Hello! Got a batch of things to mention to you all as we get started! First off, anticipation is building in the new X-Office, and it’s becoming more and more difficult to not be talking about what we’ve got coming up. This week, we pulled together mock-up covers for our first bunch of books and they looked really great. Seriously, it’s a simple thing, but once we put the logos on there, suddenly the whole line looked like
"remembered for the fact that it made the Red Skull an Italian and that the ears on Captain America’s cowl were not real, but plastic stick-ons." - hahaha! Brilliant. Didn't know that! Also enjoyed your Zack Snyder aside. ;-) Good luck with X-Launch!
I hate to use your comments field to slam someone else, but I politely disagree with your opinion of Scott Kurtz. I'll leave it at that.
Moving on to more fun topics...
That Wolverine/Havok series was AMAZING. I get that it probably looks a little dated, because lettering on that painted art probably looks a little odd. But I remember seeing that book everywhere when it came out, and it had a wide audience. I'm curious- were you at Marvel when that book came out? Do you remember if it was considered a success/
"But my memory of it is that those panels were the work of the infinitely-adaptable Stuart Immonen. In certain cases, Stuart may have been recreating panels or images from older Superman stories, but I believe they were all drawn by his hand here, rather than clipped and pasted. Let’s see what Kurt has to say once he arrives."
Yeah, they're all Stuart, mimicking the artists of the various eras. I can't say for sure he didn't reference a particular Curt Swan figure or something, but they're definitely not stats of any kind.
I wrote those panels to evoke a particular era and to hit the right thematic chord for that issue's story, and Stuart did an amazing job of capturing the right look for them, too. And on top of that, letterer Todd Klein, who knows more about the history of comic book lettering than any human alive or dead, knew who wold have lettered each of those panels, had they been actual historical Superman stories, so he mimicked the appropriate lettering of the time as well.
On the first page, as I recall, Todd added a caption to my script and may have changed the wording a little, too, to make it feel more like a Golden Age Superman panel. That's one of the reasons that series is so solid -- everyone working on it went above and beyond the usual requirements of the job to make it as good as they possibly could, and it shows.
I discovered you while i was reading the awesome Jed Mackey's Moon Knight, and i just started to read your newsletter, can you say something that are you working nowadays? I know The Veagence of the Moon Knight and Avengers Twilight. Moreover, changing the subject, the limited series is always announced as limited series? I mean, e got very surprised to see that Hickman's GODS is ending.
I've always felt the purpose of super-hero comics is simply to provide heroic fiction. It can star heroes, villains, antiheroes, Alan Moore's take, Dan Slott's, or Grant Morrison's but at its core it should be heroic fiction.
Dwayne had called me about the re-writing dilemma and in particular the Wolverine issue. I had suggested he have either Ultron or maybe one of my favorite's BUSHWACKER suggest Mech-a-doom needed to be "killed". Ultron was already going to be there...and since Mech-a-Doom had taken a bunch of cyborgs apart, it made sense that Bushwacker would be there. You did what you had to on that cover. Coming from Epic, this sort of destruction of the original art was a horror to me. When I moved to the Marvel side I was shocked at how editors there would alter just about anything and put Romita in a position to redraw faces; and you are 100% correct...Those faces looked like John Romita masks. I was lucky not to have to have that happen very often, but Gruenwald would sometimes have major parts of certain artists versions of Marvel Universe characters..."fixed". Always on a stat...but still... wish there was a Xerox of Denys' original version to compare.
Picking up on Callie's questions... unless I'm missing something, Gaiman wasn't an established Author when he broke into comics. He was an established journalist - as far as I know, he'd done that Duran Duran book, but no other book length thing before he got into comics, and certainly not fiction. I would advice Callie to go and specifically read a few writer's backgrounds and see their journey into comics (Gaiman's is even on his wikipedia page). It's a question which turns up in interviews a lot, so a little google will reveal all the details they require.
Quick question about something I just don't understand. How the intersection of storytelling and tech coming together in some exciting new ways with the partnership between Veve and Marvel? How does that impact the approach to storytelling you and your writers undergo?
This may seem a bit out of left field, but I am in the midst of a read/re-read of the entirety of Avengers, FF, Spidey, Thor, Cap and sometimes Iron Man. I just finished Civil War and I am wondering about the mood around the office. I was reading at the time, but even re-reading it there is a sense of excitement surrounding all the possibilities for new and different stories coming out of this particular event. What is your recollection of that time in the general sense of the possibilities and attitudes toward the possibilities around the company?
Your newsletter has become such a Sunday fixture for me that when I didn’t read it last night I dreamt a(n obviously wrong) Black Panther anecdote instead. My subconscious captured your writing style quite well!
I was wondering: are there common mistakes that new-to-Marvel writers make? And, if so, have those mistakes changed over the course of your time at Marvel? Three and a half decades is a fair chunk of time in comics years, and I’m wondering whether the change in style and content has brought with it a change in writers’ mistakes.
Comic fans have heard legends of Stan and Jack cranking out Avengers #1 over a five-day weekend, old pros drawing eight pages a day, Kirby doing a book a week. What’s one of the great speed-drawing performances you’ve been firtshand witness to?
Tom, in commemoration of your move from A to X, was there ever an X-Men character you or a writer felt could have made a good Avenger but couldn’t negotiate the particulars on?
