Pimping My Stuff: Place to Be Nation

If you follow me on Twitter or are friends with me on Facebook, you may have noticed of late I've been tossing a lot of links to a new site called Place to Be Nation. I've been listening to the pro wrestling-focused podcast of the same name for a few months now and quickly became a fan, not merely because it's a better way to spend my commute then staring at downtown Newark, but because it's a great show. Scott Criscuolo and Justin Rozzero have done a tremendous job creating a consistently entertaining piece of business and developing an impressive fan following along the way, building it into a community. They provide insightful and humorous insight into the past and present of wrestling and conduct some of the better interviews I've heard.

Needless to say when Justin reached out to me and let me know they'd be expanding their efforts into web site form, I was eager to join up. It may seem a bit odd that somebody who spends every day running a fairly involved entertainment web site would want to also devote a portion of his free time to an endeavor like this, but as evidenced by this blog and other outlets I've used in the past, I love writing and collaboration, and when there are avenues beyond the one I'm lucky to have professionally, it's a treat for me to get to spout off about things I love.

So while I have no plans to discontinue my ramblings here, you'll also notice a lot of my thoughts on wrestling and TV in particular migrating over to placetobenation.com. The first two pieces I was a part of have gone up already, one which kicks off a regular wrestling list feature called The Five Count with a round table discussion of the most wasted WWE title reigns of all-time, plus me chatting with Justin and his pal Jen about one of my favorite topics: boy bands.

In conclusion, if you were concerned you weren't getting enough Ben Morse via Marvel.com and The Cool Kids Table, you've now got even more via Place to Be Nation, plus a boatload of other great columnists and writers to boot. Truly we live in a golden age.

Pimping My Stuff: Dear Teen Me

I always hate doing the "sorry for the lack of posts lately post, but...sorry for the lack of posts lately. I've been hit by the killer combo of two totally positive but very time-consuming things in some exciting new projects at Marvel plus the ramp-up to WonderCon as well as a move from Saddle Brook, New Jersey a half hour south to Edison in order to accommodate my lovely bride's new job as a nurse at St. Peter's Hospital in New Brunswick.

While things will keep going hard and heavy at Marvel (and I wouldn't have it any other way), now that I'm getting gradually settled in my swank new two-floor townhouse (it's pretty huge, but I'm a nurse's trophy husband now, so I deserve it), I'm hoping to get back to blogging a bit more regularly.

Or you'll get another sorry for the lack of posts post in a couple weeks.

In the mean time, I had the great pleasure of doing a guest spot over at Dear Teen Me, a blog run in part by my old co-editor-in-chief at my college paper (and not my same-named sister) Emily Morse. I wrote a letter to my teenage self that covered everything from my career to my relationship hits and misses to my health issues to my astonishment that Smallville lasted 10 years and more. It's a deeply personal piece and I'm quite proud of how it turned out, so if you follow this blog at all for me and not just the Adam-X pics, I think it's worth a look.

Gotta go unpack, but once I'm through these boxes, more posting! I hope! Maybe!

(That's my kneeling in the nWo Wolfpac shirt in the pic off top, by the way)

Avengers VS X-Men Classic

It's time for another lame apology post about not posting more frequently lately, but if you saw the news today, you now know I was busy prepping for the announcement of Avengers VS X-Men, the major Marvel event of 2012. Further, I was getting ready for our very cool Livestream event tomorrow, during which we'll have all the creative big guns on to interact with fans in a neat new kind of format.

So while this week will still be packed with a lot of work that may keep me away from the Table, let me leave you with a very special CLASSIC look at Avengers vs X-Men...

...from issue #3 of the 1996 volume of Captain Marvel where Avengers Forever cast member Genis-Vell threw down with yours and my favorite not-really-an-X-Man-but-tried-to-help-during-Fear-Itself-and-he's-really-awesome...X-TREME! I've never read it, but dang, given my love for Adam-X, the former Legacy and all things Fabian Nicieza, why the heck haven't I?

Enjoy AvX!

Oh, and for those who are tired of seeing only the women of comics do the "brokeback" pose...

For the ladies! And fellas who like fellas! And weird Legacy fetish people!

Pimping My Stuff: Marvel.com Trifecta

I wear many hats in my role as Associate Editor of Marvel.com (not actually true, I don't generally wear hats unless on vacation to protect my scalp from the ravages of the sun). These days, much of my time is spent programming content, organizing my freelancers, supervising interns, editing stories and helping to produce, direct and occasionally host our video and animation efforts. I dig all this stuff and getting to constantly incorporate new responsibilities and roles into my job is an awesome perk to an already great gig.

However, at the end of the day, I'm still a writer at heart, as the lengthy treatises on pro wrestling, Subway and Adam-X that have hopefully wasted many of your evenings go to show.

It's not every week I get the opportunity to sit down and just write at my day job, but this was one of those weeks. I worked on three pretty cool pieces over the past few days, and if you'll indulge me (if you've made it this far you kinda already are), I'd like to share them with you.

Up first, I spoke with designer and letterer Jared Fletcher about coming up with the new logos for the post-Regenesis X-Men titles. I've never covered this kind of topic with anybody of Jared's skill, so it was neat to get into his process and also see all the sketches and tests that got him to his final product. Check out more at his web site. Sorry they nixed the lower case "e," Jared!

Next, I had the pleasure of chatting with my old buddy and one of the most uniquely talented artists working in comics, Juan Doe. I can't divulge my history with Juan, lest I shatter shrouded-in-mystique persona, but it was awesome to catch up with him and hear about all the recent triumphs in his personal life and then dig into his work on Legion of Monsters, the first limited series he's ever tackled (he's previously stuck to covers and one shots). Juan is ever the wordsmith, explaining the lure of the series and how he's recently altered his style, but the sketches are the real gem. Creepy Morbius! Hit his deviantArt gallery.

Finally, I'm not sure who he is, but somebody sure is keeping painstaking track of the developments in Spider-Island, adding them to a super cool and ever-evolving map on Marvel.com. Nice work, guy!

Off to San Diego (2011 edition)!

Sorry for the lack of posting of late, but we've all been busy preparing as the monolithic comics brouhaha known as Comic-Con International, she does approach. I myself am headed out west bright and early tomorrow morning, so this is likely the last you shall hear from me on this blog until at least next week.

HOWEVER!

