This is just horrible:

The final judgement has been handed down in the long running Gary Friedrich vs Marvel (Ghost Rider) case, and now we know the full amount that Friedrich owes Marvel.  That’s right, Marvel, a company that stands to make millions of dollars from the upcoming Ghost Rider II movie, and is paying Nicholas Cage millions to portray a character that Friedrich created, now wants money from Friedrich – in specific $17,000.

Essentially, Disney/Marvel counter-sued Friedrich over ownership of Ghost Rider, demanding all moneys he had made from selling prints of the character at conventions and the like, and won, so now Friedrich – who, by his own accounts, is unemployed and has no assets – finds himself owing the corporation that he believes stole his creation $17,000 with no way of paying. It’s one thing for Marvel to reassert itself legally as the owner of the character, but demanding $17,000 from someone who’s essentially penniless? That just seems cruel, and maybe worse for Marvel, something that can only lead to bad publicity for the company (and at a time when its treatment of Jack Kirby and the Kirby estate is getting some mainstream media attention, too). The sooner the decision is made to waive the “debt,” the better.

Do I consider my work on the story to be award-winning? Certainly not.

But how can John credit me for STATIC‘s failure when, before I was even involved, he couldn’t get a plan approved or get off the ground?

How can John credit me for STATIC‘s failure when he once again floundered after resuming full control of the story with issue #4?

John had very fixed preconceptions of what STATIC should be, very much aligned with his own Rozum-esque sensibility. When Editorial asked him for a different vision, he got knocked out of kilter and just couldn’t regain his balance. He just couldn’t see how to move from where he was to where editorial wanted him to be. I didn’t cause that.

When I joined the team, I had NO preconceptions. I listened, carefully, to what Harvey was trying to achieve, and then set out to achieve it. I didn’t conspire against John. I just did the job the way John should have.

For a variety of reasons, many people regard this book as a total failure. I must be totally out of touch with reality, because while it was far from perfect, I think it was also far from being a total “turd.”

I thought it was a romping adventure that featured a young hero who was discovering new things about himself – about his powers, about his perception of people. We (most of it from me and Harvey) extended his power set in believable ways entirely consistent with his TRUE core ability (his telekinetic ability to manipulate electrons). We (mostly me) introduced a lot of characters to implement STATIC’s story of growth.

It might not have been what people expected, but wasn’t that an important ingredient of the DCnU relaunch? There was a lot of NEW in this STATIC.

That’s from Scott McDaniel’s lengthy response to John Rozum’s explanation for quitting Static Shock with the series’ fourth issue, in which he called the book “a mediocre comic series” and complained about unprofessional treatment and a particularly negative experience. Reading the two together – and parsing out the passive aggressiveness in both – what becomes clear very quickly is a creative mismatch between McDaniel and Rozum’s sensibilities, as well as a horrendous breakdown in communications between editorial and the two creators; instead of there being any smoking gun of “He Said He Said” gossip or controversy here, it just seems sad and a wasted opportunity all round. Static Shock deserved better.

In case you need a reason to feel good about Dan Slott today, Gail Simone has you covered with this awesome tale of the Amazing Spider-Man writer dealing with an irate fan (anti-fan?):

One day at the con, a guy stood in Dan’s line, between Ethan’s line and my line, and when he got up to the front of the line, he said something really horribly rude right to Dan’s face. I don’t recall the words, but it was very strong stuff. He had stood in line just to say how much he hated Dan’s Spider-man AND that he hated Dan personally, as well, for that reason.

It turns out that he had been posting genuinely awful stuff about Dan (because he didn’t like Dan’s Spidey work) for a long time. Dan knew instantly who it was (we all have a few people like that). Now, only the weeniest of pros freaks out when someone doesn’t like their work. But when someone follows you around, trying to get others to hate you, it just gets a little weird.

Anyway, Ethan, who has zero patience with rude people, looked over at me, and we expected a bit of anger. Instead, Dan was incredibly patient and kind. He defended his work, but he did so graciously, he didn’t respond to insult with insult.

