Seven Questions with KURT BUSIEK

This week, The Vault had a chance (through the magic of internet tubes) to interview Kurt Busiek about his various projects. Over the past three decades, Kurt has worked on a number of renowned series, such as Marvels, Untold Tales of Spider-man, Avengers, Thunderbolts, Kurt Busiek's Astro City and, most recently, Trinity. Plus, he recently launched his own website. That means we've got a lot of ground to cover in just seven questions, so let's see how we did.


1. You recently announced that Astro City is returning to a monthly schedule and that you’ve got a new series, Kurt Busiek’s American Gothic, coming out soon. What can you tell us about your plans for these series?

I don't want to tell too much -- I always like it when the audience finds out what's going on by reading the stories, instead of hearing about it on the internet. But what's next for ASTRO CITY is a 2-part Astra story, later this month, all about the night she graduates from college, and what happens then. After that, we have the 4-part finale to the epic-length DARK AGE project, then a special look at the Silver Agent, and that wraps up, we hope, the "specials and mini-series" era of ASTRO CITY. We'll go officially monthly at that point, with a story about the inner workings of Honor Guard. After that, we've got a story about the secrets of the N-Forcer program and a tell-all book, a larger story involving the origin of Winged Victory, involving Samaritan and the new Confessor, and even a story about a talking gorilla who wants to be the drummer in a rock 'n' roll band. And plenty more.

AMERICAN GOTHIC starts off with a number of single issue stories -- it's a series about magic all around us, in the modern-day real world, and we'll see a wide range of things from a vampire in Alcoholics Anonymous, a long-haul trucker driving the ghost of his late wife to her eternal reward, a night in the life of a tooth fairy, the exorcism of a murdered business, and more. After the opening batch of stories, we have a longer arc planned, about a young girl in a fishing village in Rhode Island that's fallen on hard times, and what happens when the Norse god Thor takes up residence on a nearby island. And again, plenty more.

With luck, we'll do it well and it'll all be fun.


2. Does your commitment to these books signal a change in emphasis to more creator owned works (like, maybe a new ShockRockets or Arrowsmith series?) or can we still expect to see you on Marvel and DC properties such as Superman? How about Alex Ross’s Project Superpowers?

My commitment to those two books, at least, means that'll be most of my workload. Two books a month is more than half of what I'm capable of, so I won't be piling on additional ongoing series, at least not at present. And I'll admit, after spending a solid year on the weekly TRINITY, I'm itching to do more creator-owned stuff, so I'm happy to be following that path for a while.

There is another ARROWSMITH project on my plate -- an illustrated novel -- that I'm working on slowly. And I expect I'll keep my hand in on the big-company characters -- I'm doing a project called BATMAN: CREATURE OF THE NIGHT that's a follow-up of sorts to SUPERMAN: SECRET IDENTITY, and I'm sure we'll be talking about that more when there's some art to show. No plans for me to work on PROJECT SUPERPOWERS, though -- but I did point out a 1940s superhero Alex wasn't aware of, and he's planning to get him into there somewhere, so I guess I've had some small effect on it.


3. Your recent work at DC -- the large, one-sheet Wednesday Comics and the weekly series Trinity – pushed the boundaries of traditional formatting and scheduling within the comic industry. How interested are you in exploring these more experimental formats and how do different formats affect your approach as a writer?

I like comics. I like the variety of forms comics can take, from something like the daily three-or-four-panel comic strip to massive original graphic novels, and I don't see any reason comics need to be in that same monthly 22-page format all the time. So yeah, I'm interested in other formats, provided they're a good format for the story I want to tell (and vice versa, I guess, since in both WEDNESDAY COMICS and TRINITY the story was tailored to the format). There are other formats I'd like to try -- downloadable weekly 7-page chapters, landscape format comics, original digests and more. If it's a way to showcase good comics, I'm interested in it.

As for tailoring work to different formats, that's key, I think. Whether it's a different page length, different page size, different frequency, it's going to affect things like the rhythm of the story, how much room you have to establish and explore things, where the cliffhangers and revelations fall, how much recapping you need to do, and more. So whenever I'm working an a new format, I mess around a while beforehand, trying to get a sense of what'll work best, what'll suit the story I'm telling, how to use the medium effectively for that format. It's good to have challenges, you learn a lot that way.


4. For my money, the epic Kang saga that finished your Avengers run was one of the greatest Avengers stories ever. Yet, none of the Earth shattering events in the book were referenced in any other Marvel title. What was behind the decision to have this story be completely self-contained in Avengers rather than a larger event?

It wasn't completely self-contained, actually. I know there was some connection to in in DEFENDERS, in a small ways, and I think Fabian brought it up in THUNDERBOLTS. But the decision was made to let everyone else know what was going on, and if they wanted to tie into it, they could. Fabian and I were the only ones who did.

It's always a difficult choice to make -- does the company force everyone else to turn their series into a piece of someone else's story, or do they allow creative freedom, and assume that the stuff you don't get to see happens in between issues somewhere? I've always disliked having to write someone else's story, which is why, whenever a crossover came up on a book I was working on, I preferred to be in the driver's seat (I'm thinking here of "Maximum Security" and "Live Kree or Die"). I'd rather be driving the bus than get run over by it. That's another reason I'm happy to be doing more creator-owned work these days -- both major companies seem to be doing lots of enforced cross-continuity, with big, sprawling, line-wide events, and speaking as a writer and a reader I prefer more self-contained material.

So while I wish more people had wanted to tie in to "The Kang Dynasty," I'm glad we didn't force them to. And glad you liked it so much!


5. Keeping with the theme of the mega-crossover, do you feel event books help the industry by spurring interest among current fans, or do they hurt by making books less accessible to new fans? How does a writer go about managing the impact a company event has on the stories they wish to tell in their own title?

