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Kirkman invades Marvel Office!
2007-07-20 13:41:39
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Another action-packed Monday in the Ultimate Office, as superstar Ultimate X-Men writer Robert Kirkman stopped by to oversee issue 72, as it goes to the printer!
Actually, that last part’s a lie, but Robert is here, for the big Marvel Writers Conference we’re having this week. We’ll be talking about the next couple years’ worth of plans…over a few days that will feel like a couple of years…
And most of the Ultimate writers will be here tomorrow, when Robert’s joined by Mike Carey and Brian Michael Bendis (unfortunately Mark Millar and Jeph Loeb can’t make it…)!
Robert’s got some mind-bending plans for Cable, starting in Ultimate X-Men #75—and here’s your look at the finished cover my Michael Turner!
And don’t worry if you’re a fan of Ben Oliver’s Cable image here—it’s slated to run on a cover in the future, as well…
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Miserable weather weekend...
2007-07-20 13:33:52
Miserable weekend here in New York—hot, humid, and rainy. My girlfriend and I barely left the apartment…so I spent most of the weekend reading comics.
Loved Casanova—like I told Fraction, I was expecting to like it, but not to love it as much as I did. Watch out for these guys. Eternals didn’t disappoint, either. Great to see Gaiman back on a comic, and hey, that John Romita Jr. is really something, isn’t he? Wow. Aside from Ultimates 2 #11, those were the highlights of my new-comics reading.
But I also spent some time with the mountain of trade paperbacks that’ve been sitting by my couch. I finally made my way through all the WildC.A.T.s trades I came back from Wizardworld Philly with…and, man, I got made fun of mercilessly for that. But plenty of good stuff there—prime Travis Cherest, great Jim Lee, and terrific stories by Alan Moore and Joe Casey…
Next up was a run that (like most of WildC.A.T.s) I’d read as it came out originally—but that read even better in one sitting: the paperbacks of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.’s Wolverine: Enemy of the State. Even before rereading it, this was one of my three favorite Wolverine comics, ever—up there with Barry Windsor-Smith’s Weapon X and the original Chris Claremont/Frank Miller Wolverine limited series.
I loved Millar’s writing on this because it was so relentless…everything was huge and larger-than-life. But it holds together as a story—the characters (even the ones Marvel readers are familiar with) are first introduced, then play actual roles throughout the story. Even the stuff that seemed like cheap (but fun) thrills when the book was coming out monthly, seemed to flow like pieces of a larger (exploding) tapestry in one sitting.
I also think Millar wrote the best Elektra since Frank Miller. The observation that Elektra isn’t Matt Murdoch’s one true love—but Matt is Elektra’s…well, that alone was worth the price of admission for me.
Plus, you know, Wolverine rides a Sentinel into a room filled with a thousand ninjas…
And the ending is classic Marvel. Wolverine wins…but he still loses. Great stuff.
Not to ignore Romita’s brilliant art. Romita manages to take Millar’s script and make it sing. Everything is huge, brutal, and in your face. This is the kind of script that’s simultaneously the best and worst for an artist—the best, because it provides the artist with room to pull off virtuosic flights of artistry, like millions of zombie super-villains attacking a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier…and the worst because the artist has to draw like millions of zombie super-villains attacking a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier. And the next page: it’s 2 million…
But Romita pulls it all off, every page, every spread, every panel. They all sizzle with power and the sort of skill most artists will never come close to…not a line is faked, not an expression is phoned in.
And of course Klaus Janson and Paul Mounts did an amazing job on the inking and coloring, respectively…but I’ve rambled on long enough about this comic. Actually, remind me sometime about the practical joke Mark, Sean McKeever, and I pulled on Editor Jenny Lee during this run.
Anyway, finishing Enemy of the State (and the haunting Kaare Andrews issue following it) inspired me to re-read the classic Havok and Wolverine: Meltdown which was as bizarre and mind-twisting now as it was in 1989, when I was reading it as it came out. I’m not sure if we still have this in print, but the wild story by Walt and Louise Simonson and beautiful pained art by Kent Williams and John J. Muth is well-worth digging around for.
Then I went in for Iron Man: The Armor Wars (another half-off trade purchase from Philly) which I’d only ever read one issue of, and that was when comics still cost 75 cents…but enough about what I was reading…
From the mailbag...
2007-03-22 14:44:12
“Since the Marvel site is basically just a place to hype what comics are coming out and NOT a source of information and the blogs (especially John Barber's) are a joke, I'd like to try and get some information from whoever reads this.”
Another satisfied customer! And that’s me who reads the mail.
