JayJay here. Jim is in the city all day today and hasn’t gotten today’s blog written. But when I was digging through old files yesterday, looking for those Marvel ad rate cards, I ran across some of my old logo sketches from our VALIANT days. I think I was able to do some ok designs in spite of Jim’s direction. Heh.In the very beginning of VALIANT we had a lot of discussion about the cover design and wanting to give the covers a distinctive look. I don’t think I have any of those very early cover designs, but there were many. Jim’s final decision was to make every logo into a box at the top of the cover. At the time I was opposed it, but as usual he was right. In his way. We weren’t winning any awards for graphic design, but you could spot a VALIANT book a mile away. Jim, the big picture guy, has consistently been able to see things on a whole ‘nother level from most people, me included.
More on Newsstand DistributionMob involvement? Well….
Anytime you have businesses holding monopolies in certain territories, like the linen business south of Canal, or the poster “sniping” business (putting up advertising posters on walls and fences) in Manhattan, garbage hauling in the New York metro area, or the parking racket—did I say racket?—I meant industry, around New York…
…or the periodicals distribution business…
…the notion of mob involvement has to cross your mind.
The founder and patriarch of Hudson News, Robert “Bobby” Cohen, was famously “connected” and “involved” with organized crime. Once he copped a plea on twenty counts of bribery in exchange for being sentenced to probation instead of prison time.
Fun Fact: Bobby Cohen’s daughter Claudia was Ronald O. Perelman’s second wife. Perelman had control of Marvel for a while, of course. After I was gone, by the way.
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| Claudia Cohen and Ronald Perelman |
During the early days of the Direct Market, Marvel’s V.P. of Circulation, Ed Shukin, a long-term veteran of the magazine distribution trade, made it very clear to me that among those we dealt with on the newsstand distribution side there were some pretty nasty characters, and he was openly concerned about the possibility of violent reprisals.
In the mid-1960’s, Mort Weisinger explained newsstand distribution to me. A publisher contracted with a National Distributor. DC Comics used Independent News, which was owned by the same parent company, National Periodical Publications. Through some strange circumstances I’ll explain later, Independent News also was Marvel Comics’ distributor.The National Distributor was like a bank as much as anything else. It financed the creation of the publishers’ magazines or comics by paying the publisher an advance based upon the anticipated sales of each issue.
The National Distributor arranged with local distributors to deliver to retail outlets. These local distributors, called Independent Distributor Wholesalers, or “ID’s” almost without exception had a monopoly in their city or region. Pittsburgh, for instance had Triangle News. If you bought a magazine or a comic book anywhere in the greater Pittsburgh area, Triangle News had gotten it to the point of sale. The New York area was a large enough market that it had Hudson News, Kable Media, and I don’t know, maybe more. At that time, there were, as I recall, more than 500 ID’s in the United States and Canada.
The National Distributor set “draws” for each ID, that is, how many copies of each given comic book or magazine would be shipped to them. The total of all the draws, plus copies to be sent to subscribers and office copies comprised the print run for each comic book or magazine. ID’s were seldom interested to participate in setting their own draws, and you’ll see why in a minute. Except, once in a while, an ID would decide to simply stop carrying comics, therefore making their draws zero, if you call that participating. Only very rarely did any ID’s request higher draws on any comic book, as many did with The Life of Pope John Paul II. We even got reorder requests from ID’s on that one.
Wise publishers did not accept the National Distributor’s draws and set the draws for every title for each ID themselves, based on past sell-through performance. Publishers, who were paying to print and ship those copies were a lot more careful. The idea of “order regulation” was to minimize waste—give each ID as many copies as they were likely to sell and a few besides, just in case the issue got hot for some reason.
I was fired by Marvel in April of 1987. Sometime in May, Marvel’s business affairs veep, Joe Calamari called me to ask for help.Marvel’s new owners, New World Entertainment (it was New World Pictures when they acquired Marvel, but they’d changed the company name) wanted Marvel to have a balloon and a float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Development of the balloon wasn’t going well. He wanted me to consult.
