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2007-07-23 11:00:35

Is this guy...

...THIS guy...

..or THIS guy?

The answers are here!

Another week begins, and I'm fresh out of ideas for topics. So let's go to the mailbags and see if we can't make do with a couple questions from the audience:

>I think its fascinating that your story is the basis for that FF Special. Shouldn't you get some sort of credit beyond editor? Do you ever feel slighted being lised as "just editor" when you do that much of the writing. Since most of the audience just sees you as a spell-checker, wouldn't you like more credit?

Posted by IanZL on 2007-06-11 14:48:00>

Ian, I didn't write the issue in question, Dwayne McDuffie did. And while I may have come up with some of the ideas that led to us winding up with the story we ran, I'm perfectly fine with the accredation of that issue. This is all part of the editor's job, after all--and it's always wise to remember: Creators get the Credit, Editors get the Blame.

>Is this Ironman who is currently in the comics the original Tony Stark that died during the Crossing?'

I know that Marvel officially stated that Teen Tony upon returning to the 616 Marvel universe retained the memories of the original Tony Stark that died from the mainstream Marvel universe. But just retaining the memories does not necessarily mean that this 'new Ironman' is the original merged with the Teen Tony and Heroes Reborn Ironman. All that it means is that this is a Tony Stark who remembers and has the memories of the original 616 Ironman. So, follow up questions to my original question that need to be answered too, are these

'Upon returning to the regular Marvel Universe (616), did Franklin Richards resurrect the 616 Marvel Universe Tony Stark that died and merged him with Teen Tony? Does that mean that this Ironman possesses not only the original Ironman's personality and mind but also his soul too? Is his soul off somewhere enjoying an afterlife or is it back in this Ironman's body?'

I know I am asking semantics but please be as precise as possible answering all these questions. >

Short answer: yes. Longer answer: See AVENGERS ANNUAL 2001. Longest answer: you're speaking about fairly metaphysical issues concerning a fictional character. So at a certain point, the best answer you can ever receive is, "This is the way it is." So yes, the current Tony Stark has all the memories of all the experiences of the two or three Tony's you're speaking of. Beyond that, how is anybody to measure what makes him one but not the other--especially when one of the others was his own younger self pulled from the past. There's a point at which continuity and history becomes a headache-inducing nightmare. This is the way it is--best thing to do would be to roll with it, and move forward.

>Who makes the final decision on covers - both art and layout. For example the current issue of Ms Marvel has the banner moved lower to accommodate the art - is this the artists choice, do the artist and the editor talk about these things in advance? And I notice that X-Men, Uncanny and New X-Men have brought back the top left corner boxes (with little heads) - who decided to bring that back? Cheers!

Posted by NewChad on 2007-06-13 03:51:58>

A variety of people. For each cover, the artist in question does a sketch, which is looked over and approved by both the individual editor and the editor in chief. Working off of their feedback, the artist makes any necessary adjustments, and then creates the final cover art. In terms of cover elements, there are certain general guidelines that we follow most of the time (for example, we like the MARVEL slug to be red), but within that, you can do anything that the EIC and the various sales people will approve. In the case of the X-MEN corner boxes returning, that was a decision made by the X-Men Editorial Team along with the EIC and the Publisher and members of the sales and marketing team.

>It seems to me that one of the biggest differences between a Writer and an Editor is the final amount of control. As someone who likes to control his output, and a writer, I could see that it would be some-what frustrating as the Comic Writer to write up your script and send it out, hoping that as much as can gets through to the published version. But in your place, once you've decided everything - correct me if I'm wrong - that's it, it's done.

Between the two, it seems that a connection based on trust would be necessary to keep both happy in their work, as well. Especially the Writer. Because if a Writer didn't trust their Editor, having to hand off their hard work to them to get sliced up would probably be terrible. But if a Writer has an Editor they can trust, it would lessen the blow to hand them work that they can trust the Editor will do justice to and improve via his/her lofty view of it.

Is this dynamic true to life? And out of curiosity, are there ever problems with this Writer/Editor relationship? Do you get ticked off, hurt Writers? You already mentioned Editors who establish TOO much control...how does that end up affecting the Writers you hire?

