Random

Here’s an author and body of work that isn’t usually high on the list for comics folks, but that I recommended several times to writers taking on Superman.  Zenna Henderson wrote a stack of stories of The People from 1952 into the 1970s, chronicling aliens from a destroyed world who have come to live on Earth among us.  Her aliens were very human, but with a number of alien abilities we’d certainly class as super-powers.  One of the stories made it to a Hugo nomination, but sadly the material mostly went out of print until rescued by NESFA for a complete volume entitled “Ingathering” in 1995.

One of the intrinsic challenges in writing any long running character like Superman is finding something new to say.  In the comics of my youth in the 1960s, it was fine to go back and retell tales every few years presuming the audience of young children had turned over, and the original comics had been shredded or were at very least, unavailable.  By the following decade, when I entered the field, reprint collections became frequent, and now, of course, if a story is even vaguely reasonable it’s likely to be perpetually available online or in a book format.  So it becomes more and more important to find a new take, rather than simply rehashing the endless ballet of hero and villain.

This doesn’t always work.

Leaving aside my admiration or lack of it for some of the ‘innovations’ and ‘improvements’ offered in recent years, I’ll cheerfully point to one of my own failures.  In the 1970s,  Jenette Kahn asked me to take on the assignment of WONDER WOMAN because she’d enjoyed how I handled female characters in my Huntress and Power Girl stories.  At the time, Wonder Woman hadn’t included a modern run of stories to model on—this is about a decade before George Perez’s fabulous cycle.  The classic versions of the character were either aimed too young or had aged badly, and recent runs hadn’t caught fire with audiences.

Thinking about her history, I focused on the idea that this was the only one of the great comics characters who had literally given up immortality for a human existence.  That should be fascinating to explore.  It should, right?

Except you can’t find a homeopathic drop of that idea in the handful of issues I wrote before running in shame.  And don’t blame my collaborators, artist Jose Delbo or editor Ross Andru, either.  I blew it.

Anyway, there a humanity in Henderson’s stories that we often didn’t explore in Superman’s adventures.  Her aliens are scattered on arrival, so they have different challenges, from hiding among us, to intermarriage.  And I thought it might fuel a Superman writer to consider different ways to think of the Kryptonian’s experience on Earth.  My own only runs on Superman were the newspaper strip for a couple of years, and a bunch of DC COMICS PRESENTS tales for Julie, neither particularly easy forms for doing stories that might benefit from this inspiration.  But I harbor a hope that some future Superman writer will pick up Ingathering and it will lead them, somewhere….

So the scheme of sorting comics history into Ages was mostly influenced by those of us who were disproportionately fans of the super hero material.  That classification scheme gave us Gold, Silver, Bronze…and even according to some (including my big Taschen book), Dark eras.  The boundaries have always been a bit fuzzy though.  A few random thoughts on the subject:

First off, our biases show too powerfully in the whole analysis.  While the super heroes were the dominant genre of American comic books in the years when this taxonomy was developed (the 1960s and 1970s as comic fandom began to be an organized phenomenon), for most of the time of comics in America that hasn’t been the case, including now.  Younger kids’ comics have ruled for most of the years that we might focus on separate physical print comics (whether as comic books or graphic novels), with Dell as the largest publisher up until around the time of the Dell/Gold Key “divorce” in 1962, and Scholastic has claimed the title in much of the 21^st Century.  Did the decline of Dell create the opportunity for the long era of the super hero dominating the field?  It’s an argument that I can’t recall seeing before, but it’s not impossible to consider.

Second, there’s no singular way to draw a line of demarcation even if we accept the Gold/Silver/etc logic.  Take the end of the Silver Age:

            On one content-based analysis, the demarcation between Silver and Bronze is often argued as either drawn at the publication of GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW #76 (April 1970), CONAN #1 (October 1970) or SUPERMAN #233 (November 1970).  A close enough cluster, but which is the trigger?

            An alternative content-based analysis looks at the moment when the long-static creative assignments.  On the DC side, you can make a case that Infantino leaving THE FLASH at the end of 1967 is the key moment.  As he took on more responsibilities as Editorial Director, he instigated changes that would unsettle every long-running artist on a series, and preside over the hiring or onboarding of several new editors as well as the replacement of a group of contributors who were being pushed out over their requests for benefits.  The singular moment at Marvel isn’t until three years later, when Kirby departs, but the transitions at DC serve to see more new names popping up at Marvel in that period.

