On the first series to herald the new changes of comics

The Folks at DC have brought Camelot 3000 back into print, via the new electric-type digital comics format by the folks at Comixology.  It's a solid series that still holds up today, and features a LOT of firsts, both for DC and in comics on the whole.

It was DC's first maxi-series. Mini-series were usually four to six issues at the time; this one was a staggering twelve issues, meaning we'd get a full year of story.  In fact, it took a full THREE YEARS to come out, which also made it the first wildly off-schedule project in the new era.  While other series may have broken that record since (Ahemtwelvecough), this one was never placed on hiatus or anything.  So when I hear about You Kids Today complain when a book is delayed a few weeks, I wonder what the internet would do if there was a solid YEAR between issues.

It was also one of DC's first projects solely for the Direct Market.  Back in the day the Direct Market was just starting, and its big advantage over the newsstands was it got the books a good two or three weeks earlier.  But we started seeing books only released to the comic shops, a sign that thigns were changing. After this we started getting series like New Teen Titans and Legion of Super-Heroes (once, they were DC's biggest-selling titles, and rightly so), and of course now it's all comic shops.

While he'd done a couple covers and some interior work, it was the first major project for Brian Bolland.  Bolland's art style is unique and precise, lines oh-so-thin, such amazing detail, perfect for the new Baxter paper printing process, so none of that detail was lost.  And with inkers like Dick Giordano and Terry Austin, it was only made better. 

The paper also made color just pop - so much so that quite a bit of learning was needed to get the hang of coloring pages so they didn't come out in neon.

The storyline is somewhat straightforward - 1000-odd years in the future, with aliens invading England, King Arthur is resurrected from his crypt to once again save the day.  Awakening Merlin from beneath Stonehenge, they set out to find the rest of his knights, who have been reincarnated.  The reincarnations don't go well for all.  Percival is found seconds too late - he was in the process of being mutated into a munstrous slave, losing most of his intelligence, and Tristan is reborn as a woman - even more of an issue as his love Isolde is also reborn, still as a woman.  This resulted in a VERY risky and provocative plotline dealing with gender roles and eventually, a REALLY nice full-page spread (no pun intended) in the last issue.  Another first for the industry, I believe, certainly a first for DC.

It was an awesome story when it first came out, it held up perfectly when it was released as a trade some years back, and now you've got the chance to get the whole series on your computering device, something I'm sure Arthur would have been fascinated by.

We don't see as many stand-alone stories like this at the Big Two - one could argue that the market has made it quite clear that they only want super-heroes. But without books like this, it becomes quite a challenge to draw new readers into the market. So kudos to DC and Comixology for choosing a more off-the-beam story back into print.  Who knows, if this sells well, maybe we'll finally see those last few issues of Sonic Disruptors.

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On a look into the past that references a look at the future

Archie Comics will shortly be launching a new version of their superhero characters in an all new digital-only process.  This will be something like the fifth attempt to make a go of the characters in the last twenty years, and the second in the last two.  DC just tried the Red Circle line just last year or so, and it was met with, tragically, apathy. 

Back in the 90's DC licensed the MLJ heroes and created the Impact line, which I REALLY liked.  I gave the line a lot of coverage in my fanzines (which was like the Internet, except on paper, and only a couple dozen people saw it).  After bribing group editor Mike Gold with Cherry Pepsi (which at the time was only being test-marketed in Canada, and I Knew A Guy) he agreed to an interview about the line. As this was done, the books were on their first few issues, and the sky was the limit. 

One thing that's fun about the interview is how many other topics were touched upon that seem so relevant to today.  Mike discusses the idea that even then, as today, it's VERY hard to get readers to try new books and new heroes.  He talks about how continuity always needs touching up, and how Captain America could be a franchise name, if he only had a good movie... So many of the topics discussed could have come from any interview about modern titles.

I have VERY high hopes for Archie's Crusaders title, and hope to be talking them up a great deal in the near future.  But for now, here's a look back at what was quite a risk in the early 90s.

Mike Gold-the Interview

Before we started the interview, I had remarked that I was pleased to find Lancelot Strong in the Who’s Who (I assumed he was “Doc Strong” who was mentioned heavily) only to learn...

Doc Strong was a totally separate character from Lance Strong. He’s part of our backstory. However, the idea of using the name Lance Strong in there somewhere certainly has occurred to us. But we haven’t worked that out yet, it’s just something we’re trying to do.

Of all the Archie Characters, Lance Strong was my favorite.

Mine too. I even have copies of the original artwork which I got from Joe Simon. Some day we might start to reprint all that old stuff, which would be a kick. Yeah, I bought that stuff off the newsstands when I was eight or nine. It was the first time I was ever conscious of Jack Kirby’s artwork. I still didn’t know it was Jack Kirby, but it was the first time I was aware of *that* particular artist’s work. I had already seen it on, I think Green Arrow, and I’d probably seen Challengers of the Unknown by then, but neither of those titles had the strength of those first few issues of The Fly and The Double life of Private Strong.

I guess the obvious first question is: how are the books doing?

Doing very well, we’re very happy with it. We set ourselves a certain goal, which we admit wasn’t overly ambitious, because we knew that, for example, X-Force and X-men were coming out this summer, and we knew a lot of money was going to go towards that. But it’d be foolhardy to expect an entirely new line of books to be an instant success, because it means it’d be getting purchased by the already existing readership. Which would be fine, we’d LOVE that, but that’s not our goal. Our goal is to use these to bring new readers into comics, bring in slightly younger readers, the kind of folks that would normally read the DC books. So I’m more interested in our newsstand sales, not the direct sales. The direct sales are very healthy, we’re very happy with the direct sales. The newsstand sales figures won’t come in for another two months.

But we’re in this for the long haul. It’s the only way you can do a project like this. Look at Marvel’s sales when they hit the market, and look at them now...hopefully it won’t take us that long. But we’re out there. The sixth title’s out there now, and the seventh title will be out in mid-April.

We’ve added annuals for our initial six titles, and a third issue of the Impact Who’s Who. So in an eight-week period, we’re starting a seventh title, a third Who’s Who, and doing annuals. That’s pretty heavy expansion. Obviously, if the books weren’t doing well, we’d be building a fortress around them, and not leaving! So we’re happy with them, and we’re already gonna start talking about the eighth title. Our editorial staff has an approach that we like,

How do you guys work together to keep the continuity of the books tight?

Every year we get together with the entire creative team (at least the writers and the pencillers, the inkers are usually so busy on so many different books that it’s hard for them to stop everything and go off with us.) And we get together, the creative and the editorial staff, and we’ll talk about the direction for the coming year. Maybe a little fine-tuning of the end of the first year to help better facilitate the coming of that second year. We’ll lay out our storylines, and talk about what sort of books we’d like to add for the second year. It’s real exciting stuff. Last year we did it in Tarrytown, NY; this year we’ll be doing it somewhere in the midwest.

Now that Katie Main’s moved on to the Looney Tunes books, who’s on the editorial staff?

Paul Kupperberg has come on the staff, as has Jim Owsley. Michael Golden is now our Cover Editor. I’m editing LOTS, and as of issue 15, Jim will be taking over that. I’m editing The Web, and Jim and I have been doing the work on the seventh title, and he’ll eventually be the editor on that. And once he takes over the seventh title, I get to go start work on the eighth. Paul is editing The Fly and Black Hood, and Jim is editing Comet and The Jaguar.

