A few weeks later, and Scott McDaniel has replied, telling his side of the story. Here are some excerpts. The original is long, very long, and you can see why he took so long to respond. It also includes some examples of John Rozum’s script, which is rather rare for New 52 books, as well as how certain ideas were generated, and DC’s decision making process for which books are published and which are not, and how he really doesn’t like Rozum describing the comic as a “total turd”

I’m not sure if McDaniel is breaking any of the infamous DC Comics NDAs with this, but if so he’s doing it in style. I urge you to read the full article, these are merely excerpts for flavour, and noting important elements wothy of archiving.

Before the relaunch, Comic Book Resources ran a survey that attempted to measure the reader anticipation of the coming DCnU relaunch titles… STATIC SHOCK ranked 46 out of 52. This is a SERIOUS challenge.

…

Around the first or second week of Oct 2011, the first sales data (of the Sep 2011 #1 issues) was published from DIAMOND. DIAMOND ESTIMATED SALES data is freely available online – anyone can get it for themselves. According to this report, STATIC #1 came in at 34,004 units sold. Oh, my goodness.

…

• ANTICIPATED SALES for Static # 4 or 5:
  (34,004 units)*(0.60) = 20,402 units.
• ANTICIPATED SALES for Static # 12:
  (34,004 units)*(0.40) = 13,601 units.

Uh-oh. Any title selling less than 20,000 units will be considered for CANCELLATION.

…

To me and Harvey, the best chance for STATIC’s survival was to plan big, exciting stories. Create solid story that QUICKLY grew to important and dramatic climaxes for Virgil and Static. There was no time to play it safe, or to do slow-burn stories. Time was our enemy. We needed something nearly geologic to upset the repeat of history in order to keep the book alive.

John dismissed this information, and our strategy, entirely. In his opinion, Harvey and I were too concerned with sales and gimmicks and not legitimate story.

I was frankly stunned by his reaction.

…

Harvey called and invited me to participate in a story conference he was going to have with John. Harvey shared that he was having some trouble getting John oriented to the type of exciting story he wanted in STATIC’s relaunch. Harvey was impressed with my work in the past (limited to instances of my discovering a few plot holes that somehow slipped by the writer and editor before getting to me, and he was impressed with my ideas/comments offered during the initial planning for STATIC with a different writer months earlier). Harvey suggested that I might help brainstorm ideas to get STATIC rolling in a strong, new direction.

Besides, DC Editorial was generally encouraging teams get their artists more involved in the story creation to make sure the stories were as visually interesting as possible. So this seemed the natural thing to do for STATIC.

This is important. Let’s be very clear here. I was INVITED by editorial to join the story meetings and INVITED to bring story ideas to the table.

…

Contrary to John’s public statements, our collaboration began amicably.John shared that he was a bit frustrated because his earlier material (set in Dakota) was rejected once it was decided to put Static in NYC. I never saw that material, so I don’t know what it was, or how fully developed it was. But to his credit I thought John handled the unexpected turn quite well.

…

Harvey tried to set out the context for the initial relaunch story. He wanted us to think NEW. He wanted us to think EXTREME. Go crazy, and he’ll pull us back from the edge if we go too far. Harvey was very interested in exploring WHY Virgil would continue being Static as he matures. And Harvey was very interested in creating a sci-fi themed mystery involving his sister that could become a long-term, driving motivation for Static to remain being Static. Harvey was very interested in seeing new growth in the character, in his personality and also new growth in his powers.

…

We talked some more. We talked about creating a criminal alliance that would be stealing tech (like the kind available from S.T.A.R. Labs), and the type of high tech mercenaries that would be pulling off these jobs.

Our brainstorming session seemed cordial, with a lot of friendly flow of ideas coming from all three of us. The session was called to a close, and John was tasked to take all our collaborative ideas and put them together in another script draft.

…

Page 4, panel 3
VIRGIL, HIS BACKPACK SLUNG OVER ONE SHOULDER, PINS THE LAMINATE PASS TO HIS SHIRT. HE WALKS ALONGSIDE DR. SLAVINSKI. IN THE BACKGROUND A GROUP OF MEDICAL DOCTORS IN HAZMAT SUITS (WHITE WITH A RED CROSS ON THEM) RUSH A GURNEY ACROSS THE LOBBY. ON THE GURNEY IS A MAN IN AGONY AS WHAT APPEAR TO BE HOLOGRAMS OF CARTOONY ZOO ANIMALS IN PRIMARY LOLLIPOP COLORS DRIFT UPWARDS FROM A WOUND IN HIS CHEST. SOMEONE INA YELLOW HAZMAT SUIT ACCOMPANIES THEM, GESTURING TO SAY IT’S NOT HIS/HER FAULT.

