When it comes to the Civil War delays, which side is CW editor Tom Brevoort on? He’s not telling, because he’s busy talking about something else entirely…
You see it online all the time: every few weeks, fans gather together to play the “If I was an Editor”, wherein they cast their creative picks for assorted titles and so forth. But from the perspective of somebody who’s inside the industry, and who knows the very real difficulties involved in managing a fleet of titles, these games are often completley unrealistic. It’s easy to say that you’d put Alan Moore and Art Adams on AVENGERS when you’ve got absolute godlike power. But that’s seldom the case in the real world.
So what I propose is that we take about two weeks out here at the Blah-Blah-Blog and we run a “Marvel Editor Simulator.” I’ll select one person to hire, to be a new editor at Marvel, and give them a fleet of books to edit. And then every day, that person will post his moves, and I’ll follow up with the results of those moves, throwing in the sorts of events one would be likely to encounter if one were actually doing the job. So it’s like editing without any actual editing.
What I need, though, is an applicant for the position of fictitious editor. I’m going to need somebody who’ll be diligent about reading this blog for a two-week period and posting his appropriate moves and reactions in the simulator. And it’ll need to be somebody with a lot of pluck and tough skin–there’s no win or lose in this thing, it’s just an experiment, but I’m absolutely going to be stacking the deck against you, piling up appropriate problems along the way in a much shorter span of time than they might naturally occur in.
Expect a “the two creators of your company’s top selling book miss their deadline, meaning that your company’s line-wide crossover event is essentially suspended for two months and the internet erupts; do you keep quiet, or push a ‘you can’t rush art’ argument?” conundrum somewhere amongst Tom’s hypothetical problems. But still, I have to admit, this sounds like fun. I’d volunteer, but then everyone would discover just how truly inept I really am.
August 16th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
I’d do that despite having my own books to edit. That sounds like fun.
August 16th, 2006 at 2:48 pm
He needs someone with a lot of time to play games. Like himself, I suppose.
August 16th, 2006 at 3:21 pm
I agree. It sounds fun. I wonder how many emails he’s going to get.
August 16th, 2006 at 4:38 pm
I wonder if Milar is going to sign up since he has all that time on his hands.
August 16th, 2006 at 4:48 pm
“I’d do that despite having my own books to edit. That sounds like fun.”
Jason, I hope you’re serious. I’d pay money to follow that for two weeks.
August 16th, 2006 at 5:15 pm
I couldn’t have said it better myself, Mr. Nicolai.
August 16th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
Lose-lose proposition.
No matter who tries to do this, they will be made to look inept.
Nobody, NOBODY, ever gets handed an editorial job without having previous experience doing editor work. Many editors were ass’t. editors for years before they got the job and have seen most of the problems that happen.
A professional, experienced editor would have contingency plans for most emergencies, so that anything that happened would not throw a book off the schedule.
In the case where a name creator or creators are consistently late on projects, the series should not even be announced until all the issues are done. You hear me, Quesada? Daredevil Father anyone?
August 16th, 2006 at 10:06 pm
“Jason, I hope you’re serious. I’d pay money to follow that for two weeks.”
I shot Tom an email - maybe he’ll take me up on it. I have to imagine they’ll take someone with the email addy batmanbitches03.fuckmarvel@gmail.com, though.