The first time I ever heard the term “writer/editor” was shortly after arriving for my first day as associate editor of Marvel Comics on the first working day of January, 1976. At first I thought it must mean a part-time writer who also served as an editor for other writers.
Nope. It meant someone who was the editor of his own work.
What?
Royal flush of spade on white background
It’s Friday.
Friday evenings used to mean poker. Or something vaguely resembling poker. As close as we comic book people could approximate it. Unsophisticated, and yet charmingly buffoonish in its utter lack of skill.
Thirty-five years ago, almost every Friday evening, a bunch of us would gather at somebody’s place to play poker. Usually, early on, it was the vast apartment Paul Levitz shared with Marty Pasko down on Mercer Street.
That place was terrific. It was really like two fairly spacious apartments with a common kitchen and living room, which was the size of a football field. All right, maybe the living room was only the size of tennis court. The point is it was big. It was in the middle. Paul’s rooms were to the right as you walked in and Marty’s were to the left. It was a nice, new building and a nice, comfy place. And they had a big table, perfect for cards.
Regular attendees in the early days included Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Steve Mitchell, Mike Barr, Paul and Marty, of course, and me. I’m probably forgetting some people.
Stan asked me to come to his office one day to help him make a big decision.
Okay.
It was 1979. Marvel was still at 575 Madison Avenue. We comic book people were on the sixth floor. The non-comics magazine people, the bigshots (except for Stan) and business types were on the ninth.
Anybody remember the brilliant drawing Marie Severin did of those Mad Ave offices for F.O.O.M., I think? I wish I could find my copy. Wonderful. It showed, among other things, John Verpoorten casually backhanding a freelancer out the window while another freelancer (or messenger?), riddled with arrows presumably shot at him by the ambushers who had delayed him, was crawling in to deliver pages.
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| I found this cover that shows part of the Marie Severin drawing that Jim refers to. If I can find my copy of this I’ll scan the whole thing. – JayJay |
Anyway, Stan had the corner office on our floor. My Editor in Chief office was down the hall. It took up one corner of the “big” editorial room, into which my secretary and four editorial people were crammed.
.
I wasn’t at Marvel when the Duck first came to be. Almost all of what was at issue happened before my time, or during the time that I was associate editor, and not involved in a management capacity. Therefore, I wasn’t much involved in the litigation.
The litigation took place while I was Editor in Chief, however, so I was copied on many documents and otherwise made aware of the progress of the thing. I have copies of a number of letters, memos and documents relating to the case. No, I’m not going to post them here, except for two letters, below.
The plot for that issue had been done before I started at Marvel. The first I saw of the book was at the penciled and scripted (dialogued) stage.
After meeting briefly with Roy, I went to lunch with a group of guys who either worked in the office or were hanging around waiting for a group of guys going to lunch to congeal. Among them was Steve Gerber. Who else? I’m not sure. A couple of people who were Marvel assistant editors at the time. Maybe another freelancer or two who happened to be in the office? There were at least six of us, maybe seven or eight. We went to a Brew & Burger or some such similarly classy establishment.
Of course, we talked comics.
And Gerber and I got into it.
The Mad Ave offices weren’t great. They were cramped and dingy and not well-suited to our purposes. And quickly becoming too small. We were growing fast.
The new offices were custom designed for us. Or, rather, for what the architect thought we were. I forget the guy’s name. I remember that he was completely bald, that’s about it. Anyway, he had his “vision” of what comic book publishing offices ought to be that was based on, I don’t know, maybe the offices of the Harvard Law Review. I was given a few opportunities to raise objections and make suggestions, and I headed off a few calamities, but when we moved in, there were still some problems and issues. Things that had to change.
RE: Storytelling by artists. Too many artists these days have no understanding of how to convey information — that is, how to do their part of telling the story. Or they think it’s their job to make cool pictures and that’s all — explaining things is up to the writer — he or she can always add a caption or something. Some of them have that attitude even when it’s a full script! Or, they actively ignore what is called for and draw whatever the hell they want because they think story doesn’t matter.
Call for an establishing shot. They give you a big head shot. Tell them to draw figures in action. It’s a mile away or cropped to the point that it’s meaningless. Tell them to draw a close up. They think it’s time to do a direct overhead shot of the room that mostly features the floor. Give them ref, they ignore it and make something up. Don’t give them ref and they complain.
Sigh.
I met Russ Manning at the Con in 1979, I think. I didn’t really have much of a chance to talk to him, just long enough to tell him how much I loved his work, how I relentlessly tracked down every issue of Magnus Robot Fighter. How many times had he heard that in the previous half-hour alone?
Anyway, just meeting him and shaking his hand was a great honor. He was very busy. Inundated by fans like me. He always took time to look at aspiring artists’ work and give them pointers and encouragement, so he was always mobbed.
Next year, I was at the Con again, as usual. I remember it had been a particularly long and tiring day. I was exhausted. As the show was closing, I dragged myself across the street from the old Convention Center to the Executive Hotel and shambled wearily into an elevator that was conveniently waiting. Or being held….
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