Much more in the link, including the end of Slott’s conversation with the fan, which has to be seen to be believed.

Mark Millar responds to Before Watchmen as only Mark Millar can:

AFTER WATCHMEN: THE SECRET SERVICE

Do I dare do that as a publicity campaign for the book?

“Attention Watchmen loyalists – Vote with your dollars and buy Secret Service #1 in April”

Is that too much? Even for me?

Considering Watchmen‘s Dave Gibbons is illustrating the book, it’s almost fitting, especially as – as Sarah Velez puts it in the resulting thread at Millarworld, “[t]his is pretty much the perfect dichotomy between creator owned and company owned stuff. You and the co-creator of the watchmen coming out with original new material–while DC put out prequels down by neither co-creator, based on 25 year old work.” With DC creating “Before Watchmen” as a brand, it was only a matter of time before someone decided to use “After Watchmen”; if not this, then I’d hope Top Shelf use it for the next League of Extraordinary Gentlemen book…

This is interesting; over at mainstream news and commentary site Slate, James Sturm has written a lengthy essay about why he’s going to boycott Marvel’s summer blockbuster Marvel’s The Avengers (Yes, that’s actually the full official title, presumably to distance it from the Uma Thurman/Sean Connery revival of the old TV show), based on the publisher’s treatment of Jack Kirby and his heirs:

What makes this situation especially hard to stomach is that Marvel’s media empire was built on the backs of characters whose defining trait as superheroes is the willingness to fight for what is right. It takes a lot of corporate moxie to put Thor and Captain America on the big screen and have them battle for honor and justice when behind the scenes the parent company acts like a cold-blooded supervillain. As Stan Lee famously wrote, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

What’s interesting to me about this isn’t necessarily Sturm’s reasoning itself, which is certainly nothing new to comic book fans who have been aware of the legal battle between the Kirby estate and Marvel over ownership of the characters for quite some time now and have chosen sides on this particular Comics Civil War (Although I wonder whether last week’s Before Watchmen argument has led to anyone reconsidering their position…?), but the fact that the article is – according to Slate’s sidebar – the third most shared story on the site. What happens if this story becomes suitably mainstream before the release of the movie, I wonder…? I’m reminded of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster being given creator credit and an annual stipend by DC ahead of the Superman movie in the ’70s (if I’m getting my dates right), and wonder whether there’s a similar move that Marvel can do for the Kirby estate to escape the potential publicity black eye that could result from this story getting wider transmission.

It’s possible that many of you out there never experienced the wonder that was Jeff Parker’s Marvel Adventures: The Avengers, but now there’s a chance for you to get a hint of what you missed, as Parker has made some scripts from his Marvel Adventures books available on his website (Other scripts will follow, apparently). For those who want to learn to write comics, this is an invaluable resource. For those who want to see the Leader outclassed by a team of huge-craniumed superheroes who complain about his “wee skull,” this is also an invaluable resource. If you are not in either of those demographics, you may want to reconsider your approach to life.

A plus from the Before Watchmen insanity has been KC Carlson’s Westfield Comics blog post about the infamous Watchman Ashcan. What’s that? You’ve never heard of such a thing…? Let KC explain…

You see, Al Gordon, as well as being a legendary inker for decades, was also in the running for being the most legendary Watchmen fan, ever. He would pester any DC editor he could find to send him advance photocopies of the Watchmen issues before they were published. The wait between #11 and #12 was obviously driving Al crazy, as he was calling DC every day wondering were his photocopy was. He managed to tick off several people. So, some unidentified DC staffer made sure that Al got the very first photocopy of Watchmen #12 — but not before that mystery person gathered together a bunch of other unidentified DC folks (possibly named Carlin, Helfer, and Bove) to alter the photocopy.

