A Pair of Challenges

Originally published September 7, 2001, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1451

A couple of things this time out…

First, a public service announcement.

There has been quite a bit of coverage of Harlan Ellison’s lengthy, exhausting, and (some would say) seemingly hopeless battle against Internet piracy. For those who still have trouble wrapping themselves around it, let me put it to you this way:

If someone creates a website that has a few words of profanity on it, and someone else complains, some providers will shut it down or block access to it.

If someone creates a website that posts the entirety of a novel of mine, and I complain, those selfsame providers will say, “Too bad.”

If that’s okay with you, then move on to the next item. If you have a problem with that, and are interested in backing Ellison who likewise has a problem with that, then you might be interested in the following.

Acclaimed artist George Perez has elected to show his support for Ellison’s Kick Internet Piracy Campaign by crafting an illustration that features his character of Crimson Plague going toe to toe with Bill Tucci’s “Shi.” It’s 11 x 17 on bristol board, penciled and inked by Perez, and will be going up for auction on eBay. All profits will be donated straight to Ellison’s KICK Internet Piracy lawsuit.

Anyone who’s ever been involved in a lawsuit with even a “normal” opponent knows what a lengthy, draining experience it can be. So imagine being up against some of the largest media conglomerates in the world, with well-heeled lawyers on retainer, who figure they can pretty much do whatever the hëll they want while stepping on your face. Now multiply that feeling by a hundred and you’ll have some inkling of the challenge undertaken by Ellison and his one attorney, Christine Valada. They need and deserve your support.

* * *

Once upon a time, it is said, comics covers—and the stories which accompanied them—were arrived at very methodically.

The editors and publishers studied the covers of the comics that sold better than other comics. They tried to discern what elements on those covers might have contributed to the improved sales. Then (so it’s been said) they would craft covers that utilized those key elements, toss the covers over to a writer and say, “Write a story that goes with this!”

So, for instance, let’s say that they notice a trend wherein any comic with a gorilla on the cover sells like hotcakes (have you ever wondered what hotcakes sell like? I know I have. But I digress…) They also notice that covers with sporting events also do well. You’re the editor of Superman. You digest this information. And as a result, you commission a cover which depicts the following: A gorilla with a red cape, on a baseball diamond, standing at home plate waving a bat, with Jimmy Olsen catching, Perry White umpiring, Superman on the mound about to deliver a pitch, the count reads O and 2, and the gorilla is thinking, “Little do they suspect that I’m actually Superman trapped in this body… and if I strike out on this next pitch… all of Metropolis is doomed!” And the cover blurb reads, “The Super-Gorilla Who Couldn’t Hit an Inside Curve!”

Great cover. Should sell pretty well. One problem: No story to go with it. So you holler for a writer, he puts on his thinking cap, and within a few weeks, you have a ten page spectacular which features scintillating scripting such as:

CAPTION: Suddenly, the Super-Gorilla unexpectedly leans in to bunt!

SUPER-GORILLA THOUGHT BALLOON: If I can just tap the ball down the third base line…

THIRD BASEMAN: Move in! I think he’s trying to bunt!

Next panel:

CAPTION: And… success!

SUPER-GORILLA THOUGHT BALLOON: I did it! Now… must run to First base…

THIRD BASEMAN: He’s running to First base–! On the bunt–! Which he made unexpectedly–!

You get the idea.

The thing is, if one removes the sales motivation from the process, that really does sound like a lot of fun. The whole “Here’s a warped cover notion; make a story to go with it” thing.

When Joe Quesada announced Marvel’s Words Worthless month, one of the criticisms leveled was that writers weren’t given a choice over participating. What seemed to me to be an intriguing challenge was deemed onerous by any number of people, many of whom don’t seem to voice objections with quite such ferocity when writers are told, “Your monthly title is going to be occupied with chapters 3, 9, and 15 of a forty issue crossover; whatever you were working on gets put on hold for three months. Deal with it.” Compared to that, Quesada’s challenge was a cakewalk.

Me, I think throwing down a creative gauntlet is a grand comic tradition. And the idea of presenting a loopy cover and saying, “Here, make sense of it” is one of the classics of that form. So here’s what I think Marvel should do next… or DC. I don’t care. Someone should do it.

They should hold a contest called “Because you demanded it!” And they should invite fans to submit their most bizarre, twisted, demented notions for a comic book cover (keeping it clean, of course.) Writers who want to get involved should do so, but with no strings attached. No “dibs” on who they get to write… and no backing out once they’re on board.

The editors would choose what they feel are the best dozen or so ideas—the ones with the most possibilities—and then get artists to draw the covers, whereupon they are sent to the writers. The writers are then obligated to come up with stories that somehow, in some way, tie in with the covers. Restrictions: No stories involving dreams, hallucinations, or drug-induced hazes (too easy) or stories that are out-and-out whacked out parodies; they should be told with the same sort of determined illusion of seriousness that characterized the best of the Silver Age DCs. The winning entries are then published, either as individual books or as a single trade edition, and the original cover art is awarded to each of the winning contestants.

I know I’d volunteer.

I love a challenge.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705. He started buying The Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius because of the issue that had the gorilla on the cover.)