or 15 titles then anyway. couldn’t take the Marvel stuff. It was too intense for me. I got DF: Not even that, I think it was maybe eight for a long time. fascinated that one day, and then I put it aside, and I still JMD: And maybe the second week you got Tales of Suspense remember throwing out a box of comics when my mother told or Tale to Astonish, but finally, by the end of the month, you me to get rid of some comics with Avengers #1 in it. got Fantastic Four and Spider-Man. DF: That’s why they’re worth money now.

DF: And if the guy hadn’t snapped the wire on the comics JMD: I think I was in 7th grade, and this Marvel mania started bundles yet when you got to the store, it was really... you’d go sweeping through junior high school, and you were looked down nuts. upon if you still read Superman, which I did. It was like May or JMD: You were standing there salivating. You took it for granted June of 7th grade, and I remember going out and buying that everyone loved Fantastic Four and Spider-Man, but then Fantastic Four #54 and Daredevil #19 and Spider-Man #39, you had your special favorites. I loved the X-Men, the original, which was the second part of the Green Goblin story. early X-Men. The first back issue I ever bought was an X-Men DF: The last Ditko and the first Romita. #1, and it cost me three dollars. Which was, for me in the 8th JMD: The first Romita is what I’m talking about. I remember grade, like $300. Even just talking about it brings back the month before, seeing the cover of the Green Goblin incredibly warm feelings. It was very nurturing. Stan nurtured dragging Spider-Man through the city, and he didn’t have his us. He nurtured our imaginations and nurtured our spirits. mask on. You never saw that in a DC comic.

While my life was going on with rock-and-roll and all the other DF: Except for Superman, who never wore a mask. [laughs] things that I was reading and investigating, I never let go of the JMD: Spider-Man’s identity was exposed, and the villain knew comics. A lot of people grew out of it, but I didn’t. I was talking it, and it was there for everybody to see, and I just sucked the to my daughter about it this morning, because we were talking Marvel comics up. I liken it to religious conversion. Overnight, I about basically following your passion, and that it doesn’t was religiously converted to Marvel Comics. Part of it was peer matter what people think. I know that, by the time I was in high pressure, because everyone was into it, but the quality of the school, some people must have thought I was a total nerd. stories and what they did to me was totally real.

“I’m sorry, I have to go to the candy store and get my comics.”

DF: Did you drop the DCs at that point?

DF: For me it was around sophomore or junior year of high JMD: I pretty much did, but I would still have to go back and school where I pretty much stopped reading them for a number sneak a peek every once in a while, and not tell anyone I had of years. read a Justice League or Superman or Green Lantern.

JMD: I just never did, because I always loved them and they DF: I dropped DC purely for financial reasons. I couldn’t afford to always fed my soul in a very unique way. So while I was being buy the Marvels and the DCs. this drugged-out rock-and-roll guy in the streets of Brooklyn, I JMD: Basically, I fell in love with Marvel, and kids now can’t 70 | WRITE NOW

also had a comic book in my back pocket. [laughs] DF: Speaking of being a drugged-out rock-and-roll guy, what about underground comics? Were you influenced by them?

JMD: In high school, maybe the twelfth grade, someone turned me on to Zap Comix, and my mind exploded. There was only one store that carried it, and it was probably 2 or 3 miles away, and I would walk to it to get these underground comics. What I discovered is that I really didn’t love all of them, but anything R. Crumb did I totally loved. And to this day one of my favorite comics stories is “Meatball.” Remember that one?

DF: Of course.

JMD: The story is just these meatballs falling out of the sky, hitting people on the head and enlightening them.

DF: And the meatballs are accompanied by a disembodied cry of “Meatball!” before they hit the person. [laughs] JMD: That was really great. I grew up and comics grew up with me when, in the ’70s, the Gerbers and the Engleharts and those guys came in. Roy Thomas came after Stan and expanded the parameters a little bit—deepened the characters and the universe—and Gerber and Englehart came in and really started to twist it, which for somebody like me, in their late teens/early 20s, was great. I don’t know how great it was for the industry. It was probably the beginning of the end by trying to make super-heroes adult, but for me at that point, it was just great. I really loved Steve Gerber’s stuff. I totally fell in love with it, and it resonated with me the same way that Stan’s stuff did—it was the quality of emotion that his work had in those days. His writing got more intellectual as he went along and, at least for me, lost the emotional element. But in the beginning, it was very emotional, rip-your-heart-out, the clown crying in the swamp kind of stuff. Man-Thing was an incredible comic book.

I totally loved that. The early ’70s was an explosion of all this interesting stuff, and then I got back to DC again. Kirby went to DC, so I figured it was okay for me. [laughter] Although it took me a while to realize what Kirby was up to.

“This is a Thor knock-off. This sucks,” was my first reaction to the New Gods. But then I had to go back the next month and buy it, and the next thing I know, the Fourth World stuff became some of my favorite comics of all time. His scripting was problematic, sometimes he couldn’t even write a sentence, but it didn’t matter. His vision, his storytelling, his passion, totally sold you.

DF: There was a cross-pollination between the undergrounds and even the old, established, mainstream guys like Kirby. What were some of your other influences outside of comics? In movies, TV, books, drama?

JMD: I always loved to read. I was this huge science-fiction/ fantasy reader when I was in high school. But the writer that totally stole my soul, when I was a senior in high school, was Dostoevsky. This one teacher who was a great mentor to me, Mr. Benowitz... we were reading Crime and Punishment in his class, and it so spoke to who I was at that point in my life, and the pain that I was in with my obsessions and delusions and my spiritual quest. I couldn’t read more than a chapter at a time. I would lay there in bed, overwhelmed.

DF: Like Dostoevsky’s characters were.

JMD: Exactly. They talk about how Dostoevsky takes the unconscious and makes it conscious with his characters, and that’s why they are so over the top and hysterical. But in my house, everybody acted that way. [laughter] Everybody was a Dostoevsky character. Me and Raskolnikov, we could have been the same person. I didn’t kill the old pawnbroker, but otherwise

we were the same guy. Then one day Mr. Benowitz walked in and tossed me this book, I’ll never forget, he just tossed this book across the classroom to me, and I looked down in my hands and it was The Brothers Karamazov. And I went home and just devoured it. Dostoevsky was like nobody else in the universe, the way he got into me. The other writer who affected me that way was Ray Bradbury. If you had to type him, he would be science-fiction writer, but he’s not a science-fiction writer. He’s not a fantasy writer. He’s just Ray Bradbury. So beautiful, so poetic, and so full of emotion...

DF: What in particular of Dostoevsky’s work did you love?

JMD: If I were to pick one book, I’d say that Brothers Karamazov is It: one of the greatest novels ever written. For Bradbury, it’d be Dandelion Wine. It’s not fantasy. It’s just a summer in the life of this kid, but it’s written with eyes that see that the world truly is, in its natural state, the most magical, fantastic place there is. I love J.D Salinger. Franny & Zooey is one of my favorite books of all time. Lots and lots of other writers, too. I wouldn’t say that Melville resonated in my soul, but I think he was one of the greatest writers I ever read. I don’t think there is anything by Melville that I ever read and didn’t go, “Oh my God, that’s incredible.”

DF: Did you ever read Omoo?

JMD: No I didn’t.

DF: Typee? I’m just showing off…

JMD: Did you read Baterbly the Scrievener?

DF: Sure. What about Moby Dick?

JMD: Moby Dick, you read it, and sometimes you’re in the middle of reading it, and you go, “Why am I reading this? He’s spending 60 pages talking about the clam chowder.”

DF: I was captivated by Moby Dick.

JMD: And I was, too. Because, suddenly, it would turn around and become something else in the next chapter. And then he

More from Superman: Where Is Thy Sting? [©2002 DC Comics] DeMATTEIS | 71

read it in years, but it’s the Vonnegut book I read two or three would write the next chapter like it was a play. It was like a times. It’s just such a wonderful book. As the years go on, you fever dream, and I don’t think anyone, including Herman don’t necessarily follow any writer all the way, and there was a Melville, has a clue what that book’s about. [laughter] certain point with Vonnegut where I thought his work had In one of the editions I have, they have reviews of the book exhausted itself, and his stuff had gotten so cynical, if not when it came out. It’s hysterical. No one had any clue. No one lethargic, that I just said, I don’t want to read this. But knew what was going on, and I don’t know if he did. You can Slaughterhouse Five and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, those project whatever meaning on Moby Dick that you want. It’s an two I especially like. But I’ve read them all, Sirens of Titan, amazing book. There’s a writer named Knut Hamson that I Cat’s Cradle, Mother Night really, really like. There’s a and all those. Loved them.

Swedish writer named Par But I like God Bless You, Lagerkvist. He wrote The Mr. Rosewater because Holy Land, Pilgrims At Sea, there’s an incredible sense Barrabas. Very beautiful, of compassion in that strange, mystical novels full book. That was the one of suggestions where where Rosewater’s big things aren’t really spelled advice to the universe was, out. The kind of writer “Damn it, you’ve got to be where the books would be kind.” He’s all drunk and very short but you felt that, barges into the sciencebetween each word, there fiction convention, do you was meaning and mystery remember that? resonating. He was a really DF: Now that you mention amazing writer. And Phillip it, I do. I haven’t read it for K. Dick, who, like Bradbury, 25 years. was typed as a scienceJMD: It would make a great fiction writer... but was so movie. much more. He was just a DF: Did they never make great novelist who used one? that form. Even to call him JMD: No, they never made a great novelist is not that into a movie. accurate, because he didn’t DF: I think somebody tried always write that well. What to do something. We can he had that was unique look at IMDB, but not right was the ability to actually this second. [laughs] alter consciousness JMD: In a weird way it’s through his stories. I felt kind of a Capraesque story, like his books changed my right up to the ending consciousness. I would where he gives his fortune read a Phillip K. Dick novel away to the entire town and it would be a like a because they are trying to drug, a deep meditation, prove that he’s insane like literally shifting my [Frank Capra’s] Mr. Deeds. consciousness and And Rosewater basically perception of reality. His adopts his entire town and best work often reflected they get all his money. how I felt about the world, DF: Back to the focus of about so-called reality.