You can follow my live streaming adventures all week long with Marvel.com Live, providing full coverage of Comic-Con with great guests, up to the minute news, yada yada yada. I'll also be liveblogging and posting stories at Marvel.com Classic.

Kiel will be doing his thing as well over at Comic Book Resources, so swing by there as well.

See you in seven!

Pimping My Stuff: Meanwhile on Marvel.com

I spent several soul-searching minutes at the subway stop today debating in my mind whether it would make me more of a jerk to, instead of providing a true original content post tonight I did a Pimping My Stuff job with my recent work on Marvel.com or less of one since at least I'd be giving y'all something. It's a conundrum that will likely plague ethics scholars for years to come, but because I'm too exhausted to tell you why I'm digging the new Adventure Comics or describe at length the hidden appeal of Fatal Attractions, I'm afraid the best I can do is share with you that which has sapped my will to babble about comics during non-billable hours for this night at least.

But seriously, it's been a slobberknocker of a last couple weeks at the day job, but mostly because a lot of stuff myself and my colleagues have been trying to set in motion for some time is all coming together, so it's a good kind of slobberknocker (more of a "Stone Cold" Steve Austin match than a Godwinns one). As always, I'm proud of what we're pulling off and think we're always raising the bar on what a "corporate comics site" can do, so indulge me a moment or two...

Fear Files
I wanted to do something regularly leading up to and through Fear Itself that differentiated itself from the usual stream of teaser interviews and art reveals (though both are great). Something a bit more cerebral. So I borrowed a page from my buddy Tim Stevens' Psych Ward column and approached a couple dozen creators with the same question: "What does [insert character you write] fear?" From there, we go back and forth over e-mail getting in the head of the hero or villain in question in ways we didn't necessarily predict or expect. I don't go in having done any preparation (my proven method for success!) and they don't know what's coming. The hope is we maybe touch on stuff that's important to Fear Itself in the end, but I find the journey and what we learn along the way in many instances more interesting. So far I've covered Speedball with Christos Gage, Loki with Kieron Gillen and Iron Man with Matt Fraction; on tap for tomorrow is Spider-Girl with Paul Tobin. It's a bit different, a bit cerebral and gives me an excuse to talk about the nuances and ticks of comics characters with some brilliant creators, so hopefully readers are getting as much out of the deal as I am.

Age of X Assessment
Ok, this one's a bit more traditional, but it gives me a chance to talk with Mike Carey on the regular about a storyline I'm very much digging thus far (and I've read ahead), so I'm digging it, and again, hopefully others are too. One of the neat things about Age of X is that like Age of Apocalypse back in the day, it dropped you smack in the middle of a re-imagined world without much of a road map, which is what we try to provide in part when we do these "post-game" interviews for each chapter. I get the sense Mike has given a lot of thought to tons of stuff that took place "off-panel," so I think he enjoys filling in the blanks nearly as much as fans probably enjoy getting them filled in. We've hit the prologue and first chapter to date with chapter two on its way tomorrow (and we try to debut art for upcoming chapters as we go).

What The--?! Episode 18
Here's a little What The behind the scenes tidbit for you: Our February episode was originally going to be a Captain America-centric idea we'll likely still use down the line, but then John Cerilli reminded us it was the month of the Oscars and that we did a pretty good spoof last year that got a lot of views, so maybe try that again; we were happy to oblige. Myself, Alex Kropinak and Jesse Falcon yapped on a conference call (Alex moved back to PA so we're fancy now) for about a half hour about potential "targets" before settling on True Grit, 127 Hours and Black Swan, but there were at various points an Inception bit where Deadpool sees us making the episode and something involving Black Bolt and The King's Speech on the table, among other ideas. This was a true group effort as far as writing, but kudos go to Jesse in particular, who locked down the first draft on a train ride to Providence. My major contributions beyond the initial brainstorming (where I'll totally lay claim to coming up with the Red Hulk take off of Black Swan) was renaming True Grit as Legitimate Moxie and throwing in the Iron Monger and Green Goblin jokes that nobody got. This was maybe the best voice cast we ever had, particularly Alejandro Arbona in a superb performance as The Leader, and Alex crushed it as always. This is honestly one of my favorite episodes we've done to date. But the law of averages, we're due for a stinker. Enjoy episode 19!

A Marvel Black History Lesson
For as long as I've been at Marvel, we've always done something to commemorate Black History Month, but this year I wanted to do something a bit more robust and thought out. I liked the idea of doing an oral history of sorts of black characters at Marvel, but came up with it too late in the game to track down as many sources as I'd need to make it really sing (maybe next year). I told Ryan Penagos my problem and he suggested a straight up history piece could be really good provided we had the right guy or girl writing it; then he recommended David Brothers and I slapped my forehead and wondered why I hadn't thought of that (hence another reason that Ryan is my boss). For my money, David is the guy when it comes to talking about race and comics, not to mention just a generally fine writer to both (and a nice fella I've also come to learn). He brought a lot of enthusiasm to the table and the idea to look for connections between what was going on at Marvel and what was going on with society. I did end up tracking down a good handful of quotes to supplement David's piece and the result was a two-part retrospective I'm marking down as a nice little accomplishment for us; hopefully we'll have David back soon doing more stuff for us.

Iconic
Speaking of very special guest writers... It wasn't that long ago that Ryan turned to me (as he often does) and said "We need to do more Icon coverage." Good point (again: boss). There are some pretty big ticket dudes working on Icon titles and they've generally got some incredible insights to share about their process, particularly when it comes to their creator owned work; this was certainly a resource we were not appropriately tapping. However, not just any standard Q&A column was going to do here. We needed an approach that would give the interview subjects a chance to really share and open up and an interviewer who would ask questions beyond the norm; it was all about getting the right person for the job, but I never imagined we'd get Tom Spurgeon. When it comes to comics journalism, Spurge is a legit legend with a well-earned reputation and respect from just about everybody--I'd be totally intimidated to edit him if he weren't such a sweetheart (ok, I was still pretty intimidated--don't judge me, Tom!). Sean T. Collins provided the hookup and even though we're only part one of the first interview with Matt Fraction deep thus far, I'm feeling like we've got something real special on our hands.