Of all the descriptions and theories behind the line, people have claimed they’re solely for younger audiences, that you’re trying to do Marvel-style comics, and that you’re doing “entry-level comics” which explanation do you like?

Entry level comics is my term. I used that term six years ago in my original memo describing the idea of these titles. It’s NOT just for kids. Although I think that DC has with malice of forethought, concentrated so severely on the older two- thirds of the comics market, that it made it look that way. The roots of comics are in children’s entertainment. And those of us who have been fans since we were kids have been very obsessed with the idea of legitimizing the medium. And I think that’s good, I think that’s important, I think there’s been a tremendous number of books of all sorts for older readers, more mature readers, and will continue to do so. My editorial group here at DC will continue to do so.

Well, you’re editor on Hawkworld, about the most mature title DC is doing

Well, it’s about the most mature super-hero book. The issues we deal with in Green Arrow are a lot more sophisticated than that. That’s not a value judgment. And there’s a lot of singular projects-Viking Prince came out recently-a cleverly disguised romance comic. And I’m very proud of that book, I think they did a very nice job.

But because DC has put so much energy in the last five years in that direction, it does look like a series for kids. It’s not; it’s accessible to kids, there’s a difference. I think anyone that enjoys straightforward superhero comics will enjoy these books.

There are a lot of longtime comics readers-they may be 15, they may be 35-who are just a little too confused, or a little too tired of the Marvel Universe, even the DC Universe, as it’s been redefined, because it’s gotten too big or too complicated. I think there’s a point when, for some readers, when they start to cut back on some of their superhero titles, and still stay involved with the more sophisticated stuff. And when you start cutting back, you start losing significant chunks of that universe, and it’s very hard to read what’s left. So here’s a line of books that’s six titles strong, eight titles strong, whatever.. .that’s not so hard to keep track of.

By the end of 1992, there’ll be fewer Impact books than there are X-men titles. Heck, maybe less than there are Ghost Rider titles, for crying out loud! Tom deFalco’s been going around saying that we’re trying to imitate Marvel, and that we’re getting it wrong, which shows that Mr. DeFalco (who I respect and have known for a long time) is getting a wee bit egocentric. We’re not trying to imitate Marvel at all. For one thing, we place a high value on the writers and the artists, they’re not interchangeable. Number two, we have a lot more respect for our readers. We’d never refer to our readers as zombies, let alone trademark the phrase. That’s horribly abusive.

In terms of style, storytelling, technique, that sort of thing, we may be more in touch with Marvel’s roots that Marvel is right now. I think that we are MUCH more influenced by the work of people like Stan Lee and Jack Kirby than Marvel has been in the last ten years. But that doesn’t mean we’re trying to imitate Marvel. For one thing, we CAN’T imitate Marvel. Marvel does Marvel Comics; nobody does Marvel Comics the way they do. You have to go in there with that legacy, with that history, with the thirty years worth of continuity, with the marvel attitude. Which is why Marvel does not do NON-Marvel Comics very well. Marvel bombed with Star Trek, DC has flourished with it. Because Star Trek was completely a non-Marvel comic. I mean, look at a lot of the comics that were published under their Star line. They mostly disappeared after six issues, because they just don’t fit in with the Marvel style. I mean all this as a compliment. It sounds like a slam, especially after I just did slam Tom, but the reality is that Nobody does Marvel comics like Marvel Comics, and nobody has ever done Marvel comics like Marvel Comics. DC tried to do that back in the 70’s...and failed miserably. Look at all the stuff Jack Kirby did for DC in the 70’s as compared to the stuff he did for Marvel in the 60’s. Whereas it was just as good as, although not as enduring as the Fantastic Four, for example, it was completely different. Because it wasn’t in that Marvel Universe. You can’t do a fake Marvel...it’s stupid to try.

And now you’ve got the Superman titles taking all the Jack Kirby “Jimmy Olsen” plotlines and using it all again...

…and doing some wonderful things with it. Because it fits so well in the DC Universe. So obviously we’re not trying to imitate Marvel. I wouldn’t mind if, thirty years down the line, someone said you imitated Marvel’s success, that’s great! I’d love that! But I’d be happy if thirty years from now people say we imitated half of Marvels’ success.

Sales is something I’m not overly concerned with. My job is to produce good comics, and to do it with a specific audience in mind, and to do it on time. Obviously they want those books to sell, and for the company to make money. DC’s a large company, and we don’t publish titles that lose money. There’s no reason to, there’s so many more good books that we want to publish that we don’t have time to do. If a book is losing money, you try to fix it and it doesn’t work, or you feel you really shouldn’t fix it cause of the artistic integrity of the book itself...you cancel them. Yeah, there are a couple of books we can kind of float for a while because we like them; we’re big enough that we can be indulgent for one of two books, but that’s all.

My primary concern isn’t sales. We have a good marketing staff here, a wonderful editorial staff, terrific business support staff. If a book gets a fair shot at the marketplace, it’s up to the readers as to whether they want to see it or not. Anybody who tells you they know what the reader wants to see is a liar and an idiot. Nobody knows. If they did, they’d never cancel a show on television, they’d never cancel a comic book. So we’re not so pretentious to say “yes, we know the readers want to see this, we KNOW that...” nonsense. No, we take our fair shot at the market place. Sales is in the back of my mind, as useful information to try and figure out directions to go, but also to see where people are not going, and see if there’s a way we can go there. And that’s how these books started, really. We weren’t in the superhero field. In the traditional, straightforward superhero field. Even Superman, which is a brilliant series of books, I’m enjoying Superman more now than I’ve enjoyed him at any time in the last 10 years... that’s four books, and the continuity is very tight between those four books. And I think that the younger end of the readership would find that to be very difficult. To make that commitment to four books, one every week.

You mentioned Captain Marvel, and that raises a question- Do you own the Fawcett characters right now?

Yeah, for about a year now. The business end of comics is fascinating. Fawcett licensed the characters to DC in an exclusive license, in a very good deal. And the deal was so good for Fawcett that it sort of minimized the use of the characters. We couldn’t include any of the Fawcett characters in the Greatest Golden Age Stories collection. The royalties would have been so high as to raise the price of the book. Fawcett has changed hands a few times in the last twenty years - CBS owned it for awhile, a couple other companies.. .and finally, every couple of years, we’d have to call up and say, “Hi, who do we send the check to?”

So we’d say” We’d like to buy the characters outright,” because over the years, DC’s bought out a lot of different publishers. And until recently they’d say, “Oh, we own Captain Marvel? Cool! No, we’ll keep it,” But finally the current group of people said, “Who? Oh, fine, sure... give us a LOT of money.” And we did.

This is exactly my point-you guys own the Fawcett titles, most of the Charlton titles, the Quality Comics characters. Maybe a fifth to a fourth of the characters you own are currently in use, yet you decided to go for a completely NEW set of characters to start up a new line. Considering that in some cases there’s nothing but the name left of the original Archie characters, why didn’t you go with characters you already own?

There’s a couple of reasons. Number one-this is gonna sound negative but I don’t mean it that way- the characters that you’re referring to have a lot of baggage. They’ve all been revived in the last ten years, many in the last five years, in some significant way by DC. So for example if we went out there and did, say, Plastic Man and Captain Marvel.. .well, we’ve just DONE Plastic Man and Captain Marvel.

We may do them again: I mean, the recent Captain Marvel resurrection was fairly successful. In the sense of sales, it was VERY successful. From an aesthetic standpoint... I thought there was some good stuff going on, but there was some stuff that didn’t quite work...

