Monday, May 21, 2007

THE CHOPPING BLOCK

This is seriously slow going up on Tom's Blog's main page. You can find it at www.marvel.com/blogs/Tom_Brevort/entry/750

SIMULATION II Day 5
2007-05-21 10:18:28
DISCLAIMER: All individuals, sales figures, situations and occurrences involved in this editorial simulation are completely fabricated as part of the game, and do not in any way reflect the actual real-world opinions, viewpoints or situations involving any of the creators or titles named. THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION!

Back after the weekend, so let's see where our intrepid young editorial team is, on this, sure to be one of the most difficult days in this simulation.

SEAN

Matt Fraction isn't going to take an exclusive contract with Marvel. He is writing a book for BigMoney, but he's also committed to doing his Marvel work as well.

Mike Deodato will sign an exclusive deal with Marvel.

BACK ISSUE is happy to run your piece on Steve Gerber's DEFENDERS. They're not sure what to do with your nominal payment for it, though.

The Marvel.com folks will put resources towards having the BALANCE OF POWER DVD-commentary digital comic ready. The Sales Department, however, isn't crazy about this move. They feel the retailers are going to be very upset about ordering and trying to sell a book that's simultaneously available for free (and with more content) online.

The Sales Department also tells you that any material change in creative team from what was solicited will likely make that particular issue returnable. That includes soliciting with Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch, for example, and then just having Mark and Bryan do a 5-page framing sequence around a 17-page story by other creators. The solicited creators must do more than half the book in order for the issue to remain non-returnable.

The design department will begin to get to work on logos and treatments for RISE OF THE DEFENDERS and BALANCE OF POWER.

The marketing department will get to work putting together your house ads. And assuming you don't mind the 25/split posters being a quarter of the size of a typical poster, they should be able to get one randomly sent to each comic shop.

MIKE

Turner's WOLVERINE cover, while it may be used by Wizard in their article, was commissioned by you and paid for by Marvel. So it wouldn't be used on the cover of Wizard--they commission their own pieces. So you'll want to apply that Turner cover to a WOLVERINE issue.

The Publisher has gotten wind of your intention of offering Robert Weinberg the option of another editor on UNCANNY X-MEN. He tells Sean to let you know that no creator gets to dictate the internal set-up of Marvel editorial, and any decisions involving the reassignment of titles will be made by the EIC and the Publisher. In other words, you can't simply hand your work over to somebody else to do.

PHILLIP

Dan Slott doesn't want to take the crossover issues of FANTASTIC FOUR off--he only just got the book, and now between the crossed signals on the softball sequence (for which he appreciates getting paid) and now this seeming desire to dump him off the crossover, he's starting to get a little bit paranoid about his job security.

Paul Ryan will do the next SHE-HULK cover.

With Jim Cheung going over to BigMoney, you'll need to finalize an artist for BALANCE OF POWER.

JMS is very interested in writing the BALANCE OF POWER crossover, having wrapped his head around it, assuming that you intend to go ahead with the plan he's heard about through the grapevine of killing Namor. As he envisions it, Namor's death is the perfect punctuation on the close of the story, giving it a tragic ending, and some real consequence for the Marvel Universe going forward. He's very excited by this idea.

PATRICK

Matt Fraction is fine with moving his Venom storyline back a few months to accommodate SPECTACULAR.

Marvel.com would love to have Matt do a blog about working on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. The VP of Operations cautions you to keep an eye on how much time it's taking up; the most important thing for Matt to do for Marvel is to write comics.

A key point of coordination: Warren Ellis has been writing the Mac Gargan Venom over in THUNDERBOLTS, and he doesn't want to have to try to change the character all around right in the middle of his run. He feels that all of the character set-up he's been doing will be lost if he has to suddenly bring in a different individual in the Venom costume, and that his pay-off will be compromised by this. He also reminds you that he was promised Venom cleanly for at least a year.

The concept of putting comic racks into Best Buy or similar outlets is an enormous negotiation, and one best carried out by the Sales and Marketing team. Likewise, the concept of putting the FCBD Spidey book into dentists' offices.

Paul Jenkins would like to do a BALANCE OF POWER FRONT LINE series, assuming he can fit it in around his film and video game commitments. But this all depends on the project being approved by the EIC in the first place. Salva Larroca isn't all that wild about drawing this, however.

INDUSTRY NEWS

Jim Cheung signs an exclusive contract with BigMoney.

BigMoney's initial wave of titles begins to ship, accompanied by an aggressive marketing campaign.

MOLLY

As your assistant editor, Molly Lazer has this to report:

I will be out of the office on Friday, May 18th and the morning of Monday May 21st. For urgent matters or if you are turning something in, please contact Tom Brevoort mheroes@marvel.com.

THE PUBLISHER

The Publisher pulls Sean into his office this morning to let him know about a situation. As was rumored last week, there was a snafu with Marvel's deal with Sony over the profit-sharing on SPIDER-MAN 3, and because Marvel didn't publish a comic book adaptation of the film, several million dollars that was supposed to come our way isn't happening. Consequently, we've got to tighten our belts a bit--which means that the publisher needs you, Sean, to trim your editorial staff down by one member, and reallocate the books to the remaining staff. Put more simply, you've got to fire one of your editors.

Your move.

Tom B


So this is the big twist Tom's been waiting for? Cutting one of us out of the game Survivor style is going to SERIOUSLY SCREW EVERYTHING UP. Tom Brevoort, you're the meanest man I never met.

2 comments:

Patrick Cook said...

Egads...........

Michael Heide said...

Wotta revoltin' development!!!