I’ve got to hand it to Panini, and in particular Julian Eme who commented on last week’s story concerning my old Assistant Editor Gregg Schigiel and I flimflamming our way into getting a set of the Biblioteca Marvel volumes that Panini had put out twenty five years ago.
Those Biblioteca Marvel Timelines look gorgeous and super-interesting. I love to see them as extra features in Marvel's EPIC Collections of the Silver Age runs. Or perhaps, collected and published as a single special comic issue, not unlike the recent reprint of Son of Origins of Marvel Comics.
Yikes, that "office quiz" would probably be grounds for a harassment complaint these days! Hopefully everyone involved took it in the spirit that was intended.
It's interesting how often Steve Ditko was brought in as a "fixer" for a series that was struggling. I think he was involved in Daredevil #1 also, wasn't he (although I think that was just to help get the artwork finished, rather than any kind of conceptual work)? It makes me wonder what might've happened if he'd been brought in on X-Men, another Lee/Kirby title that seemed to have a little trouble finding its groove...
Would you ever revisit Untold tales of Spider-Man Tom? The various 'retro' series at Marvel seem to be selling well and I have hear that Kurt Busiek has one more untold tale that he would like to tell. Or have Roger Stern write some college era Spidey stories - that would be fun.
Re: how Ryan North became "a science smarty pants". He has a Bachelor's in Computer Science from Carleton (and yes, all the CS stuff in Unbeatable Squirrel Girl was accurate) and a Master's in CS with an emphasis in Computational Linguistics from UToronto. UT is generally ranked around 10-15th in CS worldwide, so just getting into that program indicates having some decent smarts. He's also old enough to just predate the "tech bro" and similar "in it for the money" onslaught of CS majors. And back then CS types tended to be generally interested in science and engineering topics (and majors would often require taking some science and/or engineering courses outside of CS). Given his non-fiction books' topics, it's pretty clear he has that sort of general interest and did a fair amount of researching just for the books in addition to a general interest. So, like Tom wrote, it's pretty clearly the case of a smart guy who's done a fair amount of reading and researching of sci/eng topics.
Those Los Quatro Fantasticos look gorgeous, Tom -- and that Ditko revamp of Iron Man is my all-time favourite incarnation of the character. It blew my childhood mind when I saw it on the cover of (a British reprint of) Avengers #3. Curious to read your blog posts on the making of FF #1! :-)
I recently read and loved Marvel Age #1000 and have a couple of questions about it:
1) Do you have to get any kind of sign off from the Spidey or X-Men offices for their stories, or do you get a free pass of sorts because they're anthology stories?
2) Was there ever a discussion about the tone of the final story, which depicted Stan Lee, Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby as childhood friends?
Obviously these are real people, with a famous history of falling out over money and working practices, and a story like this could be seen as infantalizing or potentially dismissive of Kirby and Ditko's genuine grevances.
And to be clear, in case the tone isn't clear, I'm coming here with curiousity rather than any kind of pointed critique.
Speaking as one of the "Lone Star Lotharios," that episode was more of a case of "Kurt and Danny make up fictional cocktails with Jack Kirby names -- 'gimme a Negative Zone' 'I'll have an Omega Effect, I hear it wipes you out of existence!' -- and watch, amazed, as Don picks up entire tables full of young women single-handed."
I remember Danny saying, at one point, "Okay, watch this. He's approaching their table. Try to spot the moment when they go from strangers to old pals. You won't be able to." And I absolutely couldn't.
One thing I notice on all of those Biblioteca Marvel covers... and last month with the John Romita Sr. tributes... Marvel books look so much better with a corner box. I know the corner boxes aren't "needed" in the Direct Market, but do you ever think they might come back on a regular basis just for fun?
I know you have a lot going on Tom but I just wanted to thank you for putting out these newsletters (in whatever way you can) every week. They’re always a nice treat to find in my inbox, both entertaining and informative, and a nice way to start the week.