Year of the X-Men Liveblogs
Last but not least, every day this week, we're hosting liveblogs on Marvel.com covering press calls with the teams on some of the X-Men titles as well as Senior Editor Nick Lowe. They're crazy hectic, but a lot of fun. So far we've announced my buddies Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning on New Mutants and talked to Rick Remender about taking X-Force to the Age of Apocalypse. Three more to go, so if you've got the time, come join us!

Pimping My Stuff: DC Writer's Relay at CBR

I've spent the better part of this week falling behind on the blog and about a half dozen other more important things working up transcripts for something over at CBR that I thought I'd plug before getting right back to a strict regimen of typing things all day instead of showering: The DC Writer's Relay!


See, a few months back Jonah Weiland and I got an itch to try a new feature on the site that we shamelessly stole from the BBC's Chain Reaction series of interviews (though we felt less comfortable stealing the name along with the idea). The basic set-up was the idea that one creator would interview another with interviewee then becoming interviewer on down the line until the whole thing revolved back on itself. We decided to make our first test run with some up-and-coming writers at DC Comics we felt would make for some interesting and in depth discussions. Clockwise from the upper left, they were: Sweet Tooth creator and Superboy writer Jeff Lemire, American Vampire and Detective Comics writer Scott Snyder, Jimmy Olsen and T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents scribe Nick Spencer and Action Comics and Knight And Squire author Paul Cornell.

And boy oh boy, did those guys impress in terms of really fascinating discussion. in terms of topics, we placed no restrictions on what they could ask each other about, so all sorts of work from Lemire's award-winning Essex County books from Top Shelf to Cornell's "Doctor Who" writing to Spencer's rad Image Comics all worked their way in. And in terms of depth, I think I learned more about how working writers approach the craft and business of mainstream comics listening to them on the phone over the past two months than I have all year.

It's really amazing content that I feel really happy to have had a small hand in bringing to the web, and sadly, I'm starting to worry that either nobody's noticed them or they're just opting not to read them because "shit's too long" or because they're "waiting for some REAL news like a teaser image" or because "nobody told anybody to fuck themselves" or something silly like that. So I'm pulling out some brief highlights below and linking to each interview. Spend some time with the pieces this weekend, huh?


First up, Snyder chatted up his good friend Lemire leading to some really funny and interesting exchanges including the following:

Lemire: I think that's because of all that formative stuff where I didn't know what I was doing. No one ever saw that stuff, and I think I waited until I'd done something good enough to publish before I even sought out a publisher.

Snyder: That's one of the weird things about the contemporary mythology of becoming a comic book writer – you write something and then burst onto the scene, so you have your formative years as a writer. But one of the things that's interesting for me is that a lot of people I talk to do what you did. That's what I did in the literary world in the same way. You discover yourself as a writer before seeking publication.

Lemire: It takes a long time to find your voice, I think, as a writer or an artist. One of the things that is so different now – and I say "now," but it was really only ten years ago when I was in that stage – but with the internet and Twitter and all that stuff, everything is so accessible. Everyone is so accessible to each other, and it's easy to put your stuff out there right away. The line between professionalism and the amateur world is so blurred, now that the formative stuff is in everybody's hands.

Snyder: I feel the same way. I feel like a cranky old man saying it, but I was watching a Rock N Roll Hall of Fame induction. Bono was giving a speech about Springsteen or somebody – my wife was watching it when I walked in – and he was saying that if the music industry was the way it is now when U2 was forming, there wouldn't have been anything past "October." Because they had a gestational period! It's like any of the bands I love – since there wasn't an internet when Nirvana was forming, you have time to play in the dark by yourself and figure out who you are. But it does, now, seem like the spotlight is so aggressive. It's so intrusive that the moment you do anything that shows any promise, somebody can pluck you up. There is a certain amount of protection you have to give yourself as a writer or an artist.

Lemire: I feel like a lot of young people trying to do whatever it is they want to do don't have the patience or the work ethic to really develop. Everybody wants to be famous right away. Hence, the fame and notoriety is more important than the work itself. No one takes the time to find their voice. They just start throwing their stuff out there, hoping it catches. I'm really glad – God, this sounds terrible – but I'm glad that I didn't really have a lot of friends in comics or a lot of friends, period, in that time of my life. Like I said, I spent the good part of ten years alone and working and trying to get better. I'm glad that I have that. It feels like if you go to school for comics and be with all these other kids with so many other influences, it'd be hard to make it. Maybe that's why my stuff is so distinct. I just did it in a bubble.

Second, Lemire picked up the ball by talking to Spencer, who he'd never met, and pulling a lot of information out of the writer on his process for both creator-owned and work-for-hire gigs:

Lemire: That leads into what I was going to ask you next. What's your process like? For me, all my stuff tends to come from a visual place where I'm sketching in a book and a story grows from that. For you, you started to touch on this, but where do things start for you? A line of dialogue? A character? A high concept?

Spencer: Almost every idea that I have tends to – a lot of times I'll get a high concept first. It's a weird thing where I'll be sitting on the subway or I'll be walking through the park, and a general pitch line will float into my head. I have no idea where it comes from, but usually from there, I start thinking about, "Okay, what does this say? What's the theme of this story? What's the moral here? What's the question?" Then I start thinking about characters or who's going to be a part of that story. I usually think of myself as a "scene first" writer, but it usually comes out of some general premise that sprung up. And that process can take months.

So with "Existence" as a really easy example, I think the initial idea was "A guys wakes up in the body of the hitman that just killed him." Then you let that roll around in your head for a bit, and you think, "This is a story about a guy who had a life previously, and then he moved into a new life." Then it becomes a story about how when we make mistakes or even when we're unhappy in our lives, the solution isn't always to just go start a new life. The people in our old lives and our feelings for them reconnect us with what we've left behind. So then you start to flesh out the character. Who is this guy? He becomes this self-absorbed physicist who's been stealing from his partners and cheating on his wife, and he's made a general mess of everything. Now he's got this new life where he's a dangerous hired killer. And it's glamourous, and he's better looking. But then his daughter gets kidnapped, and he has to go figure out what happened to her. He's got to go back into his old life, and the choices he ends up making spin out of that.

So you can see how it starts from this standard line that the Hollywood guys love, but you never leave it there. I feel like a lot of writers go, "Oh, that'll be fun!" [Lemire Laughs] But you've got to put substance in that. You've got to build out layers, and that took months of having the idea roll around in my head.

