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Eight Men Twit.
2008-07-23 22:28:27
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-Brennan’s got a newly designed recap page for Spider-Girl and it looks great. From day one, I’ve tried to give our books better looking recap pages so they weren’t so skip-able. I personally hate huge blocks of text that un-invite me to read the comic and look more like homework. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, but even then, a well-designed page of text doesn’t feel like work to dig through.
-Check found!
-Still have to call Brian Reed with notes on last issue of SI: ASM.
-Anybody remember MARVEL FUN & GAMES? We should do that again.
-Script from Zeb Wells for upcoming issue of Amazing just came in. Nice to have him back for a bit.
-Typing up notes to production for ASM 568 variant. Longer notes than usual, but I want it to be right. Anthony is a champ, though.
-Late in the day usually gets quiet with fast typing click-clacks from all 4 desks. We’re all trying to get as much done as possible. My fingers feel frail as egg shells after today typing binge.
-Getting minivan inspected tonight. Yes, I own a mini-van, but don’t worry I only play hip-hop when I’m riding in it. Thanks for the tip, Axel!
-Cover proof of Captain Marvel Hardcover is in and…awww, man, Rosemann’s back. Loud as Ted Baxter.
-Okay where was I? Got that cover proof for the Capt. Marvel HC. Really proud of how that mini turned out. Working on the character’s connection to SI was one of the first suggestions I made publicly here, so I have a particular fondness.
-Andy Lanning is as all over my pages like Brevoort on a cookie. Another page from Mr. Dependable.
-I invited Zeb to NYC this weekend since he’s not going to con either. He responds immediately:
“I have a very real feeling that that would not help me dry out at all! And how about writing something witty and endearing about me on your Spidey Blog play by play?”
My impression is that only freelancers are reading this today. Hard to tell who’s your friend when you can pay release their checks!
When I was a kid , I used to give my “buddy” Darrell comics if he’d come over to play with me after school. I was quite the only-child chump. Soon I got a new friend who didn’t make me pay! So all hail Del McCormick wherever you are!
-I’ve been asked by talent management to stay late to discuss some scheduling stuff…but I gotta take my mini-van in! What do I do?!?!?!
-Aubrey's birthday is Saturday. I guess my invite is lost. Brennan's going. I always suspected sparks between those two.
-Jeanine just realized I'm doing this today. It's giggly time now that Brevoort is reading too.
-Phil's coming for lunch tomorrow as we discuss his next big top secret Spidey project. This current new-Kraven arc is only a taste of bigger things.
-Jeff Ortiz brings in some scans to Jeanine and check on server access.
-Reed is on phone. Giving him my usual genius notes. He really did a nice job on this. Keep an eye on him, entertainment judgers.
And that's it. My day is done and I still got one final meeting to go to. I'm exhausted from all this, so look for the next Spidey-blog entry in about three years
-Wacker
PS: Fish sleeps with the fishes.
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Seven Twits for Seven Brothers.
2008-07-22 16:25:05
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-Turns out CB bought the cookies, but apparently he meant them for the whole office (Me, Brevoort, Brennan and Jeanine). Brevoort chose to eat them all himself. What a pal!
-E-mailed Karl Kesel with good news.
-A couple weeks back Karl inked a very special MARVEL APES variant I’m thrilled to see.
-Freelancers treat you like you have a terminal disease when you say you aren’t going to the San Diego con.
“Awww…,” they say patronizingly, “…Well, not going is cool, too. You can have fun watching Brevoort eat your cookies.”
“Hmm...,” they think, “he must be on his way out if they won’t send him to a con.” Then they start being nice to my assistant just in case…
-Couple more check problems to clear up. I hate check problems. My first and foremost responsibility is to make sure people get paid and I hate it when it goes wrong, even if it’s a postal issue we couldn’t avoid. This will take a few minutes.
-Red light is blinking on phone. Sorry, whoever called.
-Finished another rate form. Eric grabs it from printer for me.
-Two pages of inks from that upcoming MS. MARVEL SPECIAL come in. They look good. Nice thin lines. My weak point as an editor…besides “everything,” ya wiseacres…is inking. I know when it works, but can’t always put my finger on “why” when it doesn’t. Janson wrote a good book about it that I’ve read twice.
-Brevoort checks messages on speakerphone and responds to voicemail lady as if she will hear him.
-The same lady that does Marvel’s voice mailboxes did DC’s voicemail too. Who are you, sexy-voiced lady?!?!?!
-New colorist keeps calling me “William” in e-mails, so I just start calling him Carlo to see if he corrects me. If he’s thinking I’m Rosemann, I’m quitting.
-Office is really cool considering how hot it is. Air condition has been fixed in the last year and now it’s delightful. It used to be so hot in this windowless Xanadu that Molly Lazer used to track the heat on a chart. See attached.