Oops, I think I just answered that -- or at least some of it. I think event books clearly work, or are at least working at present, because the fans like them and buy more of them. I probably would have been really excited by that kind of thing when I was 15 or 16, myself, and certainly a lot of readers are excited about it these days. For myself, it's not to my current tastes -- I'd rather have a book be self-contained, which may be why I prefer series like FABLES and USAGI YOJIMBO and SAVAGE DRAGON to books that are constantly telling pieces of a story that may be happening in books I don't even buy. So it makes them less accessible to me, but it wins over other readers who get excited about it. Six of one, half dozen of the other. If it works for the publishers and brings them a bigger audience, that's what matters, and I'll find other stuff to read.

As to how a writer manages the impact, well, they need accurate information from their editor about what's going to be happening, because the impact may need to be written in their books before the events in the other books are published, so their "aftershock" comes out a month after the event, or whatever. It's the same process as keeping continuity from older books straight, with the added handicap that you can't always read the stories you're tying in to.

One writer I know was writing a book that was crossing over with a major event in a larger book, and the writer of the larger book was so late, the writers of the tie-in books were writing their issues two or three months ahead of him, and revising them when his scripts came in, which made for a lot of extra work and headaches, but the result turned out to read much better than you'd expect, from a process like that.

It's part of the landscape, I suppose.


6. As comics have become a source for more mainstream media like TV and film, more and more comic creators seem to be jumping to those industries. Do you have any plans do move from comics to other media, and are there any film or TV adaptations of your work in the pipeline?

I'd like to write novels as well as comics, and I'm working on that. But I don't intend to jump ship -- I like comics, and expect to keep writing comics for a long time to come. I like novels, too, so I'd like to do that, too. Movies or TV strike me as scarier, because the writer has so much less control. But if the right project came along, who knows?

As for adaptations of my comics work, there's nothing specifically in the pipeline. Film rights to one series have been bought, and there's interest in others, but the road from interest to an actual movie or TV show is a long and hard one, full of stumbling blocks and minefields. So maybe something'll happen, and maybe not. I try not to pay too much attention.


7. Lastly, what’s one specific storytelling technique you use that you could share with new creators to help them hone their craft?

A couple that I used while I was new to comics -- I used to take comics that I thought were particularly well-paced and actually write out an outline of what happened in them, panel-by-panel, kind of reverse-engineering a plot-outline from the finished work, so I could see more clearly how the writer had structured out the story, how much information he (or she) got on a page, where the story sped up or slowed down and why. I did a variant of this for Scott McCloud, too -- I wrote up a plot outline from an issue of AVENGERS that he hadn't read, and he drew that comic (very roughly, just storytelling layouts) from my outline, then went and compared it to the published comic to see how the actual artist had done it, and learn from the contrast.

There have also been times that I had to write a character with a tricky speech pattern, and I'd type out all their dialogue from several issues of whatever series they appeared in, to get the rhythms of it in my head. When I wrote an UNTOLD TALES OF SPIDER-MAN that was narrated by Mary Jane, I started each day by typing out all the MJ dialogue in ten issues of Stan Lee's run of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, just to get her "voice" down.

There are different ways of opening a scene, too -- start close on an action and pull back to reveal the scene, start with an establishing shot, zoom in on a particular set of characters, then cut to individual actions. One I'm fond of, particularly when there's a crowd of characters, is to start with a big roomy master shot that has everyone in it, and then zoom in to tighter shots of individual actions -- this means that first big panel is a pain to draw, but the artist only has to establish the crowd once, and the impression will carry over to the tighter panels.

But mainly I'd recommend people experiment, try all kinds of stuff, and see what works best for them and their own style.

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The Real Top 70 Marvel Covers: #60-51

We're counting down the real top 70 Marvel covers of all time as scientifically determined by yours truly. Of course, it's Marvel science, not real science, so there may be some unstable molecules involved in my thought process. Yesterday we counted down #70-61 and saw some great covers by legendary artists such as Jack Kirby, Jim Steranko and John Byrne. If that doesn't whet your appetite for today's smorgasbord of visual delights, I don't know what will; and don't forget, most of these you can click on to enlarge in order to drink in the goodness. And for a shortcut, here's the Real Top 70 Marvel Cover Master List.

On with the show!


60) Thor #126

Yesterday we brought you the cover of Thor #127; today it's #126 making an appearance on the chart. This mega throwdown between Thor and Hercules, but Jack "King" Kirby himself, was a great way to kick off Thor's new title -- this was the first issue after they dropped the Journey Into Mystery name and dedicated the book permanently to Thor. That helped clean up the design by removing the unnecessary textual clutter at the top; Kirby dynamism did the rest. This was part of a classic run on Thor that went on for several issues as Thor met and fought the Olympian pantheon and it brought out some of Kirby's best work. For another great cover that just barely missed our list, I recommend checking out the grandeur that is Thor #130.






59) Conan #24

This was the final issue of Barry Windsor-Smith's classic run on Conan, and what a way to go out. Voted by readers at the time as one of the top five covers of the year, this beautiful cover has only gotten better with age (and if you're wondering what cover beat it out in the vote, don't worry; that cover is on the list as well). Smith's excellent line work and tremendous attention to detail is balanced by the striking use of color here, making this one of the most visually appealing of his many great Conan covers.










58) Fantastic Four #112

Well, it's the Thing vs. the Hulk and as the cover says, that's about "'NUFF SAID". I will add, however, that the all-black background really makes this cover, but it doesn't necessarily make this cover unique; Thing had previously shown up on an almost identical cover a couple years earlier over on Sub-mariner #8. To be honest, I think the Sub-mariner cover is slightly more dynamic, as I like the angle and poses better. However, this cover has Hulk instead of Namor and that pretty much makes the difference for most fans. a striking and well remembered cover to be sure, rendered nicely by John Buscema. Interestingly, Buscema also did the cover for Sub-mariner #8 and would revisit this basic design idea -- heroes fighting each other on a black background -- several other times to even better effect, as we will see later in this countdown.





57) Iron Man #76

Ari Granov brings us this iconic image from 2004. Of all the covers on this list, Iron Man #76 is probably the least well known among comic fans in terms of the actual cover. It's particularly interesting, then, to note that this image is probably also the most well known and famous of all the images on this list among non-comics fans. That, of course, is due to the fact that the ubiquitous poster for the blockbuster hit film Iron Man was a exact recreation of this cover, only photographed. As it happens, though, the original cover is pretty awesome in its own right.









