Monthly Archives: November 2011

A number of folks are writing me this morning about this message in which I explained the way most (not all…most) Marvel Comics were produced during the period when Bill Mantlo was doing his major work for them. Many seemed to miss that I was just talking about those comics during those years and they're writing to correct me by saying, "Here's how I currently work."

One of the things that has always fascinated me about comics is this: Writers are all a little different from one another. Artists are all a little different from one another. That's all obvious and so is the fact that each piece of work is or should be different. Where it has been allowed (and it hasn't always), folks have developed different ways of working — particularly, different ways of collaborating — that bring out the best in the creators.

There is no "one" right way to write and draw a comic book…and some bad ones have resulted because writers and artists have been shoehorned into the way that is wrong for them and/or wrong for a given project. At Marvel, for example, they developed this plot/art/script method of writing a comic that was built around the specific talents of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. The method sometimes didn't work as well with writers who weren't Stan or artists who weren't Jack or Steve…and indeed, later collaborations of Stan's with other pencillers, or other writer/penciller combos on the same comics, modified the process a bit. I don't think they always modified it enough but that's another discussion.

In the last decade or two, changes in technology have changed the way comics are done and I don't just mean Adobe Photoshop. There were many changes in the creative process because of Federal Express and fax machines. There were many because most companies went from printing in Sparta, Illinois on cheap presses and cheaper newsprint to more upscale, deluxe paper stocks and printers. In any case, the way we do comics now is quite unlike any of the many ways they were done back in the seventies. In most cases, I think the evolution is for the better but there are a few exceptions. That too is another discussion.

From Hank Kingsley (not his real name, I'm guessing) comes the following…

I read the piece on the tragedy of Bill Mantlo with great sadness and a fear that that kind of thing could happen to me or a loved one. I felt especially bad for his brother who has had to deal with this impossible problem. The same people who tell us all life is sacred and who felt that Terri Schiavo's heart had to be kept beating no matter what are unwilling to do anything to make it possible for a Bill Mantlo to afford to live. I do not know why they think that a Cigna with its responsibility to its stockholders to show a profit will not try to kick the Bill Mantlos of the world off their plans so they don't have to pay for them. I believe in free enterprise and capitalism but I believe more in life.

You said that the author's account of how a comic book is created was wrong but you didn't specify how he was wrong. Could you go into more detail about that? And could you also answer this question for me? When I hear that writers missed deadlines and caused comics to not come out or to go reprint, I just do not understand that. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of people out there who would love to write comic books. Why doesn't the company just hire more of them?

Regarding the health care matter, I honestly believe that in the next 10-20 years (and maybe sooner), we're going to see something akin to Single Payer in this country. It may take a different form. It may be disguised so it looks more like a Republican-driven plan that they can claim is not "a government takeover of health care" but is. There will probably still be room in it for the Cigna and Anthem people and all the drug companies to post record profits. But this upward spiral of health costs, even with whatever controls "Obamacare" imposes, cannot continue. Too many people are dying or losing their homes because of it.

Now to the matter of how a comic book is created. Here's the description from the article…

At that time, comics were produced on an assembly line: a writer wrote a 17-page script which went to a penciller, who would follow the script to draw the panels in light blue non-repro pencil. Then the pages went to an inker, who went over the initial art, cleaning it up and adding light and shadow with black ink. Then it went to a colorist, who would paint the panels and send the page to a letterer, who would hand-write every word of dialogue and exposition. As a rule, the process worked fairly well unless the writer missed the deadline, at which point the whole show would grind to a halt.

Not only is that not an accurate description of the process at Marvel in the seventies, it's not accurate for any company I know of at any time. Here, step by step, is the breakdown…

• There were a few writers then at Marvel who wrote full scripts (Mantlo, I believe, was sometimes one) but most would write up a plot, either on their own or working in consultation with the pencil artist. These scripts were sometimes 17 pages, sometimes other lengths.
• The plot would go to the penciller who would draw it out. A few of them used non-repro blue pencil but most did not. Most used regular pencils.
• If the writer had written a full script, the pages would go next to the letterer. If the writer had written a plot, the pages would go back to the writer who would then compose the dialogue and captions. Then the job would go to the letterer who would inscribe all that copy on the page.
• Then it would go to the inker who might add "light and shadow" or might just trace the penciller's indications of light and shadow.
• Throughout the process, the material might be routed through an editor (sometimes, the writer was the editor) and the company's production department. The last stop before printing was almost always the colorist, not the letterer.

