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How Wonderful! posted:I have a question about the editorial process at big two publishers. I want to try to phrase this delicately because it's coming from a place of genuine curiosity and not like, frustration per se. I know it's a naive question but it occurred to me that it's one that I've never actually articulated, and have had a difficult time finding a concrete answer to. My (very limited) understanding is that the process basically goes like this: 1. Writer Has Idea. The writer pitches an idea up the ladder to have a character come out of the closet or reveal themselves as trans or what have you. Generally ideas are being kicked around in advance of scripts being written, because no editor wants "oh by the way here's a big revelation" to just show up in a script as a surprise. You want to surprise the readers, but not your editors. 2. Editor Mulls Over Idea. The writer hears nothing for a few days. I do not know how this part of the process works. Do the editors run the idea past the other editors? With marketing execs? With the EiC? From a writer's PoV, the process is a mystery; editorial does what editorial does. They probably at the very least run the idea past writers on other, related books in case there's any overlap with future plans, but that communication doesn't always go smoothly (see: Hickman and Slott basically dueling over Franklin Richards), and they almost certainly check in with other editors to avoid, like, three similar reveals happening in three separate books in the same month. 3. Writer Hears Back. Maybe it's yes, maybe it's no, but eventually the writer learns whether their idea is gonna get to happen or not, usually several days after the point at which they've started to wonder if the editor forgot. If the answer is 'no' the process ends here (possibly with a full explanation, possibly with a "the higher-ups said no" that is as vague and blameless as possible; the editor will almost always tell the writer they fought for the idea even if they were the idea's main opponent). If it's a yes, move to... 4. Writing. The script containing the idea gets written. The writer may make the mistake, at this point, of telling friends or family about the idea, but they don't yap about it on social media, generally. 5. Swerves. At some point after the script has been written, there's about a 75% chance that the editor will come back with edits that undermine, equivocate, or otherwise derail the idea, even after the earlier answer of 'yes.' Maybe it's because someone else in the office saw the script pages and made a comment at lunch that got overheard by a suit who's working on an action figure deal, or some other writer got the exact same idea involving a different character and they're on a bigger book so corporate thinks they should have the spotlight, or something, who knows? But the earlier approval is undermined in some fashion, or even - worst-case scenario for the writer - rescinded. 6. More Swerves. Then the finished pages start coming in. Does the art actually represent the Idea? Did the letterer cover up important visuals with a balloon? Did the inker decide that the Idea sucked and did their level best to undermine its visual impact? All possible. 7. Publication. If the writer is very lucky, the book and the idea appear. *** Most people, I suspect, don't quite have a grip on just how chaotic, messy, and opaque the editorial process in comics can be; the fact that any new and groundbreaking ideas make it to pages at all is a minor miracle. Speaking directly to the issue of trans characters, I believe - though I may be misremembering - that Koi Boi was always intended to be trans and always shown to be trans and editorial was fine with that as long as no one ever came right out and said it on the page. I know of at least one writer who was actively working to introduce a trans character in a high-profile book, and their editors were very supportive of the idea... but oddly enough their pitches stopped getting accepted by that office shortly afterwards. The point is, the process is complex as hell and involves a lot of people in the decision chain, so it's hard to point to any one person and say "this is the individual responsible for bringing more/fewer trans characters into comics." As to the "why aren't there more" question, I think that it bears noting how bifurcated our media apparatus is these days - because for every media outlet going "Hey look! A trans character in the Justice League! How cool!" there's gonna be another saying "Hey look! A trans character in the Justice League! How reprehensible and godless!" Ultimately, a lot of those people in the decision chain I mentioned are largely operating from a position of "oh god oh god please don't let the internet get mad at us" (a few years before the current Betsy Braddock/Captain Britain, Kwannon/Psylocke status quo came about, at least one pitch from a well-regarded pro to return Betsy's original body was shot down because no one wanted to be accused of "Asian erasure" by just wiping out the sexy ninja Psylocke, and I'm told other pitches along the same lines had been rejected for the same reason; I presume the current status quo is basically a way to split the difference). Al Ewing, by this point, is regarded highly enough that I presume he has a bit more leeway, but also, Wil Moss has a different point of view than, say, Jordan White; while they both presumably will fight for the ideas and the representation that they view as important, they'll have different views on what merits importance, so they'll fight different fights. All of which is a very long-winded way of saying "there's a poo poo ton of people involved, and if even one of them is a jackass it can derail the whole thing."
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Feb 28, 2021 17:06
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Thank you for a really thorough and thoughtful answer, that was pretty much my suspicion.