The idea of making Billy Batson an abused child sickened me.

...yeah, I think there were people who didn’t like that, personally. Although the sales were very good. But here I am, I just gave you my lecture about sales. But anyway, if we were to do a line consisting of characters that DC already played with, and then removed them from those backstories into a different continuity... I thought that would be kinda confusing. But it is something we talked about. As a matter of fact my first thought was to take the old Quality characters.

My second thought was to create NEW characters. Which we practically have. I thought that taking something that DC had never done before would make it seem much more exciting, would bring much more attention to it. It does raise that one question-” Why are you doing this?” Another thing is, a lot of us, myself included, have a lot of fondness for those Archie Superheroes. Again, those early issues of The Fly and Pvt. Strong were very significant to me as a child. The Jaguar, similarly. The Black Hood was a character and story I always liked. Some of the stories over the years were quite good, some of them...

…like the cowboy Black Hood on the mechanical horse...

…yeah, some of them didn’t quite work. The idea behind the Mighty Crusaders was a good one, and there were a couple of issues that were a kick. Jerry Siegel worked on those books. And it’s nice to sort of play in that ballpark.

The reason we didn’t create our own new characters was partially for that reason, they were interesting characters, and DC’s gotten very gool at reviving old characters. And from a technical standpoint, brand new Superheroes tend not to work very well. Or sell very well. I mean if you made a list of all the totally new costumed superheroes published by anybody, DC, Marvel, even the independents... but of course, according to the Buyer’s Guide, Archie and Disney are independents, so I don’t even know what that means anymore...

It means they aren’t published by the Big Two...

…yeah, but that’s silly, cause Disney’s so big. Hell, Disney’s farts cost more than what Marvel and DC make... (pause) and you can quote me on that.

Bwah hah hah! Mike Gold Speaks Out!

Anyway, if you made a list of new characters with no tie-ins, like a new X-man that later gets his own book, that doesn’t count.. . Can you name any? That have been successful in the last ten years?

Well, I would say Starman, but that’s been cancelled after 46...

But even Starman’s not new-there’s always been a Starman in DC. Over at Marvel they’ve got Darkhawk and Sleepwalker... but they’re only six or so issues, we’ll see how long they last. I’m not being cynical, I hope they do succeed; friends of mine are working on them.

We all try, DC tries, Marvel tries, certainly the independents try, at least the ones who want to do independents do, because they have to. It’s very very difficult to launch a brand new superhero that has nothing going for it in terms of backstory. So that’s why we decided not to make up our own. It’s an interesting challenge, I would like to do that someday. And someday, maybe we will.

As for copyrights and all... Each of the creators have equity in their own characters. So for example, Len Strazewski and Mike Parobeck redid The Fly. Now, that was created by Simon and Kirby, for Archie, and so Archie gets some money off of that, they get a licensing fee. But Len and Mike own a percentage of the new Fly. But if the rights reverted to Archie, or if we sold the rights to another company... I mean property is property, we could sell Superman to you if we wanted...

(fumbling through pockets) Well, I got ten bucks on me...

Yeah, right. . . . And if you were to use the current version of the Fly, you would have to pay these guys as well, because they own a certain piece of the action. If you did not use their version, but went back and used the Simon and Kirby version of the Fly, that’s fine. Each of the teams have equity in their re-creations. So we’re very cognizant that in some cases there’s very little left except the name and a couple of little elements here and there.

There’s NOTHING left of the Web. Unless it turns out one of the agents has a harridan of a wife.

Yeah, that’s something we haven’t discussed.

Len Rothco’s got a wife, screaming “Where’ve you been?”

So anyway, the writers and the Artists do get a piece of the action.

Does Archie have any say on the editorial tone of the books?

No, none at all. We have a contract in which we’ve made certain promises, and they certainly have the right to hold us to those promises. You know, they don’t want to take these characters and turn them into X-rated books or anything, and that’s not our intent. But, you know, thirty years down the road who knows what could happen, so the contract prevents our successors from changing the essential purpose of the line, and keep the characters from being exploited in that manner. But then again, you’re talking to a guy who, when he was at First, REALLY wanted to do an American Flagg! / Veronica Lodge crossover, so what do I know?

We might as well start talking about the books. Starting with the five books that are out there now, what are we gonna see next year?

In the books, we’ll of course be developing the characters; we’re going to add to the supporting cast. You’ll be seeing more and more characters that could stand up on their own, and could move around through the various Impact titles. You will not be seeing arbitrary crossovers every month, except for the Web, which isn’t arbitrary, because they’re the fiber that holds our universe together. We’ve got a Fly / Shield crossover coming up, and that’s nice, that’s a big deal.

Well, let’s start with the annuals. in the Annuals, we’re gonna be doing four different things, three of which will be in any single annual. We’re doing a storyline that will continue through all six annuals, that’ll be a 28-page story. Now that’s a linked annual stunt, DC and Marvel’ve been doing that for a long time now.

We wrestled with whether to do individual stories or if wanted to do a linked story. And the reason I decided to go with a linked story was, well, when I was a kid, annuals were very rare. Not every book had an annual. And the stories in the annuals, when they did original stories, which was even more rare, were very unique. They were stories that could not be in a regular issue, they were too big, too important. Nowadays we do mini-series, prestige format one shots to do those types of stories. Nowadays we can do those stories in a regular book. In the 60’s they didn’t have 64-page special issues in a monthly. Today, if we wanted to, we could. We do it all the time. So the types of stories that were special for annuals in the 60’s could be done any time today. So what makes annuals unique today is that linked concept. You can still do a special kind of story. They don’t have to link in a crossover sense of the word, just the sequential sense of the word. Because after all, you’re dealing with a self-contained universe.

So our story starts in The Web, continues on and ends in the Black Hood. The stories won’t be like a mini- series, where if you miss, say, the third annual, you’re hopelessly lost. Although you’re enjoyment will be enhanced considerably if you read them all, at least if you read the first and the last one, you can fill in what happened in the middle.

That’s one story. The other two stories will be picked from three sets of stories we have. One series will be original adventures of four of the original Web agents, set in the 60’s, to help flesh out that part of the backstory considerably. One will be set in ‘63, one in ‘65, one in ‘68, and the last in 1972 involved in Web adventures of that time. They’ll be in four different annuals, but not in the Web Annual. Because the people who read the Web annual will get them in the front story. We’re doing four adventures of past Black Hoods, and four stories featuring the original Shield and the original American Crusaders.

For books that weren’t supposed to have much of a back story to come into, there is quite a bit of history. There’s thirty and change years of history

We created our own baggage, yeah. But our history has a lot of holes in it. Much of the history consists of a sentence or an outline. So we know what happened in the past, but we have complete freedom to develop it any way we want. And add to it any way we want. Marvel got caught up in that when they decided to acknowledge that there was a Captain America in World War II. Okay fine, but wasn’t there a Captain America in the 50’s? Well, yes. But okay, who was he, if the Cap from WWII got frozen? Well, we gotta work that out. So they worked it out, and they did a wonderful job.

DC has been wrestling with those issues all the time. Marvel is now in the situations where they have to go back and redefine what happened in the 60’s. Because if we tell people that the reason Tony Stark was in Vietnam was because of a war we thought was a really good thing, and we were trying to vanquish the Threat Of Communism, it sounds a little silly, considering we lost that war, and Communism isn’t quite the threat it once was. So now John Byrne just redefined that origin. So Marvel is fine-tuning their backstory. And I imagine in thirty years, Impact will have to go back and redefine their backstory as well.

