I’m not really looking forward to 2024. We seem to be in as divisive and angry a time as I can ever recall, and I think it’s inevitable that the tenor of discourse is only going to grow greater and louder and more aggrieved as we head into the election year. Already, social media is just about useless, reduced to a place where people scream at one another discordantly. Now, this is nothing new, but it’s steadily been getting worse, and I don’t see any signs of it abating or calming down. The destruction of information media and the dumbing down of the citizenry has eroded the very bedrock of civility, and the ability to use deflection judo has reduced all arguments down to, “I know you are, but what am I?” It’s discouraging.
Who's the comics talent you've worked with the most/longest but never actually met in person? It's commonplace with remote workers now, but remote work has been dominant for decades in comics.
Ah yes, Axis. It was a decent idea in theory but I really didn’t think it played out that well on paper myself. I can’t say I was then enamoured with what Rick later did to Hank Pym in Rage of Ultron, though I accept it may not have been his idea? The character still hasn’t recovered from that.
I love the idea of "Chasing the Dragon" as a recurring feature. And Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips are indeed an amazing team -- anything of theirs is worth a look. Their "Kill or Be Killed" was excellent.
Thanks as always, Tom. And here's to a 2024 in which, despite all odds, we can collectively manage to claw hope and happiness out from underneath the rubble of the early 21st century. We might as well hope for it, anyway.
This week's question is about editorial approach. One of the casualties in the modern era of contained story arcs and limited series is the long-simmering, nigh-endless subplot: the drumbeat beneath every ongoing series, passed from writer to writer, and turned into high art by Levitz and Claremont. Obviously, there are solid reasons (both literary and economic) for eschewing this kind of endless soap opera in favor of discrete, easily-collected arcs. But at the same time, the absence of that illusory continuity takes away a key selling point for readers to keep buying a book even if a particular story or creative team doesn't appeal to them.
So I wonder: do you, as an editor, think there's room to (re)integrate this sort of thing into the modern comics market? Or is it a notion whose time went out with newsstand sales and the Comics Code?
I’ve really enjoyed this newsletter this year, it’s one I most look forward to each week.
What’s funny about the Larry Hama-driven idea to re-dialogue comics like DD 181 — a story I’d never heard before — is that a handful of years back, when IDW was publishing Larry’s GI Joe: A Real American Hero, I half-jokingly suggested we put out a new edition of the old #21 (“Silent Interlude”) issue, only it’d now be fully lettered with Larry’s “newly found” original script, which we’d announce had been lost to time and was the real reason the issue was mistakenly released without dialogue.
He (rightly) declined, not wanting to cheapen the impact of the original issue.
Regarding the effect of animated shows on the sales of the comics themselves: for what it's worth, Marvel used to print sales figures annually in their letters pages, and assuming those numbers were accurate (or close enough to count), before the X-Men cartoon debuted in 1991, sales of Uncanny ("Single issue nearest to filing date") were listed as 404,300 copies sold. That's with Jim Lee as the artist; the following year, with Whilce Portacio as the artist, the "Single issue nearest to filing date" was 599,300. Since sales don't usually go up on a book by over 48% when Jim Lee leaves, it's safe to say the cartoon had an effect.
I hear ya about the awful, gnarly times we live in, Tom - but still hoping, against the odds, I know, that better days are waiting for us all down the line :-) Happy Holidays / Winter Break to you and your family, friends, colleagues and readers! :-)
Hi, Tom! I just wanted to say I got those Ms. Marvel comics, and to thank you again for such a generous act. I hope you & yours have a great holiday season!
I recently read the Dazzler: The Movie graphic novel and I couldn't find much regarding its history or why editor-in-chief Jim Shooter was the writer. Was the idea that it would boost the main Dazzler book's sales? Always seemed sort of odd to me that Shooter not only wrote this but a handful of issues of the main Dazzler title.
Let's say some super-wealthy person gets in touch with Marvel's custom publishing division and says they want to fund a passion project - not their passion project, but yours. A book, a miniseries, a single issue: something that you would really enjoy seeing Marvel publish but that wouldn't otherwise have a prayer of being commercially viable. What might it be?
One consequence of AXIS that still remains is the revelation that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are not in fact mutants as well as not the children of Magneto. While it's still weird for me to get used to, totally understand the editorial decision and reasoning. Curious how long this Wanda/Pietro retcon was in the works and if it was always part of Remender's story plans for AXIS?
Regarding the Alpha Flight in my AVENGERS pitch --
At first, we couldn't do it because Zodiac was active in ALPHA FLIGHT, so the plans I had to introduce various Zodiac members as hints (the Arms Merchant in...IRON MAN? and Moses Magnum in AVENGERS, at least) got stripped of their Zodiac references and used on their own. We discussed waiting for a while after ALPHA FLIGHT was done with them before launching a new take on Zodiac, but as Tom notes, we never got around to it.
I should probably have pitched that as a crossover idea around the time of MAXIMUM SECURITY, but I think I just forgot.
There was another idea, for a new Lethal Legion, that I still think had some great bits to it, but at the time I brought them up, there was something being developed with a Lethal Legion story elsewhere. But who knows -- the ideas can always be used in some other form, somewhere, and maybe I'll get to use one or both someday.