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Feb 28, 2021 19:17
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And as noted, exactly how squirrely the editorial/office part is gonna be is likely going to be determined by how big a name both the creator and the character/brand is. Al Ewing introducing a completely original trans woman to Hulk's supporting cast, probably didn't get too much pushback both because Al's kind of a big deal at Marvel now, but also a scientist sidekick character could, frankly, just be ignored by later writers. I imagine it'd be a different story if 'new queer writer X' pitched a story to DC about Supergirl actually being trans all along and a b-story in the title about her having to find alternative treatments now that her super-Kryptonian hormones were running out.
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Feb 28, 2021 22:40
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Gaz-L posted:And as noted, exactly how squirrely the editorial/office part is gonna be is likely going to be determined by how big a name both the creator and the character/brand is. Al Ewing introducing a completely original trans woman to Hulk's supporting cast, probably didn't get too much pushback both because Al's kind of a big deal at Marvel now, but also a scientist sidekick character could, frankly, just be ignored by later writers. I imagine it'd be a different story if 'new queer writer X' pitched a story to DC about Supergirl actually being trans all along and a b-story in the title about her having to find alternative treatments now that her super-Kryptonian hormones were running out. That, and given the relatively recent awareness of characters as being created by creators and not by the company, it's doubtless a lot easier to get away with a character being trans when they're a character you created in the first place. Someone alluded above to Rob Leifeld's reaction to Shatterstar coming out; the only reason anyone cares is because there's a sense of Shatterstar being 'a character Rob created,' as opposed to 'a character owned by Marvel.' The latter might be true, but we still care about the former, right? We care enough to remember his reaction, at any rate, and it was a thing on social media for a bit, and there were articles, it was a thing. Now imagine what happens if you take a character created by, oh just to pick one example, Chuck Dixon and had them come out as trans. Dixon would never shut up about it. Ewing can get away with a lot more with Rose McGowan because Rose McGowan was created by Al Ewing, so there's no one else to chime in with their opinion on the matter.
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Mar 1, 2021 07:19
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:That, and given the relatively recent awareness of characters as being created by creators and not by the company, it's doubtless a lot easier to get away with a character being trans when they're a character you created in the first place. Someone alluded above to Rob Leifeld's reaction to Shatterstar coming out; the only reason anyone cares is because there's a sense of Shatterstar being 'a character Rob created,' as opposed to 'a character owned by Marvel.' The latter might be true, but we still care about the former, right? We care enough to remember his reaction, at any rate, and it was a thing on social media for a bit, and there were articles, it was a thing. Ewing didnt create Rose McGowan, because she is a real person who was in Scream. Credit for creating her presumably should go to her parents. He did however create Dr Charlene McGowan!
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Mar 1, 2021 10:04
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SiKboy posted:Ewing didnt create Rose McGowan, because she is a real person who was in Scream. Credit for creating her presumably should go to her parents. He did however create Dr Charlene McGowan! ........oops 
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Mar 1, 2021 10:06
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Let's not go putting limits on Al Ewing's power here
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Mar 1, 2021 18:40
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Al Ewing created Skeet Ulrich.
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Mar 1, 2021 21:31
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I heard that Ewing was doing some great stuff with this Eric Bana character.
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Mar 2, 2021 00:07
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So did the New Warriors book ever happen or did they quietly shelve it? I know it was delayed due to Covid but it seems like the Outlawed event is almost over and I haven't heard anything else about it.
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Mar 2, 2021 13:18
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No.1 Special posted:So did the New Warriors book ever happen or did they quietly shelve it? I know it was delayed due to Covid but it seems like the Outlawed event is almost over and I haven't heard anything else about it. Gamesradar reached out to Marvel about the New Warriors back in January and received a big ol' "No Comment" in response. So either it's cancelled or being reworked, but I don't expect to see it (or any form of New Warriors) for quite some time.
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Mar 2, 2021 13:47
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JordanKai posted:Gamesradar reached out to Marvel about the New Warriors back in January and received a big ol' "No Comment" in response. So either it's cancelled or being reworked, but I don't expect to see it (or any form of New Warriors) for quite some time. Thanks for the response. Shame they couldn't salvage it, but it seems like they weren't taking it seriously enough in the first place.