But we do want to have a backstory that gives us a sort of heritage. And the idea of there having been superheroes in the past is a real important idea, that’s a real important concept. Because it mitigates the issue of “why are there all these superheroes all of a sudden?” If it’s such an important idea, why didn’t it happen before? Well, it did happen before.

A lot of fans are upset at the idea that Superman wasn’t the first superhero in the DC universe. Well, he wasn’t the first superhero in comics anyway. There was Dr. Occult, and also the Pulps were being published as well. We don’t have an icon like that to upset people.

What’s going on in the future of the individual titles?

Virtually every major backstory in the individual titles will be resolved by the end of the first year. And new ones will start. So like, for all the people who think that The Shield will always be a hero on the run, on the outs from his father, and that’s the way the series will be forever, no. It will not. None of these threads will run forever. Some will be resolved, others will start up, there’ll be a bit of overlap there. Those things get boring if you let them run forever and ever. That’s really been the weaknesses of some of the more interesting series. Things you can’t resolve. I mean, the prime directive is the biggest problem Star Trek ever had, because it’s the one law you can’t change, and it completely prevents you from doing any stories. Off the ship, you can’t do any stories! They’ve been trying to get around the Prime Directive for years! So we resolve that stuff, and then we move on.

Let’s see, supposedly we’ll meet the original shield, The Black Witch was a member of the Crusaders and she’s coming back, Bill Loebs has a character called Copper Cat...are there any other of the older characters we’ll be seeing, either new or old?

Well, the Hangman will be appearing soon, Blackjack, people like that. We’re right now working on creating more villains, and new institutions. Quite a number of the older characters are being revived because the assorted creative crew want us to revive them. In point of fact, there are three creative teams out there right now that desperately want to do Steel Sterling. And the first team that asked for it got it, but if they screw up... there’s another team ready to take over in a heartbeat, and if THEY screw up, there’s another group behind them! We’ve got two teams working on Mr. Justice. And there is development going on on almost all the MU characters. We’ve even got Tom Lyle trying to figure out how to do Bob Phantom. It’s a cool challenge, and that takes us back to your earlier question of why did we take the Archie characters because there’s all these cool characters that nobody’s dealt with.

I’m curious about the Hangman. Since originally he became a hero because his brother, the Comet, died, I guess it’s safe to say that’s not the new guy’s origin.

No, you’re right. That is one of the first contemporary continuity devices ever done in comics.

That was in 1941, practically the beginning of comics. The idea of one character would be created as a result of another. I think that pre-dates Wildcat, who was created because Ted Grant liked Green Lantern.

Archie had a couple of firsts. The Shield was the First flag-based character, beating Captain America to the punch by about half a year.

Closer to a year, eleven months. That’s quite remaarkable, and most fans don’t understand that, because Captain America is so close to an icon. He would be an icon if he had a successful movie.

Even the origins are similar

In some ways, yeah. I wouldn’t say there was any influence or anything, though. It’s still nothing compared to the greatest coincidence in comic history...

..Swamp Thing and Man-Thing?

Nope, because the Heap pre-dates both of them by decades. No, the X-Men and Doom Patrol. And those books came out almost exactly the same time- Doom Patrol beat the X-Men by like, six weeks, I looked it up once. And neither of them were ultimately successful in their original run, either. It kind of makes you wonder what would have happened if Doom Patrol was revived the same day the X-Men was revived. And Len Wein could have done it just as easily, ‘cause he has just as much affinity as the Doom Patrol.

Len Wein is a guy who’s gotten a raw deal in comics. Here’s a guy who created Wolverine, Swamp Thing.. .he’s created more successful characters than you can imagine, and up until recently, he was working for Disney. But he’s working on something for us here. He’s doing a mini-series first, and then a regular series.

Human Target’s going on television, ABC has commissioned 8 episodes.

Are there any other supporting characters ready to go?

No, but we’re looking at that for the eighth title.

The seventh title is going to be more concerned with the existing characters, because the seventh title’s going to be The Crusaders. I don’t want to say who’s going to be in it yet. Cause if you think about it, it’s kind of interesting, because condsider; the Black Hood’s the new kid on the block, and the Web already exists not as a super team, but as the guys who watch the super team. So how could the web fit into a team like the Crusaders, but on the other hand, how could the Web not fit in? How can you keep them out of it? From a government standpoint, and from a public relations standpoint, that would be a catastrophe. Plus, you have various web agents who know various superheroes quite well, and have good working relationships with them. Those Web agents have been crawling all over everybody in the Impact books since the first issue of LOTS. So those are issues which are the issues gonna be addressed in the first few issues of the Crusaders.

Creative team set?

Mark Waid will be writing the book. He’ll be great because he’s been involved with many of the titles from the start, so he knows the characters. And that’ll be full writer, not just scripting. We OWE him that. Mark’s a very good writer. The thing about bringing him in as a dialogist at the beginning for Tom and Grant was first off, he’s a very good dialogist, and he gets to be a sort of backseat editor as well. It allowed to work on several of the books at once, to help develop the entire Impact universe. Mark is one of the unsung heroes of the Impact universe. He also wrote ALL the Impact who’s who entries.

What else can you say about the eighth title?

We haven’t even decided who’ll start in it yet. We haven’t decided if it’ll be an already existing character, or maybe a character we haven’t introduced by that time. My predilection is to use a character that we have not introduced yet. That’s something we’ll be talking about most heatedly at our next creative meeting. The main thing about it is I have these plans for a new format for the book, something slightly unusual, but definitely different. It’s still in the thinking about it stages, though.

As for the character themsevles, we’ll take the best idea. Actually, we’ll mud-wrestle for it, and whoever gets it, gets the book. Really, what we’ll do is we’ll take the best concept, the first, best, fully developed concept. You could have a great concept, but need a year to flesh it out. Sometimes it takes a weekend.

The classic case of rolling out of bed and developing a concept was the invention of the Metal Men. There was a hole in Showcase. Whatever was scheduled didn’t show up, whatever. So they needed something desperately. So they turned to Robert Kanigher and said, “We wanna fill these issues of Showcase, can you do something?” This was a Friday. Bob says “Sure, no problem,” and comes in Monday with a full-blown treatment of the Metal Men! Completely new idea, never been done before, not based on anything... it may have been percolating in the back of his head for 120 years, but regardless, Monday, two days later.. .boom, there it was. And they said, “Hey, this is great, let’s do it!”

And they liked it so much they did four issues. Which for Showcase was a rarity, a run was usually three. That doesn’t make the Metal Men any better or worse than anything else we’ve done. I’ve worked on some concepts here, like the Impact universe, that we’ve worked on for YEARS before we were confident with it, before it was fully realized. And I’ve worked on stuff that was created in minutes. Jon Sable, Freelance was essentially created in an afternoon in my living room. Mike and I were talking, and I knew he had some sort of idea for something that was very unlike anything he’d ever done before. Previously he had only done fantasy.

Tom Lyle and Grant Miehm are plotting their own books...