My first reaction upon reading this: It’s perfectly John Rozum, but perfectly NOT the type of imagery Harvey wanted for STATIC.Here’s another example cut-n-pasted from the same script draft:

Page 11, panel 1
WE ARE IN A LARGE DARK ROOM WITH EXPENSIVE FURNISHINGS. IT CAN BE DECORATED TO RESEMBLE A GENTLEMAN’S CLUB, OR JAMES BOND VILLAIN’S HIDEOUT. A GROUP OF POWERFUL MEN, WITH A FEW WOMEN THROWN INTO THE MIX ARE GATHERED HERE. MOST OF THEM ARE SEATED AROUND A HUGE TELEVISION WHICH SHOWS FOOTAGE OF STATIC FIGHTING THE PLASMA ENERGY BEING. THE IMAGE ON THE SCREEN HAS A LOT OF DISTORTION, ALMOST LIKE WHEN YOU COME ACROSS IMAGES ON A CABLE CHANNEL THAT’S NOT PART OF YOUR PACKAGE. EVERYONE LOOKS SERIOUS AS THEY WATCH. AMONG THEM, A CRIME BOSS WHO LOOKS LIKE A HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPAL WITH MORE EXPENSIVE CLOTHES, HIS LIEUTENANT, A SHIFTY LOOKING GUY WITH DARK CIRCLES UNDER HIS EYES, A VERY PALE MAN WITH A SMILE AND A COMPULSIVE LAUGH LIKE TOURETTE’S SYNDROME, WHICH IS ACTUALLY THE RESULT OF MILD EXPOSURE TO JOKER GAS, A WOMAN IN A TAN LEATHER COMBAT SUIT, A YOUNG MAN IN A LEATHER JACKET WHO LOOKS ALMOST LIKE A SILHOUETTE OF A YOUNG MAN (THIS IS TARMAC) AND A MAN WHO LOOKS LIKE HE’S AN ALBINO IN A WHITE SUIT, BUT IS ACTUALLY MADE OF SOME SORT OF GAS.

Again, this is perfectly John Rozum. Creative. But it just didn’t quite deliver the high tech sensibility, in feel or in visual description, that we talked about in our story conference. These characters just don’t quite ‘feel’ like the type of threatening gangsters we were talking about in conference who would be capable of ripping off S.T.A.R. Labs. That was Harvey’s impression as well.Here’s a final example cut-n-pasted from the same script draft:

Page 20, panel 1
INSIDE A GARAGE A HIP LOOKING MAN IN HIS MID-20s WEARING EXPENSIVE COOL CLOTHES SHUTS THE DOOR OF A PRISTINE BADASS CANDY APPLE GREEN EARLY 1970S MUSCLE CAR AND APPROACHES A GROUP WAITING FOR HIM. THE GROUP INCLUDES THE CRIME BOSS WE SAW EARLIER, HIS LIEUTENANT, THE PALE MAN COMPULSIVE LAUGHER, KILLER FROST AND A BIG GUY HOLDING A HUGE DOUBLE BLADED AXE. THE NEW ARRIVAL’S NAME IS DROPSHADOW. HIS SHADOW CAN MOVE INDEPENDENTLY OF HIM, BUT IS ALWAYS ATTACHED TO HIM VIA HIS FEET. THIS SCENE SHOULD INCLUDE LIGHTING SO THAT EVERYONE ELSE’S SHADOWS BEHAVE APPROPRIATELY EVEN WHEN HIS DISREGARDS THE LIGHT SOURCE, OR WHAT HE IS DOING. READERS MAY NOT EVEN NOTICE UNTIL WE TELL THEM.

Once again, this is perfectly John Rozum. It’s creative. But once again, it just didn’t deliver the modern, edgy sensibility, in feel or in visual description, that we talked about in our story conference.

..

This is John’s creation. John wanted Pale Man to be a survivor of Joker gas. His rationale: Joker is a murderous psycho, so by association, other story characters will perceive Pale Man as a murderous psycho as well. That’s fine. No problem.I suggested it might be better story for STATIC if Pale Man was a survivor of a failed Q-Juice event. This would tie more directly into Static’s own continuity, and possibly provide more story potential to reach back to Nemo and Dakota. Besides, I didn’t want readers to think we were sucking from the “Bat Teat” unnecessarily. Not that we WERE – I just didn’t want to give the impression to readers that we needed to skim off the Batman franchise to create interesting, dangerous characters.

John insisted on keeping the Joker connection. Harvey agreed – he saw it as a connection to the wider DCU. Batman Group Editor Mike Marts OK’d the idea (this reference to the new Joker had to be approved – it’s not that I ran to Mike Marts seeking a veto!).

Fine. No problem. Joker gas it is! I made my argument TWICE, and TWICE I was turned down. (Hey, I had to see if I could change their minds!)

I moved on without hesitation or second thought, without any wound to my ego. The question now before me was how to best use Pale Man to tell STATIC’s story.

…

Just off FDR Drive, on Pleasant Ave. in East Harlem I found the real “Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics.” Perfect! THAT’s where Virgil should go to school! I suggested it to Harvey, and he loved the idea. However, DC legal department said we couldn’t use that real school (party poopers). So I intended to create a parallel fictional school with a slightly different name, mirroring the real school but instead placing it on the West side of Harlem, using a montage of actual schools in Harlem as the exterior design. In fact, I used Google Earth to accurately render the buildings that really exist on west 115th street for the establishing shot of the school (Issue #2 page 14 panel 1). This is the kind of subtle detail I put into my art all the time that NO ONE ever knows but me (and, now in this particular instance, YOU!).

John suggested naming it the “DWAYNE G. MCDUFFIE CENTER FOR SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS.” PERFECT! That’s collaboration!

…

At this point, I think John was becoming a little tired of me constantly examining and challenging his ideas. I didn’t do it in the spirit of crushing his ego – I was constantly looking at EVERYTHING on the table, looking for better alternatives, to shape characters and ideas to best meet STATIC’s needs, not anyone’s egotistical needs.

