Monday, May 21, 2007

If I'm still here tomorrow, I'd like to do the following things:

1.: Ask marketing if we can schedule the Turner cover as a variant for WOLVERINE #59, the start of Ed Brubaker's first multi-part storyline. I think a variant makes sense because a) between the Dave Johnson covers and the Jock covers, we have enough covers to use and b) #58 will be the Lapham/Gaydos issue. A fill-in issue almost always gets lower orders than usual. And I don't want readers to drop the book. If anything, I want new readers to come in with #59, a great jumping-on point with a killer cliffhanger.

2.: I'm rushing through the bullpen, talking with the editors of the following books: BLACK PANTHER, IRON MAN, the AVENGERS books and the adjectiveless X-MEN. January will have the start of BALANCE OF POWER. I'm trying to convince as many of the editors as possible that they should have BoPow tie-ins in their titles. Black Panther is the most interesting book of them, since that title could profit from a "Rise of the Defenders" tagline as well in the two months before BALANCE OF POWER starts.

3.: With Sean's permission and the publisher's approval, I'd like to call Eddie Berganza over at the Distinguished Competition to propose a two-part UNCANNY X-MEN/Justice League crossover, one issue published by us, one by them. If he's interested, we'll have to think about this: Will we have two different creative teams? If not, who appoints the writer, who the artist, colorist, letterer etc.? When should we schedule this so it doesn't collide with Marvel's BALANCE OF POWER or DC's MEGACRISIS OF 52 EARTHS?

10 comments:

Philip Schaeffer said...

Reggie and the whole Black Panther team seem to already be on board with Rise/Balance from the word I've gotten from Tom; clearly you should talk to them coordinating things but I wouldn't frame anything in the way of "trying to convince them" since they've already been convinced, and it sounds like Tom's main objection is when we send people mixed signals.

Good luck with Eddie and the Justice League. I'd go for broke and suggest such big time writers and artists that neither side will mind not having the complete run of things, you know, a Joss Whedon and Jim Lee production. I'd certainly advise against splitting teams between the issues.

Michael Heide said...

Good to know that Reginald Hudlin is on board already. Must have missed that.

And a Whedon/Kim Lee production? When do you want this crossover to ship? In 2036? ;)
But yeah, obviously there should be huge names on the books. I'm thinking the Morrison/Waid/David/Millar caliber.
But I don't want readers to buy the crossover and then that's it. I want them to get interested in Uncanny X-Men, so there should be some connection.

Michael Heide said...

Make that "Jim Lee", not "Kim". Typo.

Philip Schaeffer said...

As a show of good faith see if Brad Meltzer would do it; that would be a way to tie the mini in with the current Justice League series. In interviews he seems pretty receptive to some basic requests (not suggestions) from editorial as to where they'd like characters to end up.

Michael Heide said...

I had thought of him but thought that he's busy with his next novel (he said he'd love to stay on Justice League for another year but doesn't have enough time). But you're right, in simulationland it's worth a try. By using one half of each book's regular creative team, we could connect them to the crossover easily. From that point of view, the creative team should be either Robert Weinberg and Ed Benes or Brad Meltzer and Adrian Alphona.

Food for thought...

Sean Kleefeld said...

I think we should avoid attempting a crossover with DC at this time. That would be an editorial nightmare, and remember that we're going to be under-staffed.

Plus, let's check some realities. Any sales from the title would be split between two companies. That means we'd do the work of two issues (which I'm sure would seem like four) and only get paid for one. To make that worth our while financially, that would have to be a HUGE seller. Like, say, getting George Perez to draw every Avenger and every JLA-er ever.

Speaking from real world perspective, I think Tom suggested Rich drop that tidbit in specifically as a red herring. It's MEANT to distract us and that's precisely why we can't let it. We can't afford to spread ourselves too thin or else all the stuff we've already got in the pipe is going to fall apart.

So please, guys, put this in the same box as Byrne working on Spectacular, Vaughan taking an exclusive with us, and Spider-Man getting killed by a falling whale; it's off limits until/unless I say otherwise.

Michael Heide said...

Understood.

Philip Schaeffer said...

I don't understand.

Why can't we embrace random whale death? You see the numbers they got at sim DC when they killed Batman by dropping a whale on him?

I rest my case.

Michael Heide said...

Philip? With JMS all for killing Namor, how about getting him (Namor, not Straczynski) under the whale?

Philip Schaeffer said...

What? No wai! He's got the power to talk to whales!

Oh that's Aquaman.

Wait, who's Namor again?