I’ve become used to the typical reasons that hostility is aimed at me. The guys who assail me because I have different political beliefs from them (including those who actually write to Marvel trying to get me fired because they didn’t like something I wrote on this blog). Or the guys who love to weigh in on any positive BBS thread about my work and try and lob crap at it because they feel I was mean to them three years ago, or they’re frustrated writers who believe that my success is as undeserved as their failure, and since they can’t do anything about the latter, they’ll try and tear down the former.
But the message I received recently was just on a different level.
I started up a Facebook page about a month ago and the vast, vast, VAST majority of people who have approached me through that medium have been genuine, enthusiastic fans of me or my work. And then one day, out of the blue, I got the following message from someone I shall keep nameless:
I wrote a submission to Marvel that was a Shatterstar origin. I wrote that story three times. Countless nights of research on the many characters and the ultimate expansion of the mojoverse. I spent 2 years trying to find an artist to draw for me. You made him gay, and made my story irrelevent. (sic) I have stopped writing and am now a mechanic. A rather small decision of yours, crushed my dream of being a comic book writer at Marvel.
I have to admit, I was taken aback. As I said, I’ve become used to the usual reasons for hostility. But here’s someone I’ve never met (to my knowledge) who apparently hates his life and blames me for it.
Years ago I wrote a Hulk story which featured a low-grade crook who, throughout his career, was constantly having his endeavors thwarted by the Hulk who, in turn, had no idea the guy existed. For instance, the guy was driving away from a bank robbery at high speed and a casually leaping Hulk shattered the road in front of him so that he couldn’t escape police pursuit. By the end of the story he finally confronts the Hulk, declaring him to be his nemesis, and the Hulk has no freaking idea who this guy is or the impact he’s had on his life. The guy was supposed to be a comedic figure.
Instead I now encounter that in real life and I don’t find it funny at all. To me, it’s just kind of tragic, that somewhere out there, there’s this guy who isn’t achieving his goals and believes it’s my fault…and me, I was just going about my business.
And the more I think about it, the more I just feel sorry for the guy. It’s a terrible thing, to just give up like that. Sadder still, I suppose, to be so determined to blame someone else for your own inability to stick with it. Someone becomes a writer–a professional writer–because NOT being a writer is unthinkable. You’re not deterred by the first set back, or the fifth, or the fiftieth. Failure, as they say, is not an option. If it is, then you won’t make it, period.
Still, as I said…it’s disconcerting to discover that someone hates me that much, and particularly for a story that meant a great deal to a sizable portion of the readership.
PAD
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I dunno, why choose to try and write for someone else’s IP and then just quit when the IP holder’s change tack?
There’s nothing you can do for this guy. Let it roll off your back like water off a duck.
I’ve long had this theory that lots of today’s áššhølë fans, the ones that are very possessive of the characters, that oppose any change, that love to hate and spend hours and hours badmouthing everything in message boards, those kind of fans, they’re mostly frustrated would-be writers.
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Not real writers. They lack the drive, they lack the talent, they lack the self-awareness that would allow them to evolve in their craft. Driven by envy and frustration, they lash out at those who have “undeserved” success.
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I mean, lots of times, when I read a long message by one of those fans, explaining in detail once again why Quesada or Didio or Bendis or Johns is the Antichrist, there is a link in the bottom of the message, inviting people to visit the fan’s webpage, where he has his own fan fiction version of the Marvel Universe or DC Universe. A “fixed” version that is supposedly how the official universe should be.
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It is so pathetic.
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I know you’ve wrote fan fiction, PAD. But I can’t help being turned off by any and all fan fiction because I have this feeling most fan fic writers are major wáņkërš, as Garth Ennis would say.
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By the way, any so-called writer who can’t adjust his “masterpiece” to account for the protagonist’s sexual orientation is a piss-poor writer. Gay characters are a lot more an undiscovered country than straight ones. If this guy were a serious writer, he would welcome the chance to tackle a gay protagonist. But I will bet that he is also homophobic and can’t countenance writing about a gay hero.
“I have this feeling most fan fic writers are major wáņkërš”
As a fanfiction writer–the kind who writes for the sheer joy of playing in a given setting with characters that I have grown to love over the years–this statement saddens me. The vast majority of us are actually very nice, decent people; the bad eggs simply get all the attention.
I have been unemployed for two years, have lost my home, my car and was on the verge of having my computer repossessed as well last month. Never once did I ask for money, but as soon as my friends–other fanfiction writers, all–heard of my plight, they immediately donated $250 to me to save my computer and keep me able to search for jobs that I might not otherwise see. Employers, you see, don’t run the want ads in the paper very much anymore and being able to be online is the only way I see many job listings. My fan writer friends took care of me, even though they don’t have much more money than I do.