Lemire: That's interesting. How regimented are you in your writing routine? Do you do the same thing during the same hours, or are you a little more open?

Spencer: No. Right now, it feels like it's just a continuous state of writing. [Laughter] It's all just bled together where there's no more times of "break." There are more times writing than there are not writing. I tend to write a lot at the start of the day and a lot at the end of the day. I'll wake up, and I'll have a few hours. Then the head gets a little tired, and you've got to take a break. Then later at night, I tend to be able to bang out a few more hours. I used to be a strictly late night person where I didn't get much of any writing done before ten or eleven P.M., and it wouldn't at all be weird for me to write until six or seven A.M. It was working fine, but I've sort of adjusted now, and I've broken it up into a couple of big blocks. Even though the time is probably about the same, I feel like it's better because I feel like I'm getting twice as much done because I'm sitting down to write twice. It just really depends. Every book is different in terms of how quickly it comes and how much time I have to spend on it and how many times I need to stop and start on it.

The Action Comics had a team-up next as Spencer interviewed Cornell while they both happened to be in the UK, leading to some highly British discussions:

Spencer: I really wanted to ask you some questions about "Captain Britain," which was one of my favorite series of the past decade. I just reread the first arc in anticipation of talking to you, and I'm in London right now, so it was a blast to read it here. The first thing I wanted to ask about was that this was an amazing story about patriotism, but it's also a story about how people don't wear their patriotism on their sleeves. You get goosebumps from these amazing calls to affection for your country, and then the very next line will be somebody making fun of that. Or there's that great splash page of, "We don't like to make a fuss about it." I was curious as to how you handled those moments and tried to strike that emotional chord.

Cornell: That's the nature of British patriotism, I feel. We have a very complicated relationship with our flag especially. And we can never say something straightforwardly patriotic without undercutting it with a joke or irony immediately afterwards in case somebody might think we were being too above ourselves or too serious. British patriotism annoys the hell out of me. It's really complicated. I think I am a British patriot in a lot of ways, but that's a very complicated thing to be. You could ask me that question ten different ways, and I'd have ten different answers. That book is an attempt to honestly address what the Brits would like these days in this field. It doesn't always succeed, honestly. A lot of people tend to view that run as what we like over here to call "jingoistic" which you would just call "patriotic."

Spencer: And at the same time, you wrote Gordon Brown there. How was the feeling of that?

Cornell: Obviously, the only way that a real British politician is going to be in "Captain Britain" is if he's portrayed as absolutely wonderful in all respects. [Laughter] There's no real figure that's going to enter the pages of one of my comics who is still alive and has the option to legal redress by "the Lord High Chamberlain" who is not going to be portrayed in a good way. We actually did have it where the leader of the opposition was supposed to be meeting Dracula on the moon at the start of "Vampire State" rather than Dr. Doom. And we were going to have it that he would initially seem to go along with Dracula and then once he got back home, rush in to call MI-13. It would've been a bit of a fake out. But then our lawyers informed us that that might not be the best idea. I'm the only person in the world, I think, who replaced David Cameron with Dr. Doom. [Laughter] Although, now I'm wondering how Dr. Doom would react to being in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. That's a comic unto itself.

Spencer: Who would you replace Nick Clegg with?

Cornell: Nick Clegg is obviously Loki, the god of mischief.

Spencer: [Laughs] That's fantastic. But "Captain Britain" did use a lot of British iconography and Excalibur. One of my favorite lines was when she said to Dane, "You're with the N.H.S. now." I wondered how you approach that, knowing a large portion of the book's audience was going to be in the States? Did you think about that at all, or just say "I'm writing this for myself"?

Cornell: I tried really hard to make it not "that British book." I think an American audience likes a little tiny bit of Britishness...but not too much. I think we tried to strike a balance in "Captain Britain" whereas there wasn't anything that had to get explained, but contextually, you'd see the point of what we didn't explain. Maybe it was pretty obvious in context, I don't know. But I tried not to have stuff that had to be explained.

With "Knight And Squire," on the other hand, it's almost offensively British. We don't get any reviews that go, "Oh, that was all right." [Laughter] We either get great love or screaming hostility. I think it's interesting that I've managed to sell to British people both the quite serious superheroics of "Captain Britain" and the over the top Dick Van Dyke superheroics of "Knight And Squire." The Brit audience seem cool with both, which is a bit of a surprise. I thought they might dislike "Knight And Squire." In terms of the American audience, nobody much read "Captain Britain," which was always the problem, and now nobody can quite understand "Knight And Squire." Even with my translator's notes at the back!

Finally, Cornell brought it full circle by talking to Spencer about stuff like the metaphorical dimensions set to run through Detective:

Cornell: Sideline here that you may not be able to answer: Are the birds meaningful? Are they metaphorical? Are they set dressing? Are the plot?

Snyder: Well, I try to make them all of the above. [Cornell Laughs] I'll show the bones of it. They're metaphorical in the way that Gotham is transforming into a Gotham that's a manifestation of Dick's strengths and weaknesses and also sort of a nightmare funhouse mirror of his psychology as opposed to Bruce's. For me, there's an aspect to it that's about making it all feel tribal and animalistic and raw in a way that's changing itself. And the reason there are vultures in the beginning is that the first mystery deals with memorabilia. It turns really dark in the second issue, and for me it's all about the fact that Dick hasn't accepted the fact yet that he's the Batman of Gotham – even though he has Bruce's blessing. It's a light nod to this idea that Bruce's villains are on hiatus, at least for this series and run. The vultures are the whole idea of that Batman being dead and now you're Batman.

So they're metaphorical in that way, and they're plot-driven in a way that I wanted something that carries over into the backup. Thematically, we use them in issue two, and then they come back in #874, also. Hopefully it's not just window dressing for me.

Cornell: Well, it is literally. They're dressing that window. [Laughter] For me, it's a bit like Carl Jung, isn't it? You think of a beetle in a therapy session, and then that particular beetle flies in through the window. It's like Dick's attracting the pathetic fallacy in the form of birds to him.