…

  Despite some other, minor debates on some ideas, our collaboration up to this point in time had been mostly positive, from my point of view. I was having a BLAST talking story and character and conflict and the like with John and Harvey. I sensed John was getting irritated having to justify all his decisions as I kept examining things from different angles, but I was having great fun and learning a lot!In all the discussion of having Virgil running around S.T.A.R. Labs, it seemed to me that we were actually taking Virgil out of a key element. While Virgil’s “S.T.A.R. Labs internship” is an interesting idea, it seemed to me to unnecessarily take Virgil OUT of high school, away from his peers, and instead place him into a predominantly ADULT environment.

I suggested to John and Harvey that we make the “Dwayne G. McDuffie Center for Science and Mathematics” a charter school, entirely funded and staffed by S.T.A.R. Labs employees, as a way to give back to the community, bringing excellence in math and science to the urban inner city community of Harlem. It was great – we could bring the S.T.A.R. Labs to Virgil, and keep Virgil surrounded by a fun, youthful supporting cast.

This is important, and it rings like a bell in my memory: John literally laughed out loud at this idea, and muttered something like “that’s ridiculous” as he laughed.

This isn’t meant to be boastful, but I thought this was a brilliant idea. It hooks all these various elements together in a fun way: the Labs, the tech, the teen supporting cast. And John literally laughed in my face.

I became angry. REALLY angry. I stopped our story conference dead in its tracks, demanding to know what John found so funny about that idea. After a moment of awkward silence, John replied, “Nothing.”

The topic quickly changed, the conversation moved to another subject, and that was that.

I admit, this angered me like few other experiences in my professional career. I was DETERMINED to prove to John that I had good ideas to bring to the table.

To be clear, my anger took the form of a professional prosecutor going after a guilty man in a formal courtroom. I hurled no expletives. I hurled no insults. No name calling, or wailing to the heavens. I became fiercely determined to get an answer to my question.

And I admit, from this moment on, my impression of John Rozum turned decidedly negative.

…

I’m just thinking about what “might have been,” had my colleague John Rozum not laughed in my face.

…

John’s script draft iterations had consumed all the time off the clock. Time was running out, deadlines were approaching. Since I created nearly all the characters, and their interrelated conflicts, in the current set up, Harvey gave me the go ahead to plot at least the first issue. I honestly don’t recall how it grew to me plotting the first three issues. However, Harvey made it CLEAR to me, early on, that John was to resume FULL writing duties with issue #4.

I remember John stating how eager he was to resume full control over the writing reins. I remember being disappointed at not earning at least a little co-plotter role for those future issues. I thought I could really help keep things moving in the story. But I understood Harvey’s decision. John’s the experienced guy here.

So here was my window of opportunity to write the best, most interesting action-oriented intro I could to prove to John that I could bring something of value to the table.

….

I quickly produced a second draft, and that one was approved. At no point during this process did I hear John utter the word “turd.” That would have been useful to consider at the time, so we could possibly make some corrections.

…

John writes in his public comments about the impossible scenario Harvey laid on the table concerning the Sharon clone concept. In hindsight, I think that must be why he never offered a story solution for it.I thought it was a very interesting concept: a family tragedy, possibly resulting from some error actually committed by Static that had horrible repercussions for his own family. That has the potential to be a very powerful character story. We talked a lot about it, trying to get some substance on Harvey’s initially blurry impressions.

…

Let me repeat: John admitted that my idea was better than his.

…

At this point, our collaboration really soured. For all his talk of his expertise with character, he seemed to limit his involvement to trivial dialogue.This REALLY bothered me, but at this time, I couldn’t figure out exactly WHY this bothered me so much. I couldn’t articulate it. I did later on. More on this in a moment.

We found ourselves embroiled in petty arguments concerning dialogue. I thought his dialogue was overly wordy, passive and weak. He thought my dialogue was obtuse and clunky. Ahh, Crom, those were some days!

…

I asked him why he never brought his ‘character’ expertise to the plots. I took his initial plot and built upon it, keeping what worked and creating new stuff where needed. Why didn’t he do likewise? Why didn’t he take my plot, look for opportunities to shape and sharpen it for CHARACTER issues?

I asked him why he never looked to shape this material to compare and contrast the situations of characters: like STATIC and PIRANHA, each transformed, but one becomes a hero and the other a monster. Or compare and contrast VIRGIL and PALE MAN, each essentially an undercover personality (Virgil in some ways can act undercover for his role as STATIC, and PALE MAN is actually an undercover cop).

There was a silent pause in the conversation. It wasn’t an awkward one. I sensed almost a light coming on from John over the phone line. This idea seemed to spark his interest, because we talked about a few more examples. I found an opportunity he had never considered before, but it was essentially too late to act upon because he kept the plots at arm’s length.

I have no idea what the higher ups must have been thinking about all this, but issue #4 was fast approaching and John would resume his role as lead and sole writer.

….

 

Again, Harvey and I were very concerned about the sales trend on STATIC. Please recall this topic from earlier in my statement. This historic sales trend is no joke. It’s real. Sales cool. Harvey and I feared that, as retailers were preparing to order #4 through #6, if they didn’t see evidence of real story momentum and something important and cool happening that would attract additional readers, they would not change their historical ordering patterns and the book would simply slide into cancellation, if not by issue #6, then maybe by #8 or #10. Again, John expressed a contrary opinion. To him, that stuff wasn’t worthy of consideration – only story mattered. And he was gonna bring the story.