So, painting all fan writers as wáņkërš is not only a huge discourtesy, it’s also an insult to us. Choosing not to read our writing is your decision, but please don’t call us names or imply that we are bad people while you do it.
Well, in his defense, I would contrast your sentence, “painting all fan writers as…” with what he actually said and you even quoted, “I have this feeling most fan fic writers are…” and see if you can discern the important word difference between the two.
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In any event, speaking as a former fan fic writer, I wouldn’t agree with the “most” characterization myself.
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PAD
I apologize, JD.
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I can be a real ášš sometimes, and I think this was one of those times.
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I get a little angry at the negativity of the fans that are too possessive of the characters and think they should be running the show and I wrongly conflated this phenomenom with fan fiction writers.
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You are right.
I used to read this really good fan fic about Spider-Man I had to stop reading it because the writer was so unbelievably rude and arrogant to everyone. He constantly ranted about the editors on Spider-Man because he contacted them to get in the buisness and after some corrispodence they told him there wasn’t much he could do. They joined his site and he banned them (Dan Slott and Stephen Wacker) for BS reasons. Ask them about it they’ll tell you.
Let this be a lesson to you, Peter. Make sure that when you write for characters that don’t belong to you that you neither reveal things about them nor have them make decisions.
Why didn’t he just write a different story?
Because he wasn’t a writer – he wanted to be an author. (I think it was Spider Robinson who said that an author is somebody who gets his name on a dust jacket, while a writer is someone who writes because it’s easier than not writing.)
He’s going to have to be able to handle setbacks a lot better than that if he’s going to make it as a writer.
They made an unpublished, unused, story irrelevant. So, move on to the next story.
Regarded PAD,
I don’t know if this makes you feel better. But you are actually one of the reasons I STARTED writing. New Frontier gave me hope that there are a lot more possibilities in the printed Trek universe then people assume.
I ended up writing a trilogy with the Daleks and the Goa’uld as baddies. (The Daleks as the major and the Goa’uld as the minor.)– (I haven’t send it yet. And I expect it to end in the garbage bin. But I’m already working on something new.)– (In fact, I think wrecked Sector 221-G a bit in the process. *Thinks* Yeah, blew up Tulaan, wrecked Enev and roasted Haresh.)
Long story short…don’t let it get to you, sir. And if yelling at me makes you feel better, I’m available.
With Highest Regards,
Ruben A. Hilbers
Well, unfortunately, it’s a helluva lot easier to find an excuse NOT to write than to stick with it.
That’s not unfortunate, it’s a blessing. People who find excuses generally aren’t very good at it.
People who find excuses generally aren’t very good at it because they put off the work necessary to become better at it.
Frequently, the excuses are a cover for not wanting to do the groundwork. It’s when the excuses end that improvement can happen. The challenge then is to improve enough to produce something people will want to read–or at least buy.
Over on the Misfile forums, there’s a guy who constantly carps about the way Chris Makepeace chooses to write and tell his story – to hear him tell it, he knows much better than Chris what his characters would do and what the story should be about.
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His latest carp bìŧçh is that the final panel of Friday’s page (linked above) is “filler” or “padding” because it contains only a dialog balloon that advances the story…
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If Chris had drawn a talking head panel with Ash shown saying the same thing, would it be “filler”? And, if so, would he find something else to complain about?
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Of course he would.
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There are people (as i see mentioned in comments above) who think that they should have greater ownership in a creative property than the creator.
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As Heinlein said, they’re annoying but harmless*, like dead yeast in beer.
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*Most of them are harmless – i don’t think they ever caught the guy who was sending death threats to Sprague and Catherine deCamp over Sprague’s biography of the Mama’s Boy of Cross Plains, Texas…
“There are people (as i see mentioned in comments above) who think that they should have greater ownership in a creative property than the creator.”
Agreed, Mike. The truth is that they’ve always been around, it’s just that the Internet has given them a larger soapbox, it seems.
I remember telling a friend that the sooner people realize that these creative properties are not ours (unless YOU created the character or the work), the better off we’ll be. Have I been upset at changes made to characters and/or franchises that I like? Sure. But then, I have to face the cold, blunt truth that it isn’t mine, and I have no real control over any changes except to either stop reading the comic or not watch the film. We saw this with the 2009 STAR TREK film, although many fans accepted the changes and were happy with them.
It’s not just comics, either–I remember one chap who was spouting off in an Ain’t It Cool News talkback that he “knew more about making movies than anyone in Hollywood”. He was absolutely serious….and of course, had to mention that, well, he had no experience in making movies, but he still knew more about making movies.