Yeah, but having an artist as a plotter or co-plotter is not at all unique. Before he started dialoguing, Kirby plotted an awful lot of his stuff, and Steve Ditko actually got credit on some Spider-Man I think, and a lot of Dr. Strange. And of course people are doing it now. Grant and Tom are relative newcomers, they’ve only been in the business for a few years. And of course they’re talented, their work speaks for itself. And for them to plot their own stories is great, I wish they had the time to learn to dialogue their own stuff. But that’s a skill; they’d have to spend a few months or however long doing dialogue, and having it rewritten in some work with another writer before they got the hang of it. It’s like learning to drive a car. But they’re too busy; in Grant’s case pencilling and inking, with Tom pencilling, both plotting.

Who approached whom? Did they ask to plot, or vice versa?

No, they expressed an interest. Both those guys were brought into the project before the writers had been assigned to the books. Brian Augustyn was the editor of the Comet, and after talking to Tom, thought it might be real interesting for him to actually plot the book, and that pretty much the same case with Grant. Part of the fun in comics is helping people work in new directions. Helping them do stuff they’ve never done before. Cause you’re really creating magic here, and it’s not just the end result that’s magical, the process is magical too. Working with Mike Grell on his first major non-fantasy stuff is just as exciting as working with Grant or Tom on these titles.

And casting against type is always interesting, too. People were real surprised when I put Mike Baron on the new Flash. The Flash is a straightforward superhero, that’s not the type of character you immediately identify with Mike Baron. But the idea was to take this character who had been a kid, but was all of a sudden an adult. Being an adult was a new experience to him, being a superhero was something he’s been since forever. And then give him a little bit of money, and see what happens. He’s always been a superhero, but now all of a sudden he’s an adult, and he’s got all these responsibilities, but he’s still essentially a kid, what’s he gonna do? Well, probably try to get a lotta girls. Mike was a real good choice for that revival. And then I put Bill Lobes on the book. That was my last editorial act on that title. And the first thing he did was take the money away. Which is just what we discussed.

That’s the same philosophy that we’re doing on the Impact titles. The money thing was an interesting storyline for the first year. If you keep it going for much longer than that. . . then he Bruce Wayne. But we’ve got a Bruce Wayne. That’s why they did it to Ollie Queen back in the 60’s or 70’s. But here’s a kid- he’s been a kid, he’s been a superhero, he’s been rich, now he’s not ever rich anymore. And he’s got his mother on his ass-what does that do to him? That’s also why I wanted to get away from the sexual aspect, the way he was jumping into bed with every woman he sees. Because it was something he’d done, and in order to show a sense of maturity, you have to show that maturity in his relationships as well.

And now Mark Waid’s taking over the book, and that’s great. I don’t know where Marks’ taking the book, but I don’t wanna know. I’m not editing the book, it’s not in my editorial group, I can read the book as a fan and enjoy it. That’s one of the problems of working in comics: you’re doing this all the time, so can you still be a fan of the medium if that’s all you do for 40, 60, even 90 hours a week? Well, the answer is, you kind of have to be, it’s the only way you’ll work that hard. You try to isolate yourself... I didn’t want to read the Batman film script; I wanted to go in and see the film fresh. Luckily I’m a big fan of newspaper strips. So I can be completely engrossed in the comics medium all day, and still go home and read my Kitchen Sink Lil’ Abner and have a wonderful, and not have to worry at all about how it’s going to influence Hawkworld or something.

I can’t do that with reading golden Age comics. I have access to DC’s library! I can’t take them home or anything, but! can read them anytime I want. I have the stuff on Microfiche, all that. But that still has an impact on the stuff I do for a living. I’m consulting editor for the DC archives books, the greatest stories book, like that. So I look at an old issue of Batman, and I have to say to myself, “Gee, should I think about this story for the Greatest Batman Stories volume 2 next year?”

…I can see you’re just bleeding for me. (laughs) Fuck it, I’m a comics fan and they pay me to sit around and read comics all day. So every time I bitch and harangue, I have to sit back and think, “Waaiiit a minute, I could be working at IBM, I don’t need this...”

The one thing everybody’s been going on about is the idea of the nebulous connection between the DC and Impact universes. I already noticed one of the Web agents reading a Batman comic in Who’s Who...

Well, what does that say? Just that there are Batman comics, but there are Batman comics in the DC universe too. None of that commits us to anything, we’re teasing with stuff like that. Sure, I don’t want to cut ourselves off from doing crossovers with the DC universe.., or any other universe. We wanna do a Black Hood/Judge Dredd story? Fine. But with the DC universes, it is here, we are part of the same company... We’re very careful to leave an opening there, so that we could do a crossover if we wanted to. But if we do. . .well, in comics, everything happens eventually. Sooner or later, Lois Lane’s gonna meet Nancy. And come to think of it, it’ll probably happen in Zippy. (Bwah-Hah’s) There was a Zippy strip about a year ago where Zippy meant Prince Valiant, and that just blew me away. It was about what comic characters do in their off-hours. And Prince Valiant looked the same and talked the same, but he had a polo shirt on. But anyway, we do keep a sort of a window of opportunity there, to keep our options open. But it’ll be a big deal, it won’t just be like, “Oh, yeah, Superman’s showing up in Jaguar next month...” And I’m not even sure that we’d do the biggest characters, anyway. We might take the two least selling characters. We might take the Atom and Mr. Justice.

There are little things we have been conscious about planting, little hooks that we can later go back and grab. I don’t wanna say what they are, because that’ll take the fun out of it, but they are there. But for example, remember the Cosmic Treadmill from Flash? Wouldn’t it have been cool if it had been there all along, way before they used it? That’s what we’re doing.

The main argument people have about the idea that the Impact books take place in the DC universe proper is they daim, “Well, how come nobody’s ever heard of these people, and why doesn’t the Web work with S.T.A.R?

Yeah, but if you ascribe to that philosophy, then you have to have completely full-blown universes from square one, and never grow or add to it. The theory is “well, it wasn’t there before, so it CAN’T be there now.” Well, that really stagnates. Continuity is a good thing, it’s an important thing, but it’s not dogma. You can’t be completely trapped by continuity, otherwise you cannot grow, you cannot live. If we were completely trapped by continuity, you would not have Flash, you would not have Hawkman, you would not have the Justice League, because they contradict previous versions. I know there are a lot of people out there for whom it almost is a religion, and I don’t mean to demean their enjoyment of continuity, but if we can’t create new characters, you just can’t grow.

Everybody fixes things up. Marvel went and figured out a reason why Nick Fury was still alive in 1970, and that’s great, because the character’s so heavily wedded to WWII. But all of his friends and buddies from world war!! are gonna have to die-they’re all pushing 70. That’s fine, but someday soon, it’s gonna be real strange to hear that Reed Richards and Nick Fury hung out together in WWII. And soon, it may have already happened, that story will have not happened. Because it won’t make sense any more.

Rex Stout did a great job of that in the Nero Wolfe books. In the forty-odd years he wrote the stories, the characters aged by about seven or eight years. And if he’d thought he had more time to write the stories, they probably wouldn’t have aged that much. And once in a while Rex made a mistake. He’d get the name of the Doctor wrong. If somebody in comics made a mistake like that, we’d go out and do a twelve-part mini-series explaining the error, and I think that’s taking continuity too far. I think there’s a point where you say, “Nope, it’s a mistake. I’m sorry, but it’s not a bad mistake, let’s live with it.” Or maybe it’s an improvement, so all that other stuff didn’t happen, gee I’m sorry.

Continuity is a tough thing, a real tough thing. But the one thing people have to remember is that characters created in the forties were created with different values and different standards than we have in the 90’s. The characters created and re-created in the sixties might not work the same now.