Who's the comics talent you've worked with the most/longest but never actually met in person? It's commonplace with remote workers now, but remote work has been dominant for decades in comics.
Happy Holidays Tom! Thanks for all the insights you give out on here.
Ah yes, Axis. It was a decent idea in theory but I really didn’t think it played out that well on paper myself. I can’t say I was then enamoured with what Rick later did to Hank Pym in Rage of Ultron, though I accept it may not have been his idea? The character still hasn’t recovered from that.
I love the idea of "Chasing the Dragon" as a recurring feature. And Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips are indeed an amazing team -- anything of theirs is worth a look. Their "Kill or Be Killed" was excellent.
Thanks as always, Tom. And here's to a 2024 in which, despite all odds, we can collectively manage to claw hope and happiness out from underneath the rubble of the early 21st century. We might as well hope for it, anyway.
This week's question is about editorial approach. One of the casualties in the modern era of contained story arcs and limited series is the long-simmering, nigh-endless subplot: the drumbeat beneath every ongoing series, passed from writer to writer, and turned into high art by Levitz and Claremont. Obviously, there are solid reasons (both literary and economic) for eschewing this kind of endless soap opera in favor of discrete, easily-collected arcs. But at the same time, the absence of that illusory continuity takes away a key selling point for readers to keep buying a book even if a particular story or creative team doesn't appeal to them.
So I wonder: do you, as an editor, think there's room to (re)integrate this sort of thing into the modern comics market? Or is it a notion whose time went out with newsstand sales and the Comics Code?
I’ve really enjoyed this newsletter this year, it’s one I most look forward to each week.
What’s funny about the Larry Hama-driven idea to re-dialogue comics like DD 181 — a story I’d never heard before — is that a handful of years back, when IDW was publishing Larry’s GI Joe: A Real American Hero, I half-jokingly suggested we put out a new edition of the old #21 (“Silent Interlude”) issue, only it’d now be fully lettered with Larry’s “newly found” original script, which we’d announce had been lost to time and was the real reason the issue was mistakenly released without dialogue.
He (rightly) declined, not wanting to cheapen the impact of the original issue.
Regarding the effect of animated shows on the sales of the comics themselves: for what it's worth, Marvel used to print sales figures annually in their letters pages, and assuming those numbers were accurate (or close enough to count), before the X-Men cartoon debuted in 1991, sales of Uncanny ("Single issue nearest to filing date") were listed as 404,300 copies sold. That's with Jim Lee as the artist; the following year, with Whilce Portacio as the artist, the "Single issue nearest to filing date" was 599,300. Since sales don't usually go up on a book by over 48% when Jim Lee leaves, it's safe to say the cartoon had an effect.
I for one would love to see a bunch of Marvel Retread Funnies.
Or a new series / issues of Not Brand Echh, Crazy, etc. :-)
Retread Funnies has that extra touch of rewriting story while using the original artwork. I find that (potentially) funnier than some sort of lampoon.
FWIW, NBE only worked when the original characters’ artists were involved. The only exception to that is Marie Severin, obviously.
I hear ya about the awful, gnarly times we live in, Tom - but still hoping, against the odds, I know, that better days are waiting for us all down the line :-) Happy Holidays / Winter Break to you and your family, friends, colleagues and readers! :-)
Hi, Tom! I just wanted to say I got those Ms. Marvel comics, and to thank you again for such a generous act. I hope you & yours have a great holiday season!
I recently read the Dazzler: The Movie graphic novel and I couldn't find much regarding its history or why editor-in-chief Jim Shooter was the writer. Was the idea that it would boost the main Dazzler book's sales? Always seemed sort of odd to me that Shooter not only wrote this but a handful of issues of the main Dazzler title.
Thanks for another great newsletter! Hope you had a wonderful holiday. :)
Let's say some super-wealthy person gets in touch with Marvel's custom publishing division and says they want to fund a passion project - not their passion project, but yours. A book, a miniseries, a single issue: something that you would really enjoy seeing Marvel publish but that wouldn't otherwise have a prayer of being commercially viable. What might it be?
One consequence of AXIS that still remains is the revelation that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are not in fact mutants as well as not the children of Magneto. While it's still weird for me to get used to, totally understand the editorial decision and reasoning. Curious how long this Wanda/Pietro retcon was in the works and if it was always part of Remender's story plans for AXIS?
Regarding the Alpha Flight in my AVENGERS pitch --
At first, we couldn't do it because Zodiac was active in ALPHA FLIGHT, so the plans I had to introduce various Zodiac members as hints (the Arms Merchant in...IRON MAN? and Moses Magnum in AVENGERS, at least) got stripped of their Zodiac references and used on their own. We discussed waiting for a while after ALPHA FLIGHT was done with them before launching a new take on Zodiac, but as Tom notes, we never got around to it.
I should probably have pitched that as a crossover idea around the time of MAXIMUM SECURITY, but I think I just forgot.
There was another idea, for a new Lethal Legion, that I still think had some great bits to it, but at the time I brought them up, there was something being developed with a Lethal Legion story elsewhere. But who knows -- the ideas can always be used in some other form, somewhere, and maybe I'll get to use one or both someday.