We're glad you like our Biblioteca Marvel (Marvel Library) so much, Tom. Spain has always been a Marvel country, but also with a very enthusiastic attention to the classics. In 1998, Marvel Editor Alejandro M. Viturtia created this brilliant invention of the BM, which in just five years recovered something we only dared to dream about: most of the House of Ideas classics. The current BM is our attempt to recover that idea, that all the classics can be found in a single editorial line, but with the advantages that this material is now available in color, thanks to the modern Marvel Masterworks. We also found very interesting to launch all the series in chronological order (that's why issue 1 is Fantastic Four 1, issue 2 Hulk 1, etc), add the Marvel Bulletins or the mail pages and contextualize all of this in its historical period, because in that way the reader's immersion in the era would be total. Something like a time machine. So the BM is something like classic Marvel as we would have always liked to have it.
With a new creative team and direction and everything, everyone hopes for an Immortal Hulk #1 where the work is great and and is instantly beloved and sells very well. Not every comic is Immortal Hulk #1. In those cases, how do you determine if the project should just end after six issues, or if if can keep going after some retooling of creators or storyline?
Hi Tom, love your newsletter sir! I’m curious about letters pages and what factors in on deciding whether to include them in a series or not. I love reading them in the collected editions of silver age Marvel books, but it seems like there are far less of these in Marvel books these days than there used to be. Are less letters being sent on the whole (and how many on average does Marvel see per issue of big titles like Amazing Spider-Man vs smaller titles)? Is there just less of a drive by the creative teams to include and answer letters, and less of a push from the top down for teams to include than there used to be? Are there more toxic than not letters these days that make it hard to select ones that you’d actually want to print? Does the more commonplace relaunching of titles to #1’s than we saw back in the day make this trickier?
"He only wanted covers that featured a single character...And ideally, that character would be a woman, and ideally, she’d be bending over something."
For those curious about the particular, Bugs Bunny-esque method used to fulfill the letter but not the spirit of this law, see below:
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/marveldatabase/images/c/cc/Fantastic_Four_Vol_3_68.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20200331023443
Those Biblioteca Marvel Timelines look gorgeous and super-interesting. I love to see them as extra features in Marvel's EPIC Collections of the Silver Age runs. Or perhaps, collected and published as a single special comic issue, not unlike the recent reprint of Son of Origins of Marvel Comics.
Yikes, that "office quiz" would probably be grounds for a harassment complaint these days! Hopefully everyone involved took it in the spirit that was intended.
It's interesting how often Steve Ditko was brought in as a "fixer" for a series that was struggling. I think he was involved in Daredevil #1 also, wasn't he (although I think that was just to help get the artwork finished, rather than any kind of conceptual work)? It makes me wonder what might've happened if he'd been brought in on X-Men, another Lee/Kirby title that seemed to have a little trouble finding its groove...
Would you ever revisit Untold tales of Spider-Man Tom? The various 'retro' series at Marvel seem to be selling well and I have hear that Kurt Busiek has one more untold tale that he would like to tell. Or have Roger Stern write some college era Spidey stories - that would be fun.
I second that. I'd love to see Roger Stern writing some college era Spidey.
will now forever refer to you as "Fanny Farmer"
Re: how Ryan North became "a science smarty pants". He has a Bachelor's in Computer Science from Carleton (and yes, all the CS stuff in Unbeatable Squirrel Girl was accurate) and a Master's in CS with an emphasis in Computational Linguistics from UToronto. UT is generally ranked around 10-15th in CS worldwide, so just getting into that program indicates having some decent smarts. He's also old enough to just predate the "tech bro" and similar "in it for the money" onslaught of CS majors. And back then CS types tended to be generally interested in science and engineering topics (and majors would often require taking some science and/or engineering courses outside of CS). Given his non-fiction books' topics, it's pretty clear he has that sort of general interest and did a fair amount of researching just for the books in addition to a general interest. So, like Tom wrote, it's pretty clearly the case of a smart guy who's done a fair amount of reading and researching of sci/eng topics.
