I’ll be heading into the city tomorrow, because–get this–MTV is doing a whole documentary thing about the Hulk and they’re interested in interviewing me for it. I’m figuring I might well wind up on the cutting room floor, but hey, people want to point a camera at me and ask me what I think about things. So I’m there.
PAD
• 
I hope the interview gets aired, and I hope that MTV Europe and Asia get to air it too. This could be a wonderful way to broadcast about comics!
I really wish Marvel would get off it’s ášš and collect more of that Hulk stuff.
My comics are getting kinda rough looking. Especially the early Pantheon stuff drawn by Keown. Some of my favorite comics.
Even if Quesada’s dogging you he can’t dog that art. Those are some of the best looking comics I’ve seen this side of George Perez and Alan Davis.
You should be bitter and spiteful in your interview, then get beligerent with the camera guy,
“You’ve made me angry…you won’t like me when I’m angry.”
Peter David on MTV…that’s almost like my father being on MTV, if my father were a big, bald, Jewish guy…oh wait, he is a big, bald, Jewish guy.
Nevermind…
Good luck on MTV Peter.
Maybe you can find out what happened to the Spiderman cartoon series they were supposed to start airing by now.
Meanwhile, has anyone seen the new Mountain Dew/Hulk commerical yet?
A guy named Bruce (who we never clearly see) is attending a group therapy session, proud that he has made progress with his anger management training. But when the person next to him stands to address the group and knocks over Bruce’s Mountain Dew…
PAD on MTV? Sweet! Maybe now we’ll get some decent choreography on that channel! =)
Where sunglasses, put your collar up, and end every sentence with the word “man.”
I wonder if Marvel is going to have “creative input” into what gets shown?
Just be sure to let us know when this is going to air. I haven’t watched anything on MTV in years and will most likely miss it without a reminder.
I agree with Fazhoul – please let us know when it will air as I watch MTV about as much as they do.
It is no wonder they want to interview you – could it be because your Hulk was the best Hulk stories to ever run in the comic – I bet, yes. I know I stopped reading the book after you left…
Xyon
Hey PAD, maybe they really just want an opportunity to get you in studio to ask you to be on the show “Cribs.”
jeff
It’ll be “the Real World” except with all comics professionals.
Actually, that’s kind of a contradiction.
It is no wonder they want to interview you – could it be because your Hulk was the best Hulk stories to ever run in the comic – I bet, yes. I know I stopped reading the book after you left…
Don’t forget the two movie novelazations!! (And if anyone’s trying to beat me to it, I will mention that PAD wrote a regular Hulk novel way back when.) PAD wrote a regular Hulk novel way back when.
I can’t believe that you stopped reading the Hulk! You missed the part where a python squeezed the Hulk so hard that he passed out. Or was it a trick? The “letters to the editor” page a few issues later says that both is case. Aargh! Suffice to say, my Hulk comic book collection is pretty much limited to PAD’s run and the new Bruce Jones stuff which has been very enjoyable.
You never know the documentary may end up on the Hulk DVD!
I’d like to see it as well – and yeah, Chris, I’ve been enjoying the Bruce Jones Hulk too. Seems to be heading toward some familiar territory though: Seems like the conclusion of the most recent storyline is tending toward a more integrated, professor Hulk-like personality, or at least one where Banner can be dominant pink or green. Or vice versa…Weird, but cool to see Banner slug the abomination.
Don’t forget to call him The Hizz-ulk””
Hey, it works for Snoop Dog…
I just can’t get into the Bruce Jones HULK. I like the tone and general mood of the book, but I just can’t get away from the fact that for most of Jones’ run, we’ve barely seen the title character of the book. The current issue has more of the Hulk in it than any other one he’s done, and
POSSIBLE
SPOILERS
FOR
THOSE
NOT
READING
HULK
He’s talking with Banner’s voice?!? Gee, that’s never been done before…and there hasn’t been any explanation as far as I can tell for the Hulk’s current state of mind. (That’s been a general problem with Jones’ story arcs thus far–they…move…so…slowly, and explanations, such as they are, come so long after the fact that you end up forgetting what he’s talking about.) I do like the horror feel the book has, and the paranoia that is starting to hang over Banner like a cloud, but the Hulk is a character in his own right, and I don’t feel we’ve seen him in the book for a long time.
