Q for Mike ...
Another bad day at the office! bloody freelancers I wish we were back in the old days of the writer/editor!

Mike is it okay if I pitch a FURY series? Ill delay that Hulk project to free up some time in your granny's schedule for you if you do :)

Ill get around to answering the rest later...

Hugh

Posted by hughsheridan on 2006-08-22 08:52:18
I mean Steve...
Steve sorry. Those q's were addressed to Steve!

Posted by hughsheridan on 2006-08-22 08:53:25
Next Moves
Ugh wrote this whole thing out to see it get erased. Lets try this again.

Call the Kaare and Mike and let them know they will be trading places. Explain to Mike that we need Iconic stuff for Iron man, which he is great at, becuase the movie is coming up and he will be in the public spotlight. Encourage him to play with the color pallette a bit , especially ith regards to lighting.

Let Kaare know that we need somebody who is a trailblazer for Exiles, because this book needs to stand out. Encourage him to go wild, explore and be innovative. I want his covers to be the first thing people run to when they open up previews.

Email the Knaufs. Let them know that I still want them to be comfortable with the art, and I want them to have a choice in who they work with. I still believe that given the chance, jamie will blow this book wide open, and Jamie is committed to making that happen. Propose a 6 issue try out session for Jamie to show you what he can do, and if he doesnt work, Pat stays on, no questions asked. While I understand the Knaufs are busy, ask whether they would be willing to provide multiple scripts for Jamie and Patrick to work on, so that Patrick will be ready if Jamie doesnt work out

Pt. II coming up

Posted by SteveQ on 2006-08-22 11:29:50
Pt. II
Call Patrick and be upfront and honest. Let him know that i still belive he is an amazing artist and he has been fantastic, but we are considering an art change, at least for one arc. Let him know that the Knaufs value him greatly and are rooting for him. Encourage him to experiment, up his game a bit, let him show the comic world hows its done. Ask him if he likes his inkers, or if there any that he would like to work with.

Call Andy and Chris. Own up to the screw up and let them know why the project wont go through. Pray that they have not started working yet. Ask Andy and chris what charchetsr they would like to work on, so i can float it through the channels so they can really get started. Shoot an email to sales and the EIC to see which characters are available.

email Paul jenkins to let him know that i dont know continuity either, so we'll just bug Ralph, tom, or the interns. Encourage him to worry about story first and we'll deal with the continuity later

Talk to Ramon Bachs and Wizard to see if Ramon can have pages or at least sketches done in time for an earlier addition of Wizard. With the online crowd still buzzing, i want to have some previews ready for newsarama and other sites to allay fan fears. find out how I go about setting up online interviews

Email sales about the who what when where why and hows of the sales figures. Email Tony to see what the guest start sitution is, and inquire if im allowed to have more on on an laternate reality book. All in all though, this is expected if there is buzz about a new team coming to town

start compiling things for Friday, with extra focus on Exiles, which should a buzz book.

shoot Ed an email just to ensure that he isnt nervous anymore. Assure him that we were just concerned as we see him as a vital member of the team.

truhfully, i want to keep Fury in my office for now. I'm very much a fan of what Garth Ennis did for him. Lightbulb. Shoot an email to EIC and sales to see if we can have Fury project, with Diggle and Weston as the creative team.




Posted by SteveQ on 2006-08-22 11:49:03
Iron Man Movie
With the Iron man movie coming up, begin to think about promotions. Shoot an email to the proper channels about a 10 cent issue

Posted by SteveQ on 2006-08-22 13:36:03
Iron Man Movie
With the Iron man movie coming up, begin to think about promotions. Shoot an email to the proper channels about a 10 cent issue

Posted by SteveQ on 2006-08-22 13:38:19
And Before I forget
No Chris Gage at this time. Ed has just given me assurances that he is doing fine, so ill let him run with it

Posted by SteveQ on 2006-08-22 13:46:55
My Reply
I guess with the letters page/ story thing I would only do it when the writer says it is really necessary – and if I buy that it is really needed. If he is planning on having a couple of splashes in the same issue, for instance, I wouldn’t agree to it. Just looking at Ed’s work on DD you guys seem to have that policy already.