That sounded interesting. And, they were paying me….
I found out that Macy’s handles the construction of all balloons and floats. The sponsors contribute ideas or designs and approve the work. The balloon shop, where the prototypes were sculpted was in Jersey City, as I recall. The balloons were actually constructed in Ohio.
So Joe and I drove out to the balloon shop. On the way, Joe explained the situation. The character chosen for the balloon was Spider-Man. Marvel had provided reference to the Macy’s balloonatics, but Joe didn’t like what they’d come up with. He’d brought John Romita, Sr. in to advise them, but, he said that hadn’t helped. His assessment was that John (and comic book artists in general) were okay when it came to two-dimensional drawings, but just couldn’t deal with 3-D things, like balloons.
Joe Calamari is a very unusual person. He thinks and does some unusual things. I’ll tell you a few stories sometime.
Joe called me because, he said, I was always good with 3-D things, toys and such. All the licensees, for that matter. Okay.
JayJay here. I’m posting one of Jim’s answers to a comment as a mini-post since it’s kind of fun and about one of everybody’s favorite, but least known, Marvel Bullpenners.
czeskleba commented:A couple people have mentioned the old rumor that Ditko uses his old original art as cutting boards. Most likely that is an urban legend, based on Greg Theakston’s misunderstanding of what he saw at Ditko’s home. Here’s an insightful analysis of the claim by Bob Heer, which credibly debunks it: http://fourrealities.blogspot.com/2008/08/curious-incident-of-cut-artwork.html
The notion that Ditko would do that to his original art is not consistent with what I’ve read about him. He may not value money that much, or be motivated by it, but he certainly does not have contempt for his own past work.
ANSWER:
I submit this to the “cut-up artwork” speculations: When I worked briefly at Marvel in 1969, I was supposed to be an assistant to Stan — assistant editor, I guess. What I actually did was anything that needed doing. It was a small group, and everybody pitched in and did whatever was necessary. Therefore, I not only proofread, checked scripts, checked artwork and did “editorial” things, but I did lettering corrections, small pencil and ink corrections (once they found out I had marginal art skills) and…PASTE-UPS.
DEFIANT DitkoIn the summer of 1992, days after I was ousted from VALIANT, Frank Miller called me. He said he’d heard what they said. He asked me to tell him what really happened.
Frank was very sympathetic and supportive.
Not too long after that, I got a call from Steve Ditko. The new management at VALIANT had dumped him in a callous and demeaning manner (my characterization of the events, not his). And it sounded like it got to him. He sounded depressed. It must have been one harsh rejection. I’m not going to try to quote him, but for the first and only time to me, he said things about people hating his work. He sounded hurt.
Maybe I read too much into it, maybe I’m coloring it all wrong. Maybe Steve would deny the above. I don’t claim to know what was going on in his mind, but that’s what it sounded like, that’s what it felt like to me.
My turn to be sympathetic and supportive.
Not much I could do to help at that point.
But, after we hung up, I gave Frank a call. At that point, Frank was doing a lot of work with Dark Horse. I said, “I don’t know whether Mike Richardson would take my call, but I know he’ll take yours.” I suggested that Frank call Dark Horse Master and Commander Mike and tell him that right now would be a great time for to do a project with Steve Ditko. I thought it would cheer Steve up considerably to hear from Mike, if there was work to be had.
Frank, a good soul, called Mike. Mike is also a good soul, has abiding respect for Steve and his work and was happy to get a heads up about Steve being available. Mike called Steve. Dark Horse indeed, did something with Steve, although as previously mentioned, Steve is pretty strict about what he’ll do and what he won’t, so as I recall, it wasn’t a very extensive project. But, I suspect it felt good for Steve to get an offer right about then.
First This
JayJay the obstreperous Blog Elf yelled at me for not including a more personal story involving Steve Ditko Monday.
You know what? That’s just what I need in my life, more people yelling at me.