An outstanding Mark Bagley interpretation of one of JMD’s nine-panel pages. the magazine...

Because by the time I was From Amazing Spider-Man, v. 1, #398. Inks by Larry Mahlstedt.

JMD: What magazine?

17, I had begun my own [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] DF: [laughs] This is for spiritual path. I’d had, for House and Garden. I want to talk to you about your interior lack of a better word, an awakening, and my spiritual life and decoration. my relationship with God... ultimately with God in the form of JMD: My wife takes care of all that stuff. I’ll put her on the Meher Baba... really became, and still is, the most important phone. part of my life. The writers that I really loved in whatever way, DF: [laughs] You loved to read, loved your music. What made whether it’s Salinger in his neurotic New York Zen way or you decide to make writing your life as opposed to music?

Dostoevsky in his Eastern Orthodox way or Phillip K. Dick in his JMD: I don’t think it was opposed to, I think it was just the way acid-drenched parallel universe way, all reflect that. the universe worked it out.

DF: Are you a Vonnegut fan?

DF: When you started out, didn’t you do journalism?

JMD: Yes, I love Vonnegut. I forgot about that. [laughter] Totally JMD: Yes. I was playing in bands and I was doing record enjoyed Vonnegut and ate all that stuff up. reviews, concert reviews, and interviews for a variety of smaller DF: He was originally typed as sci-fi writer. papers across the country. It was a great gig because I would JMD: God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater still amazes. I haven’t 72 | WRITE NOW

go to the Bottom Line [a still-existing New York music club] and see a show, and get a free dinner, and a free ticket to the show, and I’d write about it, and then they’d pay me five bucks for a review.

DF: How did you get the assignments?

JMD: I sent samples to publications, and there was this one paper called Good Times that you may remember. It was given away free at colleges across the country. I did a lot of work for them and they sent me all these free albums. I got to see free shows, and usually there was a tab, so I got a free meal. What more could you ask?

DF: Nothing I can think of.

JMD: In the meantime I was also still playing in the band, and I had all my rock-and-roll dreams. If that would have come together, then that is what would have happened. But things came together the way that they have, and I have to say in retrospect, obviously I didn’t want the music career as much.

Because if I really wanted it, I wouldn’t have stopped it at that point, you know what I mean? Because I didn’t stop knocking on the door with my writing. But at certain point in my early twenties, maybe mid-twenties, I decided I’m going to focus on the writing instead. So I was playing in the band and doing the writing. And then, what happened was, and I’ve told this story before, I sent some of my stuff to Rolling Stone, and much to my surprise they said, “This stuff is great, why don’t you do some reviews for us?” So I started doing reviews for them, and at one point in 1979, 1980, somewhere around there, maybe earlier, maybe a little later, I did a review of a Grateful Dead album. My ex-wife was a Dead fan and so were some of my friends, and I hated the Dead. Less actually hating the Dead than hating all the shtick around the Deadhead thing, which makes comic book freaks seem like sane, balanced, nonobsessive people. In retrospect, big deal, it made them happy, so why do I care? But I was much more judgmental then. So they sent me this Grateful Dead album to review, and I used it as an excuse to be smug and smarmy and pick it apart. It was a short review, but it was just obnoxious. The weird thing about doing the thing for Rolling Stone was, you and I can sit and have a conversation and we can have our opinions and be obnoxiously opinionated. It doesn’t matter, because we’re just talking. When you put it in print, as we know from reading critiques of our comics work, it takes on another level of meaning, and people take it very seriously. So they sent me a stack of mail that they got about this review. I’d never gotten any mail on any other review I wrote, and it was just filled with the letters from these Deadheads and, Danny, it was as if I had written an article about your mother and said nasty things about her. [laughs] DF: And I wish you hadn’t written that article. Mom was very upset. [laughs] JMD: I put in the apology. [laughs] It really shocked me and upset me because these people were genuinely hurt by what I wrote, which was not my intention. It really made me stop and reconsider what I was doing, and I think I was probably doing some stuff at DC then. I just felt, “I don’t want to be the guy putting this kind of energy out into the universe.” As much I, to this day, still love reading reviews, especially if it’s a reviewer who is intelligent, I don’t want to be doing that. I would much rather be the guy who is creating and getting picked on, and God knows that has happened.

DF: Or rather be the guy getting praised as opposed to be the guy getting picked on.

JMD: I would rather be in that position, one way or another, and putting my own creative self into the universe. I learned as a reviewer that, on any given day, if I was in the right mood, I could say something nice about anything I wanted to. I don’t care if I didn’t like the album, unless it was so morally reprehensible, like if Hitler had put out and album. Beyond that, there’s no reason to be negative like that and nasty. You can be critical in an intelligent way, and for the most part I would always try to come up with something positive, even if I didn’t like the album. Even that Grateful Dead album, I found something positive to say about it, but it made me realize that this is not who I am. This is not what I want to do, and I basically stopped after that. Not that Rolling Stone came running after me asking, “Why did you stop?” So it wasn’t like, “Oh, my God, we’ve lost one our most beloved writers.” I was just this guy on the fringe anyway, and I just stopped cold. They sent something else to review, and I never reviewed it, and they never asked, and that was it.

DF: You said something a few lines back: “…I was doing stuff at DC then.” I think that would be key to the focus of this magazine.

JMD: Along with all this other stuff in my life, I knew since I was a kid that I wanted to do comic books.

DF: Comic books, as opposed to novels or screenplays?

JMD: I had dreams of doing the other stuff, too, but I think, along with rock-and-roll, my overriding passion, creatively, was comics. I think I always knew I would do other things and write other things, but I was in love with comics and I really wanted to do them. So I made several aborted attempts. Probably the first I ever did, I sent into Marvel when I was 18. I had no idea what a comic book script looked like, and I wrote some awful thing, sent it in and got back a fairly nasty letter from Don McGregor. [laughter] I’m sure that he was just having a bad day, but it was like, “If you really think this is creative, why don’t you try to sell it to a fanzine. And I think I actually did. I hooked up with some fanzine and actually wrote a comic book story for it and somebody drew it. It might have been Arvell Jones, who went on to actually do some comic books.

DF: With Marvel.

JMD: Was it with Marvel? We did this thing called The Seeker, about some guy seeking out the ultimate meaning of the universe, floating around in a bubble looking for truth. You could probably find the seeds of Moonshadow in that story. I think I wrote one story for a fanzine, and then DC had this apprentice program. I was about 19, and they were getting people to submit their work, and they would critique it, and then they were going to pick a group of guys that they were going to make their DC writer’s apprentices. I think that’s how [David] Michelinie got into the business, through that program.

But I wrote a Justice League script, which is funny in retrospect, what an “easy” thing to do. Team books are very difficult for me even now. I’m working on a JLA project now and I’m still struggling with it.

DF: Do you have any sense of how many people applied to be in that apprentice program and how many were accepted?

JMD: No, the person I dealt was named, if I’m remembering correctly, Val Eades. I had no idea who they were, or even if they were male or female. Probably male, because it was comic books and, especially in those days, a woman was a rare creature. They would send back a critique of my work. Nothing came out of that, but in retrospect it was a great experience just to have anybody on the other end give me some feedback.

DF: That’s incredible that they did that.

DeMATTEIS | 73

buy Superman scripts from JMD: Really incredible that guys that we’ve never they did that. Maybe Val heard of, but Paul Levitz is Eades was a pseudonym looking for material for for an editor. I don’t know.

House of Mystery and DF: I’m sure somebody Weird War Tales,” and all reading this might even be those anthology comic Val Eades. books that were out then JMD: I would keep trying that I’d never read. I went and knocking on the door right past them on the and a couple of things stands. I didn’t give them a happened. I knew this guy second look because they from Brooklyn College looked atrocious. So I went named Warren Reese. He and bought a whole stack was on a TV show with of them, and read them, Carmine Infantino [then DC and started sending Paul...