56) Alpha Flight #12

John Byrne shows up for what is certainly not his first or last cover on our list. It is, however, the only one that features Alpha Flight. Here, Byrne uses the classic comic motif of a character appearing inside a gun sight and stretches it as far as it can go. Add to that the blinding neon background and you have a cover that is both memorable and instantly recognizable for a legion of comics fans -- and that's without even mentioning the famous story inside the comic. Yes, believe it or not, Alpha Flight was once actually cool.










55) X-Men #136

Speaking of John Byrne and recurring cover motifs, here's another pieta image, this time featuring Cyclops and Dark Phoenix. This storyline is so well known that it can be a bit difficult to separate the importance of the story from the importance of the image. Several other covers from this era came close to making the list as well (and some will in fact show up later). I don't want this to be the Top 70 John Byrne X-Men covers, but you do really have to hand it to Byrne and inker Terry Austin, because they were on a serious roll.









54) Marvels #3

Alex Ross and Kurt Busiek blew the doors off Marvel with this series and of all the images and covers they produced, this is by far my personal favorite. As it happens, that sentiment is shared by... well, just about everyone. Not only is this a great image that sums up the entire X-Men milieu, it may be the coolest appearance of Angel ever. Just a great, great cover. I also want to add that the design of this comic -- with the acetate overlay so you can see the image with and without the logo -- is fantastic. I prefer it with the logo, but having the option is nice and looks slick to boot.









53) Avengers #223

Remember that one time when I said that everyone seemed to love Marvels #3? Well, truth be told, some people do like other covers on Marvels better. However, this issue of Avengers is a case where there really is a vast and silent majority of people who just love the cover. Done up but good by Ed Hannigan and Kalus Janson, this image may be the best known cover for either Hawkeye or Ant-Man, which is pretty good considering it fronts what is essentially a fill-in issue (but a really, really cool one). Of all the covers in Marvel history that did not make it onto their official list, though, there were probably more comments across the internet asking about the absence of Avengers #223 than any other cover, which I think came as a surprise to everyone. This is one of those covers where you love it, but you assume it's just you so you never really talk about it. Well, it's not just you -- this cover really is an all-time classic.



52) Marvel Mystery Comics #44

Arguably the most legendary cover artist of the Golden Age, Alex Schomburg was particularly known for his intensely busy and detailed war covers, featuring the Human Torch and the other Marvel characters going into battle against legions of enemies. While any of these might be worthy for inclusion on a top cover list, it's the cover of #44 that really stands out and is possibly his best known image. This is thanks to one thing: the Super Plane. It's just the kind of awesome idea a kid reading comics would go ape over, and evidence tells us that this was one of the most memorable images of the series for readers at the time. Not only is the Super Plane cool, though, it also gives Schomburg a single, central design feature to focus on, which is what really makes this cover stand out from his other great (but busy) works.




51) Captain America Annual #8

Mike Zeck strike again with this great shot of Wolverine fighting Captain America. These guys look like they mean business, and the stream of sparks trailing from Wolverine's claws is just a great detail. I'm not sure Zeck could draw a bad Captain America cover and this is no different; these guys really look like they mean business. Just a cool cover.












Tomorrow: Numbers #50-41 hit like an eyeball hammer! Alex Ross! Walt Simonson! Frank Miller! See you then.

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The Real Top 70 Marvel Covers: #70-61

All week long we're counting down the Real top 70 covers in Marvel history as determined by a panel of experts: me, myself and I. So let's get right to it; there's a lot of classic art to see. P.S. -- Click on the images for larger versions.

And for a shortcut, here's the Real Top 70 Marvel Cover Master List.


70) X-Men #50

It's only fitting that we kick off our countdown with this classic from Jim Steranko, because we're going to be seeing an awful lot of him over the next week. Not only is this a very striking cover thanks both to Steranko's pencils and the mono-green color scheme; it's also the debut of the classic X-Men logo which has adorned the title ever since. The designer of that logo? Jim Steranko, of course.











69) Web of Spider-man #32

The Death of Kraven the Hunter is one of the most acclaimed stories in Spider-man history, and one of the most memorable aspects are the great covers from Mike Zeck, who, like Steranko, will be popping up several more times on this list. Zeck is interesting because I think his cover work is better than his interior work; his strong sense of design can be overwhelmed by his stylization when smaller panels are involved. This, though, is a classic image and a bit of a personal favorite.










68) X-Men #114

John Byrne makes the third artist in three entries who has multiple covers represented on our list. It will be no surprise to anyone, of course, that many of these covers are from his legendary stint drawing X-Men. This cover is a bit unusual for superhero comics, as it emphasizes mood and emotion over action and dynamism. It's also got Beast, who was on the Avengers at the time and was apparently slumming for an issue with the X-people.











67) Captain America Comics #57

It's unfortunate that Golden Age comics are so hard to afford, because many younger readers have never even seen these covers much less read the stories inside. Captain America Comics #57 features one of the best known Golden Age covers from Timely, a great symbolic cover from Vince Alascia, just one of the hundreds of great Golden Age creators who have been all but forgotten.












66) Moon Knight #23

Bill Sienkiewicz brought a new artistic sensibility and sophistication to Marvel that was both ahead of its time and perfectly suited for moody, dark books like Moon Knight. As a kid I wasn't much of a fan of his work, because it was too arty to really allow me to get into the stories. As an adult I can appreciate his work a lot more. But both kid and adult versions of me love his covers, especially this great image from Moon Knight #32, one in a run of great covers he turned in on the title.










65) Thor #127

The pieta style cover has been around in comics basically as long as there have been knowledgeable artists working in the field. One of the earlier and best known examples is this Jack Kirby cover from Thor #127, which also benefits from being the front piece for a well known storyline. While the impact of the cover may have been dulled slightly by more recent takes on this classic pose (one of which appears later on our list), it's still an iconic image from the Silver Age of Marvel.










