This evening, NBC is doing a live broadcast of a new version of The Wiz, which was a hit on Broadway in 1975 and a not-so-successful motion picture in 1978. I never saw it on a stage but I saw too much of the movie when I was hired to adapt it into comic book form just prior to the film's release.
That statement will startle comic book historians who have never seen what I did. That's because it was never published. I thought this might be a good time to tell that story.
Not far enough before the film's scheduled premiere, someone at or around DC Comics got the idea to publish a slick magazine which would be part comic book, part souvenir book for lovers of the movie. This was some time before anyone knew there wouldn't be a lot of lovers of that movie. DC had never published anything like this before and as far as I can tell, they still haven't. But one of their editors, Joe Orlando, was assigned the task of assembling this publication on very short notice.
Joe had an interesting idea. Usually when a movie is adapted into comic book form, the task is to faithfully replicate it on paper with an artist who will draw likenesses of the stars and try to capture the look of the film. That's what Dell and Gold Key Comics had done in all those movie adaptations drawn by Dan Spiegle and others.
Joe didn't want to do that. He wanted the script to be faithfully adapted but to draw it, he wanted to bring in an artist who would do his own stylized interpretation, not drawing the actual performers. He wanted Sergio Aragonés…and happily for all, Sergio agreed to draw it.
I was not the first choice to be the writer. I rarely am. First choice was a longtime DC scribe who proved unable to fit the project and its tight deadline into his schedule. The writer and Joe mutually decided Joe would have to find someone else. Joe mentioned to Sergio that he was going to find another writer. Sergio suggested me.
This was late '77 or maybe early '78. Whenever it was, it was well before Sergio began doing comics of Groo the Wanderer and I began working with him. But we were good friends and we'd been eager to collaborate on something. Joe liked Sergio's suggestion and also the fact that I, like Sergio, was based in Los Angeles. That would make it easier for us to work together.
So I was geographically desirable for that reason and also because there had to be a lot of coordination with Universal Studios, which was producing the movie. My office at Hanna-Barbera Studios was about a quarter-mile from Universal. In fact, DC could even stick me with writing some or all of the text/photo features that would make up the second section of the magazine, telling how the movie was made, who was in it, etc.
Joe called and asked me to do it. I said yes. I was immediately dispatched to Universal where I met with various folks involved in the promotion of the film. They gave me a script and hundreds of photos — some to be used in the magazine's photo features; others to be used by Sergio for visual reference. They also arranged for me to view the movie in its current condition, which was a rough cut with a number of missing scenes, a larger number of missing special effects and most of its musical score yet to be placed.
I had to sign all sorts of non-disclosure agreements that I would not divulge what I saw to anyone and as I recall, they didn't specify any time limit. I mean, I was supposed to write all these authorized articles about what was in the movie and here I was signing vows that I would never in a million years divulge to anyone what was in the movie. So I may be violating those agreements right now.
Everyone I dealt with was hypertense about secrecy. At one point, I asked if for the text section, I could interview the film's director, Sidney Lumet, and/or its screenwriter, Joel Schumacher. A Universal staffer turned pale and said, "Uh, we may be able to arrange it but you may have to fib and not let them know you've seen the film."
I thought the rough cut of the movie I was shown was pretty awful…but you can't judge a movie that's only about two-thirds finished. I went home and began figuring out how to boil a 150-page movie screenplay full of music down to a 42-page comic book script with no audio. The whole package — remember, this was to be a slick magazine, not a conventional comic book — was to be 64 pages with a pull-out poster. I forget what they were going to charge for it but it struck me as a bit too pricey. It also struck me as not my problem.
My problem was that I had about three weeks to accomplish this before Sergio would be ready to start drawing. By far, most of my time went into going up to Universal to see a more-complete version of the movie and then to see an even-more-complete version. I saw it three times but I never saw the final release cut.
I felt that the film got better as the holes were filled in…which is not to say I thought it ever got to be really good. The merits it did have were (a) a few of the actors' performances and (b) some truly dazzling dance numbers. And of course, it did dawn on me that our adaptation would contain neither. We were just telling the story and the story itself was nothing to get excited about. That, I was afraid, was the nature of the beast.
About the time I was finishing the script out here, Sergio was back in New York. He would start drawing as soon as he returned to Los Angeles. He would have…but at the time, there was a bit of a ruckus in the comic book business and Sergio was ruckused right off the project.
The industry was attempting to readjust itself to deal with the Copyright Act of 1976, which President Gerald Ford signed into law on October 19, 1976 and which would become effective as of January 1, 1978. It extended copyrights (which companies like Time-Warner and Disney wished) but it also granted new rights to creators and authors, as opposed to publishers and producers (which they didn't). All the comic book companies began revising their contracts and the forms that one had to sign when one worked for them. The idea, of course, was to insert wording that would neutralize some or all of those new rights.