On a different topic, I notice Amazon.com has a book by the name of Marvel Visionaries: Peter David listed as coming out in July. Peter, any idea what issues are reprinted in this book?
Top Ten Things For PAD To Do At MTV
10. Show up with Lou Ferrigno, toss Carson Daly through the windows, watch the teen groupies tear him limb from limb
9. Spend the entire interview talking about Hulk Hogan
8. Speak in a fake Ozzy Osbourne voice. “Yeah, man, th-th-th-th-th’ Hulk, man, what he is, man, he’s really green.”
7. Take hostages, demand immediate Brothers Grunt marathon
6. Show up wearing a T-shirt with Clay Aiken’s face on it and a sign saying CLAY WAS ROBBED
5. Ask why MTV doesn’t play those nice boys from 98 Degrees anymore
4. When the interviewer asks a simple, innocuous question, pull a Johnny Rotten storm off the set in a rage
3. Go down to the basement and let Kevin Seal out of his cage
2. Eat an MTV Movie Award
And the number one thing for PAD to do at MTV is…
1. Tear up a picture of Bill Jemas and scream “FIGHT THE REAL ENEMY!”
…I honestly have no idea where that came from.
Peter: A few survival tips, having been on both sides of on-camera interviews…
1. Wear black. It doesn’t flare and hides a multitude of sins.
2. If possible, try to get the camera to look down on you slightly. You know the old saying about a camera adding ten pounds? It’s even worse when they shoot from below. Even the slimmest person suddenly sprouts an extra chin.
3. Don’t wear a baseball cap. You might as well pin a sign to your forehead that says ‘I’m actually bald underneath this!’ which is what viewers will be thinking anyway.
4. And make sure they put a bit of powder on those trouble spots- forehead, bridge of nose, etc. Guys hate it because they thinks it’s girly but you’ll be glad you did.
I guess when you’re married to a makeup artist, you pick a few things up, if for no other reason than not wanting to look bad on camera.
Incidentally, I seem to recall in the letter’s page of your last issue of Incredible Hulk, there was an editorial comment that basically said you were leaving the book because of a difference of opinion on the book’s direction. Just out of curiosity, have you ever talked about that difference of opinion? Not to tread old ground, but I’m sure new web readers would be interested as well.
PAD – Can you make sure you tell us the air date when you find out?
Thanks!
PAD: This may be wholly un-germane to the discussion at hand, but having just heard from Harlan Ellison on his message board that Julie Schwartz was just taken to the ER and put in intensive care the other day (a flare-up of his spinal troubles, apparently), I was wondering if there were any way you might convey to him his fans’ wishes for a speedy recovery?
PAD on MTV? Way cool.
I hope they do show this special here in Brazil.
It would be fun. Never been a huge fan of Hulk, but been supporting every comic book based movie…. so here we go.
Other things that PAD could do:
1) State there is an inner correlation in story structure between The Hulk and BtVS.
2) Promote Captain Marvel and Fallen Angel, while talking about your stint on the book.
Just a few suggestions…
Johny
Tell them to bring back Clone High while you’re there.
Clay, I absolutely agree with you about Jones’s Hulk. The tone is great, but the pacing is far too slow for my tastes. He still hasn’t concluded his first major story arc, after 21 issues.
On the other hand, it’s cool to see that there are some PAD fans who are getting into it. I envy you, Adam and Chris. I want to keep on enjoying the comic book, since it’s been a favorite ever since PAD’s Midas Touch.
(Although since PAD departed, I’ve gone back to the back issue bins to read the Roger Stern and Bill Mantlo runs, and they were both wonderful as well.)
But alas, ’tis not to be. I bought the most recent issue of TIH just to because it was part 5 of 5 (not that it really resolved anything), but I was so bored that I couldn’t even finish it. That’s the last issue for me until Jones departs.
Jason
P.S. They cancelled Clone High? Suck. I loved that show.
I’m also not much of a fan of the Hulk comic these days.
I have been a reader/collector since I bought #200 (for a 25-cent cover price!) off the spinner rack back in the sixth grade (I now have all but the first issue). Though I enjoyed PAD’s run, I thought it changed directions too abruptly and a little too often.
The current Bruce Jones version just doesn’t do anything for me. The story is very slow, I still have no idea who the villain/threat is, and most of the time it looks like the colorist is using a muddy-water palette of gray and brown exclusively.