Rocketeer is one of my favorite films and one I would love to see someone try another shot at.
"remembered for the fact that it made the Red Skull an Italian and that the ears on Captain America’s cowl were not real, but plastic stick-ons." - hahaha! Brilliant. Didn't know that! Also enjoyed your Zack Snyder aside. ;-) Good luck with X-Launch!
I love Dan Slott's She-Hulk run. I remember that being such an unexpected delight when it first came out.
I can't wait to see what you're cooking in the new X-office.
I hate to use your comments field to slam someone else, but I politely disagree with your opinion of Scott Kurtz. I'll leave it at that.
Moving on to more fun topics...
That Wolverine/Havok series was AMAZING. I get that it probably looks a little dated, because lettering on that painted art probably looks a little odd. But I remember seeing that book everywhere when it came out, and it had a wide audience. I'm curious- were you at Marvel when that book came out? Do you remember if it was considered a success/
"But my memory of it is that those panels were the work of the infinitely-adaptable Stuart Immonen. In certain cases, Stuart may have been recreating panels or images from older Superman stories, but I believe they were all drawn by his hand here, rather than clipped and pasted. Let’s see what Kurt has to say once he arrives."
Yeah, they're all Stuart, mimicking the artists of the various eras. I can't say for sure he didn't reference a particular Curt Swan figure or something, but they're definitely not stats of any kind.
I wrote those panels to evoke a particular era and to hit the right thematic chord for that issue's story, and Stuart did an amazing job of capturing the right look for them, too. And on top of that, letterer Todd Klein, who knows more about the history of comic book lettering than any human alive or dead, knew who wold have lettered each of those panels, had they been actual historical Superman stories, so he mimicked the appropriate lettering of the time as well.
On the first page, as I recall, Todd added a caption to my script and may have changed the wording a little, too, to make it feel more like a Golden Age Superman panel. That's one of the reasons that series is so solid -- everyone working on it went above and beyond the usual requirements of the job to make it as good as they possibly could, and it shows.
I discovered you while i was reading the awesome Jed Mackey's Moon Knight, and i just started to read your newsletter, can you say something that are you working nowadays? I know The Veagence of the Moon Knight and Avengers Twilight. Moreover, changing the subject, the limited series is always announced as limited series? I mean, e got very surprised to see that Hickman's GODS is ending.
I've always felt the purpose of super-hero comics is simply to provide heroic fiction. It can star heroes, villains, antiheroes, Alan Moore's take, Dan Slott's, or Grant Morrison's but at its core it should be heroic fiction.
Dwayne had called me about the re-writing dilemma and in particular the Wolverine issue. I had suggested he have either Ultron or maybe one of my favorite's BUSHWACKER suggest Mech-a-doom needed to be "killed". Ultron was already going to be there...and since Mech-a-Doom had taken a bunch of cyborgs apart, it made sense that Bushwacker would be there. You did what you had to on that cover. Coming from Epic, this sort of destruction of the original art was a horror to me. When I moved to the Marvel side I was shocked at how editors there would alter just about anything and put Romita in a position to redraw faces; and you are 100% correct...Those faces looked like John Romita masks. I was lucky not to have to have that happen very often, but Gruenwald would sometimes have major parts of certain artists versions of Marvel Universe characters..."fixed". Always on a stat...but still... wish there was a Xerox of Denys' original version to compare.
Picking up on Callie's questions... unless I'm missing something, Gaiman wasn't an established Author when he broke into comics. He was an established journalist - as far as I know, he'd done that Duran Duran book, but no other book length thing before he got into comics, and certainly not fiction. I would advice Callie to go and specifically read a few writer's backgrounds and see their journey into comics (Gaiman's is even on his wikipedia page). It's a question which turns up in interviews a lot, so a little google will reveal all the details they require.
Quick question about something I just don't understand. How the intersection of storytelling and tech coming together in some exciting new ways with the partnership between Veve and Marvel? How does that impact the approach to storytelling you and your writers undergo?
Hey Tom-
This may seem a bit out of left field, but I am in the midst of a read/re-read of the entirety of Avengers, FF, Spidey, Thor, Cap and sometimes Iron Man. I just finished Civil War and I am wondering about the mood around the office. I was reading at the time, but even re-reading it there is a sense of excitement surrounding all the possibilities for new and different stories coming out of this particular event. What is your recollection of that time in the general sense of the possibilities and attitudes toward the possibilities around the company?
Thanks!
Hi Tom,
Your newsletter has become such a Sunday fixture for me that when I didn’t read it last night I dreamt a(n obviously wrong) Black Panther anecdote instead. My subconscious captured your writing style quite well!
I was wondering: are there common mistakes that new-to-Marvel writers make? And, if so, have those mistakes changed over the course of your time at Marvel? Three and a half decades is a fair chunk of time in comics years, and I’m wondering whether the change in style and content has brought with it a change in writers’ mistakes.
Comic fans have heard legends of Stan and Jack cranking out Avengers #1 over a five-day weekend, old pros drawing eight pages a day, Kirby doing a book a week. What’s one of the great speed-drawing performances you’ve been firtshand witness to?
Saying comicsgate is like stating the name of he shouldn't be named IYKWIM.
(I presume Tom was serious when he said it.)
Tom, in commemoration of your move from A to X, was there ever an X-Men character you or a writer felt could have made a good Avenger but couldn’t negotiate the particulars on?