A pretzel has less twists and turns than that guy’s logic.
Of course, the odds of Marvel hiring him off the strength of an unsolicited Shatterstar origin story were effectively nil anyway.
Yeah, as I understand it, the only way they’ll even consider you is based on the strength of your previously published material anyway. He would have had to have created his own indy comic or worked in film, theater or television first anyway before they’d have even considered him.
The odds of Marvel hiring him off the strength of ANY origin story were nil, but trying to muddle through Shatterstar’s was just the icing on the cake.
I really don’t grasp the logic of this. When did PAD write ANYTHING dealing with Shatterstar’s origin beyond the fact that his presence in X-Factor implies he has a backstory of some sort? There hasn’t even been anything that would invalidate him having a female love interest in another story, since he’s been flirting with men AND women the whole time.
Wait, because Shatterstar was made gay, he can no longer write?
Is Rob Liefeld up to his old shenanigans again?
What a weak-tit.
The guy shouldn’t have wasted so much creative and emotional energy on a character he didn’t own anyway. Especially if he’s trying to break in. Who breaks in by sending scripts to Marvel or DC these days anyway? He should have been working on his own comic. His problem with Peter, though totally out-of-place and childish, does sorta touch on one of the things I’ve always thought would kinda suck about working at one of the Big Two for some people, particularly Marvel: That someone else can come along and undo what you’ve established, especially if it’s just a matter of them not liking you. I would think in order to work at a place like Marvel, you’d have to learn to let go once they’ve printed it y’know? Otherwise, the retcons and other ways of changing past stories would drive you kinda batty.
Mr. Mechanic would probably disagree with this, but writing someone else’s characters I don’t feel is ever wasted. When I do it, it’s either to see what I can come up with or to get me out of a block. Literary sparring, if you will. As for letting things go, one time I wrote 97%(ish) of a novel in a series that I was working on, and got stuck. Nothing could get me out. Then me girlfriend at the time asked me if one of the characters was an antagonist when I’d written her the whole time as one of the protagonists. It added something to the character, got me to finish the thing, and was nifty character development for the rest of the people involved. Different perspective can be good.
That’s great, Sean, but I don’t think your novel story exactly fits in with what I was talking about. I don’t think Mr. Mechanic had the right kind of temperament for the trade in the first place. I figure if you don’t work well with others right off the bat when it comes to just a submission for a character existing in a shared universe where multiple writers and creators are also contributing, then you probably shouldn’t be sending in the submission. Its a big playground. Lots of people with lots of ideas. If you can’t handle that concept, work on your own comic… that’s what I’m saying.
Perhaps if those story submissions weren’t written in bright green crayon, they would have had a marginally greater chance of being read.
Ouch!
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I remember a Creation con way back (early ’90s) where the Trek writers ran a workshop, and one of the things they did was talk about all the really weird things people sometimes did with their pitches. The one that I remember to this day involved sending the entire spec script on tangerine-colored paper, accompanied by two entire boxes of tangerines.
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The script was not, in fact, accepted.
But what about the tangerines?
Wow, I did not expect to see that I posted today’s blog entry. Seriously, Peter, from the Emperor of Figurative Self-flagellation, you have nothing to feel guilty about. Would I feel bad if I were the recipient? Most likely, Yes. But, here’s the thing, If it had been that one of Editorial had read it and then forgotten they had read it and floated it as a suggestion, then, yeah, even though, you weren’t responsible directly, you could take the “Charles Waldos only” guilt trip. But this guy didn’t go into greater detail of what his story was supposed to have been, or at least how you making Shatterstar gay ruined his story. I’m sorry, but at best this guy probably thought that you “outing” Shatterstar, would have devalued in his eyes the character and therfore not worth it, at worst it’s a troll who should get a commendation for Original Thinking. Either way, he’s NOT a “Stoopid Hood”
Geez. Good thing Shatterstar didn’t get married, otherwise there’d be a mass of “writers” grumbling about how “hard” it is to write a married superhero until it’s retconned out of continuity…
this made me chuckle out loud in my office.
God… that made me laugh so hard. These kinds of people disgust me. PAD you just keep on doing your job.
I understand it being a bit disconcerting, but I think the blamer here is not really getting the whole “being a writer” thing. Not that this is news here, of course.
I was going to be a mechanic, but some guy bìŧçhìņg incessantly about a gay comic book character got the job instead. Thanks a lot, Peter.
I hate to sound dispassionate, but I’ll do it anyway: This guy has no one to blame but himself. If he wasn’t able to either roll with Shatterstar being gay, or put his story aside and start on something else (Marvel’s got a lot of characters), then that’s his problem.