…

When I first read the John’s first script draft for #4, I was confused and concerned. REALLY confused and REALLY concerned.

…

I shared this stuff with Harvey first, who asked me to remain SILENT while he worked on this with John. John is the writer. Harvey had his own concerns, and quite frankly, I don’t know what they all were. He said he shared many of my concerns, but I think he had more to say to John.

…

A short while later, John’s second draft arrived. Nervously, I opened the file and began to read.It was filled with a lot of other detours and weirdness that I didn’t really understand.

…

Static is hailed from the street by a citizen. The citizen gives Static the address where people are supposedly printing counterfeit cigarette tax stamps. Static, suspecting a trap, goes there anyway. And guess what – he’s right! It’s a trap! Guillotina is waiting for him!

Cigarette Tax Stamps? Cigarette Tax Stamps? This has to be the most BORING superhero trap lure I’ve ever encountered. But, at least the fight is ON! Guillotina vs. Static!

They fight for five pages. Static traps Guillotina under a heavy piece of machinery, and then….

… Static runs away!

Excuse me… what?

…

It was pretty clear that John was upset at the constant critiques of his work. He was flustered, angry and irritated, not understanding why Harvey and I were constantly attacking his work.

…

I told John to forget Piranha. This isn’t about him. I kept hammering at the same question, “What is your plan for Static? What are you going to do with him?

John said he was writing issues #4-6 kind of simultaneously, writing bits of each in turn.

Again, I asked him to simply state what he planned to do with Static. Just describe what challenge he’ll face, or what he’ll learn. How he’ll grow.

John replied that he didn’t know yet. He hadn’t yet written that part of #6.

…

I reached for my bookcase, grabbed my copy of Syd Field’s SCREENPLAY, and read to him the following passage. For those of you who wish to read along, turn to page 56 and read the following:

So – what’s the best way to open your screenplay?KNOW YOUR ENDING!

…

I admit to becoming extremely angry. I couldn’t believe what John was saying. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t already figured this out.

STATIC sales are sliding toward cancellation, and he can’t say what he wants to do with the LEAD CHARACTER.

I reminded him of the volumes of material I wrote and presented to both he and Harvey during my time in the lead, so that they could actively participate in shaping the story or manage what I was doing. Virgil conflicts, Static conflicts, character backstories, and on and on. By contrast, there is nothing much in writing from John at all.

Again he reminded me that he was the writer of the critically-acclaimed series Xombi and I hadn’t written a thing before this, but he thanked me personally for having the genius to point out what escaped everyone else’s attention until this very moment – that he was a terrible writer (his words, not mine).

John was furious. I was furious. Harvey mercifully ended the conference call!

…

That’s when Harvey challenged me to put my money where my mouth was. He suggested I put something together, in writing, along the lines of what I was demanding from John.

…

Harvey actually liked the ideas, too. He showed them to John.

And that was that. In John’s eyes, my arrogance and incompetence grew to such enormous and egregious heights that John was forced to resign.

In his eyes, nothing he contributed mattered. In his eyes, I disdained his every stroke from the very beginning, and got my own way in every matter.

In his eyes, he did everything he could to prevent STATIC SHOCK from becoming a total “turd.” But he could not withstand the scope and power of my incompetence.

And I am left frankly bewildered, wondering how our experiences can be perceived so differently.

…

I conclude this section of my reply with this last observation.If, as he claims, John really tried to do everything he could to prevent STATIC SHOCK from failing, WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD HE PUBLICLY ANNOUNCE HIS RESIGNATION IN THE VERY MIDDLE OF THE FIRST MONTH’S ROLLOUT OF THE NEW 52?????

Surely John knew that the company had been meticulously planning this relaunch for a LONG time, investing much time, talent and money to carefully build positive buzz that was FINALLY being realized with the rollout of the new #1′s.

More to the point: there is no way under heaven that John’s sudden, public resignation announcement could POSITIVELY impact STATIC SHOCK. His sudden, public resignation announcement could ONLY HURT STATIC SHOCK. And he did it anyway.

Just an observation. You figure out what it means.

…

When I first learned of John’s resignation, I called him right away, and left a detailed message asking him to call me back, that I wanted to convince him to stay on board, promising that we could find SOME way to make this work. I told him he was expert with these characters, and STATIC needed him.

He didn’t pick up, and he didn’t call me back.

I certainly understand.

So I will make my apologies publicly. I hope he will find them.

Scott’s account is full, verbose and quite painful in places. I’ve enjoyed Scott’s work a lot, from his early days of Daredevil to his modern, looser, more confident work.  But I can’t help but hear an editor or a penciller, when seeing the script for Swamp Thing #21 saying “but it needs a fight scene.”

John Rozum is a wonderful, introspective writer who takes flights of fantasy that have delighted me as a reader and I was looking forward to similar on Static Shock. But if Harvey did want a focussed, simpler, more action packed book… he probably shouldn’t have hired Rozum in the first place.

I look forward to the next work from each creator.

The Darkness #100 is on its way… And this is the first you’ll have seen of the Todd McFarlane (above), the Michael Golden (below) and the Marc Silvestri retailer incentive (further below).

48 pages for $4.99 US, it’s out the last day of February. But since the Darkness II game comes out today, it seems the perfect chance to show them off.

