Getting by with a little help from his friends…

digresssmlOriginally published May 19, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1383

I think that there’s a perception among fans that comic creators tend to feud with one another. This is, of course, not true. You don’t hear about the hundreds of pros who get along fine with one another on a daily basis for the same reason you don’t hear about the thousands of commercial air flights that land safely every day. You just hear about the ones that crash and burn.

Not to sound too egocentric, but sometimes I think this column has contributed to that perception.

I’ve managed to hack off a number of people in the, what… ten years that I’ve been doing this? And because this is a published column, naturally those times of annoyance have happened in a most public fashion. I honked off all of Image in one shot. Todd McFarlane actually felt the need, because of BID, to challenge me to a public debate (after which he disappeared, never to be heard from again. What ever did happen to him? Is he still working? He just dropped off the face of the earth, it seems.) John Byrne said my column made him sick. Didn’t endear myself to Don Simpson. I teed off Kevin Smith and I never even said anything nasty about him. And let’s not even get started on… nah. Better not mention him. And it’s not even limited to pros. I managed to cheese off the committee of Comic Con International in San Diego years ago. Don’t know if they still are annoyed with me. Probably.

And I have to admit, doing this column for years has shortened my fuse, I think. Which is odd: You’d think I’d become calmer. Considering that people send me mail that consists of nothing but cut outs of female genitalia, you’d think I’d take stuff more in stride by now. Instead I find that I suffer fools (or at least those I perceive as such) less gladly than I used to. I admit, I find this a bit alarming. If that’s how I am now, geez… how testy am I going to be ten, fifteen years from now. Granted, I did help organize and fund Pro/Con, the convention created for the purpose of getting pros together so they could spend quality time with one another. But by and large, I think I’m perceived as the king of feuds.

You know what this column needs? More love.

I’m now going to list, off the top of my head, people who I’ve got no problem with, in no particular order:

Kurt Busiek: I envy the hëll out of Kurt, because not only is he exceedingly knowledgeable on all manner of arcane comic knowledge, but he has an uncanny ability not to offend people. I let sarcasm get through more than I should, particularly with people who have gone to great lengths to annoy me (all the while claiming, of course, that they have done nothing to warrant being treated exactly as they have treated me.) But nothing ever seems to faze Kurt.

Paul Dini: I’ve had a number of fans tell me they think I should write the next Batman movie. And my response is always the same: No. Paul Dini should. Every time you do to a Dini-attended convention, you’re guaranteed some absolutely classic panels.

Dan Jurgens: A month or so ago, I took issue with comments that Dan made in regards to Aquaman. The result was a very nice e-mail from Dan in which he made it clear that he had not intended at all to upset me and felt badly about having done so. Gotta say, he handled it with a lot more class and style than I would have if the situation were reversed.

Robin Riggs: Robin is the only inker I work with (on Supergirl, in this case) who routinely sends me art pages out of the selection that he gets back. Although I do take a bit of issue with his sense of timing.

You see, I was at the I-Con convention, and Robin’s wife, Elayne, was speaking on her cell phone. I didn’t realize she was on the cell phone because she was in profile and had the phone to the ear that was away from me. I was sitting at the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund table and she was next door at Friends of Lulu, and I wanted to tell her something amusing I’d just heard. So I started speaking to her.

“Not now,” she said.

Still not getting it, I asked a bit petulantly, “Why not?”

She half-turned her head so that I saw the phone and said to me, “I’m on the phone and I’m not paying attention to you and can’t hear you.”

Now feeling challenged, I said, “Yes, you can.”

“No, I can’t,” she replied.

“Aha!” I cried triumphantly.

Elayne blinked a moment, then realized that in telling me she couldn’t hear me, naturally she’d just proven that she could. She moaned, but kept on talking. I, in the meantime, was chortling dementedly, insanely pleased with myself. Moments later when she was off the phone, Kathleen happened by, and I decided to tell her about my dazzling bit of cleverness. “Elayne, lend me your phone,” I said. She handed it over. I held the phone to my ear and said, “Elayne was talking on the phone like th—”

At which point the phone rang.