Snyder: Exactly! I feel like the fiction that I write is pretty paranoid, too. The character is usually anxious and struggling with some diorama of the world that's projected around them with representations of those insecurities or fears so that you're facing those nightmares in a physical form. That's what I'm trying to do with "Detective," now. Hopefully it is a big story about the way that Dick is a very different character than Bruce, psychologically. I want him to be challenged by Gotham, where the mystery will have this effect to show him the ugly face of Gotham's people – its citizens. There's a possibility of them being really ugly in some ways. The second arc is about the new face of crime now that the Black Mask is gone and the Falcone's are diminished. I want this slow transformation of the city into Dick's worst nightmare that culminates in the end of the run.

Cornell: That's beautiful. I mean, how many comics these days ever have an unconscious dimension?

Snyder: I mean, reading them, I feel like your's and Grant's and all my favorite stuff! [Laughter] I do feel like the bar is so high now. I remember it feeling significantly lower when I was a kid where there were a few great comics and then a slew of comics in the middle. Now it feels so much more porous between the literary world and novels and comics and mysteries. The writing quality is so high across the board that it's inspiring to look around, but it's really intimidating too.

Trust me, there is so, so, so, SO much more in each interview than what I've got above. Please read them and share them around with your crew on the web. If this goes over well enough, I might be able to organize something like this again!

Pimping Our Stuff: Podcastin' USA

Even as Kiel and I are chatting about the latest Smallville for your reading pleasure AS I WRITE THIS, we want to make sure you're not deprived of our wit and wisdom, so here's a twofer of links to podcasts we recently appeared on.

First up, K-Pheg was the third man on the recently-revived About Comics podcast, hosted by Chris Neseman and Brion Salazar. For Vitamin K, check out the "Talking Dead" episode, which also featured Tim Seeley of Hack/Slash and Ant-Man & The Wasp fame for a post-Halloween spooktacular talking John Carpenter, Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes! and a potpourri of other stuff, including, of course, The Walking Dead. Mr. Phegley has already taped a second appearance that will be coming soon to AC.

Meanwhile, on the bad side of town, I joined my college buddies Jordan Geary and Taylor Cunningham for the special holiday episode of their Zombies Can Dunk podcast. It's light on comics, but there's plenty of chatter about celebrating Christmas in a mostly-Jewish suburb, Taylor's attempts to home brew egg nog in a bathtub, and an epic 15 minute quest by our heroes to remember a line from The Wizard.

Download, listen, enjoy and hopefully we'll find time in our busy celebrity schedules to post here as well!

Pimping Her Stuff: My Mother's Art

If there's one thing we don't have enough of here at the Cool Kids Table, it's fine art. And by "not enough," I of course mean none.

Well that changes today as my ridiculously talented mother had an open studio this past weekend and I begged her to let me post a few pics of her stuff as well as where she works. My mom's skill and passion for what she does definitely played a major role in getting me into comics and the arts, so it's totally appropriate her work end up here eventually. Plus she's awesome and I love here and I like to brag about how skilled she is every chance I get.

So please, enjoy and if you want to learn more look up Gretchen Morse on the Waltham Mills Art Association homepage. And please please leave comments that she needs to do a super hero cover!

Pimping My Stuff: Comics Starters Guide

In my most recent article over on The Faster Times, I did a little beginners guide to comics for folks who may only be familiar with the movies. I covered Avengers, Batman, Captain America, Green Lantern, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Superman, Thor, Watchmen (for which I recommended reading Watchmen) and X-Men.

Obviously I think trying to hook some of the millions of people seeing comic book films into actually checking out the source material is an important and worthwhile endeavor, and one I'm going to try and devote a bit more time to in the future. Hopefully this article is a start and hopefully it gets some traction.

Of course I'd love to hear what you guys think of my suggestions for starter comics, be it here, over at TFT, on Twitter, on Facebook, etc. I'm curious to hear what stuff folks think will serve as the best gateway. Remember: We're all in this together.

Pimping Our Stuff: What The--?! NYCC Promo

We posted a very special edition of Marvel Super-Heroes: What The--?! today, a promo for the kind folks at New York Comic Con who requested it and everything. As I say every time, these are above all else an incredible testament to the talent and dedication of Alex Kropinak, who I will flat out stack up against anybody else working in stop animation on any level; he's that good. He works tirelessly on these and it shows in the quality.

However this particular episode was an incredibly important one for me as it's my first official go-around as the newly-minted Producer of What The--?! Without getting too inside baseball, Alex is still doing all the really hard stuff, but my job is to basically facilitate the day-to-day communications, operations, etc. What The--?! needs so he doesn't need to worry about anything but the creative end. It was great getting to work closely with Alex as well as Jesse Falcon--he's the talent of the operation--on each step of this, learning how it goes down and hopefully making their lives easier. I think the end product came out nicely and Alex told me he found the whole process easier with me in this role, so I'm feeling aces.

I also helped develop the concept and actually wrote the script for this. Jesse came up with the initial idea of a monster movie homage then came up with the basic plot, then handed it over to me to flesh out and provide stage direction, dialogue, etc. From there, I handed it to Alex, he storyboarded, I gave my input, he got to working, we came up with Easter eggs, etc. I also served as liaison to the fellas over at NYCC, keeping them looped in and happy.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy the latest Marvel Super-Heroes: What The--?!. It was a pleasure to make and I'm already looking forward to the next few we've got lined up.

Pimping My Stuff: The Faster Times

I'll make this quick, but I've got a new side gig!

As of yesterday, I'll be blogging about movies and other pop culture goodness for my old buddy Adam Wilson's site, The Faster Times.

My inaugural post is the first in a three-part series on why I do believe Rocky is the greatest film franchise of all-time. And I do.

So please, go give it a look, scope the rest of the site, and hopefully I'll see you over there as well as back here!

A Marvel-ous San Diego

Well great a job as he did, I can't just let Kiel take all the spotlight for San Diego Comic-Con International coverage, now can I?

One of my favorite things about conventions is getting to really feel a part of the larger family/team/insert-term-here that is Marvel Comics/Entertainment. Admittedly working away in my corner office with the rest of the Digital Media Group's content division (wow, that sounded delightfully corporate) I sometimes lose sight of being a member of this larger whole that also includes the boys and girls from editorial, marketing, etc. as well as all our great creators. When you're forced to pull together for a mammoth happening like SDCC though, that sense of camaraderie with the peeps you're in the foxhole with really comes back to the fore, and the best part is when you remember how much you like a lot of those folks.