The author's line about "unless the writer missed the deadline" is misleading, too. Yes, writers miss deadlines. So do pencillers, inkers, letterers, colorists, etc. Books have been late because they got lost in the mail or lost in the production department. (An issue of Blackhawk I did for DC shipped late because even though the artist and I got it in weeks before the deadline, someone in the office mislaid the art.) Along the "assembly line," anyone can cause a problem.

Solving deadline problems is not always a matter of hiring more people who want to do comics. First off, not everyone who wants to do comics can. In the seventies — the period when Bill Mantlo became the King of Fill-In Issues as described in the article — the problem seemed to be a shortage of artists and also an unwillingness on the part of Marvel to spend the money to double or triple the size of their editorial staff. They kept adding new comics to the line but didn't enlarge the office crew accordingly, nor did they say, "Gee, we don't have enough artists so we'd better not add more titles."

I was involved with a number of last-minute deadline crunches on comics during that period, helping writer friends who through no fault of their own found themselves waiting, past the date when the book should have been off to the printer, for the penciller to finish so they could dialogue the pages. Someday here, I oughta tell some of those stories.

The G.O.P. keeps holding all these debates. This one's staged by CNN. That one's staged by Fox News. The one the other night was by CNBC.

So I'm wondering: Why doesn't Comedy Central announce they're holding one with Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and maybe some other personalities on that network asking the questions?

Most likely, the front runners would dismiss it as a stunt and refuse to show up…but what does Jon Huntsman have to lose? What, he might drop from 1% to half that? And maybe, just maybe, someone like Rick Perry would think it was a great way to get an hour of airtime in front of younger viewers (and voters) and rehabilitate his image. If no one showed up, fine. I'll bet Stewart and Colbert could do an hour on that premise alone.

And if they can do it, can Cartoon Network be far behind? Actually, I think some of the candidates would fit in well on that channel.

Sergio is in Georgia this weekend for a gathering of veteran MAD contributors. Read all about it.

The current issue of Playboy has an interview with Craig Ferguson which you can read online at the moment, though probably not forever. Beware of photos of unclad women in the margins.

There are several references to a long, personal monologue that Ferguson did one night on his show describing his problems with alcohol. I thought it was one of the most remarkable, important things I'd ever seen on a program of this nature. If you haven't seen it, here it is. It runs twelve and a half minutes and if you start watching, I'll bet you stick around 'til the end…

In the seventies, Bill Mantlo was one of the most prolific comic book writers in the business, sometimes scripting as many as eight comics a month for Marvel. He was partially out of comics and into practicing law in '92 when he was seriously injured in a hit-and-run accident and he has spent his "life" since in and out of nursing homes and comas. I put the word "life" in quotes because he has obviously not had much of one in the years since the car hit him.

If you'd like your heart broken today, read this very long piece by Bill Coffin about Mantlo and his family's struggles to keep him in those nursing homes and get him treatment despite an insurance company's successful efforts to cease paying for his care. And keep in mind that this is the story of a man who had health insurance. One can only shudder at what would have happened if the same accident had happened, as it easily could, to one of the 50 million Americans who have no health insurance at all. If it was that bad for a guy with coverage…

Given the rep of the publication, the fact that the author had obvious access to Mantlo's family and that we all know this kind of thing happens, I would assume the factual recital of the insurance battles is correct. The article does try to present the insurer's side of the case in the last few pages and I think it's yet another strong argument that we need Single Payer insurance-for-all in this country. Those who still fear government "death panels" should take note of the portions of Mantlo's story where his private insurer keeps trying to cut off all payments to him because, after all, their primary duty is to their stockholders.

I'm not necessarily endorsing the account of Mantlo's career in comics. Though I was around that world then, I somehow never met Bill Mantlo. Passed him in the halls of Marvel a few times but never met him. Coffin's account of how a Marvel Comic was created is not really accurate but that's really not what the article is about. Those few paragraphs aside, it is an excellent bit of journalism…and a very sad one, indeed.