Here’s a picture of JayJay. She’s the mean-looking one at the bottom:
Anyway….
Here’s a Ditko at Marvel story that requires a set up.
Another “First Meeting” story
Bob Kanigher. In all my visits to DC’s offices from the mid-1960’s through the mid-1980’s, I never officially met Bob Kanigher. I walked past his office once, the door was open and he was in there. Whoever was with me, probably Mort Weisinger or E. Nelson Bridwell said, “That’s Bob Kanigher,” but he never even looked up from what he was doing.
I don’t remember which year, 1986, I think, DC Comics cut Kanigher loose. Thanks for everything, now, get out.
I first met Steve Ditko sometime in 1977. For the life of me, I can’t remember where.It might have been at Continuity, Neal Adams’ studio. Continuity was the crossroads of the comics industry. Besides the people who actually worked there, a lot of artists would show up looking for freelance advertising or storyboard jobs, which paid way better than comics. Some comics creators—Cary Bates, Jack Abel and Howard Chaykin come to mind—sublet studio or office space from Neal. Continuity was a Mecca for young artists. New kids trying to break into the business like Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz would turn up hoping that Neal would look at their samples and give them advice. Other comics people, like me, for instance, would show up once in a while to see someone who worked there, talk business with Neal or just hang around the crossroads for a while and catch up on the industry gossip.
As far as I know, Steve Ditko never worked there, but, like I said, almost everybody stopped by at some point for one reason or another.
Anyway, I met Steve, probably there. What an honor. I loved his work. When I was a kid I tried to emulate his style.
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| Drawing by Jim Shooter when he had just turned age 13 |
By the way, Neal was at his crusading best in those days, leading the fight to get Siegel and Shuster recognition and compensation for creating and establishing Superman—and winning. He also was one of the prime movers of the Comic Book Creators Guild. A story about the Guild which includes an anecdote involving Steve Ditko can be found here.
After I became Editor in Chief of Marvel in 1978 and therefore had the power to offer him work, I told Steve that if he ever wished to work for Marvel he was welcome. Anytime. He was a Founding Father. I couldn’t rectify all the past injustices (though I was trying), but I could and would keep our door always open to him.
David Michelinie’s check didn’t come. It was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, 1978, I think.Marvel Comics was still sorting out its payment procedures, which went through several changes during the first year I was Editor in Chief. You can read about it here and here.
The deal was supposed to be if your voucher was received by the cutoff day one week, your check would be mailed Monday of the next week. By Wednesday, surely, you’d have your check.
But, no.
Dave lived in Newark, Delaware. He called me at the office that Wednesday to…umm…gently express his…umm…disappointment? What’s the politest way to say murderous rage?
Most of us lived hand to mouth in those days. The business was struggling. Most of us were struggling. Dave was more responsible than most. A solid citizen. He owned a home. He managed pretty well, compared to some of us.
But he needed that check. It was the day before Thanksgiving. He had no cash and hadn’t been to the grocery store lately. What was he supposed to do, eat cat food for Turkey Day?
I looked into it. Somehow his voucher hadn’t made it into last week’s batch. Bookkeeping had put it aside because of some question about it.
Great.
I went upstairs and calmly, rationally, at the top of my lungs convinced the money tweezers to cut that check. Right now would be lovely.
QUESTION:
Dear Jim,
I hope this isn’t a silly question, but what differences do you see between comics writing and writing for TV or movies? Would you say that comic book story structure is less rigid and formulaic?
Pete Marco
ANSWER:
Writing for television means adhering to many strictures and limitations — things like building in a hook before each commercial break, obligations to performing talent, sticking strictly to the bible and staying within strict conceptual parameters. And more. The money is bigger, the stakes are higher. Therefore: There is very little tolerance for inflated egos and self-indulgent prima donnas. The supervision is rigorous and exacting. The people who write TV, almost without exception, know their craft and are skilled professionals. For most shows that accept pitches you have to be qualified and approved before you’re even allowed to pitch.