From the Archives 17

I haven't done one of these in nine years, so I figured it may be time for another run. Having recently moved, hads given me reason to tuck into some boxes that have been stored away and inaccessible. I came across this house ad for the original run of Xombi from Milestone Media that ran in the other titles back in 1994.

From the Archives - 16

I can't believe it's been almost a year since I last posted a "From the Archives" entry. Here's a little something from the mid-late 1990s.

This is presentation material for a proposed graphic novel written by me with art by J. J. Birch, my artist from the first incarnation of Xombi.

The project began as a multi-part serial story for a proposed comics magazine along the lines of Heavy Metal, which never came to be. The first ten page installment was completely written, drawn and lettered. The material was then used as a starting point for a potential graphic novel being shopped around to investors by the same individual behind the magazine. Nothing wound up coming of it, but the material is still relevant, and if I can ever locate J. J. Birch, I may still try and do something with it, which is why I'm not including the actual story material here.

Instead, here is some more of the presentation material.

From The Archives 15

It's been a while since I've put up a "From the Archives" post. This one comes from the dawn of time and is something of a super geeky origin story as well. Below is one of the first professional bits of writing I ever did -- professional in the sense that I received money for something I wrote.

The piece comes from the January 1980 issue of Boy's Life magazine, the magazine for Boy Scouts of America, of which I was one. This issue came out when I was in Junior High School and all of thirteen years old. It was a tiny tidbit that was part of the monthly "Stamps and Coins" column. I actually wrote a number of these which saw print, and am not sure if this is actually the first one I contributed. It's the only one I could find though.

Yes, it was an unassuming, humble beginning, but I applaud the editors for encouraging kids to research and submit these little entries by paying them for the work. It was the first money I'd earned that didn't involve yard work or washing dishes, and while $5.00 doesn't seem like a lot now, back then I could buy two books or a record for that money.

So, without further ado, here's my contribution to the January 1980 "Stamps and Coins" for Boy's Life.

I like to think I've improved since then.

From the Archives 14

This goes back to sometime between 5th grade and 8th grade based on the art "style." Starting in about 4th grade, perhaps a bit earlier, I drew hundreds of covers for my own line of comic books, but only bothered to complete the inside stories for a couple of them. Looking through these covers, there was definitely a kind of continuity and implied storylines, crossovers, and shared universe implications.

Most of the characters were obvious ripoffs of established characters from Marvel, DC, Charlton, and even Dell/Gold Key, but some of the original characters seem like they might still have some potential. Spike Man is not one of them.

If you're curious to see more of these than take a look here and here.

From the Archives 13

Continuing with the lead up to the release of STATIC SHOCK #1 on September 7th, I thought it was time to bring out a look at the cover to Kobalt #7 from December, 1994. Published by Milestone Media, this issue features the first time I wrote the character of Static. This was a done in one story in which Kobalt's bumbling sidekick, Page, sort of teams up with the much more competent, Static to deal with the aggressive, Blowfly. The story was very light, and comedic in tone and played off some of the cliches of the teenage superhero as well as some of the drawbacks of being a hormonally activated teenage boy wearing a skin tight costume. Blowfly wasn't really a villain per se, but a student who had been transformed into a disgusting human fly and was more of a danger because of his condition and less of a threat through ill will.

The art was by Jamal Igle, who has grown tremendously as an artist and become one of today's superstar comic book illustrators.

I'd always wanted to revisit the character of Static, and this story was supposed to generate a sequel about a villain who was disappointed that the future that was promised him was never delivered as we approached the year 2000 and didn't have flying cars, moon bases, or underwater cities. When the kids at Static's and Page's high school decide to put on a production of Hair, the villain snaps and decides to punish the play. With the cancellation of Kobalt and the winding down of Milestone, the story never came to pass.

Again, this was to be comical in nature. The story could never happen now. Not only was it really tuned towards the upcoming millennial change and the traditional notion of the year 2000 always having previously seemed so futuristic, but now with aggressive litigation and rights issues, we'd never be able to use a real, known musical, such as Hair as a central plot element.

From the Archives 12

Here's something from the dawn of time, or at least April 1996. This is the one issue of Daredevil I wrote where my instructions were to make Matt Murdock/Daredevil lighter in tone, which made him essentially Spider-Man. I don't know if that lighter condition of his lasted longer. At the time I wasn't reading a lot of comics. Marvel editor, James Felder invited me in to do this. I don't recall the circumstances, but at the time I wrote a number of fill-in issues for Marvel because I was known as someone who could come in at the last minute and deliver a decent story fast. Because of this my memory regarding these issues is pretty lacking (as evidenced in this 2001 interview with me for Man Without Fear). Shawn McManus provided the lovely art.