KC links to this old CBR column where Mark Waid gives more details:

It gets increasingly wackier, but it’s really subtle at first. The first dozen pages or so, you wouldn’t know your mind was being messed with unless you were paying super-close attention, I swear. Gradually, however, small alterations in the lettering and art turn into huge ones. In the end, by the time Veidt reveals that his agent of psychic delivery isn’t the squid, it’s reruns of “Pee Wee’s Playhouse,” you’d kinda have to catch on.

This is something that I really wish would see official print at some point, even if it’s just as an extra in yet another collected edition in years to come.

I cannot speak strongly enough about how interrelated I think women and children readers are and how both are extremely important to the future of comics. Women make 80% of the retail purchases in America. EIGHTY PERCENT. And that means that more often than not, if a kid is shopping, it’s with mom. So if the comic industry wants to have a future and hook readers young, they need to target both women and children. If a woman is reading comics, she’ll be more likely to let her kid read comics. And if a kid is raised in a house where one or both parents read comics, I think we all already know that he or she will be more likely to read comics. Kids who never know comics exist are going to have a hard time finding them when they’re at an age that most superhero comics are geared towards. And even better in all of this is the fact that if mom reads comics, she’ll have no problem with her daughters reading comics, which increases the future female readership of comics as well as just the future male readership of comics. There’s no loss here for the comics industry. It just takes foresight. Creating more comics for kids and women, making sure they know they exist, and making sure they’re accessible could genuinely change the future of the industry. Some publishers are already doing a great job making stuff for one or both (Top Shelf and Archaia both leap to mind). We just need a greater segment of the industry to take those demographics seriously.

That’s just one response from Janelle Asselin, former DC editor (now at Disney, working on kids’ magazines, I believe), in an interview over at the wonderful DC Women Kicking Ass tumblr that’s well worth checking out; Asselin talks about her graduate thesis on (the lack of) women in comics, and it’s both eye-opening and depressing. Go read.

For the design fans amongst you, Brian Wood explains the creation of the cover for his new series with Kristian Donaldson, The Massive, over at io9:

Sketch #1 took the day, and it was my favorite as well. So we passed it along to Kristian for him to make his own and take it to final. It presented a few problems that I could see: it was really crucial to separate the two halves of the cover, so that earth presented as the earth, and not some other planet looming in the sky. Or the foreground coming off like the moon. Or the earth not reading as a planet but some kind of giant rubber ball hanging in the sky.

I also didn’t want a realistically colored earth, with crayola-blue and green. I always favor limited palettes and non-representational color. Were it up to me, I would have kept it black and white.

It’s a really nice insight into Wood (and Donaldson)’s design process, as well as a chance to see some lovely work-in-progress sketches; I’m really looking forward to The Massive – which debuts today in Dark Horse Presents #8 – and this post works as a great tease for the kind of visuals to expect, if not for the story itself.

Suddenly, DC is very, very grateful it’s a leap year. The publisher has told retailers that Justice League #6 will ship two weeks late, with the once-every-four-years February 29th date being the only thing that keeps it within its solicited month of release; this is the second month in a row that Justice League will be shipped late, with the delay doubling in length this time around.

Artist Jim Lee takes a two issue break starting with the March-solicited #7, allowing Gene Ha and Carlos D’Anda to illustrate the next two issues while Lee gets a jump on the next storyarc, “The Villain’s Journey,” scheduled to begin with #9 – an issue that hasn’t been solicited yet. Could we see Justice League take a break for a month in order to give Lee a chance to get ahead on deadlines again, perhaps…?

Here’s a tantalizing “If Only” project… On his (fantastic) Tumblr, The Marvel Age of Comics, Tom Brevoort has shared two unused Jack Kirby Hulk pages from, he suspects, #3 or #4 of the original run, apparently rescued from destruction by Larry Lieber following an argument between Kirby and Stan Lee at some point. This weekend, Kurt Busiek tweeted a truly tempting offer: “@TomBrevoort Do you have enough of that unused Kirby Hulk story to have it finished up and printed? I’ll dialogue it!”

