Love the Scoepion and that era when Chaykin seemed to take the same character/archetype from place to place. Scorpion -> Dominic Fortune and then eventually Reuben Flagg.
I’m digging Stephanie Phillips PHOENIX and SPIDER-GWEN a lot. I won’t dare speak for others, but I suspect I’m not alone. She’s got a great knack for centering her stories on characters and their immediate worlds, while keeping the tension high and the page-turning quick.
I probably dislike it as much as the commenter who used the royal we BUT if everything was to my taste it would be boring. I hope you get a long run to enjoy!
I like Phoenix but I couldn’t say I like it a lot. I much prefer the new art style, and wasn’t the biggest fan of how Corsair was portrayed after the last decade used the character.
I am loving the New Warriors Chronicles, thank you! I've always wondered, how was Steve Mattsson brought into Night Thrasher? Was Kurt Busiek's pitch initially with him as co-writer, or was he brought in later?
I remember thinking the New Warriors had really hit the big time by getting the guy who wrote the blockbuster Marvels. It's crazy that internal politics prevented him from getting a higher profile gig (although to the benefit of New Warriors fans). How did he even get to do Marvels in the first place if most editors weren't giving him much consideration?
"I've always wondered, how was Steve Mattsson brought into Night Thrasher? Was Kurt Busiek's pitch initially with him as co-writer, or was he brought in later?"
No, I pitched the "Money Don't Buy" series solo, but either I had a bunch of deadlines at the same time, or I was talking with Steve about some ideas and he suggested some good ones, or some other reasons I don't currently remember, but he helped me out on the series starting with the second issue, and got to write an issue solo as well.
"I remember thinking the New Warriors had really hit the big time by getting the guy who wrote the blockbuster Marvels. It's crazy that internal politics prevented him from getting a higher profile gig (although to the benefit of New Warriors fans). How did he even get to do Marvels in the first place if most editors weren't giving him much consideration?"
Marc McLaurin wasn't one of those editors, so that helped a lot. Plus, if some of the editors involved in okaying the project weren't wild about me, they were very interested in the Alex Ross art, and that doubtless mattered a lot.
But afterward, Mark Gruenwald invited me to pitch new series, and wound up pitching three that he liked enough to hand out to editors for development. One of them, the editor never bothered to read, so it went nowhere. I think the other two may have both gone to Tom, and we developed more thorough, better pitches, and they went back to Mark, where they languished in his in-box for over six months until I got fed up and withdrew them and did a bunch of work for Image and a little work for DC instead.
But the only Marvel projects I actually got offered in the wake of MARVELS were NIGHT THRASHER and ECTO-KID. I wasn't all that interested in Night Thrasher, but at least it was set in the Marvel Universe. And I had no interest in ECTO-KID at all.
MARVELS had its upsides and downsides -- while it made people remember my name, editors can at times have a hard time thinking outside whatever box they have imagined. o when I was being recommended for a regular DC book, the editor's response was, "I dunno, I liked MARVELS, but I wouldn't want this book to read like that," as if that was the only approach I could take.
After MARVELS, the two books that built my subsequent career the most were ASTRO CITY, which got fantastic critical reaction, and UNTOLD TALES OF SPIDER-MAN, which apparently convinced people that I could write a monthly superhero series that was about action and adventure and character drama. And it, edited by Tom, led to THUNDERBOLTS (also with Tom), and then IRON MAN and AVENGERS (Tom had originally been assigned IRON MAN, and Bobbie Chase AVENGERS, but as it became clear how Marvel-history-intensive AVENGERS was going to be, we engineered a swap). And AVENGERS and ASTRO CITY together really solidified my place in the industry.
"Ectokid is a superhero comic book series published by Marvel Comics' Razorline imprint that ran from 1993 to 1994. Created by filmmaker and horror/fantasy novelist Clive Barker as one of the imprint's four interconnected series, it starred teenaged Dexter Mungo, the child of a mortal and a ghost, who is able to see and interact with the dangerous, interdimensional Ectosphere."