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Years ago, I came up with what I thought was a really cool Black Knight pitch. Subsequent developments with the character have made it unusable, but I didn’t hang up my spurs and start hating Chris Claremont and Paul Cornell. I shrugged and moved on. Now I’m working on projects that came from my own head and can’t be made “irrelevent” by someone else’s idea.
“I shrugged and moved on. Now I’m working on projects that came from my own head and can’t be made “irrelevent” by someone else’s idea.”
And that’s the right attitude. I just wish that more people had it.
So, this guy’s supposed to be a writer — but his whole career hinged on one version of one character in the Marvel universe? He couldn’t have applied his Shatterstar story to another Marvel character — or even (shudder) create his own character for this story? Don’t worry, PAD: I’m sure if he didn’t blame you, he’d blame the post office for delivering it a day too late, or Kinko’s for printing it a little off-center, or the alignment of the stars, or the song on the radio that distracted him, or anything other than his apparently extremely limited vision of being a writer focused on one character.
PAD, you’re 100% faultless on this one.
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There’s no way I could take this seriously. It reads like a completely trollish drive-by.
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How can Shatterstar coming out now have any effect on anything that someone might have had for his origin story (that we already know a bit of anyway) so badly that it kills the entire thing? Even if the story centers on Shatterstar and his love of a woman, not an issue.
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He could be bisexual. He could, based on the fact that he’s not human and from a really screwed up place in the Marvel universe, flip sexuality every decade or so. And, hëll, the obvious fix for that would be to do quick rewrites on the story to make the woman ate the center of the story a man instead.
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Beyond that, what did he really expect? In my teens and early 20s, I put together ideas for submissions for both Marvel and DC as well. A number of them got scrapped because characters died, origins were rewritten or new stories were written that invalidated what I thought would work. It also happened to a lot of other people I knew. That’s one of the risks you run with creating ideas intended to be pitched to people who already have a huge talent pool working in an enormous shared universe of characters.
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And I honestly don’t believe that this is a new one on you.
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“… or they’re frustrated writers who believe that my success is as undeserved as their failure, and since they can’t do anything about the latter, they’ll try and tear down the former.”
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That’s what this reads like to me. He’s frustrated at his failure, blaming you for it and trying to tear you down over it.
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If he put that much dámņëd work into it and thinks it’s good enough that Marvel (who I am assuming never saw the first hello from him about his project) would grab it and publish it the day they got it in the mail, then he could and should still use it as an example of his work. If it’s that great and his writing is that great, then anyone at Marvel should be able to judge his ability to write for Marvel based on that story that he put so much in to.
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And this bit here…
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“I have stopped writing and am now a mechanic. A rather small decision of yours, crushed my dream of being a comic book writer at Marvel”
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Seriously? It was his dream to work for Marvel as a writer and he’s quitting because exactly one story idea he had and never actually submitted to Marvel was dinged because of new material being written about that character? And, what, out of the entire Marvel Universe he only has the ability to submit ideas or stories about one single character and ideas based on the pre-gay relationship stories of that character? I call bs on that.
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Too many people I know kept trying for decades and adapted to knew the changing universes at Marvel and DC when things came along that messed up the great ideas they had for a submission. Too many people I know now are doing jobs that they have to do to pay the bills and still chasing their dreams.
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But he says he’s giving up on his “dream” because of one dámņëd thing that happened to alter, not kill, but alter, a story that he wanted to submit to Marvel? BS. And I know a lot of guys who are mechanics who have a lot of free time to do a lot of other things. If this was really his dream and it meant anything to him, he would be using some of that time outside of the garage to pursue it.
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He’s failed because of him, nothing more and nothing less. Trying to lay that on your shoulders is 100% complete and total, hot and steaming bovine excrement.
And I honestly don’t believe that this is a new one on you.
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I wouldn’t say so if it weren’t. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve had variations. I’ve had people accuse me of destroying characters. They’ve even said I’ve destroyed their favorite characters. And as noted, I’ve had bitter, frustrated, would-be writers, try to tear me down. But the notion that some guy is unhappy with his entire life and believes I’m the cause of it…yeah. That’s new.
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PAD
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Well, I obviously can’t tell you how to take it or how to feel. I was just saying that it looked like the same old thing to me with a mild twist on the presentation. But either way, I still call BS on it. People don’t give up on their dreams for things that petty and small unless they’re looking for an excuse to say why they didn’t make it. If the excuse hadn’t been you and Shatterstar, then he would have found something else to blame and someone else in the field of pros out there to try and tear down over his not being a success and they’re actually being one.