Comics’ publisher] and who was maybe all of Stan Lee and basically twenty-one at the time... spent the entire time saying plot outlines for these DC sucked and Marvel’s stories. I still have the great, so very quickly he letter from the first batch had a job with Marvel of outlines I sent to him, working in the production and he tore my stories to department. So through shreds and then went on to this guy, I kept submitting tear my typing to shreds. stuff to Marvel, outlines or [laughter] The last line plots, scripts, whatever. was, “Feel free to submit Nothing ever came of the more but either type more stuff I submitted through slowly or get a typing him, but one thing that did service, because this stuff happen is that Warren is just atrocious.” And it wrote some stuff for Crazy was, because I was not a magazine [Marvel’s answer very careful typist. I would to Mad.] Warren cross things out and then encouraged me to submit write things over them. some samples and editor DF: These were the prePaul Laikin bought computer days. something of mine. I had JMD: These were the preno interest in writing for JMD and artist Sal Buscema teamed up to produce this dramatic page from computer days. I’m sure Crazy, I had no skills in Spectacular Spider-Man #189. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] someone, somewhere, that arena, but I wrote a might have had a computer but I didn’t know about it. few sample things and he bought one of them. This was Although, soon after, I bought an IBM Selectric Typewriter for probably 1976, and I got a check for the job with Spider-Man $2,000. [laughs] It was discontinued the next year. It didn’t on it. It didn’t get me in with the comic book side of Marvel, matter all the horrible things Paul said, because he also said, but at least it allowed me to say that I wrote this thing for “Feel free to submit again.” So I submitted again and I Crazy. I think I sold them a couple of pieces, and to this day I submitted again until finally I made an appointment to go in don’t know why Paul bought it—but God bless him. It was really and see him. This is sometime in 1977, and he bought watered down Mad Magazine stuff. I didn’t even save the something and that, to me, was a huge, huge event. He said, magazine, that’s how little I thought of my work.

“Go home and work on this and come back,” and I realized, DF: What was the premise? Do you remember?

“Wow he wants me to go home and write this story.”

JMD: I did a few of them “What if Comic Strip Characters Were DF: It was a House of Mystery story?

Real People?” Kids in the neighborhood tying Dondi up and JMD: It was a House of Mystery story called “The Lady Killer beating him senseless. [laughter] Craves Blood.” It was based on the Son of Sam thing. The “You Shouldn’t Have Said That” was the name of another killer kills this woman, not knowing that her husband is a premise. Someone says something stupid and the next panel vampire, and then the vampire hunts down the serial killer. shows why, “You shouldn’t have said that.” Awful stuff.

Actually, it’s not a bad idea for a movie, a vampire hunting DF: I’m laughing. down a serial killer. Regardless, it was a weird little story, eight JMD: I can tell you’re laughing, but you’ll laugh at anything. pages long, and I still have the little piece of paper with all the DF: That’s true. notes Paul gave, saying things like: “No more than 5 panels JMD: So right around the same time, I started sending some per page, no more than 35 words per panel, clear transitional more samples to DC. I sent them a Superman sample, a captions, don’t forget your splash panel.” Because I turned in Plastic Man script, a Red Tornado sample, and I got a letter the first script without a splash panel or credits. Then I wrote back from somebody’s assistant saying, “We’re not going to 74 | WRITE NOW

liked him, and I started, along with the short House of Mystery another draft and then he bought it. He shook my hand and he stories, I started doing, I, Vampire and Creature Commandos. I said, “Welcome to the business.” also did my first super-hero story, which Paul edited, an eightDF: Wow. page Batman story. I wrote Hawkman. I did Red Tornado. I did JMD: Wow. I didn’t need the D train. I could have floated back Black Lightning, which were really atrocious stories. Do you to Brooklyn. Then I started selling stuff to Paul regularly. It was remember the Black Lightning character? When he became mainly to Paul for a few months in ’77. But then they had the Black Lightning he talked in pseudo Black lingo. [laughter] I great DC “Implosion.” In those days, I had a page rate of was too dumb to realize that you could change these things so thirteen dollars per page. That was my starting rate. But I he’s like, “Sho’ ‘nuf, motha.” It was that type of dialogue, which didn’t care. That was great money back then. Between the $50 was embarrassing, awful stuff. But it was still great because, a week I made playing rock-and-roll and what I’d get for writing hey, I was in the business. It was a very, very quiet time in the a comic book script, it was great. So I was writing for House of comics industry. The big changes hadn’t happened yet, and DC Mystery and the anthology books, and then they had the DC was a great place to work, the trains ran on time and they were implosion and everybody that was on the fringe lost work. We nice people to work with. were out. We were gone. I remember the day when that axe DF: And the big change was…? fell. I had just written my first full-length story and I got a check JMD: Somewhere during that period is when I started working for $300 and change that I lived on for the entire summer. It with Shooter, doing fill-ins and everything. Jim, to his credit, bought me my pizza, got me into movies, and somehow paid was also extremely nice to me. He took an interest in me. He my share of the rent. I don’t know quite how that happened, liked my work and when he didn’t have comic book work, he but it did. Somewhere in there I wrote a letter to [then Marvel had me do work at the Marvel offices. I spent two weeks at Editor-in-Chief] Jim Shooter saying, “I’ve submitted stuff to Marvel helping him with a lawsuit. Marvel was suing the Marvel and no one’s ever answered me. I’ve been working for makers of a Spider-Woman or Spider-Girl cartoon. I think it was DC.” He actually called me up and said, “I had you mixed up a Spider-Girl cartoon. It was some kind of Spider-somebody with somebody else,” which actually I don’t think he did but cartoon. I had to watch all these cartoons. They put me in that’s not important. So at some point, and I don’t remember Stan’s office, watching cartoons and writing up similarities the chronology, it might have been during those months that I between Spider-Woman or Spider-Girl—whatever she was wasn’t getting any work from DC, I went in and spoke to Jim. called… Webwoman!—that’s what she was called—between He gave me his writer’s lecture. Jim was a very, very smart guy, Webwoman and Spider-Man for the lawsuits. He had me come and his technical skill about story was, in those days, second up there, and he paid me really well for it. For those times, for to none. He understood the blueprint of what made a good the money that I needed to survive, it was nice money. Then I story and he spoke to me about story in a way nobody had spent a week up there writing character bios. I don’t remember before. I think my first Marvel story was an Iron Man fill-in. I what they were for, but I had to write bios for all the characters. did fill-ins for Marvel for six months. Them sometime after the I don’t know where they went or anything, but they paid me to DC Implosion fallout settled, I started getting a lot of work from do that. Jim would always be throwing me jobs, and you can DC—I think the Shooter connection actually came a bit later— imagine what fun it was to be sitting in Stan Lee’s office and I got work from Paul again. I also started working for Jack watching cartoons and getting paid for it. At a certain point, I Harris, because Time Warp came in, which was a DC sciencestarted getting a little more work up there. I got a Marvel fiction anthology. Jack kept me busy with that, and it really kept Team-Up that I did for Denny O’Neil and a Star Wars that I did the money coming in for me, and that’s when Len Wein came for Louise Simonson and Danny Fingeroth... which Danny on staff and I stared doing work with Len. Len became my first Fingeroth will never forget... that I took my name off of. [Danny real mentor in the business. Len was editing House of Fingeroth never will. Let’s just say that a novice editor Mystery, House of Secrets, and a bunch of other stuff. I became a tad over-enthusiastic in his editing, and a large created I, Vampire then for House of Mystery and Creature movie company became a little unreasonable.—DF] Then I got Commandos for Weird War Tales. Len was the first guy who made me feel like that I wasn’t just another one of the faceless guys coming into the business, that I had something unique and special. He really took an extra interest in me as sort of a protégé. The encouragement that he gave me, and the attention that he lavished on me, to use a cliché, you can’t buy that.

I’ve never forgotten that. It was like watering a flower that really needed watering.

So I was working for Len. I was working for Paul. I was working for Jack Harris, who was a wonderful guy. I really A scene from Moonshadow, one of JMD’s first creator-owned projects. Art by Jon J Muth. [©2002 J.M. DeMatteis & Jon J Muth.]

DeMATTEIS | 75

Moonshadow. I was in at the beginning of Epic and Vertigo and Conan, which you and Louise were editing. Then Jim offered Paradox, where I wrote Brooklyn Dreams... which is maybe my me a contract, and at the same time Jim was offering me a all-time favorite piece of work. The joy for me is that I’ve gotten contract, Len offered me a job as his assistant. If a year to work on both sides of the creative fence. before, someone had told me I’d be choosing between Marvel DF: There are a lot of people now who work both sides of the and DC both wanting me—! It was an amazing thing and if it fence. I think you were really one of the first people to do that. was just about the work I would have gone to DC and been JMD: When I started doing it, I don’t think anybody else was.

Len’s assistant. But around that same time, my son was born, DF: I think the thing that still makes you pretty unique—if that’s and the choice became: do I stay home and help raise my son even possible grammatically, to be “pretty unique”—is that a lot or do I have to go into work and be away from him every day? of writers and artists in the industry now came from the DF: That’s interesting. This is something I’ve never heard you independent world and they’ve been recruited into the discuss before. mainstream super-hero world. You went the other direction. You JMD: That’s the reason I made the decision that I made. took your experience and reputation from the super-hero world DF: It would seem like almost a no-brainer between being an and went to do your autobiographical and your fantasy stuff. assistant to somebody or being a full-blown writer with a JMD: The difference is that, then, all that stuff was just contract. How was that even a choice? beginning. Epic was just happening, and these alternative JMD: Because I was very interested in working with Len and publishers were just popping up. I remember looking up in the learning the ropes of the business from that side. It would mid-’80s and seeing Camelot 3000 at DC and Ronin, and I have been a very different track, and who knows where that remember thinking, “I don’t want to only be writing Captain would have led me as an editor? But it really wasn’t about that.