Posted by PseudoSherlock on 2007-06-13 09:40:41>

As a general rule, people in the editorial department don't want to do any extensive rewriting of scripts or dialogue. That's what the writer is getting paid for, and his name is ultimately on the work. So when there are adjustments that need to be done, we try our best to involve the writer in that process as much as possible, so they can see what's being done before the story sees print, and can affect the outcome. On extensive corrections, we'll typically ask the writer to make the changes himself.

But there's always the potential for things to go wrong, especially since the writer's first loyalty is to his story, whereas the editor's first loyalty has to be to the book. There are times when those two points of view are in conflict. And not every situation is resolved equally, or to everybody's satisfaction. But as in all things, you do the best you can, hopefully without malice, hopefully not simply for the sake of changing things. And yes, you hopefully develop a relationship of trust between the writers and the editors which allows both to share a comfort zone. And an editor who routinely runs roughshod over his writers is going to find it very difficult to get the best people to work with him, once word gets out to teh community.

>Why are you single-handedly DESTROYING marvel comics Joe???What did this company do to you that made you decide to foul up everything Stan and Jack created?!?!?! More importantly, why are YOU fans letting HIM?!?!?!?!? I thought the reason that Galactus was omitted from the movie was to save money, NOPE.1. Wrong there, as you obviously spent a pretty penny on that RIDICULOUS storm cloud. 2. Silver Surfer could never single handedly destroy Galactus- unlike how you've single handedly thrown this whole company down the toilet. 3. I have to thank you, cause now I'll never have to wonder what working for you would have been like, I ALREADY know.4. Our comics are set aflame, as I've convinced all the persons on our street to never go Marvel again. Until a) You're FIRED. or b) You've passed.

Stan please take it back!!!!!!!!

NMME(no more marvel ever)

Posted by dont go there on 2007-06-16 01:32:12>

So wait--you know that Joe Q has nothing to do with the movies, right?

More later.

Tom B

If the person who posted regarding Ironman was anything like me, he or she was wondering how a character with Tony's history could be a Skrull.
I will be disappointed if he is a Skrull personally, becuase it is much more interesting if that is the REAL Tony Stark.

Posted by IanZL on 2007-07-02 21:32:56

Thank you
Thanks for your response, but I have a follow-up question in regards to "don't go there's" quandry. No, not really...

No, wait...I do have a movie question!

I'm curious how much the popularity or lack thereof of the movies affects each of your books. I know that the popularity of Blade led to a tweaking of the comic character to please the fans, but I haven't seen many changes otherwise. But I can see that if an interpretation from the movies is super popular that it only makes sense to look again at the angle on each of the comics.

But how about the opposite? If a movie is really unpopular, would the people at Marvel ever take a second look at the characters themselves? For example, Hulk didn't do that well in movie form, did anyone sit down and think: "Why? How can we avoid that in the comics?"

In other words, how much does the popularity of the movies bias decisions you might make with the books?

Posted by PseudoSherlock on 2007-07-03 12:27:53

Follow Up
Sorry...this is a follow up on my own question.

IF the movies influence the comic books in any way, whose decisions would those be likely to be? In other words, are the writers the first ones to think: "Hey, Blade needs to be half-vampire!" Or is it more likely to be an Editor meeting with everyone sitting around and the EIC saying: "Here are the movie numbers, how can we duplicate this popularity/avoid this mistake?"

Posted by PseudoSherlock on 2007-07-03 12:30:06

Editorial Standards
One way to describe the role of an editor is that he enforces the publisher’s editorial standards.

What are Marvel’s editorial standards?

It’s not an idle or rhetorical question. Take the retcon device. I’ve never seen a comparable plotting device used in adult prose works; I’d guess that any prose writer would never use the retcon to blatantly contradict his own published works anyway. The embarrassment at the lack of creativity would be too great. The only rationale I can think of is that the retcon (as practiced by Byrne and Bendis) , in recycling plot material, saves time and effort for a writer (and editor) unwilling or unable to work with a character’s existing situation. I can’t think of any artistic justification for the retcon’s use.

There’s the subject of flagrant mistakes appearing in print. In NEW AVENGERS #28, for example, Bendis had characters misuse the word “recon” in dialogue, misused the word “genotype” in dialogue, misspelled Lindsay (Lohan) as “Lindsey,” and wrote the meaningless phrase “. . . series of homeopathic enchantment spells.” One wonders why all those errors appeared in an edited publication.

