Post by Cary Friedman on Jul 12, 2007 23:49:05 GMT -5
... that I contributed a plot for a Bat-character story?
Some background: I spent a good part of 2006 [May through September] contacting great comic book creators, classic and contemporary, in pursuit of blurbs for Wisdom from the Batcave. It was a thrill for me to interact with these giants, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover how approachable, gracious, and helpful most of them are. Sometimes the exchanges -- via e-mail or on the phone -- veered off in directions I would not have anticipated. [One example that really stands out in my memory: I spent an extraordinary afternoon listening, in awe, to Neal Adam's brilliant insights on a whole host of topics -- I will always treasure that conversation.]
One e-mail exchange went something like this: I wrote to thank one of the biggest guys around for the stunning blurb he contributed to Wisdom, and he responded very warmly and generously. In the course of the exchange, he asked me for a "“somewhat†classic Hanukkah story that can be adapted into a modern holiday story set in Gotham." This story, he said, would "feature a Bat-character, but not the main man himself."
I know what you're thinking. I can sense your obvious -- and justifiable -- discomfort.
I've had the exact same discomfort over the years when people -- the liars! -- claimed that comic book writers and artists make up stories. 'Why fabricate stories?' you're wondering. 'Why not just report them!?' You raise an excellent point.
If you remember issue #10 of The Fantastic Four, you remember that Stan Lee established the idea that the FF and the staff of Marvel Comics all lived in [the same] New York, and the writers and artists merely chronicled the FF's adventures.
I myself have always subscribed to this "writer/artist-as-reporter concept." The policy of making up stories has always struck me as irresponsible, in poor taste, and, well, just plain wrong. Granted, there might be times, for example, when deadlines loom, and the Batman is out of town [perhaps even off the planet, with the JLA] and, therefore, unavailable to describe his latest adventures to whoever's writing Batman / Detective / LofDK / etc., but, as a standard operating procedure, I object strenuously to this policy.
That is, until someone asked me to do it.
So, here was one of my favorite writers, and an all around first-rate guy, asking me [last September] to contribute a story idea.
I did. I remembered hearing a poignant true-life story some years earlier where the holiday of Chanukah -- with its mitzvah of lighting the menorah -- played an important role in reuniting a Holocaust survivor with her long-lost family. I wrote it up, and sent the story outline to the writer and, sure enough, some months later, there it was in living Technicolor.
The story appears in the DCU INFINITE HOLIDAY SPECIAL [cover date: February 2007; released: December 2006].
I have done a cool thing or two in my life -- lectured at the FBI Academy a couple of times or more, for example -- but this was really cool. If anyone had ever told me that I would step behind the scenes, contribute an idea for a Bat-character's adventures, I wouldn't have believed it.
'Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!' ... you know? That was me for a day.
www.avclub.com/content/feature/inventory_10_wonderfully_weird
Inventory: 10 Wonderfully Weird Moments From Fantastic Four Comics
Noel Murray
June 11, 2007
...
9. John Byrne witnesses the trial of Reed Richards (FF #262)
In issue #10 of The Fantastic Four, Lee and Kirby established that the super-family lived in the same New York City that the staff of Marvel Comics did, and that Lee and Kirby themselves were producing the comic as a kind of newsletter, recounting the team's real adventures. During one of the most dramatic storylines in FF history—in which Reed Richards saves the life of the planet-eating Galactus, and a universal court puts him on trial for aiding and abetting mass murder—Byrne revives the writer/artist-as-reporter concept, inserting himself into his own story, as the man assigned to tell the comic's readers about how the whole sticky issue gets resolved. (Answer: With a healthy dose of philosophical objectivism.)
...
Some background: I spent a good part of 2006 [May through September] contacting great comic book creators, classic and contemporary, in pursuit of blurbs for Wisdom from the Batcave. It was a thrill for me to interact with these giants, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover how approachable, gracious, and helpful most of them are. Sometimes the exchanges -- via e-mail or on the phone -- veered off in directions I would not have anticipated. [One example that really stands out in my memory: I spent an extraordinary afternoon listening, in awe, to Neal Adam's brilliant insights on a whole host of topics -- I will always treasure that conversation.]
One e-mail exchange went something like this: I wrote to thank one of the biggest guys around for the stunning blurb he contributed to Wisdom, and he responded very warmly and generously. In the course of the exchange, he asked me for a "“somewhat†classic Hanukkah story that can be adapted into a modern holiday story set in Gotham." This story, he said, would "feature a Bat-character, but not the main man himself."
* * * * * * * * * *
I know what you're thinking. I can sense your obvious -- and justifiable -- discomfort.
I've had the exact same discomfort over the years when people -- the liars! -- claimed that comic book writers and artists make up stories. 'Why fabricate stories?' you're wondering. 'Why not just report them!?' You raise an excellent point.
If you remember issue #10 of The Fantastic Four, you remember that Stan Lee established the idea that the FF and the staff of Marvel Comics all lived in [the same] New York, and the writers and artists merely chronicled the FF's adventures.
I myself have always subscribed to this "writer/artist-as-reporter concept." The policy of making up stories has always struck me as irresponsible, in poor taste, and, well, just plain wrong. Granted, there might be times, for example, when deadlines loom, and the Batman is out of town [perhaps even off the planet, with the JLA] and, therefore, unavailable to describe his latest adventures to whoever's writing Batman / Detective / LofDK / etc., but, as a standard operating procedure, I object strenuously to this policy.
That is, until someone asked me to do it.
* * * * * * * * * *
So, here was one of my favorite writers, and an all around first-rate guy, asking me [last September] to contribute a story idea.
I did. I remembered hearing a poignant true-life story some years earlier where the holiday of Chanukah -- with its mitzvah of lighting the menorah -- played an important role in reuniting a Holocaust survivor with her long-lost family. I wrote it up, and sent the story outline to the writer and, sure enough, some months later, there it was in living Technicolor.
The story appears in the DCU INFINITE HOLIDAY SPECIAL [cover date: February 2007; released: December 2006].
I have done a cool thing or two in my life -- lectured at the FBI Academy a couple of times or more, for example -- but this was really cool. If anyone had ever told me that I would step behind the scenes, contribute an idea for a Bat-character's adventures, I wouldn't have believed it.
'Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!' ... you know? That was me for a day.
* * * * * * * * * *
www.avclub.com/content/feature/inventory_10_wonderfully_weird
Inventory: 10 Wonderfully Weird Moments From Fantastic Four Comics
Noel Murray
June 11, 2007
...
9. John Byrne witnesses the trial of Reed Richards (FF #262)
In issue #10 of The Fantastic Four, Lee and Kirby established that the super-family lived in the same New York City that the staff of Marvel Comics did, and that Lee and Kirby themselves were producing the comic as a kind of newsletter, recounting the team's real adventures. During one of the most dramatic storylines in FF history—in which Reed Richards saves the life of the planet-eating Galactus, and a universal court puts him on trial for aiding and abetting mass murder—Byrne revives the writer/artist-as-reporter concept, inserting himself into his own story, as the man assigned to tell the comic's readers about how the whole sticky issue gets resolved. (Answer: With a healthy dose of philosophical objectivism.)
...