Our whole attitude with the Soviet Union has changed completely. Almost all of Marvel’s characters were all based upon very strong anti-communist concerns. It was either anti-Communism or radiation. Well, we have a different attitude about radiation today, too. If they tried to do the origin of Spider-Man today, and they told a story about a kid that got bit by a radioactive spider, then the readers would expect that kid to die. They did a wonderful parody of that on The Simpsons, with “Radioactive Man,” that was a wonderful inside joke. “Gee, I thought he’d die! No he got Super powers! Cool!”

So anyway, in a lot of those characters, we have to downplay stuff, sometimes we have to ignore stuff. The anti-communist paranoia is something that readers today would have a hard time understanding. And we know too much about radiation now, too. Of course, you can always say that a guy came from another planet and now he has powers, and that works, because nobody knows where Krypton was and it’s blown up anyway, how can you say there weren’t people there?

About ten years ago! was having lunch with John Byrne and having this argument about continuity. And I made a dreadful error. I said that there are some plot holes that people are incapable of ignoring. If someone at marvel notices a plot hole, they go do a story about it. And John said, give me an example. I said “I FF #2, there’s three Skrulls that were hypnotized into thinking they were cows...what happened to them?” And he said he’d work on it.

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On what may be the dictionary definition of the Shaggy Dog Story

Second Grade.  The Weekly Reader flier came through, and in it was the novelization for "the major motion picture" Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World.  I got it, and waited patiently for the film to hit theaters in my area.

Well, let's just say I had some time on my hands while waiting.

To most Americans, the film is all but unknown, save for fans of The League of Gentlemen, where it features in a sketch about Kenny Harris' movie theater that features only films featuring dogs.  Here he speaks with his competitor (played by  a pre-Doctor Who Chis Eccleston)

Dougal Siepp: Kenny Harris. As I live and breath. Are you not out of business yet Kenneth?

Kenny Harris: Quit carping Siepp. We do DVD and video rental now. Do you know what my biggest title is?

Dougal: I'm sure you're going to tell me.

Kenny: Digby. "Digby the biggest dog in the world." Can you rememeber what you said about it?

Dougal: Funnily enough, no.

Kenny: You said it were dated. No-one would want to see it in this day and age. 17 rentals in 20 weeks, explain that!

It's rather a national guilty pleasure in England.  It was featured as first day programming on two separate independent television channels, and back in the day, with only one hand's worth of channels, everyone watched.

One of the things that amazes me about the film is the cast - it's a who's who of TV and character actors.  The male lead is Jim Dale, already popular from a run of the Carry On movies, and shortly before his move to America for a series of Disney films and of course, Barnum on Broadway.  The rest of the cast is equally impressive - Spike Milligan, Milo O' Shea are two big names.  The film shares a great number of cast members with Beatles films - Victor Spinetti (In both Hard Day's Night and Help!) plays a scientist, Norman Rossington (their put-upon manager in HDN) and John Bluthal (Bhuta, Klang's assistant in Help!) play a pair of inept burglars, and the film was produced by Walter Shenson, who produced HDN. There's a great many TV actors as well, including Bob Todd and Henry McGee from Benny Hill's repertory company, Frank Thornton (Captain Peacock from Are You Being Served)  All this crossover only serves to support my theory that there are only about 57 actors in all of Britain, which is why everybody gets a chance at anything.  The film was written by Michael Pertwee (Jon's brother) from a novel by Ted Key, creator of the Hazel comic strip.  Ted also wrote three of Disney's live-action films, including Million Dollar Duck, Gus and The Cat from Outer Space.

The plot is rather simple - Billy White (Richard Matheson) adopts Digby, a (normal-sized) English Sheepdog.  His mom (Angela Douglas) is a scientist at a top-secret installation, and when his grandfather refuses to allow the dog in the house, they pawn him off on Jeff Eldon (Dale), a fellow scientist, specializing in animal psychology.  The science team are working on a growth serum to help grow vegetables quickly for manned space flights. It works all too well - the vegetables won't stop growing - a 50-foot long cucumber is paraded by as evidence.  Jeff decides it wouldn't harm anyone if he nicks a bit of the formula to help his roses grow, and wouldn't you know it, the dog ends up eating it instead.

Jeff has to keep the pachydermic puppy a secret from the other scientists and from little Billy, and plans to take him to his Aunt Ina's farm.  Before he can, he attracts the attention of criminals Tom and Jerry who plan to steal him and sell him to a circus.  After a fun scene at a cafe so dodgy the silverware is chained to the table (providing a nice bit of physical comedy for Dale), they succeed. After a photo Digby appears on TV to publicize his appearance, both Jeff and Billy recognize, and both set off to save him.  Digby escapes both their grasp, and he makes his way across the countryside leaving kid-friendly destruction in his wake.

The army is eventually brought in, and Jeff and Billy have only seconds (okay, quite a bit of time, really) to feed Digby a hastily-prepared antidote to bring him back to animal companion size.  Not to ruin the film, but this is a kids' film, and the film does end with a giant-sized animal chasing the romantic antagonist across the British countryside.

The effects for the film are pretty good for the time, a combination of miniature sets and rudimentary matte work.  The main problem the film has is that Digby doesn't actually DO much - he sits about a bit, barks in slow motion, and only nearly causes mayhem when he either sits on a train track for a bit, or quietly ambles across an airport runway.  The animals in the film also don't quite seem that well trained.  Dale has several scenes with a chimp named Clarissa who looks like she's going to reach out and rip his jaw off at any minute.

I hasten to add that some years later, the Weekly Reader offered the novelization for C.H.O.M.P.S., but this time I refrained.  Once bitten and all that.

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On the Comparison of Artists' Alley to Schroedinger's Cat

After the Gary Friedrich decision leaked, many people, myself included, feared that it might be, if not a deliberate first volley against Artists' Alley, certainly it could be seen as an inadvertent Step One, which at the very least put it on the lawyers' radar.

To summarize greatly, there are a LOT of artists drawing DC and Marvel (et al.) characters at conventions, and charging money.  Characters that they do not own, and characters that are zealously protected by batteries of white-lipped attorneys.  There has been a tacit understanding between the artists and the publishers - as long as the art does not get mass-produced, and does not legitimately "damage the character" (portray them in a way in contrast to how they are portrayed in the comics, nothing excessively explicit, etc) the publishers don't complain.  They know it's a major portion of the artists' income, and they'd rather see them get it elsewhere than have to pay it themselves.  The rule of the day has been "keep your head down, and we'll pretend we don't see you".

Now in fairness, Gary was not drawing sketches.  He had prints and T-shirts made, from art he did not draw, or even own.  THAT'S what Marvel sued (or more correctly, counter-sued) him for.  Wherever that nebulous "line" is, Gary crossed it, some time back.  I've already gone on about how while the action is legally correct, it "feels" wrong, and that's why Fandom as a unit has risen up against it.  Emotional opinions are hard to change, so rational debate rarely achieves anything in such cases.


A lot of people extrapolated on the ruling, and opined that right now, there's nothing that prevents a publisher from slapping a Cease & Desist order on an artist for selling sketchbooks or doing sketches of their characters.  There's the pressure that the fans would exert, and the potential bad press, but ultimately, the two big boys are now boys owned by two far BIGGER boys, who as a rule follow the letter of the law and not the spirit.