I call bûllšhìŧ on this. I think he’s just an anti-gay bigot who, to his tiny credit, came up with a new way to criticize your having written some gay characters into the book. It’s a lot more plausible than taking him at his word and a lot less sad as well. he’s banking on your good nature to make you inflict some pain upon yourself in the form of needless guilt. Don’t do it.
As other have pointed out already, if all you have is ONE story idea and that not working out is enough to make you give up your “dream”….it wasn’t really a dream to begin with. Part of me sincerely doubts how serious they are, since anyone with serious intentions would know that you can’t break into ANY creative business with only one idea.
And honestly, those kinds of “fans” tend to suck the joy out of fandom. The addition of Shatterstar to the roster of X-Factor seems to have stirred up that corner of fandom, which I think means you’re doing something right. They are a very vocal minority, and their complaints seem to focus on one of two things:
-You “made him gay”. (Which you didn’t. You merely followed up on previous writers’ work.)
-You don’t understand the character and just used the name for a completely new one. (Again, invalid. As someone that grew up reading the original X-Force, I’ve noticed you showing your work quite a bit.)
I have to wonder how much complaining there would have been if you’d taken time out of the story to fill in the gaps between Civil War and his reappearance in the book. Would they still complain? Honestly, they probably would. But you’ve managed so far to tease fans with a sense there’s a BIG story there, without showing your hand.
Like I said, I grew up on the comics of the early and mid-90s. Mostly X-Force and your previous run on X-Factor, so several of the characters in the current run where already near and dear to my heart. I think you’ve done a very good job with Shatterstar, taking his core character traits and quirks while allowing him to be someone that seems MUCH better adjusted now. He’s still recognizable as that same character (“fan” complaints aside) but you’ve let him grow up into a more extroverted and generally HAPPIER person than he was as a teenager.
Which, you know, happens in real life.
I submitted a couple stories to Marvel a few years ago. (Twenty, if anybody’s counting.) Wrong format, I sent them to the wrong person, but did that stop me writing? Did I become a mechanic? Kinda wish I had, since my lone car needs some work, but without writing I feel very bad about myself. And now I know the proper format.
Oh, and Jerry–the “woman ate the center of the story…” She must’ve been terribly hungry.
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Pick, pick, pick…
Have JMS talk to this guy. At a convention I attended and in interviews I’ve read he’s had at least one pearl of wisdom that rivals any motivational speaker.
If he was going to be that precious about his little origin story and didn’t have sufficient creativity to (a) rewrite it in light of subsequent revelations and (b) come up with anything else at all, then he’s probably better off working as a mechanic.
The way he phrases it is especially telling. He dreams of “being a comic book writer at Marvel” but doesn’t seem to be as interested in WRITING COMIC BOOKS.
You wrote this the day after I decided to get back into writing, having realized that I’m a writer, period, and that not being one is, as you say, unthinkable. So thank you for this, I found it very serendipitous and inspirational.
Congrats, Robert. Best of luck to you. But you should always keep this quote from Jules Renard in mind:
“Writing is an occupation where you have to keep proving your talent to people who have none.”
(Note: I hope that’s the proper wording!)
I didn’t know you had a Facebook page. I remember at one point you said you didn’t. (I think its mandatory these days to have a Facebook page if you are any kind of creator and want people to know about your work).
(I do enjoy your work and often disagree with you politically.. but its getting to the point where if one side (democrat or republican) says the sky is blue.. the other is going to adamantly claim it is red and if you can’t see its red its because you hate America.)
About the guy though.. a mechanics not a bad job to have.
I can’t take this seriously. It’s like that commercial where the guy doesn’t get his credit report and winds up working in a pirate-themed restaurant. Life doesn’t work like that, and I have a hard time believing anyone thinks it does, let alone that anyone’s lifelong dream was writing Shatterstar. Or that a change in sexuality would render his entire origin story irrelevant. What was his intended origin for Shatterstar? That he came from a race of genetically engineered hetero-supermen, designed to impregnate as many women as possible?
We’re not exactly a race but the rest of it fits pretty close.
Matt, your analogy’s not quite apt. People DO, in fact, have to take extra jobs after they’ve gotten into credit jams because they haven’t kept up to date on their credit reports. In real life, people take a part-time job to help pay for an unexpected expense (maybe a tree fell on their house and the insurance is taking an inordinate amount of time to pay up) or because they’ve gotten into a financial fix (such as they’re maxed out on their credit cards and can’t afford anything more than the minimum payment) or because they’re simply looking to save up for something (such as a cruise).
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Maybe YOU have never been in a situation where you’ve had to take a crappy, minimum-wage job to help pay your bills, but people do run into that (probably more now than ever before).
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Aside from that, your comment is pretty spot on.