64) New Mutants #39

Art Adams occupies an interesting spot on Marvel art history. In many ways he can be seen as a vital link between earlier artists like Mike Ploog and Michael Golden --who fused a loose, cartoony sense of design with tight, highly rendered line work -- and later megastars like Todd McFarlane and Jim Lee, who took those developments and ran with them all the way to the bank. For my money, Art Adams was a perfect hybrid of these styles and for a time was the single coolest artist in the business. He later began doing more cartoony stuff that I didn't like quite as much, but one of the pieces he put out during his heyday was this cover to New Mutants #39, which remains one of the most memorable covers in comics to a whole generation of young boys who had the image seared into their brains on first sight.





63) X-Men #1

Speaking of Jim Lee, here he is with his giant gatefold cover to X-Men #1. The very existence of this comic is a tribute to the star power of Lee's art, as he proved so popular they needed to market him in two different X-Men comics at once. This remains perhaps the best selling comic book in the history of the world, even if two-thirds of the copies sold are sitting in forgotten piles in the basements of angry speculators. Everybody who read comics in the 1990's was familiar with this image.



62) Daredevil #1

You have to give it up for this cover: it really is pretty awesome. It's also of special importance to the development of Marvel and the comic book industry as a whole. Drawn by Joe Quesada, the success of this title and the other Marvel Knights books turned over to Quesada and partner Jimmy Palmiotti paved the way for Quesada to eventually become the editor in chief of Marvel, a position which he still holds today. And it was this cover to Daredevil #1 that kicked it all off.










61) Secret Wars #8

Of all the covers on this list -- and maybe in Marvel history -- Secret Wars #8 might have the stupidest cover text. Mike Zeck is back for his second go-round on the list, with the issue that introduced the world to Spider-man's black costume. The costume and the cover are undoubted fan favorites, though I prefer the Web cover that I listed at #69 to this somewhat less exciting pose.












Tomorrow: We count down #60-51. More Jack Kirby! More Golden Age Timely! More pieta covers! And an image that's probably better known among non-comic fans than anything else on the list appears on a cover you may never have seen!

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The Real Top 70 Marvel Covers

To celebrate their 70th anniversary, Marvel recently held a vote on their website to determine the top 70 covers in their long and storied history. After a period of voting, where fans were presented with a group of choices and also given the option to nominate their own selections, they tallied the votes and revealed the selections. And the results were, well, pretty much inexplicable.

That’s not to bag on Marvel; if that’s the way the fans voted, then that’s the way they voted. However, for many people it seemed more like a list of personal favorites rather than an attempt to identify a consensus top 70 cover list. Some of the choices were truly bizarre – you have to wonder just who loves Avengers #169 enough to start a voting campaign for it – while others are nice but ultimately forgettable recent releases. After seeing Marvel’s list, then, many readers including myself were left wondering what such a list would look like if Marvel hadn’t put it to a vote but instead had objectively selected the covers themselves. In other words, this is a nice popularity poll of the Marvel website community, but what would an expert in art and Marvel history choose?

Well, folks, you’re in luck, because we’ve recently tracked down just such an authority: me, Scott Harris. Sure, I’m not technically speaking an expert on Marvel or cover design per se, but I do have my own website, and in this day and age that automatically qualifies me as an expert on whatever subject I choose to address. And while I think Marvel’s list isn’t altogether terrible – about half of their covers are probably worthy, though maybe not in the order they appear there – it certainly could stand to be revised a little.

Accordingly, then, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time pouring over cover galleries and other resources in order to figure out what the real top 70 Marvel covers list should look like. When making my determination of whether a cover should make the list, I looked at a few factors:

1) Iconography. Some covers have transcended the actual image on the cover or the importance of the story within the comic to become iconic images. This can happen for several reasons – the first appearance of a major characters, the story within the comic, the issue’s collectability or just the beauty of the art itself – but the result is that the cover has become iconic not just to readers of that book, but to comic fans in general and in some instances to the public at large. If I felt a cover was iconic, I gave it more consideration than other covers of similar design or attractiveness that are not as well known.

2) Importance. This ties in to the first criteria, but some stories are so important for one reason or another than the cover image becomes important as a result. When researching the choices, there were some covers that I personally didn’t feel were particularly great images or designs but which other comic fans cited over and over again as being a top cover primarily due to the importance of the events in the comic. Many first issues, first appearances or character deaths fall into this category.

3) Popularity. No, it shouldn’t be the end all and be all like it was on the “official” list, but how popular a cover is directly ties in to some of the other factors here. What makes a cover iconic or memorable, after all, is mainly the visceral response it (and the story inside the book) provokes in the reader. So while I don’t personally love all the covers on the list, I did try to incorporate other opinions and spent a good deal of time reading different messages boards and studying the official list to see just which covers really are widely popular and which are just personal picks.

4) Art and Design. Some covers aren’t necessarily important or iconic but are so beautifully drawn that they merit inclusion on the strength of the art and design alone (though it should also be noted that some covers have also become iconic solely because of their artistic merit). Of all the criteria for my list, this is the most subjective and there are a handful of covers on my list that are basically personal preference. I tried to be as objective as possible when compiling this list, but art defies objectivity, so this cannot and perhaps should not be avoided. Whenever a cover made it on to my list solely through personal preference it will be noted in my comments.

So there are the guidelines I set out for myself. Over the next week, I will be counting down the real top 70 Marvel covers according to these criteria, revealing 10 new choices every day with images and commentary. Tune in tomorrow for the first part of the countdown and I hope you enjoy the list and the discussion. But if you disagree, please keep one thing in mind: I’m an expert in these things.

It says so right on my website.




Update: Here's the full list for you, broken down into easily digestible bite-size chunks: #70-61, #60-51, #50-41, #40-31, #30-21, #20-11, The Top Ten and The Epilogue, wherein I explain my choices and defend myself against the crazies in this world. And here's the Master List.