            If we consider technology as a factor (which is always worth thinking about), the shift in the late 1960s from artwork being created “twice-up” to 10”x15” deserves examination.  It fundamentally affected the styles of many major artists, some for the better, some sadly for the worse.  Neal Adams made the argument that for the first time the artist at their board could focus on the whole page, and his work certainly demonstrates the evolution that took place as a result.

            And if we look at the issues of distribution and business, certainly Marvel moving away from being a distribution client of DC’s affiliate in the summer of 1969, and the consequent expansion of their line after a decade of constraint is an interesting demarcation point.

Alternatively, though, a lens I use in discussing the evolution of comics in America is to consider what marketing people refer to as the product life cycle.  It looks at the key marketing characteristics of a product, and suggests certain behaviors that are common to different stages of its evolution.  Product life cycles can overlap, as products that have great similarity can still be differentiated. 

Looked at that way, we might parse the modern history of American comics:

            The life cycle of the newspaper comic strip, beginning at the turn of the 20^th Century and fading into near irrelevance towards the end of the century.  As a product, it’s ubiquitously available, what marketers define as a convenience good, focused on an entire family audience, produced with the cheapest possible technology, and priced invisibly as part of another purchase (the paper itself).

            The life cycle of the newsstand comic book, beginning in the 1930s and fading out in the 1980s (by my estimate if the transition to comic shops hadn’t occurred, the traditional comic book would have vanished by around 1985).  Again ubiquitously available, a convenience good, focused on children from the beginning of reading (5?) to puberty (12?), produced with cheap technology, and priced cheaply.

            The life cycle of the direct market comic book, beginning in the 1980s and still going, probably in the market maturity stage.  Now a purchase that requires going out of the consumer’s way which means it is what’s defined as shopping good or even a specialty good, focused on people from 16 to 35 (originally primarily men but broadening out), produced with relatively high technology, and priced more expensively.

            The life cycle of the graphic novel, beginning in the 1980s and still in what marketers might consider either the market introduction and development stage or market growth stages.  We can argue that it is again ubiquitously available via the internet, yet a shopping good (consumers select based on a number of factors), with an audience that’s evolving as we speak, produced with relatively high technology, and priced at a wide range of price points.

And webcomics, well, maybe it’s too soon to tell what they’ll be here in America, but they’ll certainly have a life cycle of importance of their own.

Just something to think about…

On editing reprint collections

Another of my many dubious distinctions in comics is probably having the edited reprint collections over the longest stretch of time, 46 years now.  (Okay, I didn’t do any for decades in the middle of that stretch, but I said it was a dubious distinction.). It’s always been a fun assignment, providing an excuse to go play in the DC library or my own collection, revisit old friends, and have the pleasure of introducing new readers to tales I enjoyed.  With the latest, DC IN THE ‘80s: THE END OF ERAS about to come out, I’ll share some thoughts on the subject.

The projects have been born many different ways, but in pretty much every case the format and available page count was set before I got the assignment to assemble the contents.  That was true when I was curating the reprints for the back of 100-Page Super-Spectacular issues or LIMITED COLLECTORS’ EDITION tabloids, and is still true on today’s hardcovers.  Budgets matter, and there are always assumptions about what will have an audience large enough to justify it being published.  The hardcovers I’ve edited in recent years are the largest volumes I worked on, and as celebratory volumes, have had budgets large enough to allow for some interesting opportunities.

My first goal is always to include something (or somethings) unique that will elevate the book from simply being twice-told tales.  The very first comic I got a full editorial credit on, LIMITED COLLECTORS’ EDITION #C-34, CHRISTMAS WITH THE SUPER-HEROES, set the tone.  I found an unpublished Angel & The ApeChristmas story by John Albano, Bob Oksner and Wally Wood to include.   For ACTION COMICS: 80 YEARS OF SUPERMAN, I remembered the unpublished Siegel & Shuster era Superman story in Marv Wolfman’s collection, and for the DETECTIVE COMICS volume that followed, the Lew Sayre Schwartz Batmanbreakdowns in Dale Cendali’s.  The new ‘80s book couldn’t have anything of that great provenance by definition, but I was able to go for scarcity instead: a chunk of the first, seminal Style Guide by Jose Luis Garcia Lopez and Dick Giordano, a story from the Superman newspaper strip of the period and Alan Moore’s Twilight proposal.  All items that someone might possess, but none ever in a published DC volume.