If it had been the only offer I got, I'd have taken it, just to be working on a theoretically-ongoing series at Marvel. And I liked working with Marcus and Spencer fine -- I was working with them on the never-actually-realized-in-that-form MARVELS sequel -- I just don't think I could do the kind of style the Barkerverse called for.
That project turned into the one-shot ECTOKID UNLEASHED, written by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, and I have no idea if they were any better suited for it than I would have been. But at least we all got work.
One of them turned into THE POWER COMPANY, but the other...who knows where those ideas might show up?
Not me, unless I find a copy of the pitch myself; I only remember the name.
[The third, which was never read by the editor it was assigned to, wasn't THUNDERBOLTS, but was similar enough that had it happened, there'd never have been a THUNDERBOLTS...]
I think you’ve talked about this before, but how did (or did he) Jonathan Hickman react to the X-titles evolve from Krakoa to From The Ashes? Those first Hickman Krakoa comics were, in my opinion, fantastic, and showed us a different side of the X-Men. I’m curious is all.
In the early 1990s crossovers were labelled with a upper-right "dogear" saying "AN INFINITY CRUSADE CROSSOVER": It was noticeable if you were looking for it, but it didn't take over the cover the way, say, AvX did. When did Marvel transition to having larger, very prominent branding elements?
Considering how quickly misinformation spreads on the internet, what are some of the biggest misconceptions about how Marvel works behind the scenes that you'd love to straighten out?
Forgive me if this has been answered elsewhere and I missed it, but is there currently a “regular” artist on Fantastic Four? I remember Carlos Gomez being announced a while back, but he’s since moved over to All-New Venom.
It seems like this FF run has been burning through artists, which may have been expected due to accelerated shipping. Wondering if you can share anything about coordinating it all behind the scenes. Not looking for dirt or anything, just some perspective on whether this process has been more tumultuous than usual.
"With the news coming out of NYCC concerning a revival of its characters" - who's reviving them, Tom? I always had a soft spot for some of their titles too. PS Petula Clark! "Downtown" was always on the radio when I was a kid.
On the topic of Blake’s 7, did you know the first season has just come out on blu-ray? The location scenes have been remastered from the in-camera film for most the episodes (it doesn’t exist for the others) and the studio VT up scaled into HD. All looks terrific. There’s also an optional updated FX setting. But they’ve been redone mostly with models (including the original Liberator) rather than CGI and involving some of the original FX team, who have taken the approach “If we’d have had more money then, what would we have done?” Recommended. (You’ll need a multi-region player tho.)
Spider-Boy was one of the best things to come out of Amalgam Comics, an event that hit at precisely the right time to cement my comics fandom.
Do you know if there were any concerns (internal, external, legal, or what have you) with Dan Slott reusing the name and title for Bailey Briggs and his book?
"Kurt’s Night Thrasher would use his great wealth as a super power, to attempt to purchase his way out of problems. And he’d deal with all of the situations where that approach simply wouldn’t work the way he’d intended."
Yeah, I didn't think that would work as an ongoing direction, but I thought it'd make for a lively four issues as Dwayne got to see why it really wouldn't work that simply. I think Rob suggested we have guest stars every issue for sales reasons, but it helped the stories, too.
"Kurt also picked up on Fabian’s set up of Rage, a character that NEW WARRIORS had adopted from AVENGERS. Rage was Dwayne Taylor’s ward following the death of his Granny Staples, and so Kurt decided to make him the Robin to Night Thrasher’s Batman—albeit a Robin who could bench-press a tank."
I think my pocket pitch for that was "What if Batman and Robin, but Robin is the Hulk?" I had written a superhero parody years before that had a similar premise, and I thought it was fun then and fun here.
"Artwork was being done by Art Nichols, whom Kurt I believe had advocated for. Art was good, but he wasn’t the most consistent producer among artists, and so by the time I picked up the series, it too was in a bit of a scheduling bind."
