DENNIS O’NEIL: On Writing Comics
I don’t remember a lot about the first time I ever did a cable TV show. It must have been in the 1980s because I know I was working for Marvel, and it was probably on one of those public access channels which still exist but never seem to have anything on them. The evening’s host might have been Carl Gafford. I do recall, to a certainty, that my co-guest was Jo Duffy and we were debating a topic with, surely, international if not cosmic consequence. To wit: which is the better technique for producing comic book scripts, the so-called Marvel method or the full-script method.
Why the networks, or at least the New York Times, did not report this momentous colloquy I know not. Just another example of the ineptitude of American journalism, I suppose.
Jo had the Marvel side of the dialogue and I championed the full-script side. I have no idea what either of us said or did, but it’s now years later and we’re both still alive, so it couldn’t have been too bloody.
Which brings us, via a prolix pre-digression, to this week’s topic. I put it to you, my friend: which is better, Marvel style or full script?
But before you answer, let’s be sure we’re all talking about the same things and that’ll require some definitions. Here we go.
(with Duncan Fegredo) for Vertigo in 1995 and [[[Children of the Voyager]]] (with Paul Johnson) for Marvel in 1993.
Fresh from the set of Transformers, Tyrese Gibson sat down with the boys over at IGN and spilled his guts on how much he wants the titular role of Marvel’s Luke Cage big-screen project. 
According to a press release, the new animated teevee series The Spectacular Spider-Man will be coming to the Kids’ WB! on The CW early next year.
I had it easier than many comics writers. I began in the business as an assistant to Stan Lee in 1965, when Marvel was just completing its metamorphosis from obscure Timely Comics to publishing phenomenon, and Stan’s vision of what a comic book company could be was pretty much complete. Implicit in the writing part of the job was the requirement that I imitate Stan’s style – after all, Stan’s style was Marvel. That made the job simple: imitate Mr. Lee successfully and I was doing it right.
About 370 million years ago, give or take, swimmy little critters biologists now call lobefish developed appendages that were helpful in getting around the bottoms of the ponds and lakes where they lived. Their descendants eventually flopped onto land and those appendages evolved into things that are useful for tap-dancing, kicking field goals and, attached to the likes of Jessica Alba, drawing admiring glances.
, by Peter Coogan. Full disclosure: I wrote the book’s introduction. But I won’t profit if you buy it. I recommend it because it is, quite simply, the best treatment of the subject I’ve encountered.
File this under: If the tail wags the dog for long enough, does the tail become the dog? Part I.