It was one of the last things I wrote for Marvel. I ended up leaving because this was during the time that Marvel was going through a lot of turmoil with bankruptcy and changing ownership, including a time where Toy-Biz was dictating what characters could be used in stories based on which action figures they had scheduled to produce. This was what got me to leave them. No list was made available of which characters could be used. You simply had to pitch a story, which was then run by them for approval. it was too much work with almost no return.

From the Archives 11

The above is a portrait of Lydia Lunch created by J. K. Potter whose strange photographic illustrations were created without the use of a computer which makes them all the more remarkable. I met him when I was buying a large photographic print of the above piece at a gallery show of his work in New York City in the mid-1990s. He was a very likeable guy, and was pleased when I informed him that this piece inspired the creation of two characters from the then current original run of Xombi (he was more pleased to discover that I'd actually credited him in print for this); Manuel Dexterity and his sinister sister Manuella.

Manuel Dexterity and Manuella were two of the more popular creations from the original run, though their appearances were brief. Manuel was the focus of a single issue, while Manuella was seeded through a few subsequent issues in the same storyline. As characters there wasn't much to them. Both were bizarre assassins, and neither spoke their own words. Manuel only spoke the innermost regrets of his victims. But as visual elements, these hand-centaurs were pretty cool to look at. They would have made some truly creepy action figures.

The scene depicting their birth led to the only real incidence of censorship that I encountered while working at Milestone, but that as they say is a story for another day.

From the Archives 10

Just like my Brooke Shields: Agent of Fury the above were my rough pitches for Marvel's humor comic book, What The...? and were done somewhere around 1989. This was for a pitch titled "Team-Ups That We'll Never See." I think this was the extent of it. I don't remember doing any others. At any rate it was not used, and my guess is that it was likely because of legal issues in using Calvin and the Blondie characters. For Marvel's humor comics it was easier to just pitch my ideas in cartoon form rather than typed out even though someone else ended up drawing them (sometimes not as well). The idea and humor was more successfully conveyed in this manner as well.

Brooke Shields: Agent of Fury

I recently uncovered some old pitches from my early years at Marvel Comics. These were all short humor pieces (of which I did quite a number) for titles such as What If...? and What the...? Because of the nature of them I often pitched them in rough cartoon form rather than as written pitches. This one was probably for What the...? but was never used. I don't recall the reason. My initial suspicion was that there were fears of litigation from Brooke Shields, but that sort of thing was still uncommon back then. Certainly it was nothing like it is now where you can't even mention a public figure or product by name in a comic book, and new character names are often changed anyway just in case.

Yes, at the time I did notice that I left the "e" off the end of "Brooke." Since this was just a pitch sketch done in felt tip marker, I wasn't going to redo the whole thing, or white it out just for a gag pitch that no one else would see besides the editor I was pitching and, if sold, the artist who would redraw it and the letterer who hopefully would spell "Brooke" correctly.



   

From the Archives 9

   

It's been a while since I've visited the archives here, hopefully I'll get this feature back on track on a regular schedule here. Here's a little something from 1994. This comes from DC Direct Currents #75 with a June 1994 cover date. This was a free publication that was available in comic book stores before the internet. It showcased all of the titles published by DC for a given month. This information is now available on DC's website.  

This particular issue ran a two page feature promoting the titles in Milestone Media's "second wave," introducing these three titles to potential new readers. The three titles were Xombi, Kobalt (both of which I wrote), and Shadow Cabinet (which I did not). All the Milestone Books that month featured a cover by John Byrne. 

From the Archives 8

In lieu of any major announcements concerning the forthcoming new XOMBI series from DC Comics, I decided to share a drawing made for me around 1994-1995, when the previous incarnation of XOMBI was in progress. I have a number of sketches of XOMBI characters done by some impressive comic book artists who never worked on the series itself. This drawing of Catholic Girl by Adam Hughes is one of my very favorites. First, it's just an absolutely amazing drawing of her. Nobody in comics is able to depict women like Adam Hughes. Second, it has great attitude and a sense of humor. Third, it is likely the only piece of art by Adam Hughes depicting a flat chested heroine. If Catholic Girl ever gets her own mini-series, I know who I want to handle the cover art.

Regarding the forthcoming XOMBI series, I can offer up a few tidbits. I have now written the scripts for the first two issues. There is an exciting artist working on the series. I can't tell you who it is yet. Because there's been a bit of panic because XOMBI did not appear in the February solicitations as was initially announced, fear not, it's launch has been pushed back to give the artist time to give it his all rather than rush them for a February debut. XOMBI is still coming. You just have to wait a little longer, but it will be worth the wait.