Does anyone know if Jones will be leaving any time soon, or if he is here to stay?
Actually the visions of things not to be at the end of PAD’s run had something I was very interested in… The Hulk and Bruce as one… integrated in Bruce’s Body…
I thought that was a grand idea…
but we had to go to Hulk Smash routine, and we all see where that ended up…
Travis
I’m figuring I might well wind up on the cutting room floor, but hey, people want to point a camera at me and ask me what I think about things. So I’m there.
Cool, MTV’s doing horror now!
(Heh, I’m sorry, PAD. But it was just sitting out there, and you just made it so dámņ easy…)
Hopefully Peter will be interviewed for the DVD also. I’m sure it would be a thousand times more interesting that McFarlane’s ramblings on the Spider-Man DVD. (Spaghetti webbing. Great. Fascinating. We get it.)
Of course they’ll probably just interview McFarlane instead for that one, too. Sigh.
I’ll be heading into the city tomorrow, because–get this–MTV is doing a whole documentary thing about the Hulk and they’re interested in interviewing me for it.
Yeah, but the Hulk’s bigger and you’re not even green.
(heh heh, okay, okay, I’ll stop now…)
I’m figuring I might well wind up on the cutting room floor
Even if that happens, Peter, you’ll still get your chance to wax eloquent about the History of the Hulk in the live, hour-long 142nd edition of “Graphic Detail” when you and Glenn Greenberg return to “Destinies-The Voice of Science Fiction” on June 6th at 11:30 PM EDT. And for those who might want to hear the show, you can listen online at http://www.wusb.fm.
Someone mentioned the ‘horror’ tone of Bruce Jones’s ‘Hulk’. Really?? `Seemed to me more like watered-down ‘X-Files’!
Well, anyway, Peter, good luck with your interview. I rarely watch MTV anymore either, since it apparently has become 50% hip-hop, 50 % “reality” programming. I did like ‘Clone High’, though….when I could remember when it was on!
I sure hope by: ‘whole documentary thing about the Hulk’,that means a separate special, and that MTV doesn’t include your interview segment on one of their ‘Movie House’ shows!! Have you seen this?? It’s where a camera, lights, and sound equipment are taken ( good God!!! ) into a MOVIE THEATRE while the MOVIE’S SHOWING, and they actually INTERVIEW FILMGOERS WHILE THE MOVIE’S RUNNING!!!! As if cell phones ringing….and the anal orifices who actually ANSWER them!!!…..people who can’t be bothered to get a sitter and bring a collicky baby with them to a movie, and pin-heads who think they can talk in normal conversational tones as if they were watching a Blockbuster rental in their underwear at home weren’t enough, an at least three-man crew asking some slack-jawed, pea-brained pinhead: “So…..whattaya think??” is now part and parcel of the cinema experience in America!!!
But I’ll watch for PAD anyway!!
:^#
Hooper
Actually, Hooper, I do believe those screenings are specially designated for the filming and are usually previews, so no one else’s experience is messed up by the idiocy. Proof: They showed people watching the Matrix Reloaded a week before it came out.
Show still sucks, that stupid review board thing speaks volumes about the mentality of MTV and it’s viewers.
Maybe you can find out what happened to the Spiderman cartoon series they were supposed to start airing by now.
It used to be that MTV’s programming had a shelf life of a few years. Then, with the exception of the never ending real-world, shows stuck around for a matter of months. Now they run out of steam before their even aired? Talk about being a slave to fads.
Thanks, Jam. I’m afraid that in my ranting, I may’ve implied that I thought the in-progress interviews took place during general movie showings, when I knew from before that were, indeed, advance screenings.
Still…….what a jaw-droppingly asinine concept!!!!! Specially-designated screening or no, just the very notion of a camera crew loping through a theatre, asking patrons to leave their seats so the crew can get the shot, just as ( to use a recent example ) the Battle For Helm’s Deep scene of ‘…Two Towers’ was beginning is enough to make my skin crawl and my blood boil!!!
And, yeah, that whole Soul-Train Scramble-Board review-deal is ‘the level of the room’, isn’t it!!
By the way, `last I heard, the animated ‘Spider-Man’ series is due to premiere ‘in June’. I predict it’ll be promo’d heavily during the MYV Movie Awards early next month, if not sooner.
Hooper
‘MTV Movie Awards’, that is.