“Namely, what the heck happened to Ultimate Hulk vs Wolverine?! The story is obviously now out of context as the Hulk has returned in the pages of the Ultimates title. Now the story, if it ever comes out, will be a flashback.”
Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk writer Damon Lindelof found out the hard way how much work goes into writing comics scripts. And his work on Lost on TV took up more of his time than anticipated. He’s working on the rest of the series now, and once the scripts are in, Leinil will get back to work and we’ll get the rest of the series out.
Believe me—the fact that we don’t kill Wolverine or Hulk in the end (which is really the only thing given away by the return of Hulk in Ultimates 2) is hardly the only revelation this series has…
“Also, what happened to the last issue of Ultimate Extinction? It was listed as a six issue series and changed to 5. Obviously there was more written and it was paired down (likely due to another case of blown deadlines).”
Nope. That was nothing more than a stupid typo on our part. Seriously.
Warren Ellis conceived the series as five issues and wrote it as five issues. There’s no way we would’ve turned down a sixth issue if Warren and Brandon Peterson wanted to do one. I mean, that series was like printing money. Why on Earth wouldn’t we want it?
It was purely a case of the wrong number getting on the cover of issue one, and nobody noticing. Then the same template for the cover was used in number two…a stupid, regrettable error—but Ultimate Extinction was exactly the story Warren wanted to tell.
“You know, I don't mind so much that the books ship late, it is more the fact that Marvel brushes it under the rug and would rather pretend there is not a problem. Face up to it, man! Take responsibility for being late. And let the fans know when they can expect the books. Now THAT would be a good use of your site!
“- Kirk Nelson”
Well, usually the reasons for late books are mundane. It’s not like we’re brushing it aside but “the issue isn’t finished” isn’t much of a story to tell. Plus, nobody likes late books, so sure, we don’t like dwelling on them…and if we knew when they’d be out, well, they wouldn’t be late.
Thanks for writing, Kirk.
The Origin of Marvel Zombies Part 3
2007-03-22 14:39:25
Writer in place, we started searching for a penciler for Marvel Zombies.
When Greg Land drew the Zombies in Ultimate Fantastic Four, he’d (of course) drawn them in his signature photo-realistic style. Our initial thought was to move away from that style in the Zombies book, mostly to avoid trying to compete with Greg’s art. If the series was in a totally different style, you wouldn’t really be able to compare it with Greg.
Joe Quesada agreed, and we sat down with Chris Allo, Marvel’s Talent Coordinator, to come up with some ideas.
I may have mentioned before in this blog that I’m a fan of the British comic 2000AD; one of the things that really got me into that comic was the realization that a lot of my favorite writers and artists in the American comics industry were 1) British and 2) had come into comics via 2000AD.
2000AD is almost a mini-industry on its own, with its own trends—styles rise and fall fairly independently of what’s happening at Marvel or DC. There are a wide variety of artists there, but one thing I’d noticed over the past several years was that a few of the artists seemed, to my eye, like they were influenced by Sean Philips.
And I really like Sean Philips’ style. It’s dark and cool, more evocative than presentational. So the idea of getting someone operating in that milieu appealed to me.
So I suggested it to Chris Allo, and Chris—without pointing out that I am a complete idiot—counter-proposed that maybe we could actually get the real Sean Philips.
Which, like finding the writer, was a real smack-myself-in-the-head moment. For some reason that just didn’t occur to me.
Sean had recently wrapped up one of my all-time favorite comics, Sleeper, with Ed Brubaker over at Wildstorm. Just to throw in a Marvel plug, here—don’t miss those two’s next series, Criminal, from Marvel’s Icon imprint.
So I was excited about the prospect of having Sean on the book. I gave him a call, he was interested in doing the series, and bam—everything seemed like it was falling into place.
June Chung, who I’d had (in my mind and in the paperwork) on standby for doing the colors, actually was looking for work when Jae Lee (her husband and collaborator) started working with Richard Isanove on Dark Tower. So she happily agreed to color Sean—she’d actually just been coloring Sean at DC…
Ultimate Fantastic Four letterer Randy Gentile seemed like the natural choice for lettering, and he was happy to come on board.
So we were all set…except Chris Allo had this one idea about who should do the covers…
Next: Suydam!
Ultimate Annuals 2006!
2007-03-22 14:38:11
Don’t miss Ultimate Spider-Man Annual #2, in stores this week!
38 pages of nonstop action from the team that brought you last year’s annual—Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Brooks!
Not only does this feature the return on Moon Knight, Daredevil, and the Punisher—it’s also got the debut of Ultimate Kangaroo!
And we’ll be hitting you with one Annual a week for the rest of August!