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Mar 2, 2021 13:57
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In addition to the New Warriors series, there's a lot of stuff Marvel announced/solicited that has been held off since the Covid gap: A bunch of Empyre tie-in mini-series The Marvels by Kurt Busiek & Yildiray Cinar How to Read Comics the Marvel Way by Christopher Hastings & Scott Koblish A Darkhold series of one-shots A mini-event "Infinite Destinies" across some annuals that never came out Amazing Mary Jane #7-12 Morbius #6-8 Valkyrie: Jane Foster #11-12 Scream: Curse of Carnage #7-8 Ghost Rider #8-9 Doctor Strange: Surgeon Supreme #7 A lot of things that disappear either got resolicited or reworked. Children of the Atom by Vita Ayala & Bernard Chang was supposed to come out at the same time as X-Factor #1, but is instead coming out next week. Joe Kelly and Chris Bachalo's Non-Stop Spider-Man got moved from June 2020 to next week too. At least one Empyre mini-series (The Union) got reworked into a King in Black tie-in mini-series. There are other books like Runaways, Black Panther, and the Marvel Snapshots series that are just now coming out after being pushed off of the schedule back in March/April of last year. But yeah, New Warriors is probably dead.
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Mar 2, 2021 14:29
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Edge & Christian posted:In addition to the New Warriors series, there's a lot of stuff Marvel announced/solicited that has been held off since the Covid gap: I was under the impression that this was over.  From issue #6.
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Mar 2, 2021 14:46
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The fourth issue of Dr. Strange: Surgeon Supreme came out in March 2020. They solicited issues 5-7 for April through June, respectively. Then they paused distribution and everything picked back up in July. Issue 5 slipped from April to July, issue 6 ended up being the final one, printed in August. Issue 7 was announced but never came out. That gap gave them time to add that goodbye page to the sixth and final issue in August, but pre-COVID it looks like the plan was for it to continue.
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Mar 2, 2021 14:57
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Gotcha. You said "held off", so it sounded to me like there was (currently) expectation for it to continue.
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Mar 2, 2021 15:00
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Valkyrie and MJ were probably more just cancelled than impacted by Covid also.
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Mar 2, 2021 15:38
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My point is more that issues were literally announced and solicited and covers and synopses were written up for these books, these solicitations were published, no comics were published in April-June, and these books were canceled. I have no idea how much (if any) of these comics were completed, and if anything was completed, if there are any plans to do anything with that material. Most of them will probably never see the light of day and are just canceled, I agree. But other ones have popped back up after everyone assumed they were canceled (the continuation of Runaways, Children of the Atom), and others have been reworked (the Union mini-series shifting from Empyre to King in Black, a Ghost Rider annual getting reworked as a "Return of Vengeance" one-shot) so I was listing all of those. At the point that a book gets solicited, it's pretty rare for it to get canceled after solicitation. It obviously happens, but it is rare. There are like a dozen books that got canceled post-solicit due to the Covid gap, so I think it's fair to say Covid impacted these cancelations?
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Mar 2, 2021 15:57
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Edge & Christian posted:My point is more that issues were literally announced and solicited and covers and synopses were written up for these books, these solicitations were published, no comics were published in April-June, and these books were canceled. I have no idea how much (if any) of these comics were completed, and if anything was completed, if there are any plans to do anything with that material. There was a point during the COVID shut down that Marvel told their writers and artists to stop working
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Mar 3, 2021 05:55
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Edge & Christian posted:In addition to the New Warriors series, there's a lot of stuff Marvel announced/solicited that has been held off since the Covid gap: The Marvels is finally launching next month and Jed McKay said over in the Marvel thread that Infinite Destinies is getting rescheduled. No idea about the other stuff
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Mar 5, 2021 23:32
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I wonder if someone got yelled at for dropping Darkhold from the schedule.
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Mar 6, 2021 00:39
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I know Poison Ivy fans can be...intense, but besides them, I see her being less considered a villain, or at least not on the level of other DC villains. How did that start? Is that just a "global warming is gonna destroy the world so character that are too into the environment are actually good" or did she have any shift in the way stories are told about her? Does her environmentalism include animals or is it only about plants?
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Mar 7, 2021 17:46
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I think the shift in general opinion about the environmental crisis probably did a lot of the work, and then the decision to have her have real superpowers that come from the same source as Swamp Thing makes it pretty easy to present her as basically having the same mission as Swampy, just coloured by the fact that she's still a bit more human than him.
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Mar 7, 2021 18:15
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Also, it might be a side effect of her relationship with Harley, who's made her own journey from villain to tweener.
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Mar 7, 2021 23:03
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Selachian posted:Also, it might be a side effect of her relationship with Harley, who's made her own journey from villain to tweener. I think this is true, but more in the sense that the friend trying to get someone out of an abusive relationship is hard to cast as the villain.