It was the recent ICV2 interview with Marvel Senior Vice President-Sales David Gabriel that did it. Answering a questionnaire with no followups, he managed to dodge some questions by answering different ones, and throw some googlies at the opposing team. But he’s hardly alone in this, DC’s Executive VP-Sales, Marketing and Business Development John Rood and Senior VP-Sales Bob Wayne were doing something similar the other day on Comic Book Resources.

Here are a few snippets from both interviews – and what they are actually saying in red.

John Rood: To have our number fives sweep the top ten is amazing and really a testament to all the work everyone at DC Comics has put into the New 52. And Bob will say that he much prefers that if we’re going to win something, so to speak, that we win unit share versus winning the dollar share.

That thing we said the other month about not caring about market share? We lied.

David Gabriel: Fear Itself surpassed our expectations, as the industry responded with strong orders that made it the top selling story-driven event of the year.

Our expectations were low, the book didn’t really affect the sales of the crossovers or spinoffs, DC’s relaunch wasn’t story driven and One Piece isn’t an event so it counts. Honest.

Bob Wayne: I would say that. [Laughter] But I’m talking about myself in the third person now.

I clearly don’t know what third person means.

David Gabriel: The introduction of Miles Morales to the Ultimate universe as the new Spider-Man was not only an important moment in pop culture history, it’s been an incredibly strong seller for us as well.

Our sales are back to what they were when it starred a white guy.

John Rood: So to see our linewide average so very high through the first half dozen issues, and to see 46 of the 52 going strong with a half dozen titles coming in that by all indications will be stronger than the six they replace, that’s the kind of stuff we watch just as closely as who wins the month.

Let’s no one mention that Hawk And Dove is outselling Captain Atom. Or that up until two weeks before the announcement, GI Combat #1 was still called Men Of War #7.

David Gabriel: Going into 2012 we’re adopting new strategies to combat the perspective that the second tier titles “don’t matter” and we’re hoping the market reacts favorably.

We’re cancelling them and making all our more successful comics twice-monthly.

John Rood: The only titles that do, interestingly, stronger as a percentage of physical sales in digital are publishing franchises with high awareness like “Action” and “Detective” or character franchises with high awareness like Superman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman. And they are still relatively insignificant in total compared to print sales.

We’re betting the farm on an insignificant proportion of sales.

David Gabriel: But I look at the January numbers and Marvel has 52 of the top 100 comics–we’re seeing a lot of success with our big books and retailers are making a lot of money from them.

Notice I said 52? Of course none of ours are in the top ten.

John Rood: We heard from the retailers that delivery was a critical issue. We certainly heard it on our New 52 road show, and we put the New 52 together with a commitment to a very timely delivery as much as a quality product. I for one am very proud that we’ve delivered 310 out of 312 issues on time – that is to say six issues of each of the New 52.

I’m deliberately forgetting about what happened with Batgirl.

David Gabriel: The year began with retailers seeing a huge drain on their bottom line when prices from other publishers dropped overnight without any story to increase sales of these price reduced titles.  That was tough on a lot of stores and we all saw those dollars disappear from the industry.

We held the line at $3.99.

John Rood: : If our pricing policy is very specific, so too our incentives aren’t artificial. We don’t deep discount or overprint or do things that give a temporary blip that aren’t of value to retailers.

It depends if you consider increasing a store’s discount by 40% of what they normally get is deep or not. But it does make those discounted book unit sales chart ranking much higher than their dollar chart ranking. Seriously, look at Wonder Woman. Did we mention how much we like the unit sales ranking?

ICV2: On a book like Point One #1, is any of the overship included in the sales index Diamond reports?  And if not, do sales from the overship ever turn up in their sales charts?

David Gabriel:  Diamond does not calculate in any dollar amount for free overships.

But they do calculate the number into the unit sales, which is what determines the overall chart placing. So, the answer is yes. I wonder why I didn’t just say that.

Bob Wayne: And I think you have to remember that the books in our line that are $3.99 have 40 pages, which are additional story pages. Not every publisher is publishing $3.99 comics that have added pages and added story content.

I’m deliberately forgetting that a number of these are interviews, or previews of upcoming stuff.

David Gabriel: There a lot of factors, but the $3.99 price point was not an issue in 2011–looking at the top selling comics for the year the majority seem to be at that price point.  We–in addition to other companies–have used this price point for years and seen strong sales.

The top selling books at $3.99 gave extra content than our usual $3.99 books. Also for years, the $3.99 price point has accompanied an attrition of comic sales across the board.

John Rood: And the innovations that we’re bringing to market with Vertigo and with the New 52 and now with Before Watchmen are part of our promise to retailers to innovate and to innovate with integrity.

Regarding the last one, my definition of innovation and integrity may differ from yours.

David Gabriel: We have certain books that are $3.99 and certain books that are $2.99.  There’s a vast multitude of reasons for how books get priced… those range from page count, to creators, to ratings, and probably a host of other things that I am not thinking of.

I’m trying not to think of what Marvel’s John Turitzen said, that they’re testing just how much money they can make and just what people are prepared to pay.

David Gabriel: We’ve cut our line down by about 20 to 25% per month going into 2012.  I think this is already evident in the March and April Previews.

Well we fired so many people, what else could we do. But then we increased the amount of issues from each title to help compensate for the books we cut.

David Gabriel: Miles Morales received more press coverage worldwide than nearly anything in comics over the last 15 years.