Next week it’s Ultimate Fantastic Four Annual 2, by new UFF writer Mike Carey, old UFF penciler Stuart Immonen, and first-time Ultimate guy Frazer Irving.
August 23 brings us Ultimates Annual 2, by Moon Knight writer Charlie Huston, new Squadron Supreme penciler Mike Deodato, and all-around great guy Ryan Sook.
Finally, on August 30, we round out the month with Ultimate X-Men Annual2 by UXM writer Robert Kirkman and original UXM costume designer Salvador Larroca, with a special 2-page bonus feature drawn by Leinil Francis Yu!
The secret origin of Marvel Zombies
2007-03-22 14:33:13
In honor of tooday’s release of the Marvel Zombies hardcover, I thought I’d share my own inside-Marvel-editorial perspective on how this monster of a success story came to be.
Now, you’ll be able to see in the hardcover Robert Kirkman’s perspective on the beginnings—which I’m sure will prove a more fun read—and I don’t think we contradict anything here, but I think this provides an interesting look inside the Marvel offices, with a few details even the principle players aren’t aware of.
Marvel Zombies is a really unique book; one of my favorites that I’ve had the pleasure to work on. More than that, though, it was a book where every single piece of the puzzle fell into place and worked just right…and believe me, that did not seem like the way this book was going to work out…
The first credit for Marvel Zombies success belongs to Mark Millar.Mark, of course, conceived of the idea of a planet of zombified heroes for the first story in his and Greg Land’s run on Ultimate Fantastic Four. Greg—who’s a huge horror fan—went to town on it, and created some of the most vivid scenes of apocalyptic zombie destruction ever seen in the comics medium.
And Mark also had the idea to spin the Zombies off into their own book. He took the hook “Marvel Zombies” from an idea that, I believe, editor Axel Alonso was batting around—the phrase itself, of course, referring to readers who either only read Marvel comics, or read all Marvel comics, depending on context. Mark suggested to Joe Quesada that we launch the series hot on the heels of his and Greg’s UFF debut.
Mark actually had an idea of the creative team on the book, but the people he suggested, for one reason or another, didn’t work out (because they were working on other series, that kind of thing; I don’t want to name any names here because that seems improper—I don’t want to hurt any feelings or anything).
But even without a creative team, Joe loved the idea, turned to us—the Ultimate office—and had us submit paperwork on the series. When we’re getting ready to launch a new series, the powers-that-be at Marvel (people like publisher Dan Buckley, director of sales David Gabriel, and a few others) look at the costs of producing the book versus the number they think it’ll sell.
So when I turned in the paperwork, I included only one name as a member of the potential creative team—colorist June Chung. That’s not really common, to have a colorist in mind before a writer or artist, but I thought the sort of color palette June usually supplies over Jae Lee would work great in the world of the zombies…of course, June’s capable of other styles, plus she might not be a good fit with the artist, plus she might not want to do it—I just wanted to make sure we could afford her if we wanted her!
Next: there was only one right choice for writing and one for drawing this thing, but how did we figure that out? Plus…covers?
And a month later...
2007-03-22 14:06:34
Hey, sorry I haven’t been blogging lately—Tom Brevoort’s blog has just been putting me to shame too much, with it’s quality and insight.
So, lacking either of those, I’ll just reminisce…
I’ve read comics most of my life; most of the time I’ve read a lot[ of comics.
I got into comics with G.I. Joe, then Transformers, then Secret Wars. So Marvel was what I was originally into, but I quickly started reading the post-(original) Crisis DC Universe, pretty much via Dark Knight Returns.
Reading DKR made me think, “hey, this Batman guy is pretty cool—way cooler than the TV show and cartoons. I wonder if any of the other comics with him are that good?” So I picked up the newest issue on the stands, which happened to be part 3 of “Year One.” Which gave me, shall we say, a somewhat skewed perception of the average quality of Batman comics.
Now, all this was about the time of the Black-and-White Explosion, so that lead me in other new comics directions. For those who don’t remember, after Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles became a direct-market success (this was several years before their mainstream success with cartoons and movies and breakfast cereals), comic book stores were flooded with black-and-white comics of all kinds, as publishers and retailers tried to find the next big thing.
There was a lot of variety in these comics; some were second-generation parodies-of-parodies, sure, but there was a great “anything goes” attitude. These comics helped broaden my horizons…a lot were terrible, of course, but a few gems got caught up in the Black-and-White Explosion’s wave of success (and its subsequent near-instant collapse); but all this happening so fast added up to my initial world-view of comics.