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Mar 7, 2021 23:36
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Has Brian Bendis ever explained why in the world he named Miles Morales' dad Jefferson Davis of all loving things?
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Mar 7, 2021 23:49
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TwoPair posted:Has Brian Bendis ever explained why in the world he named Miles Morales' dad Jefferson Davis of all loving things? I suspect he decided on the names separately and didn't realize what putting them next to each other would mean until it was too late. Like one issue he's just called "Mr. Davis" and then in a different issue his wife calls him "Jefferson" without saying his last name, and then whoops. But I don't think there's ever been an official explanation. Bendis was writing multiple books and in charge of helping orchestrate multiple "events" comics both in the 616 and trying to figure out what the gently caress to do with the Ultimate universe. Air Skwirl fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Mar 8, 2021 |
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Mar 8, 2021 01:59
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I'd suspect the exact opposite, that it was a deliberate choice for irony, and if you're generous, maybe wanting to try some kind of reclaiming the name aspect. It's kind of moot now, Ahmed has him taking Rio's name when they got married and I wouldn't be shocked if that's kept going forward.
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Mar 8, 2021 02:06
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Bendis forgetting what he named his own character would be very on brand for him though.
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Mar 8, 2021 02:52
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Still not as stupid as George Washington Bridges.
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Mar 8, 2021 10:55
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Lurdiak posted:Still not as 
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Mar 8, 2021 11:33
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With pants this tight he can call himself anything he wants
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Mar 8, 2021 16:39
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How Wonderful! posted:With pants this tight he can call himself anything he wants uh, unstable molecule malfunction.
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Mar 8, 2021 16:41
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Hi everyone. I hope this is the right thread to ask a lame "What comic was this?" It's lame in that I don't have much info to offer. I remember reading this comic sometime in the mid-to-late '70s and it didn't feature any of the big DC names, but what I recall most vividly about it was that the issue was one giant fight with one bad guy absolutely wrecking the superheroes' poo poo. Plasma bolts were flying, dudes were getting blasted through walls--this bad guy was absolutely destroying a couple dozen of em. The comic ended with all the good guys lying around in various states of injury, with someone aiding in their recovery. As an 8-year-old, I really enjoyed that the issue was pure payoff---almost nothing but this massive fight, with the good guys getting their asses kicked. It was great. I know it's not fair to ask going on just this, but any ideas what I might have been reading?
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Mar 11, 2021 04:47
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radlum posted:I know Poison Ivy fans can be...intense, but besides them, I see her being less considered a villain, or at least not on the level of other DC villains. How did that start? Is that just a "global warming is gonna destroy the world so character that are too into the environment are actually good" or did she have any shift in the way stories are told about her? Does her environmentalism include animals or is it only about plants? I think the environmentalism is a large part of it but I think her association with Harley is the main shift, even in stories where Harley isn't present.
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Mar 11, 2021 07:44
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radlum posted:I know Poison Ivy fans can be...intense, but besides them, I see her being less considered a villain, or at least not on the level of other DC villains. How did that start? Is that just a "global warming is gonna destroy the world so character that are too into the environment are actually good" or did she have any shift in the way stories are told about her? Does her environmentalism include animals or is it only about plants? She’s a bisexual, anti-capitalist environmentalist trying to pull her best friend and lover out of a bad relationship and keep her there. Hard to root against a character like that.
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Mar 11, 2021 12:58
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Vandar posted:She’s a bisexual, anti-capitalist environmentalist trying to pull her best friend and lover out of a bad relationship and keep her there. Hard to root against a character like that. that's like half my friends list, more if you discount the super powers
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Mar 11, 2021 19:27
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Vandar posted:She’s a bisexual, anti-capitalist environmentalist trying to pull her best friend and lover out of a bad relationship and keep her there. Hard to root against a character like that. I think Harley Quinn existing did a poo poo ton to redeem Ivy in a lot of people's eyes. I know she predates the cartoon by a lot, but I don't think I've read a story with her from before it.
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Mar 11, 2021 19:53
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B-1.1.7 Bomber posted:Hi everyone. I hope this is the right thread to ask a lame "What comic was this?" DC didn't publish a *ton* of team books in that period, and the Justice League of that period generally had most/all of the A-List Super Friends on it, but maybe check out the Legion of Superheroes books? Or this short-lived All-Star Squadron revival whose cover kind of seems similar to what you described?
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Mar 11, 2021 20:21
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Soonmot posted:that's like half my friends list, more if you discount the super powers And how many of them do you root against?
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Mar 11, 2021 20:21
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