The next step is to create a balanced list of targets, sources that deserve to be included in the theme.  For the END OF ERAS, it could have just been a collection of the genre titles that were wrapping up in that decade, but there were two reasons to include a good swath of super-hero material as well: fans were more likely to pick up a book that included their favorite characters, and there’s a San Andreas-size fault line between the pre-CRISIS DC universe and post-CRISIS.  So the major heroes had to be represented.  Off to the bound volumes!

There are three different decision rules operating here:

First, for the heroes, the goal is to find a story that represents the era both in its storyline and creative contributors.  For Superman and Batman, I found stories that touched on the pre-CRISIS interpretation of the Golden Age versions…and for Superman, it was a given that Alan and Curt Swan’s delightful “Whatever Happened To The Man of Steel?”  would finish off the book.  Wonder Woman allowed me to bring in Don Heck, and The Flash of course was required to show Carmine Infantino’s later period. I considered some Green Lantern and Justice League choices, but opted instead to represent the back-ups of the time with Firestorm.

For the vanishing genres, selections from series required picking a prime example, and one that could stand alone.  Sometimes that meant calling up the talent who had worked on them, sometimes pawing through to find a qualifier.  The decision rules were complex: better to find a Jonah Hex drawn by Tony DeZuniga to show the original creator’s art; for Warlord an issue Mike Grell inked himself since he had chafed under longtime inker Vince Colletta’s brush; if there was a dominant contributor, include them (could Bob Kanigher and Sam Glanzman’s epochal run on Haunted Tank be ignored?).   TV comics could be covered by SUPER FRIENDS, and toy tie-ins (not a vanishing genre in comics, but by and large from DC) by MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE.

Selections from the anthologized stories were, I admit, far more arbitrary.  There were hundreds of pages of mystery and war tales to pick from, and if science fiction was a smaller stack, it was still a rich pile.  Your choices would certainly vary, but I was pleased to put in contributions by longtime DC contributors like Irwin Hasen, Lee Elias  and Gil Kane…as well as young and rising voices. 

When the budget permits, adding essays is a distinct pleasure, and I’ve been able to reach out to so many old friends and fascinating people.  My all-time favorite was getting Laura Siegel Carter in the ACTION volume, marking the first time a Siegel contributed to a Superman book they were earning royalties from.   

I’m back at it, finalizing the next volume, ‘80s: THE EXPERIMENTS, getting legal to dig out some dusty old contracts (yes, I signed them but do you REALLY expect me to remember three or more decades later when I can’t recall what I had for dinner yesterday?) and clear some interesting items for the collection.  

In going through the collection’s odder corners, I found what is certainly DC’s rarest experiment, but unfortunately can’t include it as it’s an early ‘90s project.  We teamed up with Time Inc. to do a test magazine, an issue of WHAT’S UP? that combined comics using the Looney Tunes and other DC goodies with a sort of kids’ PEOPLE/ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY.  Only a few copies were printed and were used for market research testing, which sadly indicated the idea wouldn’t work  to Time Inc.’s then high standards.  If I get to do ‘90s volumes, I’ll try to include some of it then.

Still having fun.

Denny’s gone, brought social conscience to comics. He was a journalist at heart, and knew his obit would have Batman in the lede, but I think he’d have been prouder of this way of looking at his life. Not that he was the first, much less the only one, but damn it he was the loudest. Not personally, he wasn’t a shouter. But the stories he told and edited screamed for justice for the causes that mattered to him. From GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW to SEDUCTION OF THE GUN, and in subtle moments as well as the loud ones, he set the standard for giving a damn.

He was a teacher, maybe the best of his generation teaching writing and editing in comics. He taught me copy editing, and how to parse my dialogue for comics to be effective. His disciples filled the field. He was the most economical of writers, communicating with his collaborators in the briefest of art directions but getting great work from them, offering tight dialogue that was precisely on point.

He was a philosopher, searching for ways to make the world better…even exploring how a new religion might be necessary for a time when it was no longer about man mastering the Earth, but learning to live in harmony with it. And having buried the lede, he made Batman what he is, writing the stories and editing others that set the tone for the post-camp Dark Knight on through everything that Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan leaned on.

Denny got a second lease on life from his marriage to MariFran, and they shared amazing years until her passing. Once she was gone, it was only a matter of time until he followed.

This is the second of my poker buddies to cash in their chips in about a month. He lived a full life, was shocked at the recognition he achieved, and leaves behind his son Larry, with whom he shared many personal and professional joys.

But most of all, and ever so relevant at a moment like this, he taught us that we could…no, we should…damn it, we must use our podiums as writers, editors and teachers to push the world to become a better, more just place.