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Game Review: Madden 2010

You know, some people just enjoy punishment. Or maybe enjoy isn’t the right word, but there’s a certain guilt that people have that drives them to seek penance, and for some this leads them to debase themselves in all manner of degrading ways. Personally, I’ve never understood this, but last week I discovered myself unintentionally participating in one of the most severe acts of contrition you can undertake. So let me give you this bit of advice: if you ever feel the need to undergo public humiliation, there can be no more complete a venue than trying to win games in Madden 2010 as the Detroit Lions.

Yes, it’s fall and that means the return of America’s most gripping obsession. No, not football, silly – simulated, video game football. And the undisputed dominatrix of the genre is John Madden, who for years has provided casual football fans with just the kind of whippings they’ve deserved. But after playing the newest version for a week, I should warn you: this year, there is no safe word.

Okay, that’s probably taking the metaphor too far (or… not far enough… hmm) but the fact remains that while Madden remains the best football video game in the world, and possibly the best sports video game period, 2010 may have gone just a little overboard trying to top itself. Every year the game adds more and more features in an attempt to both remain fresh and also become as realistic as possible. Madden has said in interviews that part of his intention is to make this as much a football simulator as a game – i.e., he hopes it can actually be used as a teaching tool for people learning the intricacies of the game.

Well, it certainly succeeds on that front. The only problem is, unless you are a hardcore Madden player or a literal student of the game, like an offensive coordinator or something, chances are you’re going to have a harder time playing this version of Madden than you did with earlier iterations. One example can be found in the reworked audible system. In years past, I have done my best Peyton Manning impersonation – line up, check the defense, then audible to one of the three plays preset for such a situation. That took a bit of knowledge about football and some gaming skill, but you don’t need to actually be Peyton Manning to pull it off.

Now, though, when you hit the audible button, a giant menu of different plays pops up, closer to a dozen than three. And you certainly don’t have time to actually check what those plays are, because when you come out of the huddle now (in games against the computer, that is), the timer will speed ahead to 15 seconds left on the play clock unless you are in a situation where you can run down the game clock as well. This means that you have to read the defense, decide to audible, hit the correct play and have your guys shift positions in 15 seconds – and you have to have memorized all dozen different audible calls in advance in order to select the right one.

Now, again, for those hardcore Madden fanatics like the dudes who play it on ESPN for money, this is probably another evolutionary step towards one day actually fusing Madden with real football players somehow. It’s great for the dedicated. But for casual players who just want to bang out a few tough yards in Shawn Merriman’s bloated roid face, it’s a frustrating experience. So too is the tweaked defensive AI, which now excels at reading the quarterback, meaning even if you have Reggie Wayne in single coverage with no help over the top, having Manning throw it deep isn’t going to result in a long gainer but rather is more likely to be a pick. Maybe not if the DB is Ellis Hobbs, of course, but more often than not, which makes it pretty difficult for a casual player to beat the D.

That’s not to say there aren’t some nice improvements this year. The designers have tweaked the rating system for each player so that there’s a bigger gap between A level stars and C level journeymen. And besides the sims actually looking like the real players, then, they play like them too. For example, every single game I played ended up with Joseph Addai getting sidelined due to injury, so score one for the dev team. It’s almost more realistic than the NFL itself.

Some of the other changes are also reasonable. In Franchise Mode, for instance, it’s no longer a simple task to bilk the AI teams out of their best players for pennies on the dollar; the trade system has been beefed up so that the other GMs aren’t all Matt Millen level executives. And the best change is probably is at the line of scrimmage; now when you check to see what routes your players are running, there are decoy routes you can select instead so the person you are playing against can’t easily defend your play calls.

This year also marks the first year the Madden doesn’t do the play calling; instead, it is handled by Chris Collinsworth and some other dude. Collinsworth is pretty good in the booth and I think is a good choice overall, though there are some glitches in the audio track. For instance, if you have the Ask Madden feature up to help you with play selection, Madden and Collinsworth will sometimes talk over each other, making it seem as though Tony Kornheiser is also involved. Also, it’s clear that some of the bits of dialogue are standard and then are mixed and matched to whoever you are playing at the time, meaning Collinsworth sometimes ends up praising complete a-holes like Philip Rivers in a way that no self-respecting journalist or football fan ever would.

Overall, then, it’s a nice enough package, but unless you have the time and interest to really devote yourself to the game, chances are you’ll be better off sticking with an earlier version of the game and letting the real NFL handle the business of serious football.


My Grades: A- for being the best sports game around, but a B for actual playability. At best.

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Tales From the Vault: LOIS LANE #137

Details: This is the final issue of Lois Lane, with a publication date of September, 1974. There are two stories, the first being credited to Cary Bates with pencils from John Rosenberger. Man, I love his work with Pixar. The second story has the same art team of Rosenberger and Vince Coletta, with writing from J. David Warner.

Synopsis One: First up is "The Stolen Subway!" I should say that Lois looks very cute in the vintage early 70's fashion; this was a good era for her. Anyway, Lois and Clark are leaving a diner when an old man staggers out of the subway with a look of terror on his face and drops dead, so apparently he’s been on the Q train. His girlfriend then rushes up and explains that he's only 21 even though he looks 60. Lois and Clark are like, "weird", then pretty much leave. Life in the heartless city.

Later on, at the Daily Planet, Perry gives them an assignment to go out and find a story. It's a competition and whoever finds the best one gets a bonus. Lois of course rushes out to search for a story while Clark… turns into Superman so he can use his powers to find a story faster. So, in other words, he's going to use his powers to cheat in order to get ahead of his coworkers. Wow, Supes, dick move.

Lois decides to investigate the subway thing, because now that she’s getting paid she suddenly cares. Stumbling around the subway, Lois suddenly comes across a dead shark and none other than the Old Soldier!!!. Wait, no. Wrong comic book, sorry. Actually, she finds an empty subway car, which in New York is probably less likely than the dead shark thing. Suddenly, though, it shoots out of the station and up into the sky, so fast that Lois blacks out from the G force. Dammit, I just knew they’d jack up the effects on the remake of Pelham 1 2 3.

