Comic-Con 1992, Part 2

Originally published September 18, 1992, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #983

Continuing assorted ramblings about the San Diego Comic Convention:

“Do Artists Need Writers” is indeed one of the most popular panel topics–so much so that it’s scheduled twice, for Thursday and Saturday. As noted previously, I had volunteered to be on it, but was told that they had more people than they needed. This does not deter a variety of people from asking me why I wasn’t on it… a couple in a fairly challenging manner, as if waiting for me to say, “I didn’t have the guts.”

I am undeterred, however, from actually attending the thing. The place fills up in short order. I see Todd McFarlane up there but register mild disappointment that John Byrne, announced as a panelist, is not there. I was curious to see whether Todd would have the nerve to try a repeat of the “My pal Johnny” shenanigans he pulled in Atlanta at DragonCon.

Also on the panel are Mark Bagley, Bill Willingham, Steve Gerber, and Doug Murray as moderator. I do not envy Doug his job. Indeed, he’s a braver man than I; had I been offered the moderator slot, I would have turned it down.

Sitting next to me in the audience is Marvel editor Craig Anderson. The place becomes packed pretty quickly. The person largely believed within the industry to be “Name Withheld” strides in and takes a seat in the audience.  The whole business promises to be interesting.

At first the thing threatens to degenerate into a “Kill Todd McFarlane” session. Todd gives a five minute speech explaining what he wants from life. In essence, he states that all he wants is to do the best job he can, and he’s satisfied with that. That he knows he’ll never be a great writer and it doesn’t bother him, and he doesn’t see why it should bother anyone else. That he’s happy being the best he can be. That all he wants out of life is to be happy and do work that makes him happy, and even if he was producing a comic book that sold 5000 copies, he’d still be happy because that’s how much he loves comics.

This gets some applause.

A person in the audience subsequently raises his hand and asks Todd something to the effect of, “I have a question about characterization, pacing, and subtext. Specifically, I’d like to know if we’re going to see any of that in your work anytime soon.” This draws louder applause, but negative reaction from Todd supporters. The whole thing is starting to seem like Jets vs. Sharks.

Todd, utterly unphased by the assessment of his creative abilities, points out the commercial success of his work as an indication that he must be doing something right. He also makes the rather odd analogy that Terminator 2 is no Ghandi, but just because the former made a lot of money doesn’t mean that it was a bad film. The reason the analogy is odd, of course, is because no one had claimed that just because something makes a lot of money, it is automatically bad. Rather, the argument had been that just because something makes a lot of money doesn’t make it automatically good, or even defensible.

The questioner (or it might have been another audience member by that point–my tape is garbled) subsequently utters a profanity generally associated with copulation. Todd chides him for using “the ‘F’ word.” This is a bit amusing, since in a just-published interview with Todd, every fifth word out of his mouth is “the ‘F’ word.”

(Todd remains to me a fascinating study in contradictions. In that same interview, he makes a point of saying that as a penciller, he would never try to tell the writer what to do. He felt it wasn’t his place to do so. That as a penciller, his job was to do the art, and he wasn’t going to start telling the writer how to write any more than he’d expect the writer to start telling Todd how to draw. From our year-and-a-half on the Hulk, I can personally vouch for that.

But in the pages of CBG some months back, the linchpin of his “Respect” piece was how irked he was that no one ever asked his advice on what made books sell.  So why was it any more his “place” to tell sales and marketing people how to do their job than it was to tell writers how to do theirs?

But I digress…)

Steve Gerber makes the fairly accurate point that complaining about artists who write ignores the fact that in comics, there are many writers-by-trade who are turning out substandard work. I find this indisputable. Just as there are many artists recycling hot art styles, there are many writers recycling stories that have been around for years. Too many people are only able to point to comics as their literary influences, and that is unfortunate and limiting.

Bill Willingham, on the other hand, contends that, by and large, a story produced by a writer and artist cannot possibly be as good as something produced by someone with a single vision. Indeed, that a single vision is the best.

One would be hard-pressed to refute such a viewpoint when one thinks of such talents as Will Eisner or Frank Miller. Then again, neither Stan Lee nor Jack Kirby has ever surpassed Lee/Kirby. And hey… I liked The Black Dragon. I’m enjoying Next Men. But I’m sorry… none of it sings to me the way Claremont/Byrne X-Men did.

I’m old-fashioned enough to believe that two heads can genuinely be better than one, and that if you get a good writer and a good artist together, they can produce something that is truly greater than what they can accomplish individually. The simple concept of people pulling together for a goal is not only what the era of superheroes was founded upon (can you say “Siegel and Shuster?”), but indeed is the notion upon which this country was built. (I apologize for the effusiveness; TNT recently ran 1776 and I’m always like this for a few weeks after seeing that film.)

For a time, Mark Bagley almost seems under siege. Stating that he himself feels he doesn’t have any stories to tell, he is instead genuinely happy to be teamed with good writers so that he can be part of a group effort. That he, as an artist, feels elevated to a degree by linking up with a talented writer. He seems almost defensive for having that worldview, and not surprisingly so; in today’s climate, there’s almost an attitude that there’s something “wrong” with an artist who has no interest in writing. That such an artist is somehow inherently inferior to another artist who does write; or at least tries to.