-I got your new Marvel Heroes Hot Spot, right here!
-The FTP is full. Drat.
-I tell Brev that the cookies were meant for everyone. He doesn't believe me. This is not a joke. He stands firm and mule-ish.
-Off to fill water bottle and make sure some checks get sent.
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Six degrees of Twit…
2008-07-22 15:31:05
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Six degrees of Twit…
-Lunch was Chinese with Brevoort. Conversation was more personal than usual since it was Just The Two Of Us (cue Grover Washington, Jr.).
I screwed up and called his son his step-son. Turns out he’s not a step-son. That was embarrassing. Lots of Marvel and comics history in general when you talk to Tom. He’s been here a long time and has an interesting, useful insight on just about everything and everyone involved with this business. He’s an executive editor, so I can’t really say he’s under-rated, but he’s a guy always worth hearing out.
My impression of his grunting was stolen from Aubrey Sitterson, a woman that used to work as his assistant.
-After lunch was the twice weekly stop at the Treat Truck which is just what it sounds like: a truck filled with treats. We pretty sure we keep that place open. When we got there, Kim, the owner of the truck says that someone already bought Tom’s favorite peanut butter cookies for him. Tom has never moved faster. I’d like to see him race Slott.
Hint to talent: You can pretty much get Tom to approve anything if it's accompanied by peanut butter cookie.
-I buy a chocolate chip cookie for Brennan as I am wonderful.
-Stopped by David Bogart who commends a comic my five year old son drew. Chris Allo stops in to give me a hard time about something. Both are now famous here.
-E-mails galore.
MARVEL APES logos coming later in the week from designer Rich Ginter. I’m trying something new and hope he can do it relatively easily.
Writer wants to deliver pitch next week since he’s busy with con. That’s fine. I’m sitting on a big pile anyway.
Scripts needed for other offices to read, so I send them.
-Lots of other private stuff and a bunch of reference. Usually I give reference requests to Brennan to handle, but sometimes he’s busy, so I just do it myself, like now.
-FISH IS CRITICAL Wife says it’s on its side barely moving and she’s devastated watching it die. I can’t believe this is happening on the day I do this blogging thing. What a narrative! (Always editing.)
Really makes you think about how short life really is…for a goldfish.
I’ll tell ya though, goldfish got more attention from my kids than I do! And I bring home a paycheck!!
-What’s Jen Grunwald doing today?
-I have to answer questions for website about artists going exclusive this weekend. Can’t wait for my words to be parsed within an inch of their life by Internet!
-Warren sends me e-mail I don’t understand. It reads “mean” to me.
-DING: new MS. MARVEL page arrived.
-REMEMBER: If you pull out a fish in Act One...
more later.
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Twit V
2008-07-22 13:50:39
Fifth entry. I know they’re out of order below, but I can’t fix the Internet.
-Looking at Marvel’s solicits now that they’re online. In one of them Brian Reed had written a crack about the title of “Secret Invasion: Amazing Spider-Man” being the longest title for a crossover mini, but the joke made more sense when the title was still: SECRET INVASION: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY. I changed it last week because it was too long. Now I ruined Brian’s joke. Sorry, Brian. (I have that last sentence on a loop)
-Those BIG HERO 6 covers look terrific!
-Invisible Woman is dead!?!
-Hulk sure looms behind other characters a lot. So does Loeb.
-I didn’t think about this at the time Mike drew it, but it’s sure hard to draw the Shocker as a Skrull.
-My poor office mates have to listen to any random thoughts that pop in my head.
-I love that Homer is writing for us. Maybe I can get Aeschylus for a MARVEL APES follow up one-shot. Is Aesop exclusive?
-San Diego slow down is starting. It’s always good to know which creators are NOT going to the convention, so you can get some work done. These dang cons eat up a week on either side of them.
-Go read Brevoort’s blog. I’m tired and hungry
-Answered an e-mail from yesterday. Joe Kelly needs a clearer picture of where Peter Parker’s roommate Vin is now.
-Brevoort is calmly nervous about ASM #567 getting out the door in time. I am the picture of calm. It will go out.
-Brevoort sighs and says, “Time for food”. We eat.
-It's 1:45
Twitter forth, young readers...
2008-07-22 13:04:45
Fourth entry
-17 new emails have popped up since I last checked 4 minutes ago.
-Warren just showed me a cover sketch for a comic of his that Spidey will appear in. That was nice of him since he didn’t complain about be me using Daredevil in Spider-Man…at least to my face.
-Received 2 more pencil pages from a top secret Spidey/X-men project by one of my favorite artists…who is faster than I ever imagined!