There's already been one or two isolated incidents of artists having their art taken by reps from Warners, actions which were VERY hastily reversed with copious apology.  Another artist had his original art taken off eBay, and were it not for the quick suggestion that the issue wasn't copyright, but that the art had a certain...homoerotic take to it, that case may not have been reversed as quickly. 

The point is, legally, a copyright holder HAS to enforce, or at least investigate, any copyright or trademark infringement that they become aware of.  If they don't, another party can claim that since they're not actively protecting them, they can be challenged. It's the reason Disney told the nursery school in Florida they had to take down the hand-painted Mickey and Minnie they painted on the classrooms' walls.  Legally, exactly right - a for-profit venture used the Disney properties without license or permission, and that trumped the small PR fluff. 

Warner Brothers went through a similar period back when the first Harry Potter films came out.  People set up websites about the character, and registered website names with "harry potter" in the URL.  And some paralegal sent out C&Ds to all and sundry, including ten year old children.  It made the papers, there were the requisite hues and cries, and the sites were not apparated. Again, from a legal viewpoint, best (and cheapest) thing to do, not so much image-wise.



Right now, the artists have NO true protection.  One might argue that since the activity has been allowed for so long, a sort of legal easement has been created, which has given permission by not explicitly refusing it.  But odds are that would not hold up in court.  Handshakes and winks are not legally binding; paper is.


Many people are in full red-alert mode - Jean-Marc Lofficier, legal advisor for Steve Bissette has basically warned people to cease drawing marvel characters immediately, shred any prints you may have made up, and cover your ass, as this is Marvel declaring war.  Others, like Spider-Man writer and all-around great guy Dan Slott maintain that this is all just screaming fire in a crowded theater (or in this case, convention hall), and there is NO such ulterior motive in the hearts and minds of Marvel.


I'm in the middle - I don't think this is the thin end of the wedge, but I also don't think there's anything stopping some legal beagle wanting to make a name for themselves from convincing WB and Disney that this is, cumulatively, a threat to the properties, and editorial may one day blink.


In an attempt to defuse the situation, Joe Quesada and publisher Dan Buckley gave an interview to CBR yesterday, explaining the impetus of the lawsuits, and clarifying Marvel's stand on convention sketches and the like.  Dan Slott tweeted the quote's last night, proudly providing the following quote as provenance that all was well, and the sky was not falling:

Quesada: Let me put this as simply as I can: Marvel is not looking to make any new policy announcements through this lawsuit -- a lawsuit that began five years ago.

Buckley: We in no way want to interfere with creators at conventions who are providing a positive Marvel experience for our fans. We want fans to speak and interact with the creators who wrote, penciled, inked, lettered, colored or edited their favorite stories. Part of that positive interaction is that a fan can walk away with a signed memento or personalized sketch from an artist.

That's great, except that it doesn't actually say anything.  They don't want to make any new policy, that's fine, but it doesn't mean there's a policy NOW. What exists now is a state of "don't ask, don't tell".


And Dan's statement only says they want fans to get a sketch.  Well, they can get them at the Marvel booth, right? That would make sure people visit the Marvel booth.  Good way of maintaining control.



If they will not go after artists for drawing their characters, SAY so, clearly, explicitly, and most importantly, legally.  Right now, at the end of any sentence, there's a silent "probably" or "for the moment".  And until a definitive "no" is given, it's an implied (ok, to be fair, inferred) "maybe not".


It is to the companies' benefit to keep this statement nebulous.  It leaves their options open should someone cross the line again.  But it also leaves the artists under a virtual sword of Damocles. 


Here's the thing - the publishers have to protect their copyrights and trademarks, but they want to let the sketches happen. They're good PR, free advertising, and lets the artists make money. But they need to protect the property above all.  The perceived permission now is that you can draw them as long as you don't make TOO much money, and that the characters aren't doing anything really off-sides.  So maybe ONE dildo up Superiorwoman's ass might be acceptable, but three or more (or perhaps above an aggregate total dildo-diameter) would not pass.  OK, just set that in writing. 

"Company ABC provides all artists a non-exclusive limited license to use our characters for one of a kind works of art, limited run, non-third-party distributed sketchbooks and prints for sale at conventions and personal appearances.  The company reserves the right to review the works for editorial propriety, and ensure the distribution of the products to not infringe on for-profit licensors of the property."


That pretty much covers all bases - it sets rules that the artists can follow, and that they can get called on if they don't.  Right now there's no idea what will get you in trouble, which some people are interpreting that nothing will.  And I suspect that's not true, or at least won't be for long.


Same thing for fan web-sites, etsy stores, those one-day T-shirt sites, etc - here's a block of legalese to add to your site, here's some free approved graphics to start you off on the right foot, if you start making too much money, we reserve the right to come back and declare you no longer a not-for-profit site, and ask to wet our beak.


Such an agreement could either be stated publicly for all to know, or to ensure that each artist is aware of said rules, an agreement may be required signing, perhaps the license costing a dollar to be a legal contract (donate the money to the hero Initiative to take the curse off)  Yes, that'll get some people screaming Big Brother and the like, but I maintain that a set of agreed-upon rules are a better situation than the nebulous Maybe-Land we're in now.

Like Schrodinger's Cat, we don't know the outcome of the Artists' Alley Situation until it the standard is tested. Right now the box is still closed.  But I believe there are people looking at the latch...and are tempted.

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On the Importance of not being a poor winner

Surely you've heard by now about Gary Friedrich, who attempted to sue Marvel for a portion of the money they've made on his creation, Ghost Rider. 

Gary is like a WHOLE lot of creators from the golden and silver age of comics, living a meager existence on the money they make at conventions, sketching the characters they either created, worked on or are otherwise associated with.  And as a rule, the companies turn a blind eye to what goes on in Artists' Alley.  And the artists are cautious enough, tossing trademark and copyright notices on their small print-run sketchbooks, always making sure not to make TOO much money, lest it tickle the noses of the big booths in the center of the hall.

Gary saw the money being made on Ghost Rider, both on the comics, and moreso the inexplicably popular films starring Nicholas Cage.  He needed the money, and likely (conjecture here) either got the idea, or someone gave him the idea that a lawsuit near the release of the film might get him some bit of creator's credit, and perhaps a small stipend from said profits.

Once again, this one of those MUST and SHOULD situations.  Gary signed a work-for-hire contract like every other creator has since Jerry and Joe signed the worst one ever.  He knew damn well what he was doing.  Marvel doesn't HAVE to do anything for these people.  But in most cases, there's a sense by the general comic reading public that when this much money is made from a film, or whatever, that something SHOULD be done for the creators, out of shher humanity, and when / if they DON'T get done, the public sides with the creators who ask for them, sometimes with the help of lawyers.  DC wrote some very nice checks to several creators before the release of the recent Batman films, both as PR moves, and very lilely in exchange for signing very large documents ceding any right to claim more.

In addition to the fact that a perfectly understood contract was signed, Gary's sitation did not resemble Jerry and Joe's in any way.  He didn't sit up in bed at 3AM, wake the wife and scream "I've GOT IT!  A guy on fire, and his motorcycle is on fire too!"  The character was (according to various reports) first hashed out between Roy Thomas (editor of the original book) and artist Mike Ploog, and Gary was brought on board as writer.  This over and above the fact that the whole impetus was to find a new use for one of Marvel's golden age character names, as they did with The Vision and a few others.  He absolutely added concepts to the book, I'm sure, but this was clearly a creation by committee, and not a Writer As Creative Overlord scenario, as Peter David uses to describe it. 