America and The Defenders.” I had this idea for Moonshadow, The choice became about my son, and that was why I chose to and I believe my contract with Marvel was up, and I had spoken be a freelancer and work at home. I had this nice contract, and with Karen Berger [at DC] about Moonshadow, which she Jim was always very, very generous financially. Whatever else loved. She was all ready to do it. Here’s a really interesting may have been going on, he was always at the cutting edge story. I was going to go back to DC, and Karen wanted to do with rates. “What’s DC giving you?” And then he’s come up Moonshadow. Len Wein offered me Swamp Thing, which, if I with something that was astronomically higher, or at least had taken it, Alan Moore wouldn’t have gotten the gig, and an seemed so at the time. entire era of comic book history would have never happened. At DF: And the contract was open-ended? least not in the same way. I forgot what else they offered me...

JMD: I think it was two- or three-year contract. maybe even Justice League... but I had these discussions with DF: It’s funny, most people you would think would say, “I now DC, and then I went to Shooter. I said that I had a couple of have a kid, so I need something dependable, so I took the staff things that I wanted to do if I was going to stay at Marvel, job,” and not, “I took the freelance gig.” because I wanted the freedom to do other things than superJMD: Either way, they both equaled staff jobs because the heroes. The two projects were Moonshadow and Greenberg contract gave me security. the Vampire. I’d done Greenberg as a black-&-white story in DF: That would be a big difference.

[Marvel’s] Bizarre Adventures, but I wanted to do a graphic JMD: I now had health insurance. I got vacation days. I got novel. Jim had said “no” at one point, but then over the course paid for, like, a week’s vacation every year, and it was a good of contract negotiations, they said, “Sure, the Moonshadow thing. That completes my “journey into the business.” thing sounds like an Epic comic.” And then I found myself in DF: And you’ve been doing this now for how long? the midst of the beginnings of Epic, and that’s the thing that JMD: Full time since 1979.

DF: Full time since 1979, which is rather remarkable. And doing, of course, everything.

Spider-Man, most notably, in a couple of different periods, a lot of Batman stuff, Spectre.

Name some of the others.

JMD: Justice League, Captain America, Defenders. I did a million things at Marvel over the years and a million things at DC. I think I hit almost all the major characters.

DF: Ever do the Fantastic Four?

JMD: No, that’s one of the things at Marvel that I never got to write, and I love the Fantastic Four. And then, of course, I got to do all this other material like the Vertigo stuff and the beginning of the From “Kraven’s Last Hunt,” part 3, first seen in Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #131. Art by Zeck & McLeod.

Epic line of comics with [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

76 | WRITE NOW

really helped me to become, for good or ill, who I am as a writer today.

In the early days there was this mindset that I had: “I’m writing Marvel Comics... you’ve got to write them this way to be Marvel Comics”—and my natural inclinations weren’t that way.

My natural inclinations were far left of center, and yet I kept trying to write the center. You look at my Defenders stuff, especially, and you can see all my weirdness desperately trying to come out. I just didn’t have the craft to express it. I hadn’t developed my craft well enough yet... or at all!... to tell the kinds of stories that I wanted to tell, and Moonshadow, what it really did for me was, it meant I wasn’t writing Marvel Comics any more. I was just writing a story and I could write it as if I was writing a piece of fiction... sitting at home working on an idea for a book or short story. That was the most liberating thing that happened to me. And I was lucky enough, through Dan Green, to meet Jon J Muth, to have this extraordinary artist who was doing fine art, not comic book art. I had talked to a number of comic book guys about drawing it. It would have changed the tone of the whole series. I was now able to be in a position where I could react to J’s gorgeous painting. In the beginning, he saw the story even better than I did. He intuitively understood what I was working toward and reflected it in his initial sketches and character designs... which in turn helped inspire me to reach a level of craft, and art, that I never had before. I went off and just wrote, and I wasn’t “comic book writing,” I was just writing, and that totally changed me as a writer. I was then able to step back into the super-hero stuff and do something like “Kraven’s Last Hunt,” which I did shortly after that, because I had liberated myself from the comic book mindset. Today, it doesn’t seem like a big deal, because there is such cross-pollination between what is called “alternative” and what’s called “mainstream.”

DF: But, generally, not the way you did it. What seems to happen now is, somebody who has a made a name in the independent world will then be called in to work on a corporate character. But for you to have started with the mainstream stuff, then gone into the personal stuff, and to continue to go back and forth between them—this may be part of the reason for your career longevity.

You have been doing this full time since 1979. You are one of the few people who has done it without a break. There are people who have gone in and out of fashion, and maybe now are being rediscovered but you really just kept on going.

JMD: For the most part, yes. I’ve had my periods of going in and out of fashion or having a year here or a year there where things were really difficult. It may not appear that way because stuff keeps coming out. I know that 1986 was a really rough year. Things got a little weird with Shooter. I was doing Moonshadow and I couldn’t even step into the mainstream Marvel books without getting riddled with bullets. It was really tough, and it got tough financially, before I finally went back to DC, and then I had a year at the end of my last Marvel contract a few years ago where it was really, really bad.

DF: That was the balloon popping for the whole industry, so I think a lot of people found themselves in that boat.

JMD: For the most part, even now, things in the business just are not what they were, even for me, but I look around and I see talented writers and artists saying, “I haven’t done work for years.” So I consider myself very lucky.

DF: Do you think it’s anything that you consciously did that’s responsible for your being regularly employed?

JMD: I can’t explain that, but I can say that in terms of staying

sane and continuing in the business, it’s just what you’re talking about. The fact that I was able to be working on both Spider-Man and Daredevil and Seekers Into the Mystery, to be doing some mainstream thing and be doing Brooklyn Dreams. I haven’t done one of those personal projects in a few years, and that’s been a source of great frustration.

DF: Aside from the different genres and types of comics, you’re a guy who has been involved a lot in the TV, movies, Hollywood world. What’s the appeal of that? Is it strictly financial?

JMD: Not at all. The financial rewards are wonderful, of course.

In Hollywood the “lousy” financial rewards are wonderful for those of us who live in the real world. I’ve had a number of projects, and they haven’t paid me the big bucks like—I have friend who is an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, and they pay him astronomical sums of money—so they don’t pay me that, but the money is still excellent. But that’s not what it’s about. I just love movies. Just look at the number of people we reach in comics on a good day, let alone now, with the shrinkage of the audience, and you look at the television and movie audience. You can reach so many more people.

DF: Talk a little bit about how you got into the TV stuff.

JMD: The first thing I did was a Twilight Zone. That was in the late-’80s when they revived Twilight Zone. I read an article about it that said that an amazing writer, and an extremely nice guy, named Alan Brennert was the story editor. I knew he had done comic books, so I wrote him a letter. I pitched him a bunch of stories until I sold him something. That was the first thing I ever sold... and God bless you Alan, wherever you are.

Then I did an animated Ghostbusters that Joe Straczynski was the story editor on. Hollywood seems to wax and wane in my life. It went away for a few years after that... and then I got the gig on Superboy (live actions series) in the early ’90s. Mike Carlin and Andy Helfer plugged me into that one. I ended up writing five episodes and doing a brief stint on staff, as well.

But it wasn’t until the mid-’90s that I got really busy with different movie and TV projects.

DF: You did a couple of Earth: Final Conflict s.

JMD: I did Earth: Final Conflict, and I worked on the Daredevil movie for Chris Columbus, and I worked on a movie, an original of mine that I sold on a pitch, called Straight On Till Morning for Chris Columbus. I wrote an animated feature for Disney, and I worked with Caleb Carr, the guy who wrote [the novel] The Alienist, on a science-fiction series that he created for CBS that never got on the air. We had a great time with that. I’ve done a lot of fun things over the years. To me, it’s just there’s something magical about movies and TV. Like with Superboy.

Superboy was an obscure, low-rated syndicated show that probably reached three or four million people on a bad day.

Compare that with the numbers we reach in comics. I wrote some stories for Superboy that I totally loved and was very, very proud of. Stan Berkowitz, who is now an award-winning animation writer, was the producer and the head story guy on Superboy. [Look for an interview with Stan Berkowitz in the next issue of Write Now!—DF] I had a great time on that show. Stan was a great guy to work for and he was, and is, a first-rate writer. I look at some of those episodes and I think, “Well gee, that hit three million people, that’s not bad.”

DF: Was your comics background generally helpful in opening doors in Hollywood? Do people take you more—or less— seriously?

JMD: What I found is, it certainly helps to get people to talk to you. Now I see, more than ever—I was just out there a couple DeMATTEIS | 77

From Soul of the Hunter, the sequel to “Kraven’s Last Hunt.” Story by JMD. Art by Zeck and McLeod. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.]

months running to meetings for a week—there are more people out there into comics than ever before. They are very hot for comics properties and material like that. But I’m the same way with movies as I am with comics. The kind of stuff that I want to write and the kind of stuff that I pitch really isn’t comic book oriented. If I pitched some high concept super-hero thing, it would probably be easier, but I like smaller, more personal stories.

DF: Do you think that, if you went in there with a high concept super-hero, you would be the one to write it, or would they say, “Let’s get a real Hollywood writer?”

JMD: I think there’d be a good chance that they would let me write it.

DF: Agents, managers—everybody says they are crucial to getting writing work in Hollywood. How hard are they to get?

JMD: You really need two things: a good writing sample... and someone who can personally plug you in to a good agency. I’ve had a few agents and one manager over the years, and it’s nice to have both an agent and a manager working for you. But the manager isn’t as necessary as the agent. That said, the first thing that I sold, I sold just writing letters myself. But overall, in terms of the business, you need someone with a reputation, with the right logo on top of the cover letter, to get producers to look at your work and take it seriously, and then also to set up meetings with the right people. You want to be 78 | WRITE NOW

able to meet with the people that matter, not with their fourth assistant’s third cousin.