I understand that people can get into credit jams, and sometimes wind up having to work crappy jobs, but it’s not as simple as “I didn’t purchase this product, so I ended up here.” The commercial makes it seem that way for reasons of limited time, salesmanship, and humor, but in reality, there are a lot more factors that go into somebody’s career path than just one event, be it not getting a credit report, or not getting a story published. It also has to do with your parents’ finances, your education, your natural talent, your personal motivation, responsible behavior, and current economic conditions, among others. So while it’s okay to reduce things to absurd simplicity for the sake of a commercial, it doesn’t quite wash when somebody sends PAD a tale of woe like that.
Earl B: Why didn’t he just write a different story?
Luigi Novi: Or set it before he came out with Rictor.
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Or incorporate Shatterstar’s homosexuality into the story.
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Or establish him to be bisexual.
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Or make it the Ultimate version of the mojoverse.
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These are the things real writers do when they write for work-for-hire characters. But as Jonathan said, this guy wasn’t a real writer.
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He’s a whiner.
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I mean, seriously, “countless nights of research on the many characters and the ultimate expansion of the mojoverse.”? If you really need “countless nights” to research a set of characters that have made only a handful of appearances in the Marvel Universe, your problem isn’t Peter establishing that Shatterstar is attracted to males, or even that you’re not a writer. Your problem is that you’re a moron.
I admire writers greatly, especially versatile writers of fiction. I wish I could be one. But I know my limits. I know what I like and dislike about other people’s writing and can criticize all day long. But coming up with truly original characters and making them speak with individual voices, living in interesting situations? Not my skill set. I feel sorry for Shatterstar’s biggest fan, but if that was the only story he had burning inside him, he would have never made it at Marvel, or in any form of writing that requires one to produce new stories on a regular basis. If he really had the drive to be a writer, having a steady job as a mechanic that’s basically forty hours a week and leaves him with evenings and weekends to work on his writing until he can finally make a living at it would not be a bad situation. Instead he assumed that his one submission would lead to a career at Marvel, and it that didn’t work…pffft!…throw in the towel. Sad.
Peter,
First off, if it means anything, you are one of the people who had a major influence in me deciding to become a writer.
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Second, as I’m sure you are well aware, you are not alone. There was a gut I used to hang with to watch “Buffy” and “Star Trek” with. Would always critique everyone else’s work. Was in worse financial shape than I ever was. Then three things turned me off:
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1.) whenever I would show him my published genre stories, especially in the Philadelphia Daily News, instead of just being happy for me he would nitpick them to death, as if he was my teacher or something. he was doing no writing of his own but insisted on “cutting me down to size” constantly.
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2.) He was convinced, absolutely convinced, his life sucked because HE originally had the idea that became “Babylon 5” and JMS stole it from him at a convention. I could not talk with him rationally about it. He once blew up at me for mentioning what JMS was doing on “Amazing Spider-Man” and ripped his classic 9/11 issue to shreds.
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3.) He kept talking about what a genus he was and how he had all these ideas for the rumored “Buffy” cartoon but had not sent them in yet and when I said “try again” he laughingly said, “Why would I do that instead of my own characters?”
When I asked him how long it had been since he actually sent a story to someone he said EIGHT YEARS.
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I knew what I was dealing with after that.
That does sound rather bizarre. After all, suppose that you’d left Shatterstar alone, and Marvel had agreed to publish his magnum opus; what would he do next? If he doesn’t have any more ideas, he’d be back at the garage. If he does have other ideas, why not use them now?
Wandering off-topic a bit, have you come across GoodReads? (It’s basically the book version of Flixter.) As a reader, I’ve found it quite useful as a way to keep track of my book reviews. As an author, you already have a page there ( http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13681.Peter_David ), and you can “take ownership” if you think it would benefit you (click “Let us know” at the bottom of the page”). I don’t know whether you’d benefit from that at all, but it might be a useful way to let your fans know about new book releases etc.
“Someone becomes a writer–a professional writer–because NOT being a writer is unthinkable. You’re not deterred by the first set back, or the fifth, or the fiftieth.”
You nailed it. If the guy had any amount of creativity, I don’t think that he would have wrapped all of his work into a single character like that in the first place.
I don’t think you should really worry about him all that much, especially since it’s a situation over which you never had any real power to begin with.
Wildcat
Seconded. So trying to get in can be like trying to prìçk through Iron Man’s armor with a needle. The answer…use LOTS of needles (- aka write, write, write – take a deep breath and then…write, write, write -)…eventually, something will get through.