I think Artie heard I was taking over the book via mutual friends and lobbied for me to recommend him, which I did -- he's a solid artist with a sharp and commercial style. But as you say, not the fastest. He did some odd things to try to speed up, too -- I remember that at least one issue was drawn at print size, on the theory that it'd go faster. It didn't.
Still, it was a treat to tackle a monthly superhero book again, and try to make it work, even though the handwriting was probably on the wall before we even started. We gave it our best shot.
Looking back on the issues, I think it was 16. Artie fully inked that one himself, and the linework looks thicker than the pages he inked in 15.
This one was just breakdowns by Artie and finished art by Steve Leialoha. Which looked really nice, but I can't imagine handing Steve print-size breakdowns would have gone over very well.
It might be that Artie had intended to do the full art of the series, and when he fell behind on the first issue, he figured he could keep up if he just drew smaller. And when that didn't work, he had to do breakdowns to try to catch up, and then in the final issue you had to pull in three inkers to get the book out on time.
It strikes me that this may be why I brought Steve Mattsson in to help with the writing -- the book was running late, and so when pages came in they had to be dialogued immediately, and I had other imminent deadlines and couldn't do everything in the time available.
Love the Scoepion and that era when Chaykin seemed to take the same character/archetype from place to place. Scorpion -> Dominic Fortune and then eventually Reuben Flagg.
I’m digging Stephanie Phillips PHOENIX and SPIDER-GWEN a lot. I won’t dare speak for others, but I suspect I’m not alone. She’s got a great knack for centering her stories on characters and their immediate worlds, while keeping the tension high and the page-turning quick.
Phoenix is my favorite title outside of the three main books. I’m loving what Phillips is doing with the book.
I probably dislike it as much as the commenter who used the royal we BUT if everything was to my taste it would be boring. I hope you get a long run to enjoy!
Bad news on that front, as a random blog commenter has assured its imminent demise.
I like Phoenix but I couldn’t say I like it a lot. I much prefer the new art style, and wasn’t the biggest fan of how Corsair was portrayed after the last decade used the character.
I am loving the New Warriors Chronicles, thank you! I've always wondered, how was Steve Mattsson brought into Night Thrasher? Was Kurt Busiek's pitch initially with him as co-writer, or was he brought in later?
I remember thinking the New Warriors had really hit the big time by getting the guy who wrote the blockbuster Marvels. It's crazy that internal politics prevented him from getting a higher profile gig (although to the benefit of New Warriors fans). How did he even get to do Marvels in the first place if most editors weren't giving him much consideration?
"I've always wondered, how was Steve Mattsson brought into Night Thrasher? Was Kurt Busiek's pitch initially with him as co-writer, or was he brought in later?"
No, I pitched the "Money Don't Buy" series solo, but either I had a bunch of deadlines at the same time, or I was talking with Steve about some ideas and he suggested some good ones, or some other reasons I don't currently remember, but he helped me out on the series starting with the second issue, and got to write an issue solo as well.
"I remember thinking the New Warriors had really hit the big time by getting the guy who wrote the blockbuster Marvels. It's crazy that internal politics prevented him from getting a higher profile gig (although to the benefit of New Warriors fans). How did he even get to do Marvels in the first place if most editors weren't giving him much consideration?"
Marc McLaurin wasn't one of those editors, so that helped a lot. Plus, if some of the editors involved in okaying the project weren't wild about me, they were very interested in the Alex Ross art, and that doubtless mattered a lot.
But afterward, Mark Gruenwald invited me to pitch new series, and wound up pitching three that he liked enough to hand out to editors for development. One of them, the editor never bothered to read, so it went nowhere. I think the other two may have both gone to Tom, and we developed more thorough, better pitches, and they went back to Mark, where they languished in his in-box for over six months until I got fed up and withdrew them and did a bunch of work for Image and a little work for DC instead.