DF: Was it tough to make that transition in mindset from comics, where everything is usually one-on-one—writer-to-editor—to this type thing, where everything is done through intermediaries?

JMD: Yeah, although comics started getting more and more like that. [laughs] And it continues to be more and more like that.

As the comics business continues to shrink, you have more and more opinions in the mix on your stories.

DF: I’m talking about the idea that everybody who is a writer in TV and in movies has an agent, and comics people don’t.

JMD: It’s just different. I’ve used an agent on rare occasions in comics—a great guy named Allen Spiegle—on projects that have needed special care, like when we bought Moonshadow back from Marvel and sold it to Vertigo, but in the normal course of events, I really don’t need one for comics.

DF: Was it hard to adjust to that change in approach with the Hollywood process?

JMD: Not really, because, for the most part, I’ve worked with really nice people. Right now, the agents that I have are really good guys, and of all the guys that I’ve had to work with out there, they are also the smartest story guys that I’ve ever worked with. I just finished this spec script which is out and making the rounds right now, and these guys really worked with me from the story angle. A lot of agents are just like, “Give me the work and we’ll sell it,” and these guys are really, really interested in the stories, how they can take this and make it the best that it can be before they give it to anybody.

DF: Which segues us into some questions about craft. Is there a typical reader that you imagine when you’re writing?

JMD: I write for myself first and foremost. I want to please me.

If I’m not pleasing me, I don’t care who else it’s pleasing. It doesn’t matter. Obviously, you want to please your editor, provided you like your editor, and in most cases I do or I don’t continue to work for them. There’s this hypothetical reader out there who’s like me. Someone who really takes the work to heart. To me, it’s a big chain. I read stuff, and it inspires me and provokes me to thought and feeling, and then makes me want to go create. I feel like I want to send this stuff out there, too, and provoke somebody, touch them and inspire them, so they end up being the person then creating something for the next person to get inspired by. I don’t write just to write. I write to communicate feelings and ideas, and I want to reach people. If I’m not going to have an audience, I don’t want to do the art. I couldn’t be in a garret just writing for myself. It would help me. It would be good therapy. But then I could just keep a journal. In terms of putting stories in the world, I want them to go out and touch people, and over the years I’ve felt really blessed by some of the responses I’ve gotten. I do sometimes feel like I’m a cult item in a cult industry, though. That over in a little corner are the people that get me and get what I’m writing about.

DF: But you’ve written million-selling comics.

JMD: I still see myself as a cult flavor in a cult market. But when I get those letters or e-mails and they say, “I was reading this story and it made me think in a different way, it changed my life,” or “It touched me so deeply,” to me that’s the reason for doing any kind of writing.

DF: Any books on writing, or courses, that you’d recommend for people?

JMD: There’s a book that my wife turned me on to ten years ago. It’s called If You Want to Write and the writer’s name is

around or rolling around on the floor screaming, “Dear God, I Brenda Euland. It’s the kind of book, if you have never written can’t figure this story out!” is the writing time. On that level, anything in your life, or if you’ve been writing for 50 years, it is we’re writing all the time. I’m not one of these disciplined guys a great book on writing. Her approach to teaching writing and that says, “I’m going to clock in at nine. I’m going to start encouraging creativity is very, very compassionate and open, writing. I’m going to write until four, and then I’m going to stop and she doesn’t believe in teaching through criticism of any writing.” It doesn’t work that way for me, but somehow it all kind. She only believes in teaching through encouragement. It’s gets done. just a beautiful book and beautifully written and I think any DF: You have all the family obligations, which establishes paramwriter should read that, because it will inspire them. Beyond eters on your time. that I don’t know. I love reading William Goldman’s stuff when it JMD: Yes, it does. It gives me a framework. And there are comes to screenwriting. I find many of those screenwriting certain things that I need to do for myself every day, that if I courses to be just a lot of garbage. William Goldman’s books, don’t do, I can’t really work well. Whether it’s meditation or Tai especially Adventures in the Screen Trade, I really enjoyed.

Chi or playing my guitar for half an hour.

Just reading a good screenplay is inspiring enough, and beyond My wife calls that my commute. When you work at home you that, just reading great writers. I can’t read Ray Bradbury don’t have that time in the car or on the train to segue into without wanting to put the book down and write. I think that the your work day. So you have to create that space for yourself. writers that we love are going to inspire us to write.

DF: What are you reading now?

DF: You mentioned keeping a journal. Do you still keep a JMD: I just read a fascinating book called The Aztec Virgin, journal? about the mystical Aztec roots of Our Lady of Guadalupe. And JMD: I don’t keep a journal on a regular basis. What I do is, my wife and I are reading a book, by Elliot Cowan, about plantthe two or three times a year that I may go on retreat, or when spirit medicine... a shamanic form of healing that we’ve both something specific is going on in my life, I will. I may go on become interested in. I used to read a lot of fiction, but in retreat to the Meher Baba Center in South Carolina and write recent years it’s very rare that I read fiction, except for 50 pages about what’s going on. children’s books. I love reading children’s books. Reading with DF: Do you recommend that for people, just to stay limber? my daughter is one of the major highlights of my day.

JMD: I think that’s a really good thing, yeah.

DF: Can we talk DF: Any other about that? I writing exercises know you are like that? very excited by JMD: I’m not a children’s books very formand children’s oriented guy. It’s comics in funny. It takes a particular. lot of discipline JMD: Yes, and to be a it’s been one of freelance writer the great frustraand to do it for tions of my this long, but I career that it don’t have a lot seems that of form. I get people in the up, I do my thing comic book in the morning business, at with my family least the people and whatever behind the personal and desks, don’t spiritual things I seem to get it. may do in the They think morning. Then I From JMD’s current run on The Spectre. From issue #17. Art by Norm Breyfogle and Dennis Janke. skewing to a get around to [©2002 DC Comics] younger working, and I readership is getting more 20-year-olds to read comics. That’s just flow through and back. pathetic. Five years ago when Joe Calamari was at Marvel, he DF: Do you have specific work hours that you work every day? was very interested in doing real kids’ comics, and that’s an JMD: I have a general arc of when it will last. Years ago, when obsession of mine. You raise a couple of kids and you see the I first started, I would work all night. That stopped a long time industry is skewing older and older and you go, “Excuse me, ago. I work during the day and I have to get my daughter from once upon a time kids read comic books, not 35-year-olds in school by three o’clock, so the day’s over then. Sometimes I their mothers’ basements.” [laughter] And when there’s may spend three hours futzing around in the morning and only wonderful children’s literature out there, whether it’s Narnia or spend an hour working, but get tons of work done in that one Oz or Harry Potter—proving the point for this generation of hour. Or I may work for four hours and get nothing done, or it kids. We need to do comics like that—I always likened it to may suck and I have to rewrite it all the next day.

Moonshadow without the sex and violence, but with that level DF: Do you average out a certain number of hours per week? of writing and that level of art, and aim it at kids. Because with JMD: As you know, the thing with the writing time is not just the best kids’ books, as we know, a seven-year-old can read the time at the computer. A lot of the avoidance and futzing DeMATTEIS | 79

Matilda or Mary Poppins and be totally transported and a 37year-old can read those books and be transported. The only one that’s not going to be transported is the cynical 16-year-old who thinks he’s too cool for it.

DF: What children’s projects do you have in the works?

JMD: As I said, Joe Calamari was really interested in a project Michael Zulli and I came up with called The Adventures of Skylar Orion Across Time and Space, and that was the period at Marvel where, every six weeks, something would change, and everything fell apart. I proposed a whole line of kids’ stuff to DC at that point, and they said it was a good idea but would cost too much. Now, what I’ve been trying to do is just get one project going. Michael Lark and I are just passionate about doing this thing called Abadazad, sort of a contemporary spin on Oz—our own version of that kind of world. I’ve got an editor at DC who’s interested in it. But basically, when we took it to the Powers That Be, I got the impression that, if I jump through a lot of hoops, I could get the project done and have it printed.

But I don’t know if they get how important this type of material is for the survival of the industry. But it still may happen there.

DF: Is it the kind of thing you might want to bring to an Oni, or someone like that?

JMD: It might very well be, and Michael and I have talked about that. Just maybe, it’s time to do it on our own and then take it to a publisher or publish it ourselves. It could be that what God is trying to tell me is, “Just write a novel.” But I feel like it would be a wonderful comic book. We owe it to our kids to provide them with really wonderful, magical nurturing stuff.

DF: Amen.

JMD: Who is Superman aimed at? Who is Spider-Man aimed at? Who is the audience for this stuff anymore? Everyone is so busy trying to prove how hip they are. DC had that promotional line in the ’80s, “DC comics aren’t just for kids anymore,” and now it’s like, “DC comics aren’t for kids anymore.” They license some Cartoon Network things and throw them into the market, but God forbid we spend any effort, energy, money or intelligence on comic books that will appeal to children. Marvel too.

Marvel seems bent on the Vertigo-ization of the Marvel line.

“Let’s make this stuff as cutting edge and dark as we can, because that is our audience.” You want to do all that, fine... I mean there are some terrific comics out there right now, I’m not knocking the quality of the books DC and Marvel are putting out... but what about the kids?