Peter:
Not so long ago, I found out about a frustrated wannabe writer who died of stress-related illnesses at age 50. Turns out that he was connected to me via no more than three degrees of separation, had had my name mentioned to him, and had taken it into his head that the entire publishing industry was geared to helping people like me (because I had the magical connections), while keeping people like him down. I have heard reports of him at social events, angrily ranting about me and how I was the reason publishing was such a mess that it would never acknowledge his genius.
Finding out about this was, in comic book terms, what it must be like for Reed Richards, knowing that somewhere, on some windy castle parapet, Victor Von Doom is spending at least part of every day shaking his fist at the sky and ranting about him to nobody in particular.
I mean, it’s nice to be the subject of conversation, but.
Like you, I’m just here doing the best I can.
And unlike you, my guy died — from reports — no more than forty-eight hours after the last time he cursed my name in company.
I don’t celebrate his death. I just mourn the wasted life. How much of it was spent hating?
I wonder what kind of mechanic he is. I’d hate to stop by that garage only to hear the boss complain that this guy has been trying to fix the same dámņ engine for the past six months.
Well, he almost had it going, then he heard that one of the guys that machined the bolts was gay, so that made all his work on it irrelevant…
well, too many comments here to read them all so no idea if anyone else has said this, but to be a pro, wouldn’t he have to come up w/ other ideas or was he just gonna live off the royalties of this one awesome incredible story?
if anything, he should use this as motivation to move on and write a better story. or find a way to make his story happen.
shatterstar is marvel’s toy, not his. they let you play with it.
if his story was really deserving than he should prove it.
How does Shatterstar being gay affect whatever origin story the guy wrote? Did involve some tragic love affair between Shatterstar and some female character? Even if it did, that would just be a case of unreturned love, not a reason to scrap an entire tale.
Besides, doesn’t Shatterstar already have an established origin?
Besides, doesn’t Shatterstar already have an established origin?
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That’s what retcons are for. 😉
I was under the impression that Shatterstar could only have someone picture a teleport destination for him if he’s had sex with them, and therefore that he’d had sex with Layla (and she had sex with Shatterstar because she knew she’d need to picture a teleport destination for him later, ’cause she knows stuff.)
Wouldn’t that make Shatterstar bisexual? Or am I completely misreading what happened in those scenes?
I’m pretty sure you’re misreading those scenes. We’re not quite sure exactly what the ‘connection’ between him and whoever he’s using to help him teleport is.
Despite that, he’s at least bisexual, probably more like omnisexual.
As far as we can tell from what’s been written, Shatterstar is just plain sexual. Kind of like Captain Jack. 🙂
The writer/author thing that someone up above talked about points out why I just call myself a storyteller.
Usually, when people call themself a “storyteller”, it means someone who stands in front of people and tells stories orally. I should know, seeing as it’s a hobby of mine.
Is that what you do, or is it something different?
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Modern, or traditional Indian? If Indian, what tribes?
Jerry Chandler said: ”
Modern, or traditional Indian? If Indian, what tribes?”
I usually tell folk tales from all around the world, actually. Though, I often gravitate toward European folk tales, what people would usually colloquially refer to as “fairy tales”. I once wrote my own ghost story for the purpose too, though.
Nope, not anywhere that organized, Adam. I just come up with stories and find ways to tell them, whether out loud, short stories, novels, screenplays, poetry, songs, numbered random doodles, action figures, or whatever else strikes my fancy and I have at hand at that moment. I just come up with stories, and I tell them.
Well, I hope you’re happy with yourself. One future-career ruined by a few keystrokes. I guess you didn’t realise just how big your sphere of influence actually is! On another note, regarding the whole “need to write,” I actually needed to be reminded of that right now. I’m doing better financially than a lot of the country, but those voices asking you why you don’t give it up for a steady income can get awfully loud. And sometimes, as I expect with the person that contacted you, it’s a lot easier to give up and listen to those voices. But that’s their baggage, not yours!
Aww, you Jossed his story.
Even taken on his terms, the accusation doesn’t make sense. It’s not like Marvel was on the cusp of giving this guy a job, but then they saw your writing of Shatterstar necking with Rictor and then told him, “Sorry, man, we’ll just have to go another way!” His finding an artist for the origin story is an irrelevant detail; if he was going to work for Marvel, the choice of artist wouldn’t be up to him. Even if his origin story for Shatterstar was impossible to reconcile with his current relationship with Rictor (which I can’t imagine why it would be), there’s no reason why he couldn’t just post his Shatterstar story as a fanfic on FF.net or AO3 and get on with his life. If he had any realistic hope of a career in writing mainstream comic books, there were other stories he could write to get his start.
If he’s so thin-skinned that he can’t handle a new development in canon, then he was never going to deal with the criticism and rejection that writers have to take. His grammar could use some work, too.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding the way the comics industry works, but it seems to me he was pursuing his dream in a very stupid manner.