-30-

When I was a neophyte assistant editor and aspiring writer, there weren’t a wealth of books on writing comics. There were a couple of decades-old pamphlets by the already prodigiously energetic Stan Lee and Bob Kanigher, some of the advice in which was probably as valid as the day they typed it on a noisy old manual typewriter. And there weren’t book editions of comics that incorporated the original scripts (I tend to use SANDMAN: DREAM COUNTRY in my writing courses because it has Neil’s script for “Calliope” along with the several short stories in the volume), or other easily accessed resources to learn from.

General practice was to toss scripts for finished stories in the trash at the office; they were industrial by-product, not even ultimate work product. Some writers kept carbons, a few made photocopies when they delivered the scripts (no Kinkos or local copy joints all over the place in those days, much less a home printer/copier/fax/scanner/dogwalker). But for the most part, while original cmic art was treated very casually (I apologize to all the artists whose work I proofread in blue non-reproducing marker before I learned better), comic book scripts were treated even worse.

Notwithstanding this, I saved a bunch of scripts from the trash for my own eduction. I’d pick out one each from the writers whose work I respected, or maybe a particularly interesting tale to study. I was limited to the scripts that passed through Joe Orlando’s editorial office–as his assistant I could take what I wanted of those, but it would have been de trop to raid Julie Schwartz’s garbage down the hall (assuming he hadn’t poured his yankee bean soup remains from lunch all over it, anyway). I learned what I could from them, then filed them away somewhere at home.

One that I was very glad I saved was a script that was one of the very last that Bill Finger delivered, I think for WEIRD WAR TALES. I don’t recall any specific lessons I learned from it, but about 30 years later I had the privilege of passing it on. Before several of the films based on DC characters I made a habit of having a dinner on the premiere night with some of the comics folks who had contributed to the underlying mythos. The evening of THE DARK KNIGHT premiere, I had the pleasure of reuniting three of Batman’s ancestral families: introducing Elizabeth Kane (Bob’s widow) to Jerry Robinson both to Athena Finger (Bill’s granddaughter). Before the dinner (maybe it was at lunch?) I presented Bill’s script to Athena, discovering that it was the only artifact of her grandfather she would possess.

There are days when being a pack rat feels really good.

[The other scripts I saved went to Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library, along with copies of all of my own scripts. In normal times, they’re available to anyone who wants to look at them, though advance notice is a good idea as they’re probably off in some warehouse facility.]

My favorite meal with Stan was at Hamburger Hamlet in LA, probably in the early 2000s…his public ‘avatar’ wasn’t on that evening, not even to charm the waitstaff, for whatever reason. He said that Marvel was looking to have him do more editorial work again, and then said “What does an editor do these days?”

“Well, Stan, to all intents, I haven’t been an editor almost as long as you haven’t,” I replied, “But I think the heart of the job is still the same–to get the best work out of the creative people.”

I talked about the different ways different people used to accomplish that goal, and we warmly remembered Archie Goodwin–the best editor I never could manage to learn from, because so much of his technique seemed to be in his personal style of relating to people.

“But Paul, I wasn’t much of an editor. I wrote almost all the stuff myself,” Stan said.

“I worked with all your artists, Stan, and no one ever got as great work out of them as you did. Never mind Jack and Steve, you got the best work of their lives out of Don Heck and Dick Ayers. Good guys, incredibly professional, but you got so much more out of them than I did.”

He smiled, and the ‘avatar’ started to come on. The Stan Lee we know from the stage said, “Every time I sent Dick a script–he was doing some western, I don’t remember what it was–he’d call and say “What do you want me to do with this one, Chief?'”

“And I’d say, it’s a western, Dick, I want to see the spurs shining and hoofs flashing…” and Stan never got to finish, because I was laughing out loud.

“That’s how you did it, Stan, that’s how you were a great editor. Dick and I got along great, but our conversations were his ticking off pages per day in his little date book, figuring out when he’d be in for the next job. He counted on me to keep him busy, and I did, but you got him excited.”

Stan has a complex legacy, with his own massive creativity clouded by unresolvable debates over the relative value of collaborators’ contributions, actions he might have taken in a more perfect path to help them achieve more economic rewards, and his statements about their collaborative process. But as someone who knew and worked with pretty much all of them, I believe Stan was the irreplaceable catalyst, without whom the magic that was that first decade of Marvel Comics would never have happened, and perhaps neither would have the changes that spread through the comics field from there.