DF: Publishers and entrepreneurs out there, get those checkbooks out and start getting ready to bankroll Marc’s kids books.

JMD: It frustrates me more than anything, and if something like that would open up, where there was an opportunity to do one project or, even better, an entire line... At this point in my career, my interest in doing things other than comics far outweighs my interest in comics, but if I could do smart, literate comics for kids, like this thing that Zulli and I want to do, and the thing that Michael Lark and I want to do, I could see my passion and enthusiasm come back ten thousand percent. But it really seems like the companies really don’t get it. Once in a while, a good kids’ project will come out somewhere, but generally the companies are intent on playing to the same group.

DF: Writer’s block—ever had that problem?

JMD: Oh, all the time.

DF: And what do you do to deal with it?

JMD: Bang my head against the wall and get depressed.

Usually if you push through it, just grit your teeth and start 80 | WRITE NOW

writing, it’s okay, but there are times when it just isn’t going to come. It’s taken me years learn that, on the days when it’s not going to come, I should just honor that and walk away.

DF: But blocks don’t last more than a day or two for you, it sounds like.

JMD: They don’t usually, and I haven’t had an extended period where I couldn’t work. I find that the best cure for writer’s block is a deadline. No matter what’s going on, so-and-so needs pages by Tuesday. “Oh look, I don’t have writer’s block.” [laughter] I may not particularly like what I’ve done, but I’ve also discovered over the years that I’m not the best judge of what I’ve done. You know, the thing that you really work over can be a piece of garbage. The thing you batted out in fifteen minutes could be the greatest thing you ever wrote.

DF: Because you’re not making yourself all nuts about it.

JMD: I’ve definitely gone through periods, and I went through such a period a few months back, where I just sit and look at the computer and say—and it’s more because I’ve been doing this for so long—“I just can’t do this. Didn’t I write this story fifteen years ago?”

DF: That’s another reason we need the big turnover in readership, so no one will remember that you wrote it fifteen years ago.

JMD: And that’s why we always need to go toward projects that are really going to inspire us, because if we don’t, we are going to keep writing the story we wrote fifteen years ago, or five years ago, or five minutes ago. So if you want to close in terms of talking about writing, I’ll go to the Joseph Campbell cliché— and it’s a cliché because it’s true—which is, “Follow your bliss.”

Go to projects that excite you, even if it seems like this isn’t going to be the most commercial, lucrative project you can do.

Go to the thing that ignites your passion the most, and that you really care profoundly about, that you want to bring everything in your life to bear on. I’ve really tried to do that all these years, and maybe that’s why I’m still around. Because I’ve really tried to put my heart and soul into whatever I do. And when I haven’t been true to that, it’s been painfully obvious. It’s just not worth it. Better to just walk away.

DF: If you were 24 today, would you still want to break into comics, or would it be another medium?

JMD: That’s a good question. If I was 24 now, with my mind where it is now, my sense is that I probably would be focusing more on film from the get-go, as opposed to something I discovered later. On the other hand, if I had the same passion for comics that I had then—y’know, there was a period in the comic book industry where guys got into the industry because there was a big boom going on, and thought they could make a lot of money. But most of us got in for no reason other than that we loved it. We weren’t thinking about making money. We were delighted that anyone would pay us anything. [laughs] “Thirteen dollars a page? Wow!!” We loved comic books, period. That’s why we went after it. Love. If I was 24 years old now and had that kind of love for the form, regardless of the fact that the business is dying or whatever, I would probably still go for it.

DF: Well, we thought it was dying in 1977, too.

JMD: I never look at sales charts, Danny. But I recently picked up a magazine and happened to notice at a sales chart in there, and I saw what the sales are for today’s big sellers. The big, big, big, big seller was, I think 125 thousand copies, which was what Defenders used to do... and Defenders was pretty much a borderline book, sales-wise. And the other “big hit”

those things in the works, and I’m sure I’m forgetting something.

DF: You seem to be somebody who works well with editors.

JMD: I’ve had my share of problems with editors over the years... but when you find an editor that you can work with and who you like, it’s a real joy. The audience is out there, and I can imagine them in my head, or get the letters and read them, but the people that you work with on a regular basis are the artist that you’re involved with and, even more so, your editor. So your relationship with your editor is very important, I’ve worked with some very wonderful editors over the years, and you were one of them. What I found is that the mark of a good editor is someone who treats you with respect personally and professionally. To me, this is the ideal relationship with an editor.

They respect you professionally and they like you personally. And they create a family sense around the work. When we worked for you on Spider-Man, it was like From Spectacular Spider-Man #189. By JMD and Sal Buscema. what I imagine it must have been like [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] working on the Jack Benny Show or the Mary Tyler Moore Show. The family sense of the workplace comics have numbers that Jim Shooter would have cancelled that you created made it a great joy to participate. All the best without giving it a second thought. editors that I’ve worked with, it’s been that way. You can work DF: Any tips or advice for anybody trying to break into comics with someone you really respect, but you may not particularly today? like them personally, and I don’t enjoy that. I’ve also worked JMD: I think the biggest tip I could give is “If you’re passionate, with editors that I liked a lot, but I haven’t really thought very go for it.” I’m a great believer in following your dreams. I’ve highly of their editorial skills. That’s an odd one. But when you seen most of my dreams come true in my life. I wanted to work find somebody like you, or the way Andy Helfer was, back in the in comics and I did. I wanted to write movies and television, I Justice League days, or Shelly Roeberg or Karen Berger—I did. I wanted to do music, I played music, and then a few years don’t want to start naming individuals, because I will be ago, I went back to it and did a CD of Meher Baba-inspired forgetting so many terrific people. I’ve been working a lot with rock-and-roll called “How Many Lifetimes?” Working on that, Dan Raspler the past few years, and he’s been delightful putting it out into the world, was one of the great creative joys because we fit from the get-go, I feel like we have a nice of my life. I waited years to do it... but I finally did it and it relationship, I feel like I’m being treated with respect. Joey exceeded my wildest dreams. [“How Many Lifetimes?” is Cavalieri, who I’m now working on several projects with, same available through Amazon.com] I really believe that, if you’re thing. Those are the cream of the crop guys like you. passionate about it, if you really go for it with all your heart and DF: How about artists? Anything you want to say about the soul, you will do it. You will manifest it. If your heart and soul artist/writer relationship? aren’t into it, it’s not going to happen JMD: Yeah. When it works, it’s wonderful beyond words, and DF: So you never had a fallback, “If it doesn’t work, law school when it doesn’t it’s so frustrating. for me”?

It’s a big cliché, but it all comes down to the chemistry. You JMD: I was not mentally capable of doing that. I knew what I can be working with the best artist on Earth and if something wanted to do and I did it and I kept at it till I succeeded. doesn’t click between you and the artist, it doesn’t work. You DF: Is there anything you want to plug? This interview should be can have good art and good writing, but if that magic little coming out in the middle of the summer, about the end of July. spark doesn’t happen, then the book comes out and just lays JMD: To be honest I have no idea what’s coming out. there. And then you work with somebody else and you don’t DF: What are you currently working on that you’re excited about? know what it is, but you put the two of you together and you’re JMD: I am still working on The Spectre every month. It’s a just off and running. I’ll use Ryan Sook [former artist on The wonderful outlet for my views on life, the universe, and everySpectre] as an example, because it’s recent. We worked on a thing. Keith Giffen and I are doing the return of the old ’80s Superman story together, and from the first panel, it was great.

Justice League, a six-issue series and I’m amazed at how And then working on The Spectre together was just effortless. much fun we’re having. It’s like we never stopped. I’m doing a We reached the point where I could just ask him for the most JLA/Spectre two-part prestige thing, which is a really fun ridiculous, bizarre, metaphysical hard-to-describe thing, and story—it’s reconnecting me to my childhood love of the old he’d get it, and he’d draw it, and then he would top what I was Justice League of America—and a big, two-part 128-page asking for. Not that we were on the phone discussing the Superman UFO story called “The Kansas Sighting.” I’ve got all DeMATTEIS | 81

stories everyday. We weren’t. But there was just this intuitive understanding. And then, to go back a few years, you have a project like Blood: A Tale where I worked with Kent Williams.

We worked very closely, because we lived next door to one another at the time, and we’d we’d be running back and forth from his apartment to mine, discussing the story and the layouts and the themes we were exploring. It’s incredible to have that kind of collaboration going.

DF: Any preference between working full script and plot-first, the so-called Marvel style?

JMD: Each is totally different, and each has it’s pleasures. My plots, even when they’re loose, there’s so much information in them. But the plot-first method gives you the fun of discovery, when you get the art pages, and you look at a page that you envisioned was going need a lot of explaining and you look at the page, and you see it’s all there in the artwork. All you have to say is—nothing. I was talking to [Tom] DeFalco recently, and I mentioned Spectacular Spider-Man #200, which I wrote and Sal Buscema drew, which had the death of Harry Osborn. On the last three pages, Harry dies, and there’s this sequence where Spider-Man tells Mary Jane and they get into the ambulance and Harry passes away. It’s this big emotional thing, and I thought I was going to write this big shmaltzy thing at the end of the story, and the pages came, and I looked at them, and I went, “Whoa, I don’t have to write anything.” Every single thing that I had intended in the plot, all the emotion that I wanted to add later, was there in the pictures.

DF: Sal put it all in.

JMD: Sal put it all in. It was all there, and that’s that fun of working plot first, because you get to react to it. You look at a character and go, “This is what he would say. He would say this, he would say that.”