But the only Marvel projects I actually got offered in the wake of MARVELS were NIGHT THRASHER and ECTO-KID. I wasn't all that interested in Night Thrasher, but at least it was set in the Marvel Universe. And I had no interest in ECTO-KID at all.
MARVELS had its upsides and downsides -- while it made people remember my name, editors can at times have a hard time thinking outside whatever box they have imagined. o when I was being recommended for a regular DC book, the editor's response was, "I dunno, I liked MARVELS, but I wouldn't want this book to read like that," as if that was the only approach I could take.
After MARVELS, the two books that built my subsequent career the most were ASTRO CITY, which got fantastic critical reaction, and UNTOLD TALES OF SPIDER-MAN, which apparently convinced people that I could write a monthly superhero series that was about action and adventure and character drama. And it, edited by Tom, led to THUNDERBOLTS (also with Tom), and then IRON MAN and AVENGERS (Tom had originally been assigned IRON MAN, and Bobbie Chase AVENGERS, but as it became clear how Marvel-history-intensive AVENGERS was going to be, we engineered a swap). And AVENGERS and ASTRO CITY together really solidified my place in the industry.
"Ectokid is a superhero comic book series published by Marvel Comics' Razorline imprint that ran from 1993 to 1994. Created by filmmaker and horror/fantasy novelist Clive Barker as one of the imprint's four interconnected series, it starred teenaged Dexter Mungo, the child of a mortal and a ghost, who is able to see and interact with the dangerous, interdimensional Ectosphere."
For anyone wondering what the heck Ecto-Kid is!!
Always a pleasure to see your comments Kurt!
And edited by Marcus McLauren, which explains why he was interested in Kurt, having worked with him on MARVELS.
If it had been the only offer I got, I'd have taken it, just to be working on a theoretically-ongoing series at Marvel. And I liked working with Marcus and Spencer fine -- I was working with them on the never-actually-realized-in-that-form MARVELS sequel -- I just don't think I could do the kind of style the Barkerverse called for.
That project turned into the one-shot ECTOKID UNLEASHED, written by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, and I have no idea if they were any better suited for it than I would have been. But at least we all got work.
I think I still have copies of those two pitches in my files.
One of them turned into THE POWER COMPANY, but the other...who knows where those ideas might show up?
Not me, unless I find a copy of the pitch myself; I only remember the name.
[The third, which was never read by the editor it was assigned to, wasn't THUNDERBOLTS, but was similar enough that had it happened, there'd never have been a THUNDERBOLTS...]
Well, you used the name in THE POWER COMPANY, so while you could still use the story, you couldn't call the character the same thing.
Hasn't stopped me yet...!
I hadn't seen this reply until just now. Thank you so much!
No Laura Kinney: Wolverine this week or not hyping it much?
Just a goof on my part, I'm afraid. Buy a dozen!
Hi Tom!
I think you’ve talked about this before, but how did (or did he) Jonathan Hickman react to the X-titles evolve from Krakoa to From The Ashes? Those first Hickman Krakoa comics were, in my opinion, fantastic, and showed us a different side of the X-Men. I’m curious is all.
Thanks for always answering questions.
"Those first Hickman Krakoa comics were, in my opinion, fantastic" - ditto!
In the early 1990s crossovers were labelled with a upper-right "dogear" saying "AN INFINITY CRUSADE CROSSOVER": It was noticeable if you were looking for it, but it didn't take over the cover the way, say, AvX did. When did Marvel transition to having larger, very prominent branding elements?
Dominic Fortune! Loved that character
Thanks for sharing the Spider-Man history!
Considering how quickly misinformation spreads on the internet, what are some of the biggest misconceptions about how Marvel works behind the scenes that you'd love to straighten out?
Forgive me if this has been answered elsewhere and I missed it, but is there currently a “regular” artist on Fantastic Four? I remember Carlos Gomez being announced a while back, but he’s since moved over to All-New Venom.