Apart from the New 52. I keep forgetting that.

David Gabriel: [Regarding hardcover and paperback backlists] There are a lot of factors at play here, one of which is that you just can’t take into account the needs of just one retailer, but instead you need to take a look at the overall big picture.

And it’s a picture of Isaac Perlmutter.

David Gabriel: Sales of digital comics were up the day of the offer, of the coupons we sent out already, 30% have been downloaded and of that amount another 30% have been redeemed. Anyone with expertise in this area will tell you that’s a fairly high redemption and conversion rate.

That’s 9% of the vouchers sent out. To people who buy comics, and who wanted the voucher. Giving them free comics. Anyone with expertise in this area will tell you that’s a relatively low conversion rate when you are talking about comic book geeks and free stuff.

David Gabriel: I’m also happy to drop here that we’ll soon be announcing a major new program in the free digital download content–something no one’s done yet; but you’ll have to wait a bit to hear more on that.

If Johnston leaks this one in advance as well  I’m going to fucking murder him.

I say “pretty much” because those of usat the events got to see it in deep, rich, clear 3D. And it was beautiful… not that it looks too shabby in 2D either. Take a bow, cinematographer John Schwartzman. You’ve outdone yourself.

This sort-of untold story reaches US cinemas on July 3rd. Lots more Spider-Man stuff coming up at Bleeding Cool later today, so keep an eye on us…

Although Before Watchmen wins the story of the week, if you count up all the separate articles, it’s Doctor Who that wins the day by busting through them all. Go Doctor! Woo!

Top Twenty Traffic Posts Of The Week

1. Moffat Sets Up Doctor Who Season Seven And A New Companion.

2. BEFORE WATCHMEN Announced Today With Azzarello/Bermejo

3. The Before Watchmen Gallery And Quote File (UPDATED)

4. Loki’s Army Revealed In Avengers Superbowl Trailer

5. And Finally… Don’t Make Hulk Constipated.

6. When Kevin Smith Turned Down Before Watchmen

7. Leah Moore On Before Watchmen

8. Spider-Man’s New Costume Gets A Colour Scheme

9. Buffy Season Nine Issue 9 Cover (SPOILERS)

10. The Top Half Of Spider-Man’s New Costume

11. The Avengers Superbowl Trailer Is Here

12. The Action Comics #6 Variant You Don’t Want

13. When Alan Moore Helped Write A Series Of Watchmen Prequels

14. A Dazzling Display Of Cosplay

15. And Finally… After Before Watchmen

16. So How Close Did Bleeding Cool Get To Before Watchmen

17. Swipe File – Swamp Thing 6 And Batman 5 SPOILERS

18. Spider-Men From Marvel In June

19. New Dark Knight Toys Make Me Want To Hug Tom Hardy

20. “It’s Like She Was Illustrated By Frank Cho Himself

And Ten You May Prefer…

1. Is This The Greatest Dark Horse Presents Ever?

2. Andrew Garfield Wants The Next Spider-Man To Be Half Black, Half Hispanic – Miles Morales?

3. That Two And A Half Hour Alan Moore Webchat You Missed

4. Set Shots And Gun Shots From Dredd

5. Remembering Al Rio by David Campiti

6. Miss Piggy To Host Red Carpet Coverage At The BAFTAs

7. January Stats: Marketshare And Top 100 Sellers

8. John Carter Would Like You To Read A Book

9. DC Continues To Support The Vertigo Relaunch

10.Sigourney Weaver Says She’s Read Early Drafts Of Avatar 2 And 3, Will Appear In Both

And special thanks to Grace Randolph, Adi Tantimedh and Mike Perkins,

The two-and-a-half hour video has been made available on Vimeo, and those who enjoy it are asked to consider making a Paypal donation towards the fundraising effort (below, to hpekar@aol.com) to help cover the cost of taxes and other fees from the original fundraising drive.

In addition, Alan told Harvey’s wife Joyce Brabner that he so enjoyed the experience, he might be up for doing something else of a similar nature in the future.

Joyce tells me that she welcomes suggestions and ideas as to what this could entail and how it could be managed…

Here are four screen grabs from the single shot in which they appear with any degree of clarity:

So it’s not the Skrull or the Kree – despite the silhouette almost matching, that’s down to their funky headwear.

These figures do look quite a bit like the Frost Giants as seen in Thor…

…but not exactly.

I don’t think these strange invaders are complete strangers, however. Or, at least, I reckon we’ve seen a scene with lots of similarities.

Here are some pages from Thor, during Walt Simonson’s run, the famous Surtur Saga storyline — which at one point brings in both the Fantastic Four and The Avengers in an attempt to help save the day against attack by an overwhelming force in New York.

What you see here are the sons of Muspell, creatures from Muspellheim, dropping into the streets of Manhattan to wreak havok. In both Norse myth and Simonson’s comics, this storyline also involves the breaking of the Bifröst bridge, but as some of that has been played out in last year’s Thor, Joss Whedon’s script for The Avengers probably won’t be going beat-for-beat with what we’ve already read in the comics.

