Because you demanded it! Jim took pictures today of the portrait Bill painted for him using his new iPhone’s camera. Pardon the reflections of the kitchen in the the glass.
Year: 2011 Page 15 of 23
Sometime early in 1979, Marvel Comics President Jim Galton called me to his office to discuss an opportunity to license a toy property—ROM, the Spaceknight. We’d had some success with the Micronauts, which the legendary licensing/toy genius Stan Weston had pitched to me, and I had licensed, so Galton was immediately interested in a new Parker Brothers toy that he had somehow become aware of. Galton knew nothing about comics, and couldn’t care less about them—but he was very interested in making money. If one toy property worked, why wouldn’t another?The name “ROM,” by the way, comes from Read-Only Memory. It was one of the first toys with a chip inside that allowed it to do simple tricks like making sounds and flashing lights.Galton and I flew up to Boston on the Eastern Airlines Shuttle—remember that?—and drove out to wherever Parker Brothers offices were—in a beautiful, wooded setting, as I recall—and met with their brass and licensing people. We worked out a deal. I’m certain we had a pretty standard licensing deal, except that the creator of ROM, Bing McCoy, had a significant participation. After Parker Brothers was out of the mix, I suppose we paid only Bing McCoy’s portion of the royalties.
I created the basic premise for the comic book series—the fundamental backstory (beyond what Bing and Parker Brothers had graven in stone). Bill Mantlo and whoever the editor was fleshed it out. For instance, Brandy Clark was definitely Bill’s creation, or at least he named her. On the other hand, Clairton (a small town in the Pittsburgh area, near where I grew up, transplanted for story purposes to West Virginia) and Galador are names I provided.
(NOTE: I wrote this a long time ago, but it’s germane to the tales of old Marvel I’ve been telling.)
During my time at Marvel the people that held the position of Art Director were John Romita, Sr., Marie Severin (briefly), and John Romita, Sr. again. Dave Cockrum shared duties with John Romita for a while, as did Don Perlin toward the end of my tenure.
First of all, the title “Art Director” at Marvel during the 70’s and 80’s is completely misleading. It was a staff artist position. Of course, it made sense to have a really outstanding artist on staff. Things came up constantly for which a quality piece of art was needed, for presentations, PR, whatever, and if you had to track down a freelancer each time, it would be a nightmare. Stan trumped up the title “Art Director” so he could pay outstanding, versatile artist John Romita more money. The brass above Stan would never have agreed to pay a “staff artist” as much, but an “Art Director?” Sure.
Fortunately, the brass was completely ignorant of what went on in the comics creative department, so they were easily fooled. Seriously—most of the upstairs execs and the brass of parent company Cadence Industries had never opened a comic book, and they were proud to say that. Few had ever even ventured onto the floor we occupied. We scared them, I think.
The Benevolent Lapping Scam – Benign Malfeasance
Around the beginning of December, 1977, Marvel President Jim Galton offered me the Editor in Chief job, replacing Archie Goodwin. (How that came to pass is another wondrous strange tale, coming soon.) Archie was going to step down as EIC and become a contract writer-editor.
The plan was for Archie to finish out the month and for me to begin on the first working day of January, 1978. Stan thought it would be best not to announce the change until just before it went into effect.
The month of December, 1977 was a traumatic time for Marvel. John Romita resigned as Art Director to work full time on the Spider-Man syndicated strip.
And, Production Manager John Verpoorten died at the age of 37.
My giant Jack Kirby drawing. Mentioned in Reminiscing About Jack Kirby.
Signature and dedication.
Sorry about the shadows and reflections. The photos would be better if JayJay had taken them, but I had to post these today, on Flag Day.
The Benevolent Lapping Scam – Background Info
While Stan Lee was the editor, from 1941 till Roy Thomas took over as Marvel’s first Editor in Chief in 1972, Marvel Comics was run like a mom’n’pop operation. Stan was the boss, and did or governed all things creative. For a while during the 1950’s, and again from the early 1960’s through the early 1970’s, his “right hand man” was Sol Brodsky, Production Manager. Besides overseeing the mechanics of getting the books created and printed, Sol handled anything legal, financial, technical or complicated, that is, anything Stan didn’t want to be bothered with.
In 1972, Roy Thomas took over from Stan, who had been made President. That didn’t work out. The bureaucratic crap and administrative duties involved didn’t suit him, so Stan became Publisher instead.
By then, Sol had left for a while to start ill-fated Skywald Publications, which promptly failed. Sol needed a job, and approached Stan, but a new Production Manager had been hired in Sol’s absence—John Verpoorten. Stan convinced the Cadence Board to create a new position for Sol, “V.P. of Operations.” Essentially, he was Stan’s right hand man again. More on that later.
I found these the other day.Thanks to my charmingly pack-ratty mother, my Merry Marvel Marching Society membership kits survived the ages. That’s her writing on the envelope of the first membership kit.
The first time I signed up for the M.M.M.S. was in 1964, at the age of 12. Later Marvel offered a second membership kit. Had to have it. That would have been in 1966 or 1967. Anybody know for sure when the second kit was offered? Anyway, by that time I was a regular writer for DC.
So, I was an M.M.M.S. member in good standing while working for Mort, which posed a grave danger….
I came across this yesterday. It’s the first letter I ever received from Curt Swan, hand written on a 14×16″ piece of vellum. What a wonderful letter, what a brilliant artist, what a great man.P.S. Check out how neat the lettering is. : )
(Click on the letter for a more satisfyingly large image)
JayJay Here. Back in the Marvel days Jim frequently would give a gift box of Godiva chocolates to people for their birthdays, anniversaries, etc. It was a popular gift with the staff and even more popular when the recipient shared! One year Archie Goodwin made the birthday card below for Jim.
By J.C. Vaughn
Back in 1999 along with my friends Mark L. Haynes (now a writer-producer living in Los Angeles) and Jim Kuhoric (now VP of Avatar Press), I took over a small press company called Realm Press, which had the license for Battlestar Galactica. This was about five or six years before it would have been trendy to have the license, but we all loved the original series or at least its potential and so we made our plans and did what we could to create good comics. Jim K. wrote our main series. Mark handled the lettering, production, and the continuity editing (stuff like the Galactica terminology). I handled the story editing, working with the artists, and so on.
The main series was a painted comic and for a variety of reasons it ended up always being late. Even though we had our regular jobs to go to the next day, Mark and I (Jim K. was married and had a life) would end up doing rewrites overnight as Mark lettered the issues, trying to make Jim’s scripts match up with the art we received. Best quote ever during this period – Mark: “Which one of these four panels is Panel Six?”