MattBrady
06-02-2003, 09:47 AM
<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/sangiacomo/Epic2.jpg" width="200" height="304" border="0" hspace="2" align="right">by Mike San Giacomo
For those coming in late, comic critic Mike San Giacomo, who may or may not be related to actress Laura San Giacomo, along with about 50 other critics, responded to a challenge from Marvel to write a comic for the soon-to-be-relaunched Epic line.
My character, Nowhere Man, a newspaper reporter who can turn invisible, struck someone’s fancy at 10 E. 40th St. I was asked to turn my single story into a four-issue series for consideration.
I had written the second version of the first issue and synopses of the last three issues and sent them to Marvel Assistant Editor Stephanie Moore.
Last week I rewrote the first and second issues and sent version three to Marvel.
It was about a week later, an e-mail followed by a phone call from Stephanie.
Once again, Stephanie was very supportive about the rewrites. She liked the dialogue, liked the basic idea of a character who had a power but was not a hero, but did good things when it suited him. She thought my character’s origin was interesting, liked the pacing...
But...
Oh no. The killer “But...” again.
“We can’t kill Saddam Hussein,” she said. “It’s just making people uncomfortable.”
That was no surprise, I was surprised that it had gotten that far.
How about if we just shoot him at the end of the series?
“Uh, no.”
Just a flesh wound?
“We’d rather not have world leaders shot in the pages of our comics.”
Okay, I’m a pretty reasonable guy.
So when do I get my $500 acceptance check?
“We’re not there yet, but it’s very close,” she said.
Did I mention that I’m a guinea pig with this whole Epic stuff – one of the first few creators asked to pitch stories and have them accepted? I’m a guinea pig. I’m a guinea pig. Saying it over and over doesn’t necessarily make me feel better, but it helps to remind me that this path is going to be rough, like the path taken by guinea pigs in research – if they survive the experience, that is.
So what can I do to improve it?
I should say at this point that the first issue was structured to begin with our hero jogging in the park and happening on a mugging. He fades (turns invisible) clobbers the mugger and jogs away.
He goes to work, there is some clever conversation about the invisible hero in the park that the newspaper has dubbed “The Nowhere Man,” a few more scenes and then a flashback to five years earlier when Jack Baxter was in Baghdad.
There’s the rub.
“We don’t want flashbacks,” she said.
Excuse me?
“We don’t want flashbacks,” she repeated.
But, but, but, flashbacks are an essential part of storytelling. Citizen Kane, Moby Dick, Forrest
Gump.
She countered that the best of Marvel comics began at the beginning with an origin: Spider-Man, Hulk, Avengers, Ultimate Spider-Man.
Ah-ha, I thought but didn’t say, what about the X-Men? Wolverine? We went years without an origin, even the Fantastic Four started in an action scene and told the origin in flashback. They did okay.
I thought that. What I said was, “hmmm, so what do you suggest?” as I feared what came next.
“I hate to say this, but I think we ought to start with his origin,” she said.
And that brings me to my oft-used line, “Titanic. Nice story, but does it have to be about a boat?”
It’s not like Nowhere Man doesn’t have an origin. It’s a terrific origin, full of irony and pathos and cool explosions. It’s just that I was planning to get into the origin in the second issue.
Not only that, if we have to go in sequence, Jack would have to go to Baghdad next, so he would not even get to the big city paper until the third issue. This would be more Smallville than anything else.
Bottom line was that the simple suggestion meant trashing most of what I had written before. Gotta say, I was not real happy about the prospect. But then she said that we could always get into that stuff later.
I interpreted that as “later, like more issues.”
What the heck, I’m a trooper. As someone once said, and since I can’t remember who it was we’ll just assume it was me, “Dude, you’re getting paid to write comics. Even the worst day of writing comics beats digging ditches.”
This is true, I used to dig ditches so I know.
I agreed to start at the beginning and put Jack through his paces. Fortunately, my “real” job as a reporter that week meant I was heading out on a 200 mile trip to Detroit to work on a teenage prostitution ring story, so I would have time to plot it out.
I said, “Give me the weekend.”
To be continued…
<center><a href="http://www.newsarama.com/sangiacomo/Nowhere_Man.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/sangiacomo/Nowhere_Man_t.jpg" width="350" height="108" border="0" alt="tentative logo design for Nowhere Man"></a></center>
(logo design by Mitchell Breitweiser)
[As was <a href="http://www.newsarama.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=00066 7" target="_blank">reported</a> at this past weekend's Wizard World Phildelphia, Breitweiser will be the artist on Nowhere Man.]
Mike Sangiacomo, a freelance writer for Newsarama and other sources, was invited to share his experiences with pitching to Epic by Newsarama's editor, Matt Brady, in the interest of keeping readers well informed. Brady advises Newsarama readers that he is aware of the inherent conflict of interest presented by journalists working for a publisher they cover. Sangiacomo’s regular column Journey Into Comics has and will continue to be found in the Opinion/Editorial section of Newsarama. Brady has not, nor does he plan to pitch to Epic himself.