DF: As both a writer and an editor, I’ve always found the most magical times were opening the envelopes when they came in from the artists and going “Whoa!” No matter how you pictured it, when you see somebody translating it into pictures, it’s just magical.

JMD: It’s like writing a script for a television show. Suddenly there’s a set, and there are actors speaking the words you

From Soul of the Hunter by JMD, Zeck & McLeod. [©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.] 82 | WRITE NOW

wrote. They created this whole world, and it’s a different thing than imagining it on paper or dreaming it in your head. Doing a comic full script, you are much more in control of the material and you really are having to tell the entire story visually, and having to pace visually. It’s just a different kind of mindset. And even then, so much depends on the artist’s interpretation. It’s a visual medium and, in the end, the artist is either going to drag your vision down or lift it up. But I have to say that I really, really enjoy both plot-first and full script, and it depends on the project and it depends on the artist. Some artists really want you to keep it loose. Some artists want you to be really tight.

And I’ve changed over the years. I remember when I was working with Sal on Spectacular Spider-Man, and the plots were anally tight. It was basically like a full script in plot form, and then Mark Bagley [with whom J.M. had a memorable run on Amazing Spider-Man—and who is interviewed in this very issue of Write Now! ] came along and he said, “Can you loosen these plots up a little bit?” My plots are probably looser now than they were then.

DF: Sal seemed to enjoy the tight plotting. He seemed to thrive on that.

JMD: He just flew. and I could have given those same plots to someone else, and they wouldn’t have been half as good.

That’s Sal’s skill.

DF: What’s in the future for J.M. DeMatteis—more comics, more TV, more movies?

JMD: I’ve got to be honest, my future with the comic book business is questionable, and it really depends on what comes along to inspire me. There are lot of other things in my life, including continuing with screenwriting and going off and writing some children’s books. I’d also like to explore writing that has to do with the spiritual things that are so important to me in life... metaphysical things. So I don’t know. Everything feels very, very open now, and you may come back in a year and I may have 20 comics projects going, or I may not be working in the business at all. I would not be surprised at either outcome.

DF: Or you’ll be on the staff of Write Now! magazine. [laughter] JMD: Going, “Here are your xeroxes, Mr. Fingeroth.”

DF: No, no, you’d be much higher up on the editorial chart than that. And you can call me Danny.

JMD: Oh, thank you—Mr. Danny.

DF: Thank you, J.M. DeMatteis, on behalf of the magazine. Now I’ll turn the tape recorder off and we can really talk.

THE END

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Edited by JOHN MORROW THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR celebrates the life and career of the “King” of comics through interviews with Kirby and his contemporaries, feature articles, and rare and unseen Kirby artwork.

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❏ #18: (68 pages) MARVEL issue! Intvs. with KIRBY, STAN LEE, ROY THOMAS, JOHN ROMITA, JOHN BUSCEMA, MARIE SEVERIN, HERB TRIMPE, unseen Kirby art, Kirby/Sinnott cover. $8 US

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❏ #26: (72 pages) GODS! COLOR NEW GODS concept drawings, KIRBY & WALTER SIMONSON interviews, FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE, BIBLE INFLUENCES, THOR, MR. MIRACLE, more! $8 US

IN INGST! M CO UGU A

COMICOLOGY Edited by BRIAN SANER LAMKEN COMICOLOGY, the highly-acclaimed magazine about modern comics, recently ended its four-issue run, but back issues are available, featuring never-seen art and interviews.

❏ #33: (84 pages) TABLOID ALL-FANTASTIC FOUR issue!

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PANEL DISCUSSIONS

K I

Example of Mike Mignola’s experimental layout. Panels 1- 7 can be read in virtually any way, yet still work together to promote storytelling. Hellboy TM and ©2002 Mike Mignola.

R I A N

Brian Stelfreeze uses circles to illustrate Batman’s daze as raindrops splatter around his head in panel 1. Circles also form a trail in panel 5 to push the eye off into the next page. Batman & Robin TM & ©2002 DC Comics.

M

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DESIGN IN SEQUENTIAL ART STORYTELLING

Examples of the development of a splash page by Mark Schultz. Note the experimentation with camera angles in the roughs stage to utilize all of his storytelling options, leading to the final published page. Even after tight pencils, figures were added and adjusted. ©2002 Mark Schultz.

PANEL DISCUSSIONS contains the combined knowledge of over a dozen of the industry’s top storytellers, covering all aspects of the design of comics, from pacing, story flow, and word balloon placement, to using color to convey emotion, spotting blacks, and how gutters between panels affect the story! If you’re serious about creating effective, innovative comics, or just enjoying them from the creator’s perspective, this guide is must-reading! $24 US!

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As they share memories and anecdotes of their lives together, along with personal photos, momentos, and never-before-seen art by the top creators in comics!

Gene Colan’s private artwork!

Stan & Joanie Lee meet Bubba!

John Romita (age 18) and wife Virginia (age 17)!

(Written by BLAKE BELL • 192-page Trade Paperback) $24 US Postpaid (Canada: $26, Elsewhere: $27 Surface, $31 Airmail).

COMIC BOOKS AND OTHER NECESSITIES OF LIFE

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RYFT! R HU LE FEW ALL-STAR COMPANION CELEBRATING THE JSA’S 60TH ANNIVERSARY

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Cover by RUDE • Foreword by EISNER

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ALTER EGO: THE CBA COLLECTION Reprints the ALTER EGO flip-sides from the out-of-print COMIC BOOK ARTIST #1-5, plus 30 NEW PAGES of features & art:

SENSE OF WONDER Acclaimed historian Bill Schelly gives you AN INSIDER’S TOUR of comics fandom of the 1960s & ’70s. The fans, the comicons, the fanzines—they’re all here!!

COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR VOL. 3 Third volume in the series, reprinting TJKC #13-15, with an intro by STEVE BISSETTE, plus 30 PIECES of unpublished Kirby art!

(176-page Trade Paperback) $21 US

JACK KIRBY CHECKLIST

(100-pages) Lists all published work, portfolios, unpublished work, cross-references reprints, & more! A must-have for eBay shoppers! $7 US

FAWCETT COMPANION THE BEST OF FCA

Editor P.C. Hamerlinck has been delighting fans with his new FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA (FCA) • Introduction by ROY THOMAS, cover by sections in ALTER EGO, and this volume • Special color cover by JOE KUBERT! DICK GIORDANO! presents the best of the first 59 issues of • All-new rare and previously-unpublished • Share Bill’s encounters with FREDERIC the FCA newsletter (founded in 1973)! art by JACK KIRBY, GIL KANE, JOE WERTHAM, STEVE DITKO, BOB KANE, KUBERT, WALLY WOOD, FRANK • New JERRY ORDWAY cover!

JIM SHOOTER, and more!

ROBBINS, NEAL ADAMS, and others!

• Index of ALL FAWCETT COMICS • Over 150 photos and illustrations by • STEVE DITKO on the creation of published from 1940-1953!

KIRBY, DITKO, NEWTON, EISNER, C.C. SPIDER-MAN, ROY THOMAS on the • Behind-the-scenes looks inside the BECK, KALUTA, KRENKEL, COCKRUM, birth of THE INVADERS, and more!

GOLDEN AGE FAWCETT OFFICES! SINNOTT, GIL KANE and others!

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(64-page comic book) $6 US

(160-page Trade Paperback) $20 US

THE COMIC BOOK ARTIST COLLECTION, VOL. ONE

HIS BOOKS OF FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE, VOL. ZERO

Reprints the Eisner Award-winning COMIC BOOK ARTIST #1-3, plus over 50 NEW PAGES of features and art:

MR. MONSTER is back with a new book collection featuring TWELVE TWISTED TALES of Forbidden Knowledge, featuring:

• An unpublished story by JACK KIRBY! • An interview with NEAL ADAMS about his SUPERMAN VS. MUHAMMAD ALI book (including unused art)!

• Unpublished BERNIE WRIGHTSON art!

• An unused story by JEFFREY JONES! • Extensive new ALAN WEISS interview (including unpublished art), & more!

• Over 30 pages of ALL-NEW Mr. Monster art and stories by MICHAEL T. GILBERT! • Collects the hard-to-find MR. MONSTER stories from A-1, CRACK-A-BOOM! and DARK HORSE PRESENTS! • The lost Mr. Monster NEWSPAPER STRIP! • New 8-page FULL-COLOR STORY by KEITH GIFFEN & MICHAEL T. GILBERT!

(228-page Trade Paperback) $26 US

(136-page Trade Paperback) $20 US

WARREN COMPANION

KIMOTA! THE MIRACLEMAN COMPANION

THE ULTIMATE REFERENCE GUIDE TO WARREN PUBLISHING

Editor JON B. COOKE has joined forces with historian DAVID ROACH to compile the definitive book on the black-&-white world of Warren Publishing, the publisher who created such magazines as CREEPY, EERIE, VAMPIRELLA, BLAZING COMBAT, and others. This book reprints the contents of the Eisner Award-winning magazine COMIC BOOK ARTIST #4 (completely reformatted), plus nearly 200 new pages:

MR. MONSTER

Learn the behind-the-scenes secrets of ALAN MOORE’S MIRACLEMAN, from his beginnings as Marvelman, to the legal and creative hurdles during the 24-issue Eclipse Comics series, and why you never saw the final NEIL GAIMAN-scripted issue!