At both DC and Marvel, some writers and artists had problems with the first versions of these new contracts. The lawyers had gone, as lawyers sometimes do, into overkill mode…and some freelancers found some of the language insulting and excessive. A number of creators balked at signing what was put before them and Sergio became one of them.
He was drawing gag pages for DC — gag pages that ran in comics like House of Mystery and The Witching Hour. Just before he was to return to California, he waltzed into the DC offices in New York to deliver a batch of them. He was handed the new contract to sign. He gave it a quick read and objected to some of its wording and the fact that he wasn't being given a lot of time to study it and maybe run it past a lawyer.
Words were exchanged…and not the most pleasant ones. Some months later, all of this would be worked out with different contracts and a lot of soothing apologies all around. In fact, DC Comics became a lot more mature and sane about how they dealt with talent. But for the moment, Sergio was no longer willing to work for them.
This was not a problem for me. I'd already signed the old contract to do The Wiz and was just about done with the script. Suddenly though, Joe Orlando had no one to draw what I was about to hand in. He called and asked me who I'd like. I said, "How about Sergio signing the contract someone could have given him four weeks ago?" He said that was no longer possible and asked me to think about artists and we'd talk the next day. Okay…
I called Sergio and suggested I would withdraw from the magazine in solidarity. He said don't be silly…"They didn't ask you to sign a contract you wouldn't sign." Besides, he said, the perfect artist for the job — righter for it than him, he said — was our friend, Dan Spiegle. "Ever since they asked me to do it, I keep thinking he would be so much better at it than I would."
He was right. In fact, I realized that as I'd written the script, I'd been seeing a faithful Dell/Gold Key adaptation in my head…the kind Dan did so well. Dan and I had become good buddies and close collaborators doing Scooby Doo comics and a few other such books together. Those books were no longer being published and he was drawing foreign Hanna-Barbera comics that I was editing — comics that were not seen in America. I'd been kinda hoping (as had he) that DC Comics would start giving him steady work. Everyone at the company admired his drawing but he hadn't really "broken in" there yet. They didn't think of him as a regular.
The more I thought about it, the more I was sure Sergio was right. Joe should forget his idea of doing a "stylistic" interpretation of the movie and get Dan to draw a faithful one. It would better serve the needs of the material, it would get a terrific artist working for DC on a high-profile project…and then there was what might turn out to be my most convincing argument: Dan was available, eager for the assignment and utterly reliable. The deadline was looming and a lot of artists couldn't get the thing done on time. Dan Spiegle never missed a deadline in his life.
So the next morning, I phoned Dan and made sure he was ready to jump on the project immediately if I could convince Orlando to use him. He said he was, yes, absolutely. Then I diligently rehearsed all my selling points, steeled myself for an argument and phoned Joe.
I launched into my speech about how we should do an adaptation more like what Gold Key would do, planning to close with "Even Sergio agrees." Before I got ten words in, Mr. Orlando interrupted and said, "I was thinking last night…maybe I had the wrong idea and we need something more like what Gold Key would do. Do you think we could get Dan Spiegle?"
I said, "I can call him if you like. If you're willing to pay him DC's top rate, there's a good chance I can talk him into it."
So a day or two later, Dan and I met for lunch. He lives two hours from me so we often met at a restaurant halfway between us. There, I gave him a ton of photo reference and my script, which Joe had okayed with, as I recall, no changes. Dan took it home and began drawing like crazy. I went back to my home and began writing the text features that would run in the magazine along with dozens of glossy stills from the movie. We were both scurrying to get it done when the whole thing was called off. I had finished the script and most of the articles…and no, they wouldn't let me interview the director or writer or anyone else involved with the film. Dan had drawn the entire story in pencil and had inked about the first third of it. The three illustrations on this item are cropped from pages he got to finish. The lettering was done in New York by Ben Oda, who was then lettering practically everything DC published.
What I was told was that someone high up in the publishing wing of the corporation heard from someone (I dunno who) that advance word on the movie of The Wiz was that it was a pretty likely flopperoo. Then they took a closer look at what this fancy magazine would cost them to produce and at how much they'd lose if it didn't sell well…and decided to bail.
Whoever said the film would not do well was right. Reviews were mostly awful and the movie — which cost $24 million to produce, making it the most expensive film musical ever made at the time — earned but $13.6 million at the box office. I didn't think it was a great film but I thought it deserved better.
DC Comics lost very little…just what they had to pay Dan and me for the work we'd completed. They said they liked it very much and I assume that was so because we were both immediately offered a lot of other work for the company. I didn't accept much just then because I was busy with TV assignments but Dan began juggling as much work for them as he could handle and a few years later, we collaborated on a new Blackhawk comic for the company. I wonder if that would have happened if we'd been the guys who did their biggest money-losing publication of the decade. Because that's what I think The Wiz would have been.