Those Los Quatro Fantasticos look gorgeous, Tom -- and that Ditko revamp of Iron Man is my all-time favourite incarnation of the character. It blew my childhood mind when I saw it on the cover of (a British reprint of) Avengers #3. Curious to read your blog posts on the making of FF #1! :-)
https://tombrevoort.com/2020/10/11/lee-kirby-even-more-on-fantastic-four-1/
Cheers, Tom! :-)
On subject of Trek, highly recommend the delightful Star Trek: very Short Treks that the talented Casper Kelly worked on.
https://youtu.be/2xD7QCSjkBc?si=cwQBWmUkL1nboqjN
I recently read and loved Marvel Age #1000 and have a couple of questions about it:
1) Do you have to get any kind of sign off from the Spidey or X-Men offices for their stories, or do you get a free pass of sorts because they're anthology stories?
2) Was there ever a discussion about the tone of the final story, which depicted Stan Lee, Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby as childhood friends?
Obviously these are real people, with a famous history of falling out over money and working practices, and a story like this could be seen as infantalizing or potentially dismissive of Kirby and Ditko's genuine grevances.
And to be clear, in case the tone isn't clear, I'm coming here with curiousity rather than any kind of pointed critique.
Speaking as one of the "Lone Star Lotharios," that episode was more of a case of "Kurt and Danny make up fictional cocktails with Jack Kirby names -- 'gimme a Negative Zone' 'I'll have an Omega Effect, I hear it wipes you out of existence!' -- and watch, amazed, as Don picks up entire tables full of young women single-handed."
I remember Danny saying, at one point, "Okay, watch this. He's approaching their table. Try to spot the moment when they go from strangers to old pals. You won't be able to." And I absolutely couldn't.
One thing I notice on all of those Biblioteca Marvel covers... and last month with the John Romita Sr. tributes... Marvel books look so much better with a corner box. I know the corner boxes aren't "needed" in the Direct Market, but do you ever think they might come back on a regular basis just for fun?
I know you have a lot going on Tom but I just wanted to thank you for putting out these newsletters (in whatever way you can) every week. They’re always a nice treat to find in my inbox, both entertaining and informative, and a nice way to start the week.
We're glad you like our Biblioteca Marvel (Marvel Library) so much, Tom. Spain has always been a Marvel country, but also with a very enthusiastic attention to the classics. In 1998, Marvel Editor Alejandro M. Viturtia created this brilliant invention of the BM, which in just five years recovered something we only dared to dream about: most of the House of Ideas classics. The current BM is our attempt to recover that idea, that all the classics can be found in a single editorial line, but with the advantages that this material is now available in color, thanks to the modern Marvel Masterworks. We also found very interesting to launch all the series in chronological order (that's why issue 1 is Fantastic Four 1, issue 2 Hulk 1, etc), add the Marvel Bulletins or the mail pages and contextualize all of this in its historical period, because in that way the reader's immersion in the era would be total. Something like a time machine. So the BM is something like classic Marvel as we would have always liked to have it.
With a new creative team and direction and everything, everyone hopes for an Immortal Hulk #1 where the work is great and and is instantly beloved and sells very well. Not every comic is Immortal Hulk #1. In those cases, how do you determine if the project should just end after six issues, or if if can keep going after some retooling of creators or storyline?
Hi Tom, love your newsletter sir! I’m curious about letters pages and what factors in on deciding whether to include them in a series or not. I love reading them in the collected editions of silver age Marvel books, but it seems like there are far less of these in Marvel books these days than there used to be. Are less letters being sent on the whole (and how many on average does Marvel see per issue of big titles like Amazing Spider-Man vs smaller titles)? Is there just less of a drive by the creative teams to include and answer letters, and less of a push from the top down for teams to include than there used to be? Are there more toxic than not letters these days that make it hard to select ones that you’d actually want to print? Does the more commonplace relaunching of titles to #1’s than we saw back in the day make this trickier?