That's very cool of Rich to write up a rumor-mill for the simulation.
The question is: how much of what he says is influenced by hints Tom's given him about where things are actually going?
Example, if we lose Dan Slott, I'm not going to be too broken up about it. There have already been problems with his transition to FF. I really wish I could've kept him on She-Hulk.
But the Green-Light Wackerjack section indicates that we (and by that Rich probably means me) have been way too hands-on storywise of late and that a mass writer's exodus, at least of the guys working on my books, may be looming. That would be something of a problem, though I'll point out that last simulation Tom had to coax his guys into providing story information, so you're always either doing too much or not enough.
However, the possibility of a DC Marvel crossover is kind of intriguing...
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Sean, is there any way I could get an Uncanny X-Men/Justice League crossover?
Writer: Grant Morrison (unless he's BigMoney exclusive), since he's had runs in both books, Robert Weinberg (if he has the time and is interested) or Mark Millar (if we can get him).
Artist:
Ed Benes (he has worked on both books) or Mark Bagley (we haven't given him anything yet. He's off Spider-Man, and his next book hasn't been announced yet).
I won't give the creative team a story to work with, I'll let them come up with something.
Also, you should ask DC about a Daredevil/Batman crossover by Bendis and Maleev.
PS: I told you to lock up Ed Brubaker!!!!
As Rich points out at the top, the traffic lights system is meant as a guide, but it's never 100% accurate. However, the "chromium-covered turd" remark is something I reckon was given to him by Tom, and lapped up by Rich. Cause you guys are pretty much writing the books at this point.
I did warn you about this before, when I expressed that the X-Men proposal had too much story in it, and again today after pretty much all of you posted issue-by-issue moves (although obviously a bit too late this time).
Cool that it is you're making such efforts to flesh out the game... writing the books isn't your job! It's the job of the imaginary writers, so you don't need to do it, beyond giving the occasional guider to the direction they're going in - otherwise it looks to everyone like you're writing the books for them. Now clearly there is some damage done, you should find out what you can do about it. Will your writers fall over if you take off the training wheels? Talk to them, find out how they feel about the way things are going. Otherwise you might find a mass exodus takes place towards BigMoney...
Oops, that was me.
Oh and one more thing... don't be cheeky and presume what the writer's going to tell you; that's not your role here. You make the moves, not the rules. :)
Except in the first MES the guys didn't offered only vague story ideas at the beginning and they were chided by Tom.
This is clearly where the simulation element must be remembered, and I'll cop to probably being the worst offender of the editors writing the books, but obviously if I were actually editing the book (though I may by a little more hands on than other editors) I'd clearly spend most of my time soliciting pitches from the writers and helping them massage things into greater continuity.
Thing is, we don't got no fake writers (maybe that's something for next sim?), so we have to do something to move the game forward.
You don't really expect Tom to come up with all the plots for all the fake books for us in addition to everything else, do you? The guy's got a real job as well, you know?
Yeah, I think that's one of the two flaws of this simulation. While I think that Tom has thought of everything (I mean, come on, a fake Lying in the Gutters for the Simulation-verse? That's a stroke of genius...), there are two things beyond his control. And beyond ours.
How can we write Solicitations for the books if we don't know what our fictional writers come up with? And if we pretend to know the direction they will go in, it seems like we are dictating the plots to them. And I don't think you're the worst offender in that direction, Philip, my UNCANNY X-MEN pitch was a lot worse. It was stuff that I thought Sim-Robert Weinberg could come up with, but now Sim-Robert complains that I don't let him write the book. In fact, I have something planned to get that misunderstanding out of the way.
The other flaw is the odd pacing. I thought that with books shipping daily, one day in the real world equaled one month in the Simulation-verse. But how can books we solicit one day be on the stands the next? Obviously, if we were consistent with the time frame and the two weeks we have, our books wouldn't be on the stands for most of the simulation, which would be boring. But it leads to problems like UNCANNY X-MEN being on the stands, when Ben hasn't run the First Look in Wizard yet.
Don't get me wrong. Please. I really appreciate Tom investing so much time and work in this project. And it's been a lot of fun so far. (More fun than my real job, checking tickets on the subway. Today, a passenger without a ticket was wanted by the Police, so he tried to escape, I tried to hold him, and he stumbled down an escalator. We both have only a few bruises and grazes, but still it's something I don't want to experience every day...)
The thing is, though... these comics are never going to exist, so you don't need to write stories or full-length solicitations for them! You can give a general sort of direction for the series, but setting out exactly what the story should be, is a bit too hands-on for an editor - you ought to give the imaginary writer enough latitude. Tom's not going to make up the stories, he'll just tell you whether they've been written or not - that's what the MES game is ultimately about. (I think.)
By the way, I wouldn't advise tackling all of LITG on a point-by-point basis. Marvel has a thicker skin than that by now - they've learned to largely ignore it. :)
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