It seems like this FF run has been burning through artists, which may have been expected due to accelerated shipping. Wondering if you can share anything about coordinating it all behind the scenes. Not looking for dirt or anything, just some perspective on whether this process has been more tumultuous than usual.
Thanks!
Hi Tom, whose idea was it to homage Marvel vs. Capcom for this week’s fantastic Uncanny X-Men cover? Yours? David’s? Someone else in editorial?
"With the news coming out of NYCC concerning a revival of its characters" - who's reviving them, Tom? I always had a soft spot for some of their titles too. PS Petula Clark! "Downtown" was always on the radio when I was a kid.
Best way to get the X-Books out on time would be for there to be less of them and for them to crossover less. Just saying...
On the topic of Blake’s 7, did you know the first season has just come out on blu-ray? The location scenes have been remastered from the in-camera film for most the episodes (it doesn’t exist for the others) and the studio VT up scaled into HD. All looks terrific. There’s also an optional updated FX setting. But they’ve been redone mostly with models (including the original Liberator) rather than CGI and involving some of the original FX team, who have taken the approach “If we’d have had more money then, what would we have done?” Recommended. (You’ll need a multi-region player tho.)
Spider-Boy was one of the best things to come out of Amalgam Comics, an event that hit at precisely the right time to cement my comics fandom.
Do you know if there were any concerns (internal, external, legal, or what have you) with Dan Slott reusing the name and title for Bailey Briggs and his book?
"Kurt’s Night Thrasher would use his great wealth as a super power, to attempt to purchase his way out of problems. And he’d deal with all of the situations where that approach simply wouldn’t work the way he’d intended."
Yeah, I didn't think that would work as an ongoing direction, but I thought it'd make for a lively four issues as Dwayne got to see why it really wouldn't work that simply. I think Rob suggested we have guest stars every issue for sales reasons, but it helped the stories, too.
"Kurt also picked up on Fabian’s set up of Rage, a character that NEW WARRIORS had adopted from AVENGERS. Rage was Dwayne Taylor’s ward following the death of his Granny Staples, and so Kurt decided to make him the Robin to Night Thrasher’s Batman—albeit a Robin who could bench-press a tank."
I think my pocket pitch for that was "What if Batman and Robin, but Robin is the Hulk?" I had written a superhero parody years before that had a similar premise, and I thought it was fun then and fun here.
"Artwork was being done by Art Nichols, whom Kurt I believe had advocated for. Art was good, but he wasn’t the most consistent producer among artists, and so by the time I picked up the series, it too was in a bit of a scheduling bind."
I think Artie heard I was taking over the book via mutual friends and lobbied for me to recommend him, which I did -- he's a solid artist with a sharp and commercial style. But as you say, not the fastest. He did some odd things to try to speed up, too -- I remember that at least one issue was drawn at print size, on the theory that it'd go faster. It didn't.
Still, it was a treat to tackle a monthly superhero book again, and try to make it work, even though the handwriting was probably on the wall before we even started. We gave it our best shot.
I think it was this issue, #17, that got drawn at print size. And no, it didn't make production any faster.
Looking back on the issues, I think it was 16. Artie fully inked that one himself, and the linework looks thicker than the pages he inked in 15.
This one was just breakdowns by Artie and finished art by Steve Leialoha. Which looked really nice, but I can't imagine handing Steve print-size breakdowns would have gone over very well.
It might be that Artie had intended to do the full art of the series, and when he fell behind on the first issue, he figured he could keep up if he just drew smaller. And when that didn't work, he had to do breakdowns to try to catch up, and then in the final issue you had to pull in three inkers to get the book out on time.
It strikes me that this may be why I brought Steve Mattsson in to help with the writing -- the book was running late, and so when pages came in they had to be dialogued immediately, and I had other imminent deadlines and couldn't do everything in the time available.
Inspired by a poster from last week:
The Exceptional X-Men and X-Factor titles for from the ashes are VERY GOOD. WE demand the creative teams STAY THE SAME. Until sales go down.