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What's this?
2009-01-16 16:51:03
Dum-dee-dum, strolling along the internet when -- wait -- WHA?!
www.thedbonline.com
Ch-check it out.
Happy Old Year...
2008-12-31 13:53:13
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Found this lettercolumn from issue #114 of Amazing Spider-Man and it hit home for me just how long all of us at Marvel have been screwing up Spidey.
Happy new year, everyone!
SW
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What have I learned this year? Part Three: Off-Week
2008-12-30 12:17:02
We’re girding our comics loins for the post-Holiday crunch, where all the work we didn’t get done while we were too busy hanging our stockings by the chimney with care comes back to haunt us. Our printer is closed for the Holidays this week, so no books are leaving house. We’re gearing up for next week, where we’ll be sending out ASM 584, par tone of Marc Guggenheim and John Romita Jr.’s epic-to-end-all-epics, CHARACTER ASSASSINATION!
But these rare quiet weeks give me a moment to reflect, and when I reflect, I frequently look back on all the mistakes I made. That should give you a good idea of what my childhood was like. Putting out 36 issues of Spider-Man in one year, mistakes can’t help but get made. Many of you were kind enough to point them out to us in e-mails through out the year. It’s a cliché amongst editors, but I’m new enough at this to have never said it before: nothing kills you more than opening the first make-ready copy of a book and seeing a mistake. Cuz once it’s in print, that’s the ball game.
My first major mistake at Marvel was crediting the wrong guy for a cover. My boss was kind enough to take the rap publicly for it – after all, I’d been here about a month and he had to go out of town the week the book left house. But I’ve never felt worse about something. I ran into that same jilted cover artist at a convention later that summer, and when I apologized for it, he smiled and said, “the *check* had my name on it, so I’m okay.”
That does lead to the much more painful mistake you can make of not paying your freelancers when work comes in, which can occur from time to time. *That* one particularly stings you because when it does occur, it too often happens to the guys who really bust their humps to make the payment deadline.
It’s an odd situation being a comic book editor – much like a producer in TV or Film, if you do your job right, no one thinks you’ve done anything at all. But when you screw up, everyone notices. Even if they don’t, *you* notice and sometimes that can be even worse. (Especially if you’re prepared to hang yourself for every mistake you’ve made since 4th grade, like me.)
In a situation as unique as the thrice-monthly Spidey, I can sometimes get stuck with a case of tunnel vision. There will be moments where the assembly line mentality comes dangerously close to trumping doing it the right way. You can have a thousand eyes on a book and still miss the most obvious mistakes. ASM 581 went through all of the necessary sets of eyes and a few extra ones – and we only noticed right before we sent the book out that dialogue balloons were going to the wrong people in one crucial page. We caught it that time – but sometimes we don’t. That said, I think we tend to catch the big ones before they go out. Still, all the effort in the world won’t prevent a mistake from slipping through.
The best advice I ever received about those mistakes was from a very unlikely place – John Stockton, legendary point guard for the Utah Jazz and the only six-foot-two 46-year-old white guy who’d put a scare into the guys at The Goat Park (look it up). I was at a past job assisting in a web interview, and he said something akin to the following quote (I can’t find our interview with him – this is from another interview he did with a different outlet, but essentially the same quote he gave us)
“I make bad decisions, too. I think the big thing, and it came from a long time ago, is that you just don’t give up. I make a lot of mistakes. As you get older, people say, 'You don’t make many mistakes’ and ‘You lose a step,’ and I’m not sure either is true. All you can do is keep trying, regardless of what happened the play before.”
Corny a sentiment as it is – it’s true. We make mistakes, and we push past it. That’s not to say you shouldn’t hold us accountable – by all means, call us on it (if nothing else, we can fix it for the trade!) because ultimately this entire industry drives on is the passion of those of us working on the books in the offices and across the world and those of you picking up the books in the stores. It’s the reason we push through those off-weeks.
Happy Holidays, guys. Also, here’s some art.
What have I learned this year? Part 3.5: Scuse me while I lay this out!
2008-12-30 12:15:47
I mentioned a few weeks back that ASM580 was scheduled as an evergreen -- a story we could slot into the run as needed, with space open to ensure it reflected the current storyline. Here's a neat little insiders story for you:
When Roger wrote the outstanding page (originally planned to be issue #581 as you'll see), seen here, he also suggested the page's layout. Lee took his cure but put his own signature style on it before sending it to Dean White and Cory Petit who put the finishing touches.
Enjoy!
Next week's lettercolumn
2008-12-05 17:43:44
I'm back with a quick preview of next week's lettercolumn:
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What a thrill to have the team of Roger Stern and Lee Weeks drop by for a week. Roger is best known for a long run on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN that many consider one of the best ever. Lee is not only one of the most requested pencilers in the business on books like DAREDEVIL and the recent CAPTAIN MARVEL mini-series, but he also wrote and drew the highly acclaimed SPIDER-MAN: DEATH AND DESTINY a few years back.