Also available as a Limited Edition Hardcover (limited to 1000 copies) signed

by JIM WARREN, with custom endleaves, 16 extra pages, plus a WRIGHTSON plate not in the Trade Paperback.

• New MARK BUCKINGHAM cover!

• Intro & back cover by ALEX ROSS! • In-depth interviews with ALAN MOORE, JOHN TOTLEBEN, NEIL GAIMAN, MARK BUCKINGHAM, GARRY LEACH, MICK ANGLO, BEAU SMITH, RICK VEITCH, and others!

• UNPUBLISHED ART, UNINKED PENCILS, SKETCHES, & CONCEPT DRAWINGS (including unseen art from the neverpublished #25)!

• Special COLOR SECTION! • NEVER-PUBLISHED 8-page Moore/ Totleben story, “Lux Brevis”, and an UNUSED MOORE SCRIPT! • A percentage of profits goes to artist JOHN TOTLEBEN, who is battling the eye disease Retinitis Pigmentosa.

(288-page Hardcover) $57 US

(144-page Trade Paperback) $17 US

• New painted cover by ALEX HORLEY! • A definitive WARREN CHECKLIST! • Dozens of NEW FEATURES on CORBEN, FRAZETTA, DITKO and others, and interviews with WRIGHTSON, WARREN, EISNER, ADAMS, COLAN & many more!

(272-page Trade Paperback) $35 US

US Prices Include Postage. Outside the US, Add $2 Per Item Canada, $3 Per Item Surface, $7 Per Item Airmail (except Warren Companion Hardcover: add $14 Airmail)

TwoMorrows. Bringing New Life To Comics Fandom.

TwoMorrows Publishing • 1812 Park Drive • Raleigh, NC 27605 USA • 919-833-8092 • FAX: 919-833-8023 • e-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com

All characters TM & © the respective copyright holders.

NOW SHIPPING FROM TWOMORROWS PUBLISHING!

COMIC BOOK ARTIST #20: FATHER & SONS ISSUE WITH THE KUBERTS & ROMITAS!

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #35: GREAT ESCAPES!

ALTER EGO #16: THE MARVEL BULLPEN & ALEX ROSS!

Featuring pages of KIRBY’s UNINKED MISTER MIRACLE PENCILS shown at TABLOID SIZE, plus:

• NEW FLIP COVERS by JOE, ADAM, & ANDY KUBERT and JOHN ROMITA JR. & SR.!

• Individual interviews with and a roundtable discussion

by THE KUBERTS! • An extensive conversation with the Junior and Senior ROMITAS! • Huge KUBERT & ROMITA ART GALLERIES, chats with MURIEL KUBERT & VIRGINIA ROMITA, & more!

• KIRBY COVER inked by MARSHALL ROGERS, and a color Mister Miracle #1 recreation by STEVE RUDE! • Interviews with MARSHALL ROGERS and Pulitzer Prize-winning author MICHAEL CHABON! • KIRBY TRIBUTE PANEL with BUSCEMA, ROMITA, ROYER, EISNER, and JOHNNY CARSON! • NEW REGULAR COLUMN by MARK EVANIER! • Huge MISTER MIRACLE ART GALLERY, “Himon” examined, KIRBY & HOUDINI compared, & more!

• Color covers by ALEX ROSS and the team of MARIE SEVERIN and RAMONA FRADON! • MARVEL BULLPEN REUNION with JOHN BUSCEMA, GENE COLAN, JOHN ROMITA, and MARIE SEVERIN! • Memories of the JOHN BUSCEMA SCHOOL (with plenty of Buscema art)!

• GIANT FCA SECTION with ALEX ROSS on SHAZAM!, C.C. BECK, MARC SWAYZE, and a tribute to CHAD GROTHKOPF! • PLUS: MR. MONSTER looks at rare art by HARVEY KURTZMAN, JACK DAVIS, WALLY WOOD, & more!!

(Edited by JON B. COOKE • 116 pages) Six-issue subscriptions: $36 Standard, $54 First Class (Canada: $66, Elsewhere: $72 Surface, $96 Airmail).

(Edited by JOHN MORROW • 84 tabloid pages) Four-issue subscriptions: $36 Standard, $52 First Class (Canada: $60, Elsewhere: $64 Surface, $80 Airmail).

(Edited by ROY THOMAS • 108 pages) Eight-issue subscriptions: $40 Standard, $64 First Class (Canada: $80, Elsewhere: $88 Surface, $120 Airmail).

COMICOLOGY #4 (FINAL ISSUE) THE “ALL-BRIAN” ISSUE!

XAL-KOR THE HUMAN CAT

DRAW! #3: THE HOW-TO MAG ON COMICS & CARTOONING!

The final issue is a 116-page giant featuring: • BRIAN BOLLAND (Judge Dredd, Batman: The Killing Joke, Heart Throbs) sketchbook & interview!

• BRIAN AZZARELLO (100 Bullets, Hellblazer) interview!

• BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS (Jinx, Ultimate Spider-Man, Fortune and Glory) interview!

• BRIAN CLOPPER (Rampage, Brainbomb) interview!

GRASS GREEN’S classic character returns, awakened from suspended animation to find arch-enemy QUEEN RODA and her rat legions on the brink of conquering Earth. Is there time for even Xal-Kor—the intrepid soldier from the cat-planet Felis—to stop Roda from turning Earth into a slave planet? This new comic story features:

• Cover and a new column on the design of comics by Mr. X’s PAUL RIVOCHE! • Inking demonstration and tips by legendary artist DICK GIORDANO! • BRET BLEVINS shows how to draw figures in action!

• Web comics how-to by MIKE MANLEY! • Interview with Disney’s CHRIS BAILEY, reviews of the best art supplies, links and more!

A riveting look at the family affair of the two First Families of comics:

(Edited by BRIAN SANER LAMKEN • 100 pages) Back issues: $8 In The US (Canada: $10, Elsewhere: $11 Surface, $15 Airmail).

FANDOM’S FAVORITE HERO IS BACK!

• Inks by ANGEL GABRIELE & RON FONTES! • Introductory remarks by ROY THOMAS & JEFF GELB! • Background on the Xal-Kor series by editor BILL SCHELLY to get new readers “up to speed”!

100-page Graphic Novella, $14 in the US (Canada: $16, Elsewhere: $17 Surface, $21 Airmail).

(Edited by MIKE MANLEY • 80 pages w/color section) Four-issue subscriptions: $20 Standard, $32 First Class (Canada: $40, Elsewhere: $44 Surface, $60 Airmail).

READ EXCERPTS & ORDER AT: www.twomorrows.com

IF YOU LIKE WRITE NOW!, DON’T MISS

THE PROFESSIONAL “HOW-TO” MAGAZINE ON COMICS AND CARTOONING

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NEW ISSUE IN JULY! INTERVIEWS and “HOW-TO” DEMOS by TODAY’S TOP PROFESSIONALS, in all aspects of COMICS, CARTOONING, AND ANIMATION, including:

Jack B . Quic k TM &

© Ame rica’s B est

Comic s LLC

• DYNAMIC LAYOUT AND PENCILING with ERIK (Savage Dragon) LARSEN! • INKING TUTORIAL (and new cover) by KEVIN (Jack B. Quick) NOWLAN! • COLORING IN PHOTOSHOP tutorial by DAVE (Weasel) COOPER! • Figure drawing by BRET BLEVINS, procedures and theories by PAUL RIVOCHE, a lavish color section, and MUCH MORE!

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AND COMING SOON:

• Step-by-step on producing Image’s POWERS by BRIAN BENDIS and MIKE OEMING! • Penciling by MIKE (Tellos-Superman) WIERINGO! • Inking demo by MARK (Marvel’s Exiles and Detective) McKENNA! PLUS: Our regular DRAW! COLUMNISTS return, featuring BRET BLEVINS with DRAWING FIGURES IN COMPOSITIONS, PAUL RIVOCHE on DESIGN FOR COMICS AND ANIMATION, ANDE (Green Arrow) PARKS with art supply reviews, and more!

(Edited by MIKE MANLEY • 88 pages with COLOR SECTION) SUBSCRIBE NOW! Four Issues in the US: $20 Standard, $32 First Class (Canada: $40, Elsewhere: $44 Surface, $60 Airmail).

BACK ISSUES: $8 Each US DRAW! #1: (108 pages) “How-To” demos and interviews with DAVE GIBBONS, JERRY ORDWAY, BRET BLEVINS, RICARDO VILLAGRAN, color BLEVINS cover & more!

DRAW! #2: (116 pages) “How-To” demos and interviews with GENNDY TARTAKOVSKY, KLAUS JANSON, JERRY ORDWAY, BRET BLEVINS, PHIL HESTER, ANDE PARKS, STEVE CONLEY, & more!

DRAW! #3: (80 pages) “How-To” demos and interviews with DICK GIORDANO, BRET BLEVINS, CHRIS BAILEY, MIKE MANLEY, new column by PAUL RIVOCHE, reviews of art supplies, & more!

US Prices Include Postage. For back issues outside the US, Add $2 Per Item Canada, $3 Per Item Surface, $7 Per Item Airmail. Subscriptions already include postage.

TwoMorrows. Bringing New Life To Comics Fandom.

TwoMorrows Publishing • 1812 Park Drive • Raleigh, NC 27605 USA • 919-833-8092 • FAX: 919-833-8023 • e-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com