I think more than any show since I started at Marvel, this one was the one where I really bonded with many good people outside my department, and a major goal of mine is not to let those relationships die on the vine going forward. I'm so fortunate not only to have the job I do, but also to work with some incredibly fun, dedicated and talented individuals, so I'm glad I get the wake-up calls to appreciate all that now and again.

Whenever a show goes well for Marvel, it's mainly due to two dudes: Mike Pasciullo and Tim Dillon. They organize the crap out of everything and also coordinate things like massive golden thrones from big deal movies being the centerpiece of our booth and attracting mucho traffic. Once again, them boys outdid themselves this year.

Closer to home, my digital posse annihilated the con this year in the most positive of ways. We put out over 60 pieces of content between news articles, videos, liveblogs, interviews and much more--for real, you can check it all out here at our hub page. For a team of ten on-site staffers plus less than half a dozen freelancers, that's pretty dang impressive to my mind.

Shout-outs to my writing crew of Jim Beard, TJ Dietsch, Tim Stevens and the CKT's own Kevin "MIA" Mahadeo as well as newly-minted Marvel.com west coast assistant editor Marc Strom. Kudos above and beyond as well to our tireless video team of Alex Kropinak and "Fast" Eddie Bursch who did insane hours at the show and produced some beautiful stuff. Applause to our photographers Judy Stephens and Ryan Russell who were snapping away all weekend; Judy's pic of the Avengers cast even landed in New York Magazine! And high fives to my editorial compatriots John Cerilli, Ryan Penagos and Harry Go, plus our lovable adopted PR queen Margarita Vaisman and comics' toughest on-site reporter, the incomparable "Fallen Angel" Christopher Daniels. Oh, and of course big thanks to that dreamy Tom Brennan, just because.

And what was I up to at the show? Well, here's the short version...

-My primary responsibility was to liveblog a solid half of the panels Marvel held. I was generally paired with Strommy, but once in awhile Harry subbed in, and for the Marvel Digital panel it was all three of us. In all cases, I took the role of color commentator (ala Jerry "The King" Lawler, whom I met at the show) while my counterpart did play-by-play.

-The sole exception to that set-up was one of my very favorites panels of the show, Marvel Writers United, featuring Brian Bendis, Mark Waid, Matt Fraction and Chris Claremont, for which I flew solo. It was a similar "let it all hang out and talk about writing, influences and comics" panel with Geoff Johns, Brad Meltzer and Judd Winick back at SDCC 2004 that firmly cemented my decision to do this for a living to begin with, so revisiting that experience after a fashion was an awesome trip.

-Another huge treat for me was getting to watch and liveblog two episodes of the upcoming Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes animated series. For real, guys, this show is going to be amazing. I don't say this lightly, but I really do believe this will be Marvel's Justice League Unlimited, and you won't find many bigger JLU fans than me. It just had the humor, the action, the larger sense of continuity and so many cameos, which is a lot of what I loved about JLU. As a bonus, I got to sit next to Chris Yost, who wrote both eps and gave me little easter eggs as we watched. On my other side, screaming like a 13-year-old girl at a Miley Cyrus concert, was Jim McCann, and seated behind us was Chris Cox, the voice of Hawkeye--so cool!

-Also really enjoyed in particular the Women of Marvel panel, where Kathryn Immonen, Marjorie Liu, Laura Martin, Christina Strain and the aforementioned Judy Stephens spoke eloquently and entertainingly on gender roles for both characters and creators in comics. It was a little strange to see Arune Singh moderating such a lineup, but my man was another SDCC MVP for sure and really came into his own on this show; I'm proud of him.

-I can't forget the Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions showcase if only because seeing Stan Lee and Dan Slott share a stage was a joy to witness (Slott was still geeking out during our flight back to Jersey).

-Aside from panels (and there are many great ones I didn't list above), I also got to do some video hosting, which is always enjoyable for me. Fun fact: I acted all the way through college and would have double-majored in theater and English had a favorite professor of mine not smartened me up to the idea it was better to focus on one over the other, so I really like being able to get back in front of the camera on occasion. Reuniting my tag team with Mr. Daniels was a highlight, as was myself and Penagos attempting to push through the delirium of close-of-show Sunday insanity.

-I also helped facilitate for the second year in a row Todd Nauck sketching WWE Superstars, in this case the Bella Twins; there's already a video up on WWE.com and we should be posting one of our own shortly. Todd is probably the legit nicest guy in comics and one of the people who really made my weekend along with his beautiful wife Dawn, and the Bellas turned out to be incredibly kind, gracious and enthusiastic, so it was great to link them up and I hope we get to do more with both parties in the future.

-Oh, another unique bit of fun for me was getting to interview the editor-in-chief of the Guinness Book of World Records, who was on hand to present Chris Claremont with a plaque commemorating X-Men #1 from 1991 as the best-selling comic of all-time. That one's not online yet either, but I'll link as soon as it is and you can witness me trying to scam my way into history by setting a world handshake record and learn the current record for most Mars bars eaten in one sitting.

So much more went down over the week, but I've already got an essay here, and some stuff is best left to me and the eyes and ears of San Diego. Thanks so much to everybody who made this probably my favorite con ever!

San Diego: What Kiel Wrote!

San Diego, man. Woof. What a long, strange, tiring, exciting, stabbing thing. As normal, I thought I'd take the massive gap in posting the collective Cool Kids underwent because of the show as a cue to fill up our corner with some ego stroking in the form of posting all that I wrote over the past week for CBR. But before I got to patting myself on the back, I wanted to note the following:

1 - For all my coming congratulatory bullshit, there is absolutely nothing that I did this weekend or ever will do at any show that will hold a candle to the unstoppable reporting prowess of Team CBR. At the end of the weekend, our on site panel coordinator – and all around chipper dude – Seth Jones sent out a text to the 30+ staffers we had on site thanking them for their hard work, and in it he said simply, "Best crew ever...I want you ALL back next year!" I couldn't agree more. At the risk of sounding like a total dickcheese, I take an extreme amount of pride in the fact that CBR probably covers this show with more depth and passion than any other media outlet – not just comics press or nerd press but ALL press. If you doubt me, check out our Comic-Con coverage index where the team delivered more reporting on panels than you can even imagine with more pouring in every day for this week and likely into next. Having so many people who were professional, timely, thoughtful and smart made what little I had to do administratively a breeze, and I swear to God I've never seen Jonah Weiland so laid back around late July ever. Thanks so much to everyone who kicked in.