What I gleaned from this time was:
1) Comics can be about anything. I came in with the toy-tie-ins (plus stuff like Marvel’s Star Wars comics); read super hero comics; got into the wide variety of self-published and small-press books, in a huge number of genres and styles.
2) Super hero comics can be really great. The stuff coming out in this period when I really got into comics—when I was about 10-12—was pretty staggering. Dark Knight, Watchmen, Elektra: Assassin, Howard Chaykin’s Shadow, George Perez’s Wonder Woman, Daredevil: Born Again, Doom Patrol…and many many other books of great quality. I mean, this wasn’t the only period of good super hero books, not by any stretch of the imagination, but there was a real sense of striving for the new that isn’t always present in super hero books.
These two factors really defined my enjoyment of comics for the rest of my life, I suppose…
I’ve never considered “comics” and “super heroes” synonymous, but I’d have to say that if I was a fan one genre (in any medium) it’s super heroes.
See you in a couple weeks
2006-08-11 17:28:52
The rest of “The Secret Origin of Marvel Zombies” will have to wait.
I’m off to California to get married.
I’ll talk to you all when I get back—don’t let the place fall apart without me!
John
The Origin of Marvel Zombies 2
2006-08-09 15:44:31
So paperwork in, the Ultimate Office turned to figuring out the rest of the creative team for Marvel Zombies.
The office is, of course, headed by Ralph Macchio. For Zombies, the majority of the day-to-day editorial work was handled by Nicole Boose. I wasn’t that involved with the book after it got going (except to ogle the pages as they came in) and Ralph was mostly involved at the plot/script stage. So most of editorial credit—or blame—goes to Nicole, and I don’t want to sound like I’m taking credit where none is due.
But at this point in the story there wasn’t any day-to-day at all, because there wasn’t a creative team.
Putting together a creative team on a comic is a real challenge. If you get it right, you get magic; you get a whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts. We all have favorite runs on comics, series of issues where the stars aligned and everybody involved in the comic was perfectly in synch and creating great comics…
And you’ve probably seen some times where talented creators are put on a book together and they just don’t mesh together, no matter how good they might be separately…
We started with the writer. We needed somebody who was going to be able to tell a zombie tale we hadn’t seen before, not just rehash old movie plots…somebody with a wit and black humor that could stand up next to Mark Millar’s.
So Ralph, Nicole, and I ran through a few names, and nobody was clicking. Nothing was working right. The three of us were talking—we needed somebody who can not only write super heroes, but who can do the horror stuff, too. Somebody that gets zombies. I don’t remember who said it, but somebody said something like, “we really need somebody just like Robert Kirkman.”
And the room went silent for a minute as we all realized what had been said.
Among many other things, Robert Kirkman writes two hit comics for Image Comics—the super hero epic Invincible and the zombie series Walking Dead. As Robert was breaking into Marvel, a couple years ago, he had quite a few fans in editorial, because of the diversity in those two projects—some liked Invincible more, some liked Walking Dead more (which isn’t a bad tip for everybody to walk away with, by the way)…and the guy certainly gets both zombies and super heroes.
“Hang on a minute,” I said, and ran next door to Tom Brevoort’s office. At the time, Robert was doing most of his Marvel work in Tom’s office. So I checked on Robert’s schedule—could he do it, timewise? Tom thought that not only could he, but that Robert was a great fit for the book.
Ralph gave Robert a call, and Robert agreed to join in. I’m sure he was worried (to some degree) about typecasting himself as a zombies guy. Ralph seemed to put him at ease, because Ralph is great at that.
Plus, Robert’s too good to trap himself into any one genre. Plus plus, we definitely wanted to make sure this book wasn’t similar to Walking Dead—which is one of my favorite comics, and I highly recommend it. But there already is a Walking Dead, and the world doesn’t need a copy of it…
So the writing was in place, in, frankly, a smack-ourselves-on-the-head kind of way. I mean, it’s obvious Kirkman was the right choice. It’s embarrassing enough that it took us any time to figure that out…but the fact that we managed to do the exact same thing when it came to the art is even worse…
Next: Artist Sean Philips joins the Zombies team.
ultimateoffice@marvel.com
2006-08-09 15:09:25
If you've been trying to send us any mail to the address in the back of all the Ultimate books, your message hasn't gone through.
It seems the email was down. It's back up now.
I was worried nobody was shocked by Ultimate Spider-Man #98...
Sorry for the inconvenience, but we're back at ultimateoffice@marvel.com!
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About this blog:
Associate Editor John Barber gives the inside story on the Ultimate line of comics--plus whatever other comics John edits!
 | About the author:
John Barber has been a web cartoonist, self-publisher, author, and now comic book editor. He lives in New York with his fiancee Alison. |
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