Candian Jed MacKay is rising through the ranks at Marvel with some stellar books starring secondary characters — the Black Cat, Taskmaster — and now the Avengers in mech suits (Avengers Mech Strike). In this episode he talks with Tim about why Taskmaster portrayals have become goofier, how he treats Black Cat as sexy but not cheesecake, how he manages his writing time and more.
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Spider-Man is back in the MCU! Is it a coincidence that this announcement came out just days after it was revealed that MCU mastermind Kevin Feige has been named the producer of an upcoming Star Wars movie? Mulele tells Tim about his theory of the case.
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In this episode, we discuss:
Plus, a recent comic from Marvel that’s of interest to budding writers; a letter from a creator whose work we recently critiqued; and more Spidey/Sony/Marvel talk.
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It’s been a topic of discussion all week: Is Sony really refusing to let Marvel/Disney handle Spider-Man in the movies anymore? What looked like a shocking middle-finger to the mouse now looks to have been a case of negotiating via the media. Tim and Mulele discuss the latest, and also touch on the newly announced (at D23 day one) TV shows coming to Disney+.
The Deadline article that set off Twitter
Vox article on the Sony-Disney kerfuffle
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Stan Lee, Marvel Comics writer, art director, publisher, promoter, and icon, died November 12 at age 95. While he is loved by many, and undoubtedly had a hand in some of the greatest stories of Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, and more, he was also known to aggravate disputes over story credit and art ownership with the likes of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. In this episode, Tim, Kumar, and Tom Spurgeon wrestle with the legacy of Stan the Man.
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This week, three interviews that Koom got at Toronto Comicon, in a special two-hour episode!
Dave Dorman is best known for his Star Wars art, as well as other fantasy work, and even some Batman. Here he talks about being one of the first students at the Kubert School, and the lasting friendships he made there with other now-famous names, and about his approach to painting, including doing likenesses.
Howard Mackie entered Marvel in 1984 as an editor, and eventually became the writer on such characters as Ghost Rider, Iron Man, and Spider-Man. He talks about that transition, working with the guys who would later form Image Comics, and what he’s done since leaving Marvel.
John McCrea is best known for his work with Garth Ennis on such works as Troubled Souls, Hitman, and Section 8. What’s it like working with Garth? Why should you avoid doing work that goes against your publisher’s expectations? Why did he set out to do a different kind of comics than the type he’s seemingly best suited for?
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This week, Gabrial and David from the Kind of Epic Show podcast join Tim to talk about their show, and various Marvel Comics highlights (and lowlights) from the past 30 years — and in particular, Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta’s The Vision.
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While we’ve talked before with Austin Tichenor and John Roberson about adapting comics to the stage, we’ve never talked about (or even thought about!) adapting the lives of comics creators to that stage! But Lenny Schwartz has done it, and more than once, writing and directing “Co-Creator” (about Bill Finger and his claim to the Batman legacy) and “The Man Who Saw Snoopy” (about Charles Schulz, of course!). And he has another in the works on Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko.
This week Lenny tells Tim about writing these plays, just how much credit Bob Kane and Stan Lee may actually deserve, how Schulz used Peanuts as his diary, and much more.
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FLASHBACK! Tim and Brandon give their thoughts on Guy Delisle’s Pyongyang, DVD movie Justice League: The New Frontier, Spider-Man One More Day, and Writing for Comics with Peter David!
Originally published March 24, 2008
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Time travel is a fascinating topic to many, and Fred Van Lente‘s current Ivar, Timewalker series from Valiant is timesurfing at both its most fun, and most scientific, with nods to Stephen Hawking’s writings on the subject. Van Lente did his own time jump to the past a couple years ago in The Comic Book History of Comics. This week Tim discusses both these works with him, along with Spider-Man, Archer & Armstrong, reassessing Fredric Wertham, and more.
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