Superman sees this and chases after it but even though he's supposedly as fast as Flash, he can't catch up to a flying subway train. Inexplicably he then decides that the train has taken her to an alternate dimension, so he beams himself into an alternate dimension to look for her. I'm not sure how he just goes dimension hopping whenever he feels like it, but I guess that's Superman in the 1970's. Also, I have to say I think his methodology is suspect here.

Meanwhile, Lois wakes up and discovers that she has, of course, been kidnapped by hyper intelligent dinosaurs. She seems strangely unfazed by this and asks them what they want. They tell her that the whole thing with the dead kid was an accident, he just got scared of telepathic dinosaurs form another dimension, which, yeah. Okay, I can buy that.

Then they launch into this weird story about how their dying planet had sent out arks millions of years ago and they are trying to track these survivors down now that the danger has passed. Lois is like, "well, the ones that landed on Earth ate each other and now we show their bones on the Discovery Channel". Their response is fairly benign, as they just warn her that the human race should shape up or else they too will follow the way of the dinosaur. Which apparently means... that they will become intergalactic, pan-dimensional superbeings. You know, I have to say that as far as warnings go, that one is pretty mild.

They then beam Lois back to town where she and Clark both tell Perry that they couldn't find anything.

THE END!

Synopsis Two: Next up is another slice of classic 70’s Americana. It starts with Lois interrupting a gang of thugs (one of which seems to be wearing a zoot suit; I told you it was classic) who are trying to kill a couple old people. Wouldn’t think it would be that hard, but Lois intervenes and uses some jiu-jitsu to clobber one of the gunmen. Strangely, all the thugs recognize her instantly as Lois Lane, Girl Reporter, so I guess they are fans of her column? They don’t seem like it, though, instead deciding to plug her. Superman shows up just then, as he tends to do, and saves her.

Lois then learns that the old couple are being strong-armed because they refuse to leave their house. In gratitude for her do-gooding, they present her with, er, an extra houseplant they had lying around, which Lois accepts as though it’s not the dumbest thing she’s ever seen. Instead, Lois decides this would make a great story for her friend Melba’s TV show (the strong-arming, not the houseplant) so the next day they head back for an interview.

However, more thugs show up and blast the old lady right in the choppers! Whoops. Lois fights back, but a goon gets the drop on her. Luckily, Melba rescues her by lassoing the guy with her microphone cord, leading to this line from Lois:
“Thanks, Melba! You’re a groovy gaucho!”

Good one Lois. Sigh. Anyway, the mob boss behind the attacks has finally had it, so he personally heads into the basement of the apartment building and sets up some big bombs. Then, he detonates them. Lois and Melba and the old people are all killed.

THE END!

No, actually, Superman shows up out of nowhere – after the bomb has gone off, mind you – and with his super speed he rebuilds the entire building around Lois and Melba in such a way that nobody is injured. Even more, he does it so fast and silently that the mob boss, who is standing in the street, doesn’t even notice it. He’s so busy gloating that he doesn’t realize the building has rebuilt itself ten feet behind him. Hm. That’s a lot of gloat.

Finally, he and his goons notice what happened and decide to get even by killing Superman, which, good luck. One goon shouts this:

“Superman! He’s human… blast him!”

Hey buddy, let me know how that worked out for you. Also, he’s totally not human. How widely known is Superman’s alien origin, exactly? I figured it was a matter of public record, but maybe not? Anyway, turns out the old woman is only injured and not dead since this isn’t a Geoff Johns comic. Not only that, but Superman decides to actually upgrade the apartment building while he’s fixing it, turning it into a bunch of high-end garden apartments. In other words, for the first time ever, Superman actually uses his powers to help improve people’s lives. About damn time.

THE END!

Extras: Interestingly, the letter column at the end tells people to tune in for future issues to see upcoming changes. Which is a bit odd since this is the last issue, but on the other hand, that is a pretty big change. I wonder how many middle-aged women are still going down to the market every day looking for Lois Lane #138?

My grades: B+ for camp value, A+ for pan-dimensional dinosaurs, F- for Superman being an overpowered wanker.

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Breaking the Fourth Wall: Episode 6

Yesterday I discussed some strategies for developing properties and pitches. Which is great, but by now you’re probably wondering if I've actually been doing any of these things or if I'm just talking out my ass. Get to the point already, Mr. Writer Guy! God.

Very well then. As I mentioned yesterday, Antarctic Press is one of those companies I have identified that accepts writing proposals; there are a few others, but many of them have guidelines that require significantly more work that a standard proposal. To start out with, then, I’m going to focus on those three companies I’ve identified whose guidelines I find the simplest and most direct: Antarctic Press, Dark Horse Comics and Insomnia Publications.

One thing that is helping me is that, prior to the beginning of my research, I brainstormed about a dozen concepts for stories which could work either as finite or ongoing series. Once I identified my target publishers, then, it became a matter of figuring out which ideas suited each publisher best based on my research and then developing an appropriate pitch targeting that company.

For Antarctic, I actually had a pitch that I had originally developed some time ago that fit them perfectly. Not only was the subject matter similar to what they usually specialize in – i.e. manga and anime influenced adventure – the series itself was structured to being with a two-issue stand alone story. This is important because as I mentioned yesterday, Antarctic prefers to publish short tryout series before considering ongoing properties. So in order to tailor this existing pitch to Antarctic, basically I just had to write it up according to their guidelines and lop off everything except that first story; instead of a pitch for a series, it became a pitch for a two issue tryout. As we follow the progress of my various submissions, we’ll call this the Manga pitch and, like the other pitches I’m about to describe, I submitted it back on August 20.

The second publisher is Insomnia Publications. This one I had a little more trouble with, partially because I wasn’t familiar with their titles prior to beginning my research but also because of their formatting. As an independent British publisher, Insomnia targets the secondary market – i.e., they don’t put out monthly issues like most U. S. companies but instead specialize in graphic novels and book-size, complete stories. The problem I faced here is that, once I took a look at their library of titles, I realized that the story that was best suited for them from a content standpoint wasn’t one I could fit into their publication format; it was a finite story, but no matter how I finessed it, it was just too long. In the end I compromised and sent them a pitch for a series of graphic novels, as I think I could squeeze the entire story start to finish into 4 or 5 trades. It’s not optimal, and I’m working on another pitch for them that better fits what they want in total, but we’ll call this pitch the Dystopian pitch. One other side note about Insomnia: they accept submissions online, via email, which doesn’t necessarily cut down on the turnaround time but makes it a lot easier from my standpoint as someone submitting. So that’s a plus.

