MARVEL CHECKLIST

Vao · **SUPERBANANE** Moderator Beiträge: 5647

bad signal
WARREN ELLIS

Thinking out loud:

I need to come up with a new Marvel
project, as I'm reaching the end on
a few things up there. I had come
up with a book to do with Mike
Wieringo, but since Mike died I can't
really work up the enthusiasm to
do it with anyone else, it was very
much written *for* Mike.

And I'm at my wit's end, to be honest.

I now have an entire folder full of
aborted ideas. See, my job at Marvel
is to be the mad scientist in the
basement, bringing old properties
back to life. The job isn't to create
new things (and I do that elsewhere,
I don't have to prove my bona fides
at creating new books), but to make
the old properties live again. And
I'm hitting the point where I can't
find anything to get up on its feet.

The sf stuff at Marvel is covered.
The remaining trademark books are
pretty lifeless stuff -- things like
NIGHTWATCH (google it) or things
I wouldn't otherwise want to go near.
There are some interesting items -
LEGION OF NIGHT is a fine title, for
instance -- but everything I come
up with reads like LEAGUE OF EX
GENTLEMEN Lite. And Marvel has
little luck with occult books in any
case.

By "trademark books," I mean books
that Marvel have already published.
NEXTWAVE was a name that Marvel
owned for a group, but the trademark
was NEXTWAVE: AGENTS OF H.A.T.E.
Because someone already owned
the trademark NEXTWAVE. It's
always better, in these instances,
to start with a trademark that
Marvel controls.

Compounding the problem is my
own intent, really. Right now, I don't
want to do anything that looks
backwards too much. Which is
probably impossible. But after
reading BLACK DOSSIER (thanks,
Scott)...well, if I wasn't already so
far ahead on IGNITION CITY, I'd be
binning it, just because BLACK
DOSSIER constitutes such a toxic
overdose of Farmerian retro/meta.

Friends have been torturing me a
bit over this, hurling Rom and the
Micronauts at me like flaming turds.
I thought about Shang-Chi for a
second, but that book's useless to me
without Fu Manchu, and Marvel
don't have the Rohmer license
anymore. Joe Straczynski's doing
a bunch of the 1940s characters.

I will continue to crap on about this
all weekend.

-- W