-Need a colorist for a cover, but our top tier exclusives are almost always booked. Juggling talent is a full time job in and of itself particularly since freelancers (for the most part) are understandably bred to not turn any job down. At Marvel we have Chris Allo along with CB and managing editor David Bogart doing their best to keep everyone’s schedule reasonable and make sure we don’t overbook people. Colorists are particularly difficult to manage because they’ve become extremely important to the overall quality of a book as technology as gotten better and the colorists themselves have gotten better.
Anyway, I gotta find someone good.
-My wife just called to say my kid’s fish died. Goldfish don’t live long. Another funeral tonight.
Lulu the Fish June 16, 2008 – July 22, 2008.
-I’ve never typed this much in my life.
-Wife just called back…the fish is alive! Now she’s spooked.
-E-mailed Stephanie Buscema about her MARVEL APES cover. She’s a wonderful new talent that I think you’re all going to be talking about soon. Good genes!
-Typed new rate sheet for new colorist. This goes to rate committee tomorrow.
-Wrote e-mail to one of my favorite writers seeing if they're interested in doing something over here.
-Just noticed that the first entry of this morning has disappeared. HEY RYAN PENAGOS! My words are sacred.
-To the guy who’s asking me to help fix Marvel’s message board: I got my own problems, pal!
-Was just e-mailed a reminder that LAST DEFENDERS #6 has to be out the door tomorrow. No problem. That was a fun little mini.
-MARVEL ZOMBIES 3 should have Human variant covers.
-I have a theme song for Lady Bullseye that I sing every time I see a drawing of her. Like all my theme songs it’s vaguely power rock-ish.
-Brevoort hands me back #568’s lead story. Now I have to read.
-Waid called.
It’s 1:01.
Twit!
2008-07-22 12:47:19
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A little experiment today.
As much as I can, I’m going to take you through a day at the editors’s desk and list as much as I can get away with in the order it happens. It will be nowhere near complete as there are always side conversations going on in this place, but hopefully it’ll giv you good idea of an average day. See ya on the other side…
-Turned on computer at 9:23. Dealt immediately with a colorist’s missing paycheck with accounting. Handled.
-Read fan e-mail that came in overnight.
-My Treo won’t charge correctly. Weird. The ability to check e-mail anywhere and everywhere is imperative to running an almost weekly book.
-Moved a new Adi Granov cover for ASM to production. All my e-mails to production now include a salute to Bullpen guru Omar Otieku who is leaving this week.
-Listened as new associate editor (and a former workmate of mine at DC) Jeanine Schaefer made a minor mistake. It’s a rare one for her, but for a moment, I am superior!
Having her here has changed this office that I share with her, Brevoort and my assistant Tom Brennan dramatically. About a year ago this place was Tom, Molly Lazer and Aubrey Sitterson, which was great for Tom, but now it’s all my people. Pity poor Brevoort. He’s in my house now.
-Brennan’s in. He was out sick yesterday. Please do not puke on me.
-Anthony Dial from production is back to explain to Jeanine how Marvel handles variant covers. She will be mad I’m typing this.
-Brennan’s in. It is 9:40.
-Talked to Klaus Janson, one of my favorite guys in comics and one of the most quotable. We worked out the schedule for ASM 572 and 573. We talked about Sting, who Klaus called Sting the Barack Obama of rock 'n roll. Whatever that means...
-More later...
-Wacker
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Twit the third!
2008-07-22 11:51:07
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-Longtime artist just sent in some new Spidey samples that I like.
-Warren Simons doesn’t like me too much. Good.
-2nd round of lettering for ASM #567 is in from Cory at Virtual Calligraphy. That guy is real hero of the Spidey books. Now I have to print it and compare to previous draft and Guggenheim’s new notes.
-Rosemann is at my desk loitering. Leave!
-Sending Slott art for the Waid/Granov backup to #568.
-Everyone who has any question about any old Marvel comic comes to Brevoort first. And he usually knows the answer. Right now he’s looking at WHAT IF #1 trying to figure out who penciled the cover. He knows Sinnott inked it and guesses Ron Wilson on pencils.
-CB Cebulski is now here, as excited to just be alive as ever. He’s a pistol. He stands to look at our three cover walls for anything new.
-In Spidey’s world every word that starts with “web” gets a hyphen.
-Tom’s blog entry for the day just got killed. It had a video of me and Jeanine in it. There are some legal concerns about it from the web guys.
-11:22. Still looking at ASM #567 proofs. Gotta hit things just right.
-Finished. Now I scan it and send a pdf to the writer with my notes.
In the case of Spidey, all the writers, plus Brevoort and Brennan see the first round of the lettering proofs for a particular issue and they each can give any feedback or notes. Then the writer and I go through everyone’s notes and add any of our own. At that point, it’s pretty much just the writer and myself working an issue into shape.