Now I don’t know if you’ve ever had a cell phone ringing right against your ear, but if you haven’t, I can recommend it as enthusiastically as I would recommend chewing on aluminum foil if you have silver fillings in your teeth.

It was like having my left eardrum blasted out the right side of my head. I dropped faster than Microsoft stock. My head still vibrating, I shoved the phone back to Elayne, who now got to be the one chortling wildly in triumph. She opened the phone and, guess what. It was hubby Robin, whom she promptly congratulated on his magnificent timing.

Hmph. Timing didn’t seem so great to me.

Louise Simonson: I think Weezie is really sweet, although it might just be that she’s afraid of me. I wrote a column that shredded Rob Liefeld because Rob took potshots at Weezie. Weezie called me after the column saw print and said, in that slightly breathless way she has, “Wow! I hope I never get you mad at me!” So maybe she actually plots my demise, but does so quietly so as not to garner my wrath.

Karl Kesel: Of all the writers I interact with as a result of Young Justice, Karl—the steward of Superboy—is the most aggressive in working with me to have events in the two books dovetail. In the Byzantine machinations called Sins of Youth, the Superboy/YJ storylines meshed the most seamlessly, and that was largely Karl’s doing.

Mark Waid: ’Cause he’s dating Devin Grayson, which naturally makes him cool.

Jo Duffy: Who doesn’t get nearly enough work in the comic industry. Has everyone forgotten her great work on Power Man/Iron Fist? Punisher? Catwoman? Why is she not doing three books a month?

Neil Gaiman: A brilliant writer who has done me several personal favors (and I still live in fear of what he’ll ask in return) and who also does devastatingly hilarious impressions of Todd McFarlane.

George Perez: My single favorite artistic collaborator, bar none.

Harlan Ellison: One of the great ones.

Stan Lee: Another one of the great ones.

And that’s just off the top of my head. A slew of people working regularly in the comics industry with which I have no trouble at all.

Now if only they weren’t all plotting against me…

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)

 

11 comments on “Getting by with a little help from his friends…

  1. “Considering that people send me mail that consists of nothing but cut outs of female genitalia”

    What on earth FOR?

      1. Do they just send you links for websites that consist of nothing but photos of female genitalia these days?

  2. One of Marvel’s biggest mistakes is not handing Fantastic Four to Karl Kesel in as permanent a basis as possible

  3. It would be interesting to see how you would write this column if you were writing it new, today.

    Did you get angry/upset/hurt mail from people you left out of your “good people” list who thought they should have been included? (No names, please, I’m just wondering if there were people who unfortunately took it the wrong way.)

    With the death of my eldest first cousin, Mark Klaus, who was exemplified by his kindness, I have realized even more so it’s the best thing that we all agree to be kinder to each other than we have been. Life is too short for anything else, as I know you know.

  4. Has Neil ever collected on any of these favors, and if so, were any of them as interesting as you feared?

  5. Was recently glancing thru Jo Duffy’s wiki page and see she’s now working what sounds like a routine desk job and not by choice. Kinda sucky to think that a pretty prominent writer back in the day could be tossed aside so easily.

  6. And speaking of creator disputes. I always kind of wondered the origins of the Morrison-Millar touchup. They used to be BFFs and Millar owes his career to the guy. His big breaks on Swamp Thing, the Flash, and the Ultimate Universe were all a direct result of Morrison getting him those gigs. And now the unspoken hostility and the way they both refuse to even speak the other’s name is glaring.

    I’m sure Millar doesn’t care though. He’s busy raking in the Hollywood money from all those over the top sex and violence books that sell so well.

    1. Having met both writers (I too am a Glasgow native) I found one to be utterly charming, humble and couldn’t do enough for the fans, chatting with them and staying hours beyond his alloted slot (much like the equally gifted and charming Neil Gaiman did)

      The other was frankly, as horrid as his aforementioned sex and violence books. Maybe it was a bad day.

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