Lastly, we have Dark Horse. Dark Horse is, of course, one of the largest and most respected comic publishers. While their sales distantly trail Marvel and DC, Dark Horse has become kind of the HBO of comics, offering high quality alternative programming in a number of genres other than straight superheroics. They also have a fairly comprehensive set of submission guidelines, which is good; the more information you have about what the publisher wants, the easier it is to craft a presentation that will appeal to them. Overall, of the companies I have researched so far, I like Dark Horse’s format the best, as it encompasses most of the major details of a pitch without being ridiculously time consuming.

In general terms, they ask that you send in a series overview along with a plot summary for the first several issues (if it is an ongoing) and an eight page script sample that covers the beginning of the first issue (again, for ongoing series; they have different guidelines for other formats). While I spoke yesterday about the importance of crafting not just your pitch but the story itself for the specific publisher you are targeting, another viable option would be to craft your pitches as though they were going to Dark Horse and then alter it to fit different publishers. The reasons for this are that a) Dark Horse publishes a wide variety of genres, so whatever the story is they would be a reasonable destination and b) their submission guidelines are broad enough that they eclipse what most other companies require, meaning you can edit down from Dark Horse to meet other guidelines rather than having to add material. This may sound like it runs counter to my statement at the beginning that other publishers ask for more work than these three, but in most of those cases it’s in one specific area (for example, one publisher asks that you script the entire story before submitting it rather than just sending the beginning as a sample; the chances of them actually reading the entire script if they don’t like the beginning is exactly zero, so I’m not sure why this is necessary).

As I tend to prefer larger scale, ongoing stories rather than either mini-series or one shot graphic novels, I have to say that the pitch I sent to Dark Horse is my favorite of the three I submitted in August. It also is right in their wheelhouse in terms of the type of non-superhero adventure books they like to publish, so we’ll just call this one the Adventure pitch. One drawback of Dark Horse’s current submission policy is that they only respond to your pitch if they are going to buy it; they don’t send out rejection letters or anything else. This makes it a bit difficult to know when they have reviewed it, which is important for the purposes of submitting it to other publishers. I personally don’t like doing simultaneous submissions and I know most companies also frown on this, so this could potentially lead to problems. That would only happen if Dark Horse and a second publisher both wanted to buy the project, though, so in those terms the problems would be only positive in nature and I guess I’ll be happy to deal with that if it happens.

To recap, then: so far I've sent out three full scale submissions, one each to Dark Horse, Antarctic and Insomnia, which we'll refer to in the future as the Adventure pitch, the Manga pitch and the Dystopian pitch. My plan going forward is to continue developing new pitches to submit to these and other publishers; and if any of these get rejected, I'll simply reformat the pitch and submit it to one of the other publishers. The idea is to get as many plates spinning as possible and as soon as I hear back on any of these, you'll be the first to know, so feel free to play along at home. After all, we're in this together.


Next time: So, we’ve sent out our submissions. Now what? Well, there are some companies that take submissions from writers only after they’ve reviewed a writing sample. Next time we’ll discuss some of these publishers and just what goes into crafting a writing sample as opposed to a full pitch.

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Breaking the Fourth Wall: Episode 5

Over the past few weeks I’ve discussed some of the background behind my current attempt to break into the comic industry as a writer. Now, however, it’s time to get into the meat of it a little bit as I discuss how you go about getting published these days and where I am in my own efforts.

As I’ve mentioned before, there aren’t a lot of comic book publishers these days who look at writing submissions. One of the driving forces behind this trend is the internet. Thanks to both online comics and the way the internet has made self-publishing viable from both cost and time perspectives, many comics book publishers feel that there is a large pool of proven talent available; instead of having people send in samples to try to prove they can do comics, the idea is that you can prove it by actually doing comics. Plus, many publishers are just that – publishers. They are looking to print and distribute finished products rather than develop talent and create properties from scratch.

In other words, most publishers are putting the onus on the writer to become their own editor and producer, and once the comics are done, then the publisher will look at it and decide it they want to hire the writer or publish the comic themselves. This is perfectly reasonable from their point of view, but for writers who just want to concentrate on their writing it can be a bit of a hurdle.

It’s certainly not insurmountable, however. For the purposes of this exercise, then, we’re going to go ahead and ignore these other self-publishing options and focus on what opportunities there are for writers in the current market. In order to give yourself the best chance to break into the business as a writer there are two main things you need to do: research publishers and tailor your submission to fit their needs. Let’s take a look at what I mean and how I used these concepts to shape the actual submissions I have sent out so far.

Research Publishers

This seems pretty obvious, but the first step is to figure out which publishers accept submissions. I’ve heard a lot of editors saying they receive mounds of unsolicited submissions, even at companies that clearly state they don’t accept them, so even though this appears to be a no-brainer it’s not. When I decided to start sending out pitches, the first thing I did – before I even began working on any of my story ideas – was to go online and start visiting websites of various publishers in order to see what kind of submission guidelines they have.

I was prepared to share all this with you, my beloved readers – the fruits of my hours of hard labor – but then I discovered that someone else has already done the dirty work and posted it online. Had I known this I could have saved myself a lot of trouble, but now I am passing those savings on to you.

Optimistically titled “The Submission Guidelines for every Comic and Manga Publisher in the Universe”, the full listing – which can be found here – does, in fact, give a great deal of detail about submission guidelines for a lot of publishers and even more helpfully provides links to their websites. This is important, because as nice as this resource is, it does have one flaw – it was posted in March. You would think that it would be up to date – and it is, relatively speaking – but even just a few months later I’ve already found a few companies that have since changed their guidelines, usually for the worse as far as writers are concerned. For example, Penny-Farthing Press, which is listed here as accepting writing submissions (and whose website also states this), doesn’t actually accept writing submissions any more.