For those coming in late, comic critic Mike San Giacomo, who may or may not be related to actress Laura San Giacomo, along with about 50 other critics, responded to a challenge from Marvel to write a comic for the soon-to-be-relaunched Epic line.
My character, Nowhere Man, a newspaper reporter who can turn invisible, struck someone’s fancy at 10 E. 40th St. I was asked to turn my single story into a four-issue series for consideration.
I had written the second version of the first issue and synopses of the last three issues and sent them to Marvel Assistant Editor Stephanie Moore.
Last week I rewrote the first and second issues and sent version three to Marvel.
It was about a week later, an e-mail followed by a phone call from Stephanie.
Once again, Stephanie was very supportive about the rewrites. She liked the dialogue, liked the basic idea of a character who had a power but was not a hero, but did good things when it suited him. She thought my character’s origin was interesting, liked the pacing...
But...
Oh no. The killer “But...” again.
“We can’t kill Saddam Hussein,” she said. “It’s just making people uncomfortable.”
That was no surprise, I was surprised that it had gotten that far.
How about if we just shoot him at the end of the series?
“Uh, no.”
Just a flesh wound?
“We’d rather not have world leaders shot in the pages of our comics.”
Okay, I’m a pretty reasonable guy.
So when do I get my $500 acceptance check?
“We’re not there yet, but it’s very close,” she said.
Did I mention that I’m a guinea pig with this whole Epic stuff – one of the first few creators asked to pitch stories and have them accepted? I’m a guinea pig. I’m a guinea pig. Saying it over and over doesn’t necessarily make me feel better, but it helps to remind me that this path is going to be rough, like the path taken by guinea pigs in research – if they survive the experience, that is.
So what can I do to improve it?
I should say at this point that the first issue was structured to begin with our hero jogging in the park and happening on a mugging. He fades (turns invisible) clobbers the mugger and jogs away.
He goes to work, there is some clever conversation about the invisible hero in the park that the newspaper has dubbed “The Nowhere Man,” a few more scenes and then a flashback to five years earlier when Jack Baxter was in Baghdad.
There’s the rub.
“We don’t want flashbacks,” she said.
Excuse me?
“We don’t want flashbacks,” she repeated.
But, but, but, flashbacks are an essential part of storytelling. Citizen Kane, Moby Dick, Forrest
Gump.
She countered that the best of Marvel comics began at the beginning with an origin: Spider-Man, Hulk, Avengers, Ultimate Spider-Man.
Ah-ha, I thought but didn’t say, what about the X-Men? Wolverine? We went years without an origin, even the Fantastic Four started in an action scene and told the origin in flashback. They did okay.
I thought that. What I said was, “hmmm, so what do you suggest?” as I feared what came next.
“I hate to say this, but I think we ought to start with his origin,” she said.
And that brings me to my oft-used line, “Titanic. Nice story, but does it have to be about a boat?”
It’s not like Nowhere Man doesn’t have an origin. It’s a terrific origin, full of irony and pathos and cool explosions. It’s just that I was planning to get into the origin in the second issue.
Not only that, if we have to go in sequence, Jack would have to go to Baghdad next, so he would not even get to the big city paper until the third issue. This would be more Smallville than anything else.
Bottom line was that the simple suggestion meant trashing most of what I had written before. Gotta say, I was not real happy about the prospect. But then she said that we could always get into that stuff later.
I interpreted that as “later, like more issues.”
What the heck, I’m a trooper. As someone once said, and since I can’t remember who it was we’ll just assume it was me, “Dude, you’re getting paid to write comics. Even the worst day of writing comics beats digging ditches.”
This is true, I used to dig ditches so I know.
I agreed to start at the beginning and put Jack through his paces. Fortunately, my “real” job as a reporter that week meant I was heading out on a 200 mile trip to Detroit to work on a teenage prostitution ring story, so I would have time to plot it out.
I said, “Give me the weekend.”
To be continued…
<center><a href="http://www.newsarama.com/sangiacomo/Nowhere_Man.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/sangiacomo/Nowhere_Man_t.jpg" width="350" height="108" border="0" alt="tentative logo design for Nowhere Man"></a></center>
(logo design by Mitchell Breitweiser)
[As was <a href="http://www.newsarama.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=00066 7" target="_blank">reported</a> at this past weekend's Wizard World Phildelphia, Breitweiser will be the artist on Nowhere Man.]
Mike Sangiacomo, a freelance writer for Newsarama and other sources, was invited to share his experiences with pitching to Epic by Newsarama's editor, Matt Brady, in the interest of keeping readers well informed. Brady advises Newsarama readers that he is aware of the inherent conflict of interest presented by journalists working for a publisher they cover. Sangiacomo’s regular column Journey Into Comics has and will continue to be found in the Opinion/Editorial section of Newsarama. Brady has not, nor does he plan to pitch to Epic himself.