Good luck with the interview Peter.
I was really hoping that you would get a cameo in the hulk movie, but this is better than nothing.
WSJ3
Most people only read the most recent thread, so I’ll post here too. POTENTIAL MINOR SPOILER: Hints as to the status of Spike from Joss himself can be found here, courtesy TVGuide: http://www.tvguide.com/newsgossip/insider/030523b.asp
Chris
On a different topic, I notice Amazon.com has a book by the name of Marvel Visionaries: Peter David listed as coming out in July. Peter, any idea what issues are reprinted in this book?
No clue. And considering it’s been-and-gone in the past, I’ll believe it’s coming out when I actually see it.
PAD
Incidentally, I seem to recall in the letter’s page of your last issue of Incredible Hulk, there was an editorial comment that basically said you were leaving the book because of a difference of opinion on the book’s direction. Just out of curiosity, have you ever talked about that difference of opinion? Not to tread old ground, but I’m sure new web readers would be interested as well.
The difference was that the Marvel higher-ups wanted to take Betty’s death as an excuse to have the Hulk revert to pure, savage, Hulk-smash Hulk. They wanted every issue to be 22 pages of the Hulk smashing through the Marvel Universe. They saw this as an exciting new direction. I told them it would tank, that they couldn’t just turn their backs on 12 years of character development, and I wouldn’t write it. They said, Fine, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
And they proceeded to do the exact stories they wanted to do, and sales went down the chute. At which point they brought in Paul Jenkins to do the kinds of stories I had been writing, and sales went back up. And now the series is as far away from 22 pages of Hulk smash as you can possibly get, and it’s thriving. And the version of Banner being used is the one I was working towards (and who showed up toward the end of Hulk #467, complete with glowing green eyes.)
So I was right. Out of a job, but right.
PAD
…Sex…
…Drugs….
…Blogging…
BEHIND THE MUSIC
In 2003, the artist now known as P. Da Viddy made his triumphant appearance on MTV.
But was it too late?
Despite the outward trappings of success, behind the scenes, Da Viddy’s life was out of control.
Showing an unhealthy attachment to the occult, Da Viddy seemed obsessed with television shows about vampires. He outraged female fans of both genders with his controversial suggestion that women would enjoy being identified as formidable and attractive. And corportate giant AOL/Time-Warner had to step in to keep him from writing about young boys and girls wearing colorful Spandex.
A comic book insider who asked not to be identified:
“He can’t draw no good so he can’t do his own book starring himself as the Hulk with a fin on his head and lots of girls with big bøøbìëš who all want to sleep with me – I mean, him.”
Then a woman calling herself “Kathleen David” publicly identified herself as the mother of Da Viddy’s child. “Kathleen” claimed to be Da Viddy’s “wife” but with only a marriage license, wedding photos and the word of friends and family to support her wild claim, Da Viddy’s public image took another hit.
By mid-2003, the good times had come to a screeching halt. With two cancelled series, Da Viddy had little to support himself except the blood he sold to law firm Wolfram & Hart… and a thriving career as a novelist.
The MTV appearance could be the turning point.
But would it be enough…?
Coming up: A Marvel insider speaks.
“All I’m saying is that any freelancer who wrote a best-selling series for 10+ plus years and got tossed aside for other writers who did stories undoing everything he did because of their petty, personal grudges against him, owes us a lot of loyalty. Hey, I’m the biggest supporter of free speech around. But like the Dixie Chicks, anyone who excercises that right should be threatened and intimidated so they don’t try *that* again… am I right? What? Contest? What contest? There was no contest? If there was a contest, my puppet maste- partner, I meant, partner- would have won, right?”
PAD: “And the version of Banner being used is the one I was working towards (and who showed up toward the end of Hulk #467, complete with glowing green eyes.)”
***Isn’t that funny? (Not really in a ha-ha way.) This was one of the reasons I thought I would enjoy Jones’s Hulk… it almost seemed like Jones’s first issue (34) could go immediately after 467 and the tone would work perfectly. (And I could pretend the crap in between didn’t happen.)
***Unfortunately, while the tone did indeed seem consistent, the actual story quality… ugh.
***Long story short, on my personal list of “Best Comic Books We’ll Never See” is an “Elseworlds” maxi-series written by PAD that picks up where 467 left off and takes The Hulk to the conclusion he had always meant for the character.