So this guide, while handy, should really be your starting point. Check out every website yourself and if you have any doubts, email the company for clarification. Once you know which companies accept writing submissions, you can start in on the second half of the research process:

Tailoring Your Submissions

There are two parts to tailoring your submission for a specific publisher. Firstly, research their line of comics to determine what kind of stories they publish; and second, format your submission according not only to their submission guidelines but also to their publishing preferences.

Often those last two are one and the same. A good example of what I mean is Antarctic Press, one of the few publishers who still accept unsolicited writing submissions. Antarctic Press includes a lot of important details in their submission guidelines. They point out that in today’s market, many retailers are wary of ordering new ongoing titles for unproven books. Because of this, Antarctic prefers to publish one shots or mini-series rather than ongoing series. The idea is that a retailer will take a flyer on a new product if it’s just a commitment of a couple months. Then, if the series takes off, an ongoing can be done to capitalize on this success. Essentially it’s a way to limit liability for both the publisher and the retailer and this should be kept in mind when crafting a pitch for Antarctic.

This is one of the main reasons I am trying to not work on a pitch without having a specific publisher in mind for it. Let’s say you have an idea for a space opera. Not knowing just who might be in the market for it, you sit down and come up with the greatest story ever imagined, a rousing, 100 issue epic that will blow the doors off the industry. Then, with this accomplished, you check out Antarctic’s submission guidelines and discover you’re totally boned. All of this could be avoided by simply not working out the details of your idea until you know the correct format to frame it in. I’m a big believer in the idea that structure determines story, and this is especially true in the world of mainstream comics, where you have a finite number of pages every issue to relay your story in; it’s not a novel where you can ramble around at your own pace, the pace is dictated in large part by the form.

So a better way to approach your idea would be this: you look up the submission guidelines, discover they want a 1-4 issue, self-contained story to test the market and then you craft your tale around this instead of the other way around. You can save yourself a lot of work and a lot of heartache this way.

And, of course, there's the other half of the equation: don't send horror comics to a romance publisher. In our example, Antarctic Press does publish a fairly wide array of comics, but for the most part the specialize in manga-inspired science fiction. That epic space opera may have a shot, but even if you follow their guidelines to the letter, a story about Archie Andrews is probably not going to go very far. I'm not suggesting you should pander to the publisher; writing what you think people want almost always ends up with bad writing. But you should be smart about which projects you pitch to which companies.

Conclusion

The submission process can be most succinctly summed up this way: creating a story to fit a market is much easier than creating a market to fit your story. Researching your publishers will not only tell you which stories you should write, but how you should go about writing them.

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Web Review: The Guild

Finally, after what seems like an eternity, September is here to deliver millions of Americans the kind of hard hitting game play and entertainment that they’ve been craving. But we’re not talking about the NFL here; we’re talking about the freshest nerdnip on the interwebz: The Guild.

For those of you who wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between Kirin’s Osode and Baron Rivendare’s Deathcharger if we spotted you a dozen Emblems of Conquest, The Guild is an online show that focuses on the online and offline lives of a group of gamers who are obsessed with an MMORPG (that is, online role playing game) similar to World of Warcraft. Created and written by lead actress Felicia Day, who you may otherwise know from her stint on Buffy the Vampire Slayer or her role in Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, the series just released the first episode of their third season.

Their timing couldn’t have been better, of course; though the season premiere has been available to Xbox 360 gold members for a week, today is the first day it’s available to the wider audience and I think it’s no coincidence that Tuesday was chosen as the drop date for it. After all, Tuesday is maintenance day for World of Warcraft and (as usual) today’s maintenance was extended due to technical problems, meaning that the 11 million plus WoW players who comprise The Guild’s primary audience have essentially nothing else to do all day to pass their time. And with future episodes also coming out on Tuesday, this is likely to continue.

This is just one example of how Day’s savviness in both gaming and internet promotion has paid dividends. When The Guild was launched two years ago, it was essentially a shoestring operation put together by Day and friends to film the first three webisodes she had scripted parodying her own online gaming addiction. The show clearly struck a nerve with viewers; donations sent in by fans actually financed the rest of the first season, and the resulting DVD sales were enough to fund the entire second season as well. Since then, The Guild has only become more popular, thanks in large part to the viral sensation caused by The Guild’s promotional music video “Do You Wanna Date My Avatar?” Co-written by Joss Whedon’s brother Jed, the video scored over a million hits on youtube in the first two days of release while the song itself soared to number one on the UK iTunes chart. Plus, at Comic-Con, Day announced that she will soon be doing a Guild comics for Dark Horse as well.

With so much hype building over season three, then, the question is whether Day and company can live up to expectations. That’s a bit of an impossible goal, though; with the music video and Xbox distribution creating a huge new audience for the show – some of whom aren’t gamers at all, much less MMO fans – there is bound to be some griping about whatever product comes out, from one side or the other. However, Day has proven so far that she has a good feel for the community that has grown up around The Guild, and I think the first episode of season three is proof that she’s on the right track: as long as she continues to write for gamers like herself, the show will continue to be successful, it’s only if she tries to change to fit her new audience that problems would arise. And that doesn’t seem likely.

Indeed, the only thing in the season three premiere (and trailer) that hints at The Guild’s new status as a cult hit is the presence of the King of all Geeks himself, Mr. Wil Wheaton, a.k.a. Wesley Crusher. Wheaton guest-stars in season three as the leader of a rival guild, but his appearance here is less of a stunt than a coronation; an acknowledgment of the fact that, like himself, The Guild has begun transcending its humble roots and has reached the top of the geek heap.

Or to put it more plainly, after two seasons of questing, the Knights of Good have finally reached the level cap and are now ready for some serious raiding. And that means one thing: epic drops for all their viewers.





My Grades: Season one gets a B+ for spirit; season two gets an A- with a special A+++ for Vork; and the season three premiere only gets an A- for reminding me what it’s like standing in one of those lines waiting for an expansion to come out. Not cool, guys.

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