So Gary's claim was tenuous at best, and that he lost the case does not make Marvel a soulless beast. It's the fact that someone in marvel's legal team thought it would be a good step two that since it had been established that Gary was NOT the creator of the character, they should sue HIM over any money he made at conventions sketching the character, and by advertising himself as said creator.  They did so, and this week, were awarded the sum of $17,000, which Gary must now pay Marvel.

 

The counterclaim is going to hurt them badly, if only from a reputation viewpoint.  The sum is staggering to Gary, but lilkely wouldn't cover the catering bill for the meetings the Marvel legal team had, let alone the legal fees themselves.

The amount of money is immaterial. If there were a major convention this weekend, that amount could be raised in no time. It's the bad PR that it's already earned Marvel.  The second film comes out next week, and I'll lay odds that we'll see a couple of TV reports about this blunder.  Especially if the right people get Gary in contact with folks in the media.

That this was announced at the end of the week is to Marvel's benefit. It gives the news media two days to find something better to talk about, and gives the more image-aware portions of the company to sit the legal-aware portion down and explain that this needs fixing. There's a fair to middling chance we'll see a change come Monday.  Note that there has been no statement from Marvel editorial

 

Meanwhile no end of plans to raise the money for the payment have arisen, and if by some staggering poor choice, they actually choose to go after said payment, it will likely be ponied up quickly, and without Gary having to pony any of it up.

 

Isn't it a relief that the days of such unfair and lopsided contracts are long gone, and no one is trying to actively screw people out of millions of dollars anymore?

 

Well....not so much.

 

Tony Moore is suing Robert Kirkman, claiming Kirkman "duped" him out of signing away his rights to The Walking Dead, and as such says he will see nothing from the shambling success of the TV series.  How true it is, I've no idea, but considering how well liked Robert is, I'll be curious to see how this news will shake out.  Robert, too, is very lucky over the placement of this story - Gary and Marvel's headbutting has wildly outshadowed this story, and will likely continue to do so, long after it's resolved.

The major difference here is that while Jerry, Joe and even Jack had no clue what their creations would wreak, folks nowadays pretty much do have an idea, in the general if not in the specific.  Even Gary couldn't be faulted for assuming all that he might see for his creation was a reprint fee a couple years down the line.  Nowadays, comics are being optioned for mythical sums before they're even published - there's literally no comic that some producer couldn't concievably see as the next Coming Thing, and open his wallet.

The advice that has bounced around has proven ever more true - get a lawyer. Have them read over the stuff you're going to sign. And remember that the more money that's on the table, the more possible people may choose to act for their own good, and not the common good.     

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On the best thing about Kevin Keller #1

It was a book about a popular teenager nervous about going out on his first proper date.

It wasn't about a popular GAY teenager nervous about GAY going out on his first proper GAY date.

It was a story about a regular guy and his various misadventures preparing for a date. That the dates were with other guys were absolutely immaterial to the story. kevin was written, and is treated by his friends and family, and his preferences are not treated as aberrant or requiring any special treatment at all.

You know, the way actual gay people should be treated.

Dan Parent, creator of the character, and penciller of the issue (not to mention Conspirator) puts forth a perfectly entertaining story that wouldn't be out of place in any Archie title.  That's not at all a dig - That Archie has chosen to create a monthly comic starring a gay character is an amazingly forward thinking move.  To remember that the purpose of a comic book is to entertain first and educate second is absolutely vital.  Spoonful of sugar and all that.  I'm wholly certain Kevin's life in Riverdale in the title will not be rainbows and lollipops all the time - I'm sure we'll meet the occasional clod who won't cotton to Them People, and they will be dealt with a non-confrontational manner.  But I'm also confident that Archie, who has been doing this for Quite A Long Time, will keep the balance, and the book won't get the feeling that it must be read because It Will Be Good For You.

I've long been of the opinion that it's not the flashy, flaming (dare I say stereotypical?) gay characters on sitcoms and in films that will change people's minds, but the gay characters who look, act and quip the same as all the other characters, the ones who instead put forth the idea that there are gay people all around, and many have no better dress sense than you, and save for a couple of small differences that you probably wouldn't notice if you weren't such a nosey parker, they're just plain folks.

In the What-if, Out Of Continuity (I think...) Life With Archie title, Kevin will be marrying his partner, an Iraqui War vet , who is black.  Also, Archie will be heating his brief relationship with Valerie Brown from Josie and the Pussycats, and in another future history moment, they will bear a child. 

Talk about jumping in the deep end!  Who'd'a thought a couple of years ago that some of the most socially forward and most risk-taking plot and character choices would be coming from Archie Comics?

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On a Matter of Four Dollars

My whole family already knows what I'm going to write about from that title, and are already laughing.  Be warned, math will be required for this story.

Some years back, we were all visiting The Wife's Mom, Jackie (about whom I have written) in Florida.  The party included my Mom and my little sister, likely less than ten at the time.  We all went to Universal Studios Florida.  This was shortly after it opened in its full theme park form, and was...oh, let's call it struggling.  They were offering deeply discounted tickets, and a free second day with each purchase.

The tickets cost $44.00 each.  Jackie's current soon to be ex-husband Tom said he'd go buy the tickets.  He wasn't going to PAY for them, of course - he told us all to give him the money and he'd go buy them.  My Mom gave him her military ID card, saying it would get a 15% discount on the price.  We all ponied up the cash, rounding off to 40 bucks each. He went off to buy the tickets, and we went off to enjoy the park.

As the day passed, Tom began to comment that we all owed him another four dollars each, as the tickets were 44 dollars, and not 40.  We ignored him, as is out wont when dealing with him. He's the type of person that when they speak, you can't stop hearing a circus calliope in the background.  He refused to stop; he began actively carrying on about the fact that he was in the hole for about twenty bucks, having kicked out the extra four dollars for each of us.  He was told to shut up by the highest authority (Jackie), but he refused.

Finally, I lost it, and let loose with the most vicious arrow in my quiver - the truth.  "Tom, my Mom gave you her ID card," I explained for all to hear.  "At 15 percent off, that dropped the price of the tickets from 44 dollars to 38.  I don't owe YOU four dollars, You owe ME TWO!  Where's my two dollars, Tom?"

The look on his face was priceless - a combination of an old man trying to do ciphering without tracing numbers in the air with his finger, and the clear and sudden realization that he'd forgotten to use the card.  He waved the whole thing off with a crotchety "Oh just forget about it!" and headed for a refreshment stand to get a bottle of water to pour over his throbbing head.  The rest of the day passed without further incident.

The next day, we were all at breakfast, and as Tom went to the Little Curmedgeon's Room, the rest of us began recalling yesterday's incident with glee.  I began doing a dead-on impersonation of Tom, demanding that everyone in the restaurant owed me four dollars.  Everyone found it funny, but my sister Jennifer found it hiLARious - she was near loss of her excretory functions.  When Tom returned to the table, we all calmed down and acted as if nothing has occurred.  Except for Jen.  She was unable to stop snickering, and couldn't look Tom in the eye.  Every time he spoke, usually to ask what this kid was laughing about, she only laughed harder.  Eventually we were all reduced to fits of giggling as Tom sat there in a cloud of befuddlement and ire. 

Jackie's passed on, my Mom's passed on...Tom's still trucking along.

-EDIT - Except now he's not. He passed away this morning.  I may lay four dollars on his grave.
Tanj.

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