First, aren’t writers generally supposed to pitch outlines and not full stories?
Also, if you’re submitting a story, isn’t it better to submit a more generic story that’s relatively unaffected by continuity changes, not origin stories or that reveal previously undisclosed background stories?
Finally, why would he spend any time, let alone 2 years, finding an artist. If Marvel would have wanted him to write for them, they would have assigned an artist.
No, I don’t think you hold any share of the blame for his failure to become a comic writer.
Any chance this message was written by someone who made a life decision due to the silliness of the biz? The oft-overused fluidity of c(n)ontinuity?
So they decided to go in a direction that made more sense?
Maybe they are fine with their decision and just wanted to air that?
Maybe the writer’s fire still burns?
Sounds like good fodder for scribbles…
Y’know, the chap doesn’t have to lament it all. All he has to do is find/change all of the references to the word “love” to “gaylove” or something, and, bam, story is still intact. Should take about 5 seconds.
The saddest thing is that he cared so much about Shatterstar, of all characters. Seriously, Shatterstar?
“The saddest thing is that he cared so much about Shatterstar, of all characters. Seriously, Shatterstar?”
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Hey, every character is somebody’s favorite. Some of my favorite characters growing up were Rom, Power Man and Iron Fist, Psylocke, Nova, The New Warriors, Captain Jean DeWolff and..oh, yes, a character who only made guest appearances in other books and who no one thought could star in his own series…The Punisher.
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One never knows what a character can do in the proper hands.
Wait until the Religious Right discovers that not only is homosexuality a sin (according to their nonsense…), it’s a job-killer!!
Sorry, Ben, but Bill Maher you’re not.
So you’re not picking up my show based on my one joke? Dammit!
Sorry, Ben – I guess you’re going to have to settle for being a mechanic.
I was in college when you were writing aquaman. I spent so much time reading and rereading the issues and thinking about having a harpoon hand (also the dilemma of choosing between mera and dolphin) that i didnt pay attention in class. Now i work in payroll at a community college. Mr David it is all your fault that i dont have a 6 figure job. Ðámņ you sir and dámņ your awesome writing.
I’m afraid you’re giving him much more regard than he probably has ever given himself. It’s easy to think about what might have been, but let’s face it, history is full of people that have actually seized upon an imagined indignity and used it to motivate themselves to outdo others. If he really wanted to write, needed to write, the last decade or so has been a golden age. Opportunities are there, even if they aren’t in your dream genre. The more experience you have writing in more fields, the more likely you are to be able to communicate what you want to say in a method that reaches more of your audience.
If he had actually submitted his work, taken the criticism and built upon it, maybe his vision might have won out in the court of public opinion, but he didn’t. I’m sure he took it out and polished it every few months. moved some punctuation around and pronounced it perfect. Unfortunately, writing only read by the author is ultimately just a waste of a tree.
By building his opus on a single Marvel character, he’s like an architect building his dream house on someone else’s vacant lot. It might be a great work, but it never would truly be his. Of course, it also makes it easier to blame the people who never gave him a chance. All they needed to do was break into his house, take his script away from him and publish it.
Lastly, he doesn’t hate you, Peter. He is so envious it kills him. The person he really hates is himself for not having lucked into someone to force feed him success, whether it is deserved or not.
Here’s the difference between this mechanic guy and people like me. MARVEL: “Hey, thanks for working for us!” ME: “Glad to be here! I’ve always wanted to work on an X-related title!” MARVEL: “Actually, we need you to do a Fantastic Four origin story.” ME: “Oh. I’m not a big Fantastic Four fan, but I can make it work….” MARVEL: “Oh, and it has to be really campy! ‘Blast it all!’ as a phrase has to be used fifteen times in the issue.” ME: “I’ll… see what I can do.”
Meanwhile, MARVEL: “So Shatterstar’s gay now.” MECHANIC: “Whelp, that’s it. I’m done with comics now. My dreams are crushed.”
Part of the fun of writing for any media is the challenge of limitation. It’s why iambic pentameter has stuck around for so long. Instead of complaining about the limits given to him, he finds ways of telling his story within those limits and maybe even cheating those limits in such a way that no one can catch him. This guy wants to be a martyr. Way too many of those in the comic book world these days.
MARVEL: “Oh, and it has to be really campy! ‘Blast it all!’ as a phrase has to be used fifteen times in the issue.” ME: “I’ll… see what I can do.”
REED: This thing is too big! Shooting at just one part of its surface isn’t going to stop it!
BEN: Well, heck, Stretch, blast it ALL!