Sadly, reality isn’t in our favor; Brevoort replied that “I’ve got something like six pages of it, but not the opening nor the finale.” Of course, now I’m holding out hope that we’ll instead see an all-new Busiek Hulk project that can include these six pages as some kind of flashback, even if that’s more than likely a victory for optimism over common sense at this point in time…

(Click through to see the Kirby pages under the jump. Oh, and * – This is probably not a factual statement.) (more…)

The long-running legal battle between Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane is finally over, with a settlement that apparently closes the door on a case that had already seen Gaiman awarded co-ownership of Medieval Spawn, Angela and Cagliostro way back in 2002, and now co-ownership in Spawn #9 – the first appearance of those characters – as well as Spawn #26 (featuring the return of the Cagliostro character) and the three-issue Angela spin-off miniseries.

Talking to the Washington Post, Gaiman said that he was “delighted with the case… I’m delighted with the decisions. … And I’m delighted to put it behind me.” He went on to say that he thought that “an awful lot of good things have come out of it. I think the various decisions, particularly the [2002 Judge] Posner decision, were huge in terms of what the nature of dual copyright in comics is. What is copyrightable in comics is now something that there is a definite legal precedent for. There were a lot of things that were … misty in copyright [law] that are now much clearer, and it’s of benefit to the creator.”

McFarlane has so far not released any comment.

Is it wrong to admit I’m a lettering snob? Seeing badly done lettering can absolutely kill my interest in a comic, just as seeing well done lettering can artificially ensure that I’ll be reading for at least a few pages more, no matter how terrible the story (Tom Orzechowski, I kept reading early Spawn for far too long for you, sir). If you think I’m completely crazy, go back and re-read the early days of the Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire Justice League; there’s an issue in there where John Workman – a spectacular letterer, I think everyone would agree – fills in for Bob Lappan, and it just feels like an entirely different book despite everyone else in the creative team being exactly the same.

These days, of course, it’s easier to have continuity in your lettering with shared fonts and the like, which is why I was so interested in Ron Marz’ interview with letterer Troy Peteri, where he talks about the dos and don’ts of lettering, as well as – and this is where my wonk-iness really comes in – choosing the right font for the project, and what makes good lettering important:

I think people commonly believe that as long as the words are in balloons and on the page, it’s as good as done. They’re not taking into account how word balloons should lead the eye to the appropriate reading order in the panels, or how too much/not enough negative space in the balloons themselves can also make things look amateurish. Same goes for sound FX that look like they’re merely words typed out and dropped on the page. I honestly think that good lettering can make an amateurish effort look less so, similar to the way good visual FX in an otherwise low-budget movie can make that movie feel bigger and better.

These days, I think that we’re seeing more good lettering, but less exceptional lettering, if that makes sense; overall, I think the quality has improved dramatically with digital letters, but that medium tends to lose the individual magic of a Workman, Orzechowski or Artie Simek (Here’s a great column from Augie De Blieck about why Orzechowski is one of the greats, for those unconvinced). But maybe I’m looking in the wrong places: Who’s doing the truly great comic book lettering these days?

Mark Millar would like you to know that, despite rumors that his various movie projects are in trouble – with Jane Goldman confirming that she would not write a Kick-Ass sequel, and Nemesis being mentioned as possibly being put on hold for a time – everything is going just fine:

How many times do we need to go through this? [Matthew] Vaughn is producing [Kick-Ass 2] and Jane was taking about this 2 weeks ago in an interview. He’s got a new director and is doing a George Lucas, guiding the whole thing as he and I work on The Secret Service (which we’re writing at the moment). Could we stop with the scare-mongering please?

Also, Nemesis is fine. Fox deal was just signed off shortly before Christmas and there is no story there beyond an idiot with a blog who follows every tweet I write and whoever writes to me. As Joe Carnahan said himself in all the video interviews last week, Nemesis is doing fine.

Wanted 2 and War Heroes both fast-tracked as reported last November by Universal (google it), Supercrooks screenplay done and ready to get moving after Nacho finishes Windows and Vaughn just bought the rights to Superior. All is well.