All of us really want to say thanks to both of the guys for stepping in for a week and helping us not miss a beat. Both Roger and Lee worked to fit their story seamlessly into our ongoing escapades and we’re thrilled to announce that they’ll be back next year for 3-part epic that includes the phrase “ SOMETHING CAN STOP THE JUGGERNAUT!” I’ll let you know more as we get closer to it.
==============
How's that for a scoop!
SW
What have I learned this year, part two: Being Thankful
2008-11-26 12:50:24
So it’s Spring of ’07 and I’ve just had two pretty above average interviews with Steve Wacker, Tom Brevoort and Joe Quesada about becoming an Assistant Editor at Marvel. Still, I’m a pretty pessimistic guy and assumed they’d just invited me back out of kindness. But then again, I'm pretty confident they've hired me, put me to work and paid me for a year and a half out of kindness. When I was called and offered the job, I was obviously pretty excited, but also a bit conflicted, as another opportunity that was equally exciting had availed itself. It was a tough call—both jobs had the same number of pros and cons. But I realized this other opportunity was something I could always come back to, while the door at Marvel might not re-open.
After keeping Marvel’s HR department on hold during the solid 30 seconds of deliberation (while balancing two giant packages in a leaky doorway in the midst of a rainstorm, no less), I accepted and returned home to an email from my new boss, Mr. Stephen G. Wacker, welcoming me to the team with an MP3 of the “Merry Marvel Marching Society” theme and, perhaps more daunting, Tom Brevoort’s now-publicized “Spider-Manifesto.” It brings me to my second “What Have I Learned This Year?” lesson: Be thankful for what you don’t know yet.
As I read over the document to help get myself up to speed on the work I’d been doing, a thought occurred to me: “I can never talk to my friends who read comic books again.” Remember, this was at the tail end of CIVIL WAR. Imagine if you’d have known months before anyone else did how "Back-In-Black" and "One More Day" ended and how "Brand New Day" began—I felt like I’d read a National Security report. But I remember wondering what many of you have wondered (sometimes in profanity laced e-mails)—how did Harry Osborn come back to life?
The answer wasn’t in the manifesto, and it wasn’t in any of the scripts I was handed to get myself up to speed. To be honest, the Braintrust wasn’t sure yet. But they did know they had to address it, they were simply going to wait until they had a story that made the most sense and that you guys deserved. That’s what made some of the early anger about "Brand New Day" so funny to me—most of the complaints were over story points we simply hadn’t revealed yet. But yeah, in some cases we weren’t sure. But that didn’t mean we weren’t working on it.
Liz Allan, Normie and the events of SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #200 were all factored into the plans—we just simply hadn’t found the right story yet and didn’t want to rush such important information out. And then Dan Slott found it—the perfect way to not only bring Harry back but to explain quite a few of the changes between our current Spidey run and the JMS stuff. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #581 (which we’re pushing out the door in a short holiday week here at Spidey Sentral) is part one of a two-part Slott/McKone gem that bridges the gap, and it’s Peter Parker who asks the question we’ve all been wondering—how did Harry Osborn come back from the dead? We’ll get some answers, but you’re going to have to wait till next month to see ‘em. In the meantime, enjoy some art!
Working on this comic got me thinking about story telling in the age of internet spoilers and excessive need-to-knows. I’m as big a user of spoiler sites as anyone, but being on this side of the comic fence has reminded me how much I love the job designated to a reader—one of discovering the story for yourself. Most fans of my generation grew up after a lot of the seminal Spider-Man moments. I can appreciate the death of Gwen Stacy, but I know the story from the back of a trading card. I can’t appreciate the magnitude of that moment on the same level of older readers because to me, she’s a relic of the past, not someone I watched grow and evolve. I wish I’d have been able to feel the shock readers felt when they turned the page and saw Gwen Stacy die. Part of the fun of being in the seat I’m in now is that these stories can’t help but be new to me—I’m one of the first eyes to see ‘em after the writer finishes. I get the unfiltered shock of turning the page and it excites me. I can appreciate the frustration of some folks in the readership that the secrets are revealed 11 months later, but for myself, I’d much rather discover the answers page by page than read a brief summary with “the answers.” That’s drama. That’s excitement. It takes patience and it takes time, but it’s wroth the wait. We’ve been planning his out for a while and we want to make sure it’s the best story it can be.
Change is tough, as I’ve learned in abundance this year. So for the segment of readership that still isn’t entirely on board with this new status quo, we hear you. We’ve had you in mind from the beginning, and we’re trying to make the kind of stories that will satisfy your curiosity. We’re simply taking the time and effort to get the stories right. Be thankful for what you don’t know, it makes discovering it all the more exciting.
--Brennan
What have I learned this year? Part 1.5!
2008-11-19 16:44:57
What does a year of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN Lettering look like?
Like-a-this.
What have I learned this year? Part one!