The Nick Fury series is apparently out. My vision of the title would have been as a modern espionage series taking its cue from 24and the Mission Impossible movies, with him fighting modern sophisticated terrorists in a post 9/11 context. I would have had Fury being an low-level employee of SHIELD, because I think having him running the show puts him in a too powerful, caretaker position which I think doesn’t really such a potentially dynamic and abrasive character. I would have seen SHIELD as a vast bureaucracy whose ultimate agenda Fury distrusts – cue twists and turns. Obviously my creators could have amended this as they saw fit in their proposals to me, but that’s the pitch I would have suggested to them as a springboard for their ideas. Anyway it’s academic now (I just had the ideas worked out so I wanted to write them up!) and best of luck to Steve with the character.

I am relieved to hear from Ed that the situation is not as bad as we feared. Nevertheless, for fear that he was he just reassuring me, I would check his progress – how are his deadlines going? Is he ahead of them, just on them or falling behind? Did he originally have a good lead time that he has since eaten up? . If any of the last three scenarios is accurate then I would consider a fill–in to help him get back ahead.

At this point I would get back to Ed, apologising for all the contact over the past few days and reiterating my absolute commitment to his work. But I would also ask him how he feels about a short (4 issues) fill-in stint? If he agrees then I would discuss possible writing candidates, with the intention that when thety were hired Ed might consult with them to make the break seamless. I would hope that we would agree on a writer, making sure that I felt whoever he wanted was up to the high standard of the book. For arguments sake lets say we agree that MATT FRACTION is the best candidate.

So then it is on to Matt to see if he is available, interested and has ideas. Assuming his pitch is good, artist MIKE PERKINS would be my top choice to accompany him. Hopefully he is cool about the Fury debacle and is still available.


The Charest issue: First off I’d deal with the immediate problem and look at the artwork I already have for the solicitated issue, hopefully finding a splash page which would fit unobtrusively enough in Previews. If I could not find one I would mine the previous, also as yet unpublished, issues something appropriate and ,make sure there a disclaimer runs with it clearly showing that the art was actually from the issue before – a pretty awkward solution but the best option given the situation.
Then I would call Travis. The guy already has a bad reputation vis-à-vis deadlines and I would tell him that I am on his side but that I went out on a limb in hiring him, and how everyone at Marvel loves his stuff and would love to give him work (I am assuming this – if I was really a Marvel editor I would know the truth and obviously if it wasn’t true I wouldn’t say it – but I think it’s a pretty safe bet it is true, the guy is in a league of his own when he actually produces the work). However, if he cant even produce a cover to deadline then it makes it very difficult for anyone to hire him.

Hopefully he doesn’t back out and assures me that this was an exceptional circumstance, that the cover will be ready for the publishing deadline and the next one will be in for the Previews date and this turns out to true.

Whatever Charest says to me though, given his track record I would commission a new cover just in case. Hopefully I would be able to move some money around by getting Michael Lark to produce a cover, which could then be used for the trade if Charest actually delivers on his assurances. Assuming Lark can fit it in and is interested in doing covers I would tell him to go for the gold here – give me a dynamic image that reflects the storyline (and the particular issue) and make it more bold and striking then his Gotham Central covers – a tricky list of requirements but I would motivate him by saying that if he delivers then he will become the cover artist if Charest lets us down or that he will succeed Charest after his contract (3-4 covers) is up (which again assumes that it is something he wants).

The Ghost Rider problems: First of all I would get back to the VP of operations, discussing his comment that I “have not been paying much attention to it” – defending my performance vigorously by saying that I have been monitoring the problem, am aware of the situation and am working hard to find a solution.

I would then talk to Tex and Saltares and review their schedule. Where is the delay coming from? Is it a particuliar creator who is dragging down the schedule?

The think the art team with this book is unusual and that may present us with a unique opportunity – I think that as much of the style of the book comes from Tex’s inks as from Saltares pencils. So I would discuss with them the risky move of separating them up for a few issues – have Saltares pencil some issues with a different inker (someone who usually works with a dark palette – STEFANO GAUDIANO for instance) and TEX ink someone different pencils – RON GARNEY or LEE WEEKS would be choices here, depending on their availability.

I would also discuss with the artists how they would react to a change of writer on the series (being mindful of Steve’s experience with Knaufs). The sales stats you quote don’t point to remarkable drop in sales (if you check out ICV2’s stats on books a loss of 1k readers per month per issue is actually, depressingly enough, a better than average performance if a book is mid-storyline) in this simulation -with my other books improving or staying stable and Way never having my full confidence -I would find the trend unsettling.