Elsewhere in the same thread, Millar says that Kick-Ass 2‘s director will also write the screenplay, and that the project is in good hands, adding “Now RELAX. Empire Strikes Back worked out fine.” Reading between the lines, clearly what Millar is actually telling us is that we should expect Kick-Ass 3 to suck and feature Ewoks.

Reading recent collections of New Mutants Classic, as the logo describes it, I found myself remembering how difficult I found the Bill Sienkiewicz-illustrated issues when they were were first coming out. For the most part, it was the art, which was simultaneously more realistic and less grounded in ideas of a physical reality than what my 10 year old brain was used to at the time – I found it attractive but difficult to parse, to understand exactly what it all meant, sometimes – but Chris Claremont’s writing shifted to match what he was seeing, it seemed, with the stories becoming darker in tone (Professor Xavier has an illegitimate son with multiple personalities! Dani is being terrorized by an unstoppable monster! Cloak and Dagger have appeared and there’re drugs and addiction metaphors!) and less straight-ahead in execution. Re-reading it all now, it feels like bold stuff, a step forward from the Bob McLeod-illustrated issues and an important evolution not only for the book and its characters, but for Claremont as a writer and the X-Men franchise in general, but at the time… these were unsettling comics.

(When Jackson Guice and Kyle Baker came on as the regular art team, a year or so later, that was my era of true New Mutants love; I don’t know if it’s because I was at the right age, or that I could deal better with the more traditional art style.)

Remembering all this made me think about earlier prejudices I’d had about comics and artists in particular that seem ridiculous to me now: I remember thinking that Don Heck was boring, or that Jack Kirby was old-fashioned, for example, as well as being convinced that no-one could draw Guy Gardner as well as John Byrne had in Legends (This isn’t to be confused with my still-existing theory that no-one can draw Captain Britain as well as Alan Davis, although I’m looking forward to Gabriel Hardman proving me wrong in Secret Avengers). It’s embarrassing and weirdly reassuring to remember all of these ideas I had about what worked and didn’t work in comics back then, in part because oh man was I wrong about a lot of stuff, but also, it’s good to see myself learning and getting over snobbery and the like as I get older; I hope that, twenty years from now, I can look back on things I didn’t like and laugh at myself for my appalling taste.

That said, I’m wondering what comic prejudices and phobias you’ve had (and recovered from), dear readers. What used to turn you off, but you hate to admit it these days?

Over on his blog, The Sixth Gun writer (and up-and-coming Marvel star, what with The Fearless, as well as Captain America and Hawkeye and Wolverine coming up) Cullen Bunn shares his writing technique, and it has a lot more longhand than you might’ve expected…:

Some writers might go directly into scripting at this point, but I like a little more of a safety net. For me, the more prep work I do early on, the less time I have to spend during the actual scripting. If the story is clear once I sit down at the computer, I can devote more energy to “painting a picture” for the editors and artists. Obviously, I do a lot of work in longhand before I sit down at the computer. I like this because I can do the heavy lifting while sitting on the couch or watching my kid play at the park or while having a margarita.

Also surprising: Bunn’s scripts are long – He estimates that, for the 24 page Sixth Gun he uses as an example for this blog post, the script goes 50 pages. It’s a fascinating post, and filled with all manner of great process stuff for those of you (well, us, really; I love that kind of thing) who’re into learning about writing…

Want to know more about the co-creator of pretty much all of your favorite Marvel Comics characters (Note: claim void if your favorite characters were all created post-1970 or so)? Well, keep your eyes on the pay-per-view screen because, according to Deadline, EPIX is close to buying the rights to With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story, a documentary feature that traces the life of Lee from childhood to the modern day, with interviews from various Marvel movie stars, as well as other comic creators. The movie is expected to appear on the pay cable channel and EPIX’s website later this year, following its debut at the Slamdance Film Festival tomorrow.

Warren Ellis offers the public service of explaining to would-be comic writers exactly what the purpose of a comic script is:

This set of instructions must surround your story to the extent that you feel necessary and comfortable. Some writers produce reams of panel description because they require fine control of the artist, letterer and colourist to meet their vision of the story. Some writers boil their description down to a telegram because they require only that the most basic requirements of the panel be met in order to achieve their goals.