2 - Holy fucking shit, Robot 6 and Spinoff Online! I would honestly be a hot mess if it weren't for the ladies and gentlemen behind those blogs, you guys. Every time I had some con-related news come across my desk last minute where we were all freaking out, I'd e-mail the Robot 6 crew and they'd not only respond immediately with a "YES!" but in some cases would actually say, "We were already chasing that." Can you fucking imagine how awesome those guys are?!?! They broke a lot of news on the show itself all by their lonesome and gave more better round ups of the breaking news of the show than any blog on the internet. Amazing, amazing, amazing, A-MAZE-ING, you guys.

And Spinoff? I can honestly say that when Jonah and I dreamt up the idea of a bigger media blog for the CBR network while doing drunken girly phone chats one night, there's no way we imagined it'd be as strong as its been in its brief life under Graeme, Kevin, Josh, Erik Jeffrey and the rest of the crew. We wanted to make a place on CBR that could expand out our coverage of other media that our readership seems to dig without sacrificing one iota of our comics coverage or comics focus, and I think we've done exactly that...and when I say "we've done" what I mean is "they've done, but it's so nice they put my name on that site too." Super aces, bros.

3 - Finally before I link to something that more than three of you want to read, I just wanted to say that I got back from this San Diego more excited about my working future and my future in general than I've felt in a long time. So everyone who hung out and said nice things and kept my positivity up all weekend...basically to all my friends at the show: THANK YOU. I went into this year's show not knowing what experience I wanted from it but walking away with the best one possible, and that was hella keen.

OK, so...content!


* I don't want to foist every piece of pre-con news that I worked on upon y'all, but in the ramp up to the show, there were a few legitimately newsworthy stories and/or just plain fun interviews I got to do that were tangentially tied to the con. For one, I was happy (and a little surprised) to be the only person to reach out and get comment from Jimmy Palmiotti and Larry Young as two of the principals in this coming Kickstart Comics company that's going to be hitting comic shops and Wal-Marts later this year. I know a lot of people throw automatic sneers at any company run by Hollywood folks, but my view is always that if someone is paying creators to get comics done, printed and sold, they deserve a shot to talk about that process in a forum where their potential readership can come and get facts on the product.

On the flip side of that particular story, it was nice to speak to Mark Waid and Matt Gagnon about their changing roles at BOOM! Studios. For being a place whose name carries "the S word," BOOM! has pretty much proven its commitment to comics first, and I'm always glad to see more healthy players of that stripe in the market.

Finally, there were a shit ton of product announcements and product announcement interviews from me in the ramp up to the show, but if I had only one to steer you towards, it'd be this one with Scott Snyder on his upcoming Detective Comics run. I don't know how well it reads through in the final copy, but I haven't spoken to any creator who was as flat out enthused over his new gig that Snyder in I don't know how long. It's nice to see new guys who are fucking hungry in comics, you know?


* Once I landed in San Diego on Tuesday morning, things pretty much started to fall on me left and right. For one, Jonah hatched some hairbrained scheme to get me onto the floor of the show before it opened (my brief photo set is here), and I'll admit it was kind of fun in its fake clandestined-ness. I think aside from all the other awesome perks, fans who want to become professionals should chase that brass ring with the knowledge that when they get that coveted exhibitor badge, there are few things more creepy awesome than walking the floor of Comic-Con when it's totally fucking empty of people.

The other major bit of Tuesday insanity for me was the fact that despite traveling to the show on little to no sleep, I'd committed to doing the latest of our new "Marvel T&A" column for the Friday of the show. We didn't want to miss a week so early in our new weekly column for any reason, so I called up Tom Brevoort from the Taxi stand of the San Diego airport for what I thought would be a ten minute "what do you do when everyone else is at San Diego?" chat and ended up with over 40 minutes of Q&A. If you're at all interested about the inner workings of Marvel Editorial over the product discussion these things usually gravitate towards, you may want to check that out. Also: Brevoort owes me a dollar for including that "T&T" gag in there.

* Once CCI gets underway, the majority of my time doing "live reporting" – that is to say I cover some of the bigger publisher panels as they happen while trying to lose neither my mind or my tenuous wireless signal. I can't complain about it really as doing a panel live means one hour of stressful typing followed by zero work on my part. It's honestly a sweet gig, and I hope that in the rush to catch as much of the news and quote people as accurately as I can, what I produce somewhat resembles readable prose rather that some kind of strange fanboy bulletpoints that need to be decoded by the message board kids. Anyway, the lion's share of these reports included: The first DC Nation panel, the Geoff Johns spotlight, the Marvel Avengers comics panel and the famed Cup O' Joe panel.


* And as part and parcel of that panel coverage, I also spoke to writer Jeff Parker about his plans in taking over Marvel's Red Hulk character with his "Atlas" artist Gabriel Hardman. To be honest, I wrote that story from a couch in the lobby of my hotel at four in the morning during a night of restless, stressful insomnia, so if it makes no sense please don't blame Parker.

* In between that, I found a moment to interview DC co-publisher Dan Didio about the whole "Alan Moore doesn't want Watchmen back or to write a sequel" thing. I mean, I got as much out of DDD as he was willing to give on the subject at least. I honestly don't know what to make of that whole story or even if it's that big of a story, but I'm always interested in hearing the big whigs talk about their big plans – even in vague terms – so it was an interesting thing in that respect at least.


* The other big chunk of my week was spent diving head first into Scott Pilgrim madness. It's kind of insane to me that one of the first things I did as a web reporter on comics was to interview Bryan Lee O'Malley about the release of the series' third volume, and since then the bond I've made with those books and that particular piece of my work life has been an incredibly satisfying and...I don't know? Humbling? experience. I'm going to miss waiting for new books in that world terribly, and I can't think of a better way to have ended my run following them than by live reporting on the star-studded movie panel and then on O'Malley's own comic-themed spotlight.

* I should also mention even though they're not up that for the first time this year, Jonah tapped me to do some of CBR's "Boat Show" video interviews. I hadn't done anything of the sort since the very end of my Wizard tenure where the process of talking to people at the New York Comic Con was as humiliating and degrading work experience as I've ever been through and made me want to stab an ice pick into my inner ear so I wouldn't be able to stand up straight in front of the camera anymore. Anyway, doing it for CBR was a much more pleasant experience, and in the weeks ahead you can all be on the lookout for video of me embarrassing myself in conversation with the aforementioned O'Malley, writer Kieron Gillen and the tag team supreme of Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning.