2008-11-19 16:43:29
Hey, folks, Amazing Spider-Man assistant “editor,” perennial letters page punching bag and solid utility soccer player Tom Brennan here, and what a year it’s been. A stripper won an Oscar, we learned our favorite English butler was really a Skrull and America made history in electing the first Delawarean to the Vice Presidency. But the biggest deal for me was being part of inarguably the most talked-about era of Spider-Man books. Whether you’re a die-hard fan or a message board warrior who wants our heads, you can’t deny that this year’s AMAZING SPIDER-MAN has broken some new ground and shaken the comic-sphere. (Comicsverse? Comicland? Whatever…)
I’ve been privileged to be a part of such a huge effort working with six of the best comic book scribes-a-scribbling today and an army of the best and most diverse artists in the biz. As a fly on the Spider’s wall, I’ve learned a ton and now would like to impart that wisdom on you, the reader. Why? Because I’m only allowed to be unchained from my desk for 32 minutes a day and I’ve gotta do something to pass the time while Wacker and Brevoort go on a six-and a half hour long “Lunch Meeting.”
Lesson the First: Trust the veterans of the comic world, for they know what they are doing. Case in point: This week we’re putting the finishing touches on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #580, by Roger Stern and Lee Weeks. Back when I was but a humble unemployed goon and the Braintrust got to planning this series, they wanted to make sure we had a few issues “in the drawer” to slot in in-case our schedule required a couple issues to breathe in between stories. A page would be left free to make sure that story reflected on the recent subplots and keep a uniformed continuity. “Fill in the Blank” is one such story and we’re lucky enough to have Roger & Lee, two masters of the craft and two incredibly nice guys to boot.
The first time I spoke with Roger Stern, he and his wife both answered the phone at the same time. When I said my name, Roger greeted me with: “Oh, honey, it’s Tom Brennan! The kid Steve keeps making fun of in the letter column.” When a guy whose work you admire and whose name you’ve known since you were 13-years-old is excited to hear from *you*, you can’t help but realize how unique your circumstances are. Rog has written a story that fits in seamlessly with our vision of the Spidey books. The Blank, a character he introduced in WEST COAST AVENGERS, is the kind of cooky crook we’ve had Spider-Man face this year—new guys with new powers to give Spidey a challenge he hasn’t faced before. The story starts with a chase scene that sets the pace and keeps you flipping those pages all the way through. I think I speak for more than myself when I say there’s a distinct honor in having your name on a Roger Stern Spider-Man story.
Lee Weeks was one of the first creators I called in my Marvel tenure, and one of the first pieces of art I received was the beautiful shot of Captain Marvel’s grave in last year’s CAPTAIN MARVEL #1. Lee is one of the most interesting human beings to speak to on the phone. After you settle all matters of business, you can’t help but find yourself drawn into some of the most fascinating conversations about art, science, religion and current events. Lee doesn’t just see this as a job—he agonizes over every single page, taking great pains to make sure every panel matters and every element he uses is additive to the writer’s story. His first page of ASM 580 (included here) was originally simply a chase on foot down a city street—Lee’s take, as you’ll see, takes the tension and ratchets up a bit. (I wanted to say ‘turns it on its side’ but that’s a pun too far). For those of us in the business of setting deadlines, the thorough effort can be a bit nerve-wracking, and I can think of a few conversations where voices were raised. But that’ll happen when you work with a friend and I’m proud to count Lee as one of mine.
So if you’re hankering for some classic Spidey by two guys who know—quite simply— “how it’s done,” check out Amazing Spider-Man 580, on-sale next month. It’s pure, A-level fun.
And check back here for more of my lessons from the calendar year 2008. Next time, I find out what Harry Osborn was up to in “Europe” for all those years, as well as where the Marvel Bathroom *really* is…
TO BE CONTINUED!
DROP THE HAMMER!
2008-10-29 11:28:05
Okay, Spider-Fans, I'm gonna give you all the quick heads up:
Hammerhead. Remember how he used to be a joke? Well, he's not anymore. In this month's AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #575 (by Joe Kelly and Chris Bachalo—on-sale today, kids!), the man with the metal flat top is back and revamped for a Brand New Day of Mayhem!
But how did he get this way? The broccoli-munching big-memory crowd might remember in this year's AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: EXTRA! Special, Joe and Chris brought you the story of Hammerhead's origins and a sneak-peak of where he's heading in "Death of a Wise Guy."
What?! You say you didn't read it? Or you'd like to again? Well you're in luck! Drop your bag of processed puffed cheese and swing on over to:
DEATH OF A WISEGUY: The Free Digital Comic!
Enjoy!
~Brennan
Amazing Spider-Man #574
2008-10-22 10:49:57
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Couple articles about the issue on sale today.
I'll warn ya, they spoil the issue, so wait to click until after you read the issue. You've been warned.
Syracuse.com
LA Times
-Wacker
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About this blog:
Freshly spun news and previews from the office of the Amazing Spider-Man
 | About the author:
Editor "Simperin" Steve Wacker and assistant editor "Typin" Tom Brennan take time out from bringing you Amazing Spider-Man thrice monthly and indulge your need to know everything now!!! |
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