Both methods, however, and everything in between, are about manipulation of the artist. That sounds grim, doesn’t it?

Is it strange that I hope that this is the first installment in a series of posts commenting on/teaching comic writing skills by Ellis? The lack of his voice in the comic criticism/analysis continues to feel like a noticeble absence, even all these years after he last wrote about comics on a regular basis.

What makes a hit comic? In a thread over at Millarworld, Mark Millar tries to explain:

A book needs 2 of 3 things to sell in the direct market… a big writer, a big artist and a big character. 3 is better but to really do well you need at least 2. This is why the Millarworld books sell so well every month as they’re aimed at established readers. Trade sales are more mainstream and so the artist doesn’t need to have established himself at Marvel or DC.

It’s an interesting thread overall, if only for the glimpse inside Millar’s take on how to promote your books and your brand:

Like Marvel, I also embraced a multimedia approach and quickly got them going as movies, T-shirts, games, toys and had the success of those bring heat to the new projects… I’ve timed this carefully. Not just building a rep on company-owned, but I think the cycle at the moment is people wanting fresh concepts like they wanted them in 1992. There’s only so many times a villain can come back in the old books. The Millarworld books so far show the audience and multimedia potential is unlimited. A lot of people really hadn’t gotten what I’ve been doing here, but they’re starting to see it now. All going well we’ll have 2 or more movies a year coming out by 2013 and beyond.

Millar also promises that he will continue to be the center of his own brand:

I’ll never bring in other writers. That’s the huge mistake Image made when they expanded too fast in 93/94 and collapsed their model. People knew picking up an Image book meant they were getting one of their fave Marvel artists, but when other guys were writing and drawing those books they diluted their appeal. I’d rather write 3 volumes of Kick-Ass and have them permanently in print with movies, TV shows, games, etc, than have someone come in and dilute what makes it work.

Say what you like about Millar, he’s maintained a level of success from the Marvel work that made his name through to his own creator-owned work, so he’s clearly doing something right…

The news that Walt Simonson is not only returning to Marvel, but drawing Brian Michael Bendis’ last arc on Avengers, makes me think about Marvel’s talent management vs. DC’s. For whatever reason – I’m tempted to say “The fact that there’s little else to work on, there” – Marvel has a tendency to use big name creators on big name books, as opposed to DC, where the same creators often work on smaller, more personal, projects. It’s not just Simonson – who, in his time at DC, bounced around titles like Wonder Woman, World of Warcraft, DC Universe: Legacies, JSA Classified and his Orion series that still really, really deserves to be collected thank you very much – but consider Warren Ellis, who went from barely touching the DCU when he was under DC Exclusive (His footprint was, what, one JLA Classified arc?) to writing Ultimate Fantastic Four, Astonishing X-Men and Iron Man for Marvel as well as Nextwave, newuniversal and Secret Avengers; Andy Diggle, whose DCU work consisted of, I think, Green Arrow Year One before jumping ship to Marvel and Daredevil and Thunderbolts; or Brian Wood, who didn’t work on any DCU characters before going to Marvel and starting Wolverine and The X-Men: Alpha and Omega.

There’s almost certainly more to it than Marvel offering (a) a lot of money and (b) not a lot of choice of available projects to creators; in Wood’s case, at least, we know that he had pitched for DCU work and not landed the gig, and for all we know, Diggle and Simonson were in similar boats (Somehow, I doubt that Ellis falls into the same camp), but I find the disconnect interesting. It feels like it’s only recently, with Jeff Lemire and Scott Snyder’s lead, that DC has really become comfortable with using “Vertigo creators” in their DCU books, and so perhaps that also contributes to the weird discrepancy. But it ends with interesting results, such as this Simonson news, which Marvel can easily play as “Comics Great Walter Simonson Returns To Superhero Comics!” without that much fear of contradiction.