So I would let Way finish out his storyline (which hopefully will put us past #12, a comfortable period after the titles’ debut to make a change I think) and (minus a full revolt from Tex and Saltares) I would try and interest MIKE CAREY in taking over the series. If he bites and I like his ideas, then I would want to have both Saltares and Tex start the run with him, though this is unlikely to be realistic given the schedule so I would probably have to get Saltares to finish out Way’s storyline and have Garney/Weeks and Tex work on Carey’s first arc.

If the problem of missing deadlines is consistent then I would consider setting up an informal arrangement with Weeks where he works as a permanent fill-in artist, drawing 3 issues or so a year (my guess is that Garney would be too busy to fulfil such a role) and then I would begin talking with Carey about scheduling arcs for him to draw.

Posted by hughsheridan on 2006-08-22 17:17:52
Part 2
Publishing Plans: Obviously a lot depends on my writers plans for the books – generally speaking I would get them all to come up with interesting new storylines which provide good hooks to interest new readers and coverage from the comics press. My presentation would detail our term plans, with particular emphasis on the hooks and how we hope to maximise the exposure of these “jumping on points”.

But this is a good opportunity to outline some of the ideas I would throw at my creators which is something I haven’t managed to get around to here yet:

HULK: I read Greg Pak’s interview at Newsarama today (everyone should check it out at http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=81330 –it’s a very good piece) and it strikes me that his political sensibilities are a side to him that he hasn’t yet exploited fully in comics. So I would discuss the HULK IN IRAQ idea with him – does he think that he could do something with it? this may sound insane, but please bear with me for a second. I would not be using Iraq directly – I would use TRAN SABAL, a fake country Peter David created a few years ago as a stand-in for Iraq.

To help him develop his ideas about story I would make him aware of some characters which I think might help him – THE PANTHEON, the clandestine super-hero group which Peter David had the Hulk work with during his run. I think the concept behind the team has a lot of potential and they have been left untouched since Peter had the Hulk abandon them in Hulk #425, (which did show them breaking up -it isn’t too much of a stretch to have them be reorganised) .

If you remember the characters they were a pre-The Authority organisation that acted like The Authority -intervening proactively in international situations without regard for government authority. I would work with Pak in developing a story around these ideas – would the Hulk be being used by Pantheon? What if the government kidnapped the Hulk and began to use him militarily in the region and he ended up going up against the Pantheon who are working clandestinely on the other side\? What if both those scenarios were true? (see what I did there? -the twist!!!)

Obviously this would all be very hard to pull off and honestly probably difficult to get approval for given current sensitivities about ongoing situation. In an attempt to avoid this would be sure that Pak and I establish a few things at the outset of our planning – what is the essential point we are trying to make? (it would need to be pretty apolitical), what pitfalls should we try and avoid? (we would want to treat all various sides with respect) and to what degree do we want to let super-hero elements come in? (Minimally I would think – David’s work with these characters would be instructive, though I would want to be even more conservative – showing the Pantheon as a shadowy group, though some of them have powers they have abandoned their costumes).

I would also be mindful of avoiding getting mired in continuity – I would want the story to be very plot driven from the get go – no need to explain the Pantheon’s history at length just that they are a group which the Hulk was once allied with. From his Planet Hulk work I would be pretty confident that Pak would be able to pull this off seamlessly.

Hopefully I would still be able to sell the HULK IN IRAQ headline to some mainstream press – with the allegorical nature o the story giving us enough leeway to avoid the worst of the inevitable political backlash.

Would also ask Pak to look at the Pantheon concept - regardless of whether he goes for the Trans-Sabal storyline or the group’s participation in it. I would do this with my alternate reality story/game in mind (yes I am still banging on about that!). As a clandestine political group a storyline involving them would dovetail nicely into my concept and (hopefully) Pak’s interests.

As such it could both add another, hopefully unobtrusive, level of depth to the Hulk storyline (if we go with that) and/or eventually launch a new Pantheon series. This is where I finally get to use AARON LOPRESTI properly – I would see him as the perfect artist for such a series and, assuming it is approved, would try and convince him to come onboard.