In Simonson’s storyline, the sons of Muspell come to New York via a portal near the top of the Empire State Building. Here’s a page:

This too is echoed in these scenes from The Avengers. In that first trailer screencap at the top of this post, note a glimpse of some sort of large arch structure with the warriors dropping down from it (Or out of it. Edited to add — looking even more closely at that top image, the shadowed part of the arch seems to be actually composed of the figures emerging from it. That would match the concept of the comic page here almost exactly), and also note the Chrysler building here:

Some sort of energy burst around the spire of the building here, as per the comics. The edit makes it seem that Thor causes the lightning, but we don’t know if that’s really the case – and even if it is, there’s no reason to discount the association.  Re-watch the trailer after you’ve taken a good look at these pages.  Panic in the streets with warriors dropping down or out of an arched mass or structure, the focus on the building top, and the general look of the creatures… it’s all a pretty decent look-and-feel fit with the visual of the comic storyline, even if the details are remixed to fit the film.

So, Loki’s army would seem to be something like the sons of Muspell, from somewhere like Muspellheim. The names might change – that won’t be important – but if I were a betting man, I’d say that they won’t. I’d say the original Norse handles are going to hang around.

There’s a long history of comic book movies taking bits and pieces of imagery and plot mechanics from here and there in the strips that inspired them. I’m sure that Whedon has done just the same. And I’m also pretty sure he’ll have put them altogether into something fresh and cogent…

But to know about that for sure, there’s still a little waiting to get through. The Avengers reaches US screens on May 4th, and UK screens a week early on April 27th.

Denise of Mouse Steps stopped by the exhibit, camera in hand, and has reported back with images and video of what she saw.

Here are some of the images, and at the foot of the post, the video which is more comprehensive and actually features some of the best stuff.

But as you’d expect, it’s all good looking stuff.

Dirk Manning writes for Bleeding Cool when he’s not writing comics for Image Comics/Shadowline, crafting columns at that other place, or doing a million other things.

Stuck in the British snow? Or in the American pause before the Superbowl begins? Have a spare two and a half hours? Read on…

A few months back Joyce Brabner, the widow of comics legend Harvey Pekar, started a Kickstarter Campaign in the hopes of raising enough money to help fund a Harvey Pekar Library Statue in Cleveland.

Towards the latter half of the campaign it was made known that one of the incentives would be “A Cup of Tea and a Long Winter’s Chat With Comics Giant Alan Moore,” in which Moore would, for the first time, host a live video conference in which he would answer “impertinent questions” from those who donated $99 to the cause.

By the time the campaign ended 58 official backers kicked-in for the privilege… and seemingly most of them were on hand for a nearly three-hour talk/chat with Alan Moore, who proved a gracious, amicable, well-spoken and congenial host while reading and responding to numerous questions previously submitted to him by those who donated… something that came as a bit of a sharp contrast to the more recent accusations of him, quite frankly, being a bitter old man who has locked himself away from the rest of the outside world, spitting venom at all who approach him.

Rather, Moore was the epitome of congeniality, proving himself gracious, rational and quite funny while speaking to all those present – even in the face of some potentially ire-raising issues (such as BEFORE WATCHMEN or the constant jabs made at him by Grant Morrison).

Throughout the discussion, which weaved effortlessly between talk about the craft/potential of comics and some very deep philosophical musings, Moore offered those present numerous thought-provoking, insightful, and several times rather funny answers.

While the full video is, for the moment, at least, available online, some of the highlights (from this attendees perspective, at least) are mentioned below, including his take on Grant Morrison, magic, potential future projects, and the difference between what he’s doing with THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN versus what DC Comics is doing with BEFORE WATCHMEN.

While the full video is, for the moment, at least, available online, some of the highlights (from this attendees perspective, at least) are mentioned below, including his take on Grant Morrison, magic, potential future projects, and the difference between what he’s doing with THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN versus what DC Comics is doing with BEFORE WATCHMEN.

Again, Moore was INCREDIBLY gracious with his time, and it should be noted that, while he did indeed honor his commitment in answering numerous questions posed to him by those who donated money towards making Harvey Pekar statue a reality (it was indeed funding and is currently moving forward), the ultimate intent of the talk was to honor Harvey and draw special attention to the amazing work he did as well as the enormous effort being put forth by those who loved and respected him to make a memorial to him a reality.

Whether you just read the highlights below or watch the video in full (which runs over two and a half hours)… enjoy! The video was recorded by Chris Thompson from Orbital Comics.

Click here to view the embedded video.

On whether such “lost” once-discussed ABC concepts/projects such as PEARL OF THE DEEP will ever see the light of day, perhaps through Avatar or Top Shelf…

“No… that chapter of my life is closed.” However, he did mention that he enjoyed that period and the work, though.

On Grant Morrison…

Moore approached the long-simmering (and mostly one-sided) “feud” between himself and Grant Morrison cautiously but candidly, stating that the only time he met Morrison in person was when Morrison was an aspiring who approached Moore at a signing and then later was given the chance to accompany Moore (and others) to a dinner.

According to Moore, Morrison was a self-professed fan of his work, and upon seeing his work in 2000 AD Moore stated that he found it derivative of his work on CAPTAIN BRITAIN and before adding “I thought he’d grow out of it.”

Moore then discussed recommending Morrison to Karen Berger for a “proposed Alan Moore farm with Vertigo Comics,” only to then start becoming aware of numerous disparaging comments made about him by Morrison.

Moore claimed to have no real issues with Morrison, per say, stating that he didn’t even think of him much… although he did recently turn-down a third-party offer (presumably from Morrison himself, although not confirmed by Moore to be such) in which they would allow bygones to be bygones. Moore stated that he turned down the offer, citing a complete lack of interest in Morrison as a person or creator, before closing his answer with a playful story about how the only point of contention between himself and his “dear friend” Michael Moorcock was about which of them Morrison had stole from more over the years, with each one stating that it was the other.