There have been other such errors, including contradictions between the text page of NEW AVENGERS and the dialogue, concerning the time elapsed since HOUSE OF M, for three months running. I can list the assorted errors, if you’d like.

Since Bendis is a star at Marvel, you should be able to list the qualities of his “Avengers” work that make it outstanding, or good, when normal and reasonable publishing standards are used. Could you do that?

SRS

Posted by Steven R. Stahl on 2007-07-03 15:10:28

Retconning
Umm...I'm replying to a now-missing post. It was me that accidentally flagged it as offensive. Sorry, I guess I thought I was clicking to respond. Didn't mean to create more useless work...

Anyway, I think the reason that the "retcon" device is used in comics and not in adult literature is that there dozens, possibly hundreds, of writers that work on a single set of characters over the years for each book/collection of books. These authors can't always agree, or even remember, everything that has come before. So sometimes they need to fix things to make a new story work that they feel didn't work previously.

This really couldn't happen in the novel medium because it would mean that one author was so unsatisfied with his or her old work that they kept changing the facts and ideas so much so that people would need to label it retcon. Honestly, I would imagine it happens quietly when things just need to be made better in a further book in a series, but with so many words in each novel, it's hard to drag them out like in comics and call it an "official change."

However, Stephen King reissued his first Dark Tower novel with new scenes and whatnot. In other words, he basically changed the history of the series to include things he felt, in retrospect, needed adding. Yet no one screamed at him cause it was his own stuff.

Posted by PseudoSherlock on 2007-07-03 15:30:36

Retconning
Not that I've read them, but wasn't Sherlock Holmes dead, and then retconned to being alive by Doyle? For primarily commercial reasons?

Posted by mcross76 on 2007-07-03 16:46:48

Sherlock Holmes
Not quite retconned...he mysteriously disappeared after fighting with Moriarity at a set of waterfalls. There was no body and only signs of a struggle next to the edge. It was explained later that Holmes hid below the ledge to maintain his supposed "death."

So that was more of crafted plot hole.

Posted by PseudoSherlock on 2007-07-03 22:15:33

I think Blade is the only character that was changed to match the movie version and as he was pretty much in limbo prior to the movie it was a non-issue when it came to reimagining them.

The X-men got different (Movie-like) costumes for a couple of years, but thats really about it.

I don't think any of the movie mistakes came down to fundamental character mistakes though, they were mostly just bad movies. If you liked the bad Elektra or Ghost Rider movie, you're probably going to like the good Elektra or Ghost Rider comic.

Posted by IanZL on 2007-07-04 04:05:59

"It’s not an idle or rhetorical question. Take the retcon device. I’ve never seen a comparable plotting device used in adult prose works; I’d guess that any prose writer would never use the retcon to blatantly contradict his own published works anyway. The embarrassment at the lack of creativity would be too great. The only rationale I can think of is that the retcon (as practiced by Byrne and Bendis) , in recycling plot material, saves time and effort for a writer (and editor) unwilling or unable to work with a character’s existing situation. I can’t think of any artistic justification for the retcon’s use. "

No other prose medium is as fluid or ongoing. When you publish 50 or so comics a month there are going to be mistakes and bad stories that get through. A future, totally different, writer on a title that is unrelated should not be constricted by a bad idea if it can be changed.
The only prose that comes close to comics are the ongoing Star Wars and Fantasy Saga book series and they only do a few books a year often with the same editor. Other series, like say Harry Potter, are all written by the same author.
When you have a history of over 50 years, with many mistakes and bad writers along the way, changing history is sometimes the best way to go.

Posted by IanZL on 2007-07-04 04:10:06

give notapotatoe a chance
"when you publish 50 or so comics a month there are going to be mistaks and bad stories ...",
incredible,
when we see how editors are treating readers and authors to pull them on a supreme device of excellence, how can such things happen...

Posted by notapotatoe on 2007-07-04 05:37:30

i think, as implied by some respondents above, that the term retcon is primarily used by readers to reference story line they don't like. From there it somehow becomes a personal attack on the writers and editors as they have supposedly 'misused' or 'misunderstood' a readers favorite character. Not only is it gross that readers are willing to go from the personal to the general, but to mistake the reality and importance of the fictional characters for that of the writers. In other words I think that Steven R Stahl is completely out to lunch.

Posted by musicalcolin on 2007-07-11 03:59:17

Array

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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.


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