Forty-five minutes into the session, I feel the desire to open my mouth and make a fool of myself welling up within me, beyond my control. Hoping that someone will dissuade me, I turn to Craig. “Should I say something?” I ask, hoping he’ll say, “I’d stay out of it if I were you.”

Instead Craig says, “Go for it.”

Terrific.

My hand goes up, joining the dozen others in the audience. But eagle-eyed Todd spots me immediately, leapfrogging over Doug Murray’s authority as moderator and calling out something like, “Yes! My friend, Peter David, over there!”

I stand up slowly, and am rather startled and disconcerted by the fact that the place has suddenly become very quiet. Every video camera in the place is now aimed squarely at me. Everyone’s waiting for me to say something, which is interesting considering I hadn’t thought out what I would say. They’re probably expecting me to launch an attack on Todd, in keeping with the impression everyone seems to have that I’m Anti-Image, Rah-Rah Marvel.

I never realized before what a sense of security being up on a dais presents. It’s as if the physical positioning automatically lends authority to your words. Speaking from the audience, with no microphone and no overview, I feel more vulnerable. Doug offers me a mike, but that offer had not been made to anyone else in the audience, so I don’t feel I should take advantage of it.

In the back of my mind, I hear the five-note “Man With No Name” Clint Eastwood music. I have no idea how long I was quiet. Seems like forever.

I don’t remember exactly what I said. Doubtlessly it’s on videotape. Maybe in recounting it, I’m unconsciously adding in things I wish I’d said, or certainly adding more eloquence than I probably displayed off the cuff. But I believe it went something like this:

“It seems to me that a creator has a responsibility, both to himself and to his audience, to be trying to improve himself constantly. To be reinventing himself. To live by the credo that ‘Good enough never is.’ And the moment a creator decides, ‘This is the best that I can do, and I’m happy with the best that I can do,’ then that person is no longer a growing, developing creator. Instead he’s in a kind of creative spin cycle. That a creator can never be completely satisfied with anything he’s done, but instead must always want to improve himself.

“In that vein, I do not see how any rational person can possibly protest if someone who previously was a penciller wants to write as well. I have no problem with that at all. What I find disturbing is the notion of people who take on writing, and not only do not have a clue as to how to write, but–even more disturbing–show absolutely no interest in learning. Such an attitude displays a contempt for writing, and not only is limiting to the artist-who-would-write, but ultimately is unfair to the audience.

“Harlan Ellison espouses the philosophy, ‘Beware he who writes more than he reads.’ I think it’s important that anyone who writes take it upon himself to devote at least as much energy to learning how to write as he did learning how to draw. Otherwise he has no business saying he’s a writer of any kind.”

This draws some applause. Steve Gerber says that he agrees with me 100%. Todd says nothing in response. Taking a guess, I think he thought I was going to launch some sort of personal attack, and when he didn’t get it, wasn’t sure how to reply.

Sorry if I disappointed him.

Later, I attend the Eisner awards. As I anticipated, any category that I’m in that Neil Gaiman or Sandman is also in, results in a nod to Neil. I’m annoyed with myself, having failed to try to get Neil to go double-or-nothing on our chocolate chip cookie bet from the CBG award.

I have a program in front of me, on which I’ve checked off my guesses as to who would win, and then the actual results. I’m running about 75% right. We get to the final category that I’m in, which is Best Writer/Artist or Writer/Artist Team. I’ve already checked off Frank Miller as my guess, although I’m thinking that maybe Dave Sim and Gerhard have a good shot since Cerebus has been nothing short of brilliant this past year.

There are six writer/artists nominated, vs. three writer/artist teams. Based purely on the math, odds are 2-to-1 that a writer/artist is going to win.

When they announce that Dale Keown and I have won for our work on Hulk, I sit there in absolute shock. My jaw is somewhere in my lap. Roxanne Starr, seated next to me, shoves at me to get up there and accept the award.

It’s the second time in the same day that I try to say something when I hadn’t prepared anything. I spend most of my time praising Dale. It’s only afterward that I kick myself for not having mentioned Hulk editor Bobbie Chase (“What would you think of working with this guy?” asked Bobbie three years ago, showing me sketches that Dale had done of the Hulk, Bruce and Betty) whose nomination of the work had gotten us up there for consideration in the first place.

To me, winning the thing represents something of a vindication of my entire position of a writer-artist team still being a worthwhile contribution to the comic field… particularly since we beat out six writer/artists.

I have no idea how seriously anyone takes these awards… but I know that I take them very seriously. Afterward I get Will Eisner to sign the back of the plaque. He tells me he thinks it’s a little silly since no one will know his signature’s there.

“I’ll know,” I reply.

And now you will, too.

At first I felt a little depressed, since the award was for a team that no longer exists since Dale decided to leave. But then I start to cheer up, deciding that it’s a nice way to close the book on a creatively rewarding association. It’s a physical reminder of the validity of the notion of writer/artist teams. And lastly, I think of the Image guy who, as one of his arguments for getting Dale to break the team up, convinced him that The Incredible Hulk was a dead-end career track that would never get him any recognition. So now Dale has a plaque that proves how utterly off-base that statement was.

I love a good team.

Now if only there was a decent one playing baseball in New York…

(Peter David, writer of stuff, wants to thank the Academy…)