GHOST RIDER: Assuming I have Carey on the book I would discuss themes with him – from his Hellblazer work I know he is adept at doing great horror stories and I hope that he would be able to do similar things though with the slightly more super-hero bent that the GR concept demands. I would Johnny Blaze as a tragic character – damned by his past choices, his attempts to save himself only making the situation worse. One storyline I would suggest to him is that he use the current phenomenon of “Doomsday theology” and its adherents as I think that parallels Blaze’s own damned nature interestingly (again stand-in groups would need to be used to minimise controversy).

Daredevil: I just reread “Devil in Cell Block D” in one sitting last night and I was completely blown away – it is probably the best comics storyline I’ve read in years – seriously Fall from Grace level quality, everyone involved should take a bow (and they kinda do in Bur’s text piece at the end of the story!) . Anyway back to the task at hand -I would trust Bur’s sensibilities and work my @@@%%@$@$ off to keep the quality up – no mean feat. There really is no aspect of the character which I would be worried about Bur handling at the moment, he seems to know how to play all the elements (especially past continuity – “Michael Murdock” was pure genius) flawlessly and the tease that some swashbuckling adventures are coming up is exciting as that’s and a direction Id like to see Ed expand on.

Also Matt’s religion has always been at the centre of the character – I would be interested in Brubaker exploring it more, given the things he’s seen and been through where do his beliefs stand? Introducing some street level supernatural elements in here might be interesting – (cue Ghost Rider crossover?) - though I would want to avoid getting too abstract and using the type of cosmic evil Mephisto/ Blackheart characters and stories Nocenti had the character involved in (though Ed is so good that Id have consider them in the unlikely event that that was a direction he wanted to pursue) . Also the inherent contradictions of the character (lawyer/vigilante, religious/devil suit, fighter/the promise to his dad) are perennial plot generating elements to the character that I would look to further develop with the writer.

Finally, if I had time left over from all that, I would get back to Marvel.com and discuss the video blogs. What are the issues that they are concerned with? I would propose that if Marvel is uncomfortable with the idea then I could do it in an unofficial capacity (I would not be featuring any copyright material/previews just behind the scenes creator/editor stuff) with me posting the content via Youtube. If they told me that was the way to go then I would still need to seek approval from management for that (it would be done in the office after all) and ultimately, if the EiC disapproves, I would back off the idea.

Phew. There you go – lots of assumptions and plans based on assumptions. Please be kind Tom!

Hugh
hughsheridan@gmail.com

Posted by hughsheridan on 2006-08-22 17:19:25
Typos
First off I accidentally used my spell checker to change all the Bru's to "Bur", so it is Ed Brubaker I mean there (I guess its pretty obvious, but just in case). I know theres still loads of missing words -dunno whats up with that

Also I didnt write the curse word type thing there -I wrote the real word (again I guess its pretty obvious what it is) and Marvel' s software changed it. Pretty funny stuff.

Hugh

Posted by hughsheridan on 2006-08-22 17:36:11
Clarification
A clarification: I would make sure that I was very cordial in my talk with the Operations VP - I dont want to comer off as hostile, I am not offended by his comment -I just want to reassure him that I am on top of things.

Hugh


Posted by hughsheridan on 2006-08-22 17:46:27
covers r wat makes u get the book
hurry and get to work

Posted by tarhaun on 2006-08-22 18:14:09
Andreyko
One very last thing. I should have mentioned that I would have got on to Marc Andreyko, apologised for wasting his time with the Fury thing, make sure he understands that I love his work and ask him if there are any other ideas for projects that he might like to pitch us.

Hugh



Posted by hughsheridan on 2006-08-22 19:32:11
Mike Carey ?
Er, isn't Mike Carey already writing already four books a month ? (UFF, X-Men, Wetworks, and his new Vertigo project.) I doubt he would have much time for another one...

Posted by Jhiday on 2006-08-23 04:44:55
Hugh
Too many words...overload...aaaagh...
you are doing good, though.

Posted by bigdaddyhub2 on 2006-08-23 10:59:30
Good Stuff guys
One quick thought Hugh: Steranko + Ghost Rider covers = $$$?

Posted by kuyu001 on 2006-08-23 12:17:21
My Bad...
I meant Bill Sienkiewicz. I haven't had coffee yet this morning!

Posted by kuyu001 on 2006-08-23 12:19:50