We’ll debate the merits of the changes we disagree on and every change won’t make the final cut. In 99% of cases though, I will bend to the writer unless it’s just so egregious that I just can’t do it because it blatantly goes against editorial standards or contradicts a major point of continuity. Generally though, this is all pretty easy if you just hire the right people. Which in this case, we did.
-Two new covers are in. We move them from the FTP to production where they size them appropriately for the colorist. We then move them to the colorist on the FTP. Who invented FTP?
-It's 11:47
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Twit too
2008-07-22 11:42:34
-E-mailed penciller of ASM SECRET INVASION that he could have another week on his deadline. He’s a new artist, and his stuff is getting better with every page that comes in.
-Exchanged quick e-mail with Joe Prado, the great Brazilian agent who handles much of the talent from that beautiful country including current MS. MARVEL artists Adriana Melo and Mariah Benes as well as Paulo Siqueira, who just got raves for his work on ASM #564.
-Brevoort is reading NOVA.
-Marco Santucci, the artist of ASM SECRET INVASION just e-mailed me back about the extra week and said, “Stephen... you are from now my best friend.”
He’s a native Italian speaker and I’m as backwards as they come, so I read all his e-mails like the Italian accents from '70s TV shows.
-I typed this.
-Brennan just showed me color for the SPIDER-GIRL #26 cover.
-Ben Morse at Marvel.com needs preview art for ASM #568 ("New Ways to Die") and LAST DEFENDERS #6.
-Two issues of MARVEL APES are now colored. This book is better than people are expecting.
-Read Gale’s notes on the b/w proof of #568.
-I need reference from a scene for AVENGERS/INVADERS. Sent intern Eric Harburn to get the GOLDEN AGE HUMAN TORCH MASTERWORKS.
-Seven pages of color for this week’s Spidey are now in. Go colorist go!!!
-Eric brought me SILVER AGE HUMAN TORCH ARCHIVE by mistake. That kid!
-I’m bummed the Cardinals lost last night after a great ninth inning comeback.
-Spidey cover from Luke Ross can now be uploaded
-“INTRODUCING TORO- Flaming Torch kid!” Wow. Times have changed.
-This story starts great. Panel 1: The kid’s on freaking fire! No wasted time.
-This kid’s parents are killed on a train and a strange couple just decides to adopt him in about 4 panels. No questions asked in Fall 1940. Kid sure forgot his parents pretty quickly too. Hope my kids aren’t this jerky.
-The cover to MS. MARVEL SPECIAL #2 can now be uploaded by inker.
-Our intern is the best intern in this place. Bar none. Sorry other interns around here, but you can’t beat the quiet get-it-done discipline of Eric Harburn…who is currently using bubble paper to wrap something
-It's 10:34
Today's teaser...
2008-07-15 12:14:00
From the malicious mind of Marcos Martin.
-Wacker
Edit Credits
2008-07-01 14:00:00
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I say all the time in the office that one thing I've learned about editors over the last 8 years or so is that we're really good at finding the problems in everyone else's books.
I'm no different and the thing that always brings me back to earth is flipping through the bundle of books we get each week from our dependable bundle distributor, Fenton Eng.
To me, the #1 absolute worst part of this job is flipping through my printed books because that's when i see all the mistakes I missed (like telling the colorist to color a night scene in ASM #562 when it's clearly referred to as "High Noon". Sigh. Sorry, Bob.)
Anyway with help from the Ancient Ones here in the Marvel offices, I was piecing together a list of everyone who has ever edited Amazing Spider-Man and here's what I came up with:
(In order...)
-Stan Lee
-Roy Thomas
-Len Wein (writer/editor)
-Marv Wolfman
-Gerry Conway
-Archie Goodwin
-Marv Wolfman again as writer/editor (Jim Shooter – consulting)
-Denny O’Neil
-Al Milgrom
-Tom DeFalco
-Danny Fingeroth
-Jim Owsley
-Jim Salicrup
-Danny Fingeroth
-Bob Budiansky
-Ralph Macchio
-Axel Alonso
-Stephen Wacker (Tom Brevoort - tells him what to do)
Pretty good list to be a part of. Certainly full of strong personalities if nothing else. I've met several of the names on here and have been around several others (though unfortunately not Archie Goodwin who everyone points to as one of the best ever).
Who's next? Could it be YOU! Why the next editor of Amazing Spider-Man might be reading this right now...though it's more likely he or she's working as an assistant editor in some other office here plotting my downfall. (I'm looking at you Daniel Ketcham!)
-Wacker
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About this blog:
Freshly spun news and previews from the office of the Amazing Spider-Man
 | About the author:
Editor "Simperin" Steve Wacker and assistant editor "Typin" Tom Brennan take time out from bringing you Amazing Spider-Man thrice monthly and indulge your need to know everything now!!! |
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