Wizard’s Ben Morse visits Marvel Comics’ offices and discovers the people who make dreams happen:

While most of the office has begun to scramble in last-minute preparations for the forthcoming pitch meeting before they head out for lunch, Ralph Macchio sits calmly at his desk, a confident smile on his face. Surrounded by a dozens of taped-up photos of actress Gwyneth Paltrow (“It’s much nicer looking at pictures of her than at comic books”) and a blown-up photo of his view from his office in the company’s previous home, the 30-year veteran of Marvel Comics has been through more of these meetings than he can count. “Once upon a time I didn’t have a computer, so that’s changed the job quite a bit,” reflects the man who oversaw such classic periods in Marvel history as Frank Miller’s acclaimed run on Daredevil and who currently heads up the Ultimate line. “In the old days it would sometimes take a week or two to letter a book, which you can now get done virtually overnight.”

While Macchio fondly recalls guiding young talents like John Romita Jr. and David Mazzucchelli to the legendary status they’d later achieve, he also remembers the hard times of Marvel’s bankruptcy in the late ’90s. “The days I will not forget are the ones where you’d watch a third of the staff disappear and then sit waiting for your own phone to ring,” Macchio recounts. “You never forget the days where power is changing from one editor-in-chief to another and you have no idea how it’s going to affect the company and the business. Those were scary days. Of course there were good days as well, but the bad stuff tends to stick with you a little more.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 9:16 am and is filed under Interviews, Marvel, News & Views. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.