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House Cleaning
2006-11-07 08:56:17

I should be heading home to watch a full night of television (Prison Break, Heroes, Studio 60), but instead I'm sitting here typing out another message just for you. I guess I still feel guilty about having that one week off a little while back.

Anyway, it feels a little bit like I've been playing defense on this blog for the last little while. Which is natural, I guess--the ideas for what to write about on a given day come from what's being talked about out in the world, and how I respond to it. But in the same way I don't want this to be some mindless shill-fest, I also don't want it to become "Tom Justifies It All."

At the end of the day, these are good problems to have. Not everybody gets the opportunity to do a job like this one--I get to live the dream, every day. And sure, some days it's the kind of dream you have after eating a big, spicy sandwich, but more often than not it's pretty durned cool.

I just got an advance copy of STAN LEE MEETS SPIDER-MAN, which should be on sale this Wednesday. Now, nobody's going to mistake this comic book for great literature, but it's still a hell of a lot of fun. And I got to work with Stan on it, and Joss Whedon as well--plus I was able to finagle two pages out of Fred Hembeck for it. It's also pretty likely that I'm going to hear back from Stan once he has a chance to look over the copy we sent out to him today, which is cool all by itself. (Hopefully I got his name spelled right...)

And most of the lettering is in on CIVIL WAR: CHOOSING SIDES. We pulled this special together in just about no time at all--thirty days from package to plate. (And by we, I man all of the folks in and around my office, including Andy Schmidt, Warren Simons, Aubrey Sitterson and Molly Lazer.)And it looks and reads really, really well--I think people will be pleasantly surprised by it

And best of all, it looks as though the remaining holes in my editorial office have been filled, which means I'll be able to move ahead with my overall planning for 2007 in just a few weeks' time. The departure of Mike Marts caused a ripple effect up and down the editorial department, but now that we seem to have everything shaken out, I can start devoting some time and energy to the new books that'll start coming out of my office.

Finally, if you want to avoid another blather-filled entry like this one, what I could really use are a couple of topics you'd like to see me sound off on. I know people have asked questions in the past in the comments sections of earlier posts, but it's always a pain to try to dig those out days after the fact--which is wy, when I do answer them, I tend to do so the day after they were posted. Doesn't mean I don't want to hear the suggestions, just that I'm lazy about it. So if you post your topics and questions here, I'll at least know where to look for them.

More later.

Tom B

Question...
Tom,

What do you think of the current system by which people are able to submit to Marvel? Do you think the system works as a means of finding new talent? What would you do to improve it? Similarly, what, from your personal experiences with dealing with new and up & coming talent, would you recommend to new talent if they want to get and keep working in your department?

Posted by astrosapien on 2006-09-25 22:00:46

Here's a question
What do you do for fun to take your mind off of your work? The rest of us read comics. What do you do when you need to veg out?

Posted by bigdaddyhub2 on 2006-09-25 22:25:46

Is truth stranger than fiction?
OK, obviously without spoiling anything, can you talk about what your doing to make sure the upcoming changes in Thunderbolts don't result in what happened to the faux Exiles in your recent Marvel simulation.

I imagine that you're dealing with a readership that's already skittish in the wake of the FightBolts debacle. Are Joe Q.'s recent Newsarama comments listing that as one of his greatest regrets part of a concerted effort to keep readers calm?

I hemmed and hawed about including this next bit out of fear it would muddle my question. Feel free to ignore it if you want.

Looking at myself as a typical TBolts reader, I'm trying to take a wait and see attitude. I gave FightBolts an issue, I'll do at least the same with the upcoming changes. That said, the characters shown at the end of CW4 left me very cold. I don't know whether my interest in Songbird could overcome my antipathy for Venom (to whom I feel like if we're going to use such an overexposed character, why not just throw in Wolverine too) and, to a lesser degree, Lady Deathstrike. Also, my initial reaction is this looks like it's going to be a Suicide Squad-style book, which isn't quite the same as what TBolts has been.

On the writing side, if the Lying in the Gutters rumors/speculation about Jenkins are true (which is a bit ironic, since wasn't he the faux writer for faux Exiles in the simulation), I'm left to think that this story is going to have to be better than what I've read of his work to date to keep me on board. That's balanced by the idea that there's something new in the works for Nicieza, whose work I'm a fan of; I don't potentially feel like I need to drop the title out of some (misguided?) protest over his removal (even though I have no idea at this point if he was ready to move on or not).

Again, not asking you to confirm any of that, just trying to lay out what I think you have to deal with to keep people like me from overreacting before the product's ever out.

And now I'm off to watch "Heroes" and "Studio 60." (Speaking of which, how about getting Sorkin to pitch something?)

Posted by motteditor on 2006-09-26 01:39:11

Questions on Civil War
Hi Tom: I wanted to see if the editorial staff at Marvel has discussed the idea of super beings coming to Canada or running to other countries looking for asylum or refuge status? I think that could prove to be very interesting to see addressed in either Frontline, if not Civil War itself. If the US has literally instigated a Draft based on discrimination (only super powered beings are being drafted) and no age limit, then Canada may be open to accepting numerous super powered beings as refugees or conscientious objectors fleeing persecution. How about a one-shot special "Civil War: Refugees"?

Posted by Riddick2 on 2006-09-26 11:30:54

I wrote a response to your post on Friday about Marvel characters being immortal:

http://www.whyilovecomics.com/2006/09/26/reacting-to-a-tom-brevoort-post-the-marvel-universe-as-experiment/

Here's a question I'd like to ask: How important is eyeflow to a comic's page design? By eyeflow, I mean that the elements on the page flow from left to right and up to down. This used to be a given in comics, but I've seen pages lately that force the reader to move his/her eyes in different directions to follow the story, and I wonder if the concept had been devalued.

Posted by wishlish on 2006-09-26 12:17:52

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