* If I could point you towards just one thing I wrote at the show you should check out (or the one thing you probably already have), it'd be my writeup of Grant Morrison's spotlight panel. Jonah very smartly didn't make this one a live affair as trying to encapsulate Morrison's thoughts on the fly would do the writer and his fans a real disservice. I hope I was able to cram as many of the interesting ideas, news and quotes I heard in that hour into my final report. and if nothing else it seems to be getting linked around a lot, for which I'm very grateful.

* Saturday evening at the show, some poor kid in Hall H got stabbed in the eye – a fact I learned while sitting in another panel taking notes, which I then had to leave to rush across the con to cover. Incidents like that are never the most pleasant things to write about, but I hope the report I filed with quotes from the police and Comic-Con's David Glanzer helped keep discussion of the event grounded in fact rather than wild speculation, despite the highly surreal factor that came in when I was asking questions of said police alongside local news stations, Entertainment Weekly and the Washington Post. Of course, that wasn't nearly as surreal as typing up said police quotes about the stabbing while sitting next to Todd MacFarlane on the couch on the CBR Yacht a half hour later. Saturday was fucking weird, man.

* I wrapped my on site reporting of the show with a brief chat with Glanzer about some of the events and issues that had sprung up during the week, and you can read that here. I hope to get David back on the phone for one more Con wrap-up talk this week, and I'll have two more panel reports hitting in the days ahead: A Mike Mignola spotlight and one about Paul Dini and Phil Hester's respective new Cartoon Network projects. Please be on the lookout for all of that in the days ahead, and see you next year!

Pimping Our Stuff: Shadowland What The--?!

The special new Marvel Super Heros: What The--?! promoting Shadowland premiered today in all its glory. As per usual, Alex "Das Wunderkind" Kropinak was responsible for 95% of said glory, but me and the Woodward to my Bernstein, Sean T. Collins, kicked in again this time as well. Here's a bit of behind the scenes...

As a follow-up to our Siege promotional video from back late last year, I pitched Marvel PR guru Arune Singh on doing something similar for Shadowland. After getting approval from Daredevil honcho Steve Wacker, I started kicking around ideas with Mr. Kropinak on our semi-daily train rides between Jersey and NYC.

My basic concept hinged on the idea that we always see various urban heroes hanging out on rooftops, gargoyles, etc. doing monologues, but they never seem to run into each other. I figured it would be funny to start with Daredevil waxing melancholy about his perpetually sucky life and then keep pulling the camera out to reveal other guys like Moon Knight, Iron Fist and the like doing their own bits with DD getting perpetually more annoyed as they talked over one another. Alex liked the basic concept, but wanted to tinker with the execution (specifically the talking over each other bit).

With Alex's big brain going, I recruited Sean to write the monologues themselves since they were supposed to be funny in a way that intelligently poked a bit of fun at the character's cliches, and he knows how to pull that off.

Sean kicked ass on the script, I tightened it up ever so slightly, and off to Alex it went. He worked his magic for several weeks, we spent the last couple days moving and shifting some pieces around, and voila: there you have it.

Enjoy!

Pimping Our Stuff: We Are the LAW

You know the old saying "quality over quantity"? That's kinda our unofficial motto over at We Are the LAW (or it is now because I just came up with it and haven't told anybody yet--cool, right guys?).

For those of you not aware, We Are the LAW is a sketchblog those of us here share with buddies of ours like T.J. Dietsch, Zach Oat, Matt Powell, Sean T. Collins and other luminaries. We're not really any of us artists--though some of those cats sure can doodle--but we love to have fun, and hopefully it shows in the stuff we put out there.

The deal is every so often one of us will throw out a random ass character or concept, then we all give it a go. We've done our own characters, like Sean's Destructor, and themes, like Batman through time. Most recently, we tackled Captain Caveman, including Rickey and myself (his and my sketches respectively below).So anyhow, when you've got a free minute, go plant a tree...then maybe check out We Are the LAW.

Pimping My Stuff: To Hellboy And Back

Yo.

Like Ben, I don't like to spend too much time on the blog linking up to what I write for "the day job" because most likely anyone who likes comics enough to read this site already check CBR with some frequency (and reposting all I write would be annoying, especially during those weeks when it feels like all I write are soon to be shot down Captain America casting rumors). But sometimes I've got to make an exception, and this week I'm drawing y'all's attention to my new interview series with Mike Mignola "To Hellboy And Back."

What this is is a slew of interviews with Mike Mignola coming over the next few weeks supported by exclusive art, the announcement of a bunch of new HB/B.P.R.D. projects and support materials including character bios for the main players in the Hellboy universe and thoughts from some of Mignola's collaborators on the various series Dark Horse puts out. Now, I'm sure some of you are thinking, "Kiel, isn't this just one big ass interview broken up into a bunch of tiny little pieces?" (and I'd be asking that too because I hate when places do that for no good reason), but I really think that ultimately the material is much stronger formatted the way we're doing it (not even counting the fact that Dark Horse approved the interview with Mignola based on a desire to not blow their entire year of publishing plans for one of their biggest characters in one interview that'd be on the top of CBR's front page for less than 24 hours. They're crafty like that).

But no, the initial call I did with Mike was a little all over the place, and not all of it would make sense as a straight transcript, nor would most of you want to hear about me bitch about comics made to be movies for several paragraphs like he had to. Plus, with all the other material I'm gathering to strengthen our stories including more from Mike and guys like John Arcudi as well as some theoretically cool art which isn't even ready to be shown yet (so Jim Gibbons tells me), I think that each and every week one of these runs, you'll be able to see a different piece of the Hellboy universe and understand what makes it an interesting and compelling piece of comics.

For whatever reason, Hellboy remains something of an "outside the mainstream" property in comics despite being, let's face it, one of the most critically acclaimed superhero concepts invented in the past two decades. I'm not sure why so many members of Fanboy Nation don't pick up these books with the same frequency they do Batman or the Avengers, but if you've ever been interested in learning more about what makes Hellboy work, this is your chance to get informed at no extra cost.

So yeah...part one is up right now on CBR and more installments of the column will be held at this link. Let me know what you think, huh?