www.marvel.com
sign-in: (or register!)   user name: pass: remember me
help
Subscribe To Comics
blogs
My So-Called Career pt 3
2007-03-06 15:45:41







A bit of a short entry today, focusing on the material found to the left. These are pages from a short booklet providing guidelines to writers wanting to pitch stories. The individual cartoons were done by former Bullpen letterer Rick Parker, who thereafter went on to draw the BEAVIS & BUTTHEAD comic book. I seem to be missing a sheet of these from the booklet, and I don't think the final booklet was ever finished or distributed. But this does give a good idea as to what editors were looking for in a story during this period (or immediately before--the reference to "Jim" on one of the pages refers to Jim Shooter, Marvel's editor in chief through 1987, so this booklet appears to have been started while he was still in charge.)

I got copies of these pages while an intern. And, like virtually every intern before or since, I attempted to pitch a story before I left. Mine (co-written by my writing partner Mike Kanterovich) was a WHAT IF...? story focusing on what might have happened had the Silver Surfer not betrayed Galactus in their first story in FF. I never heard anything from Craig about it after I handed it in, not even once i came on staff and began writing other things for him--so either he gave it a quick look and decided it was unusable, or he never found the time to read it.

I also interviewed for an assistant editor position before my internship was up, recommended and championed by Bob Budiansky and Greg Wright in particular. It was in the Howard Mackie office, which at the time handled the AVENGERS books, ironically enough. Howard's assistant David Wohl was leaving and he needed a replacement. I don't think I made a very good showing in our brief interview, and Howard wound up hiring Len Kaminski instead. As Len was a friend who I'd known somewhat even before coming to Marvel, it's hard to argue with his choice--especially given that Len had been on-staff as the assistant to Bullpen manager Virginia Romita for a year or two, and so was much better known by the staff as a whole at that point.

Tomorrow: Tom gets hired, an exciting photograph of a beardless Tom in one of his earliest offices, and Fred Hembeck!

More later.

Tom B

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 4 | Part 5
Bonus 1 | Bonus 2
That “how-to-pitch” booklet is sweet! I love how it says you should try and trick the editor.
If I ever pitch to you, I have to review these first! ;)


Posted by J.Williamson on 2007-02-14 17:42:24
Array
Enter a response to this blog post:
you must log in (or register) in in order to enter a response.
login: password:
subject:

your response:


About this blog:
Ramblings and musings from the mind of Tom Brevoort. "It won’t be clean. It won’t be fun. It mostly won’t be coherent."

About the author:
Tom Brevoort is Executive Editor for Marvel Comics, and oversees such titles as New Avengers, Civil War, and Fantastic Four.
More entries by this author:
One last... (2009-01-04) (5 responses)
It seems... (2009-01-01) (10 responses)
It's great... (2008-12-31) (2 responses)
Well,... (2008-12-30) (2 responses)
It's a very... (2008-12-28) (3 responses)

you must be logged in in order to enter tags. enter your user name and password here:
login: password:
Tag this blog entry:
(enter words or phrases into the fields below)






Comics
» Blah Blah Blog by Tom Brevoort - 513 entries
» Blog by Knight by MarvelKnights - 60 entries
» Collected Ramblings by trades department - 31 entries
» Comics for All by Nicole Boose - 28 entries
» Cup of Blog by Joe Quesada - 24 entries
» Dark Tower Blog by The Dark Tower Team - 10 entries
» Panic Room by Mark Paniccia - 9 entries
» Spidey's Web Log by spideyoffice - 12 entries
» Spy in the House by Agent M - 79 entries
» Temple of Atlas by Mr. Lao - 16 entries
» THE NATHAN COSBY BLOG featuring Nate Cosby by Nathan Cosby - 76 entries
» The X-Blog by the X-Office - 16 entries
» Tilting the Scales of Super Hero Justice by Mr. Kemp - 2 entries
» Ultimate Blog by John Barber - 14 entries
» World Wide Webhead by Spider-Office - 59 entries
Marvel.com
» Marvel.com Meta-Blog by pete - 26 entries
Movies
» Ghost Rider Video Blog by ghost rider movie - 25 entries
» spider-man movie blog by spider-man movie - 14 entries
Others
» Ames on Games by Ames Kirshen - 2 entries
» BLOGDOK by I MODOK - 24 entries
» Ultimate Alliance Blog by Marvel Ultimate Alliance - 1 entries
Video Games
» The Danger Room: Marvel's Official Video Game Blog by Marvel Interactive - 9 entries
Marvel News
Marvel Videos
Marvel Digital Comics
All contents ™ and © 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc., unless otherwise noted herein. All rights reserved.