Moore added, jokingly, that he and Moorcock had almost come to blows over it, although he was glad that it never went that far since, while Moore believed he could take him in a fight due to his being a little older and a little faster, Moorcock was “as big as a bear” and could easily rip his arms off if he got hold of them.

On not betraying fellow comic creators…

Moore confirmed a long-standing rumor that he was at one point asked to write a JUDGE DREDD/BATMAN cross-over that was to be illustrated by Brian Bolland. Upon learning that John Wagner (a man Moore credited during the discussion as not being the creator of Judge Dredd, but clearly one of the character’s most influential writers) was not happy about this arrangement – specifically, for being passed-over to write it – he dropped the project and credits the as being what “soured” him on work other creators properties in comics.

On the difference between his use of established/pre-existing characters in THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN versus the use of his characters from WATCHMEN in the recently-confirmed BEFORE WATCHMEN projects…

As can be expected, Moore has a rather long and involved answer when this question was presented to him. To the surprise of many of the people present, though, Moore was very calm, composed and rational with his answer.

As he sees it, the difference between what he does with THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN versus what DC is doing with BEFORE WATCHMEN rests heavily on what Moore sees as the former work honoring a long-standing literary tradition of “irresistible fictional mash-ups” while the latter is an exploitation of a specific piece of work that was, in his words, “meant to only to go a finite time and have a finite end.”

He closed his answer stating, in part, the following:

“There is a tradition of discarded characters from the past – from literature – meeting-up together…

In literature, I would say that it’s different. I would say, and it might be splitting hairs, but I’m not adapting these characters. I’m not doing an adaptation of DRACULA or KING’S SOLOMON’S MINES. What I am doing is stealing them. There is a difference between doing an adaptation, which is evil, and actually stealing the characters, which, as long as everybody’s dead or you don’t mention the names, is perfectly alright by me. I’m not trying to be glib here, I genuinely do feel that in literature you’ve got a tradition that goes back to JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS of combining literary characters…

It’s just irresistible to do these fictional mash-ups. They’ve been going on for hundreds of years and I feel I’m a part of a proud literary tradition in doing that. With taking comic characters that have been created by cheated old men, I feel that that is different… and that’s my take on the subject.”

On what’s next for THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN…

Along with conforming that THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN – CENTURY: 2009 is now done and off to the printer, Moore revealed that the next LOEG project from himself and Kevin O’Neill will be titled NEMO: HEART OF ICE and be a 48-page tale that takes place in Antarctica during the 1920’s. 40 pages are written, and Moore predicted that the last eight pages will be written within the week so that Kevin could get started on it, predicting a fall release.

Moore revealed that the project, at least in part, came to fruition based on asking what O’Neill what he would like to draw, citing that drawing showing “massive scale” were of interest, as well as perhaps even boy adventurer comics – although whether the latter was an aside or directly tied to this particular project is unclear.

What was directly conformed, though, was that the story would take place largely in the South Pole and that there would be a prominent H.P. Lovecraft element involved in the story. “It takes place in Antarctica and [the work of H.P. Lovecraft] is a major component. You figure it out.”

Interestingly, according to Moore, at O’Neill’s prompting there was also discussion of somehow including a reference, at least, to King Kong… although such an incorporation was ultimately nixed so that (or perhaps because of) the story could take place in the 1920’s, approximately eight years before the famous excursion to Skull Island.

On NEONOMICON and writing horror in general…

Being a writer of horror comics and a huge fan of Lovecraft to boot, I took a special kind of joy at Moore discussing this topic at length.

As previously revealed in other interviews, Moore stated that NEONOMICON, Moore’s sequel to THE COURTYARD, came about “Because I had a massive, massive tax debt.”

The seed of the story, he stated, came from the idea of having a scene where Aldo Sax (the focal character from THE COURTYARD) was interviewed in the asylum and went from there. He admitted to being a bit concerned about the extreme nature of the material/content he had written in NEONOMICON, but also stated that after going back through and re-reading it, he found it was a work that he was “pleased with and could stand behind.”

He also want on to praise the art of Jacen Burrows, who drew both series, and commented on the nature of writing horror in general, stating “If you’re not dealing with stuff that genuinely shocks you, your really not doing your job.”

He also spoke frankly about the rape scene in the book which, intermittently, stretched over two issues, stating that he wanted to write a scene and make sure that it was not “titillating.” He also added that he felt when all was said and done he “did not go over a line” and that the scene said the things he wanted it to say about the terrible nature of rape.

On tips for aspiring magicians…

Starting with the practical advice to keep the “four tools of protection” handy and available, Moore (as could be expected) espoused upon this topic at length, stating “Being a magician is being a human writ-large,” before also stressing the importance of sticking to practices that have “practice applications to the real world” and to “progress adventurously.”

On the elastic nature of time and/or all time existing at once…

During one of many philosophically-based digressions, Moore began discussing the theory of all time existing at once (a topic of great interest to him that is also explored in WATCHMEN and FROM HELL), joking that he could have saved himself from writing 60,000 words of his upcoming novel JERUSALEM if he had sooner read the quote about “The persistent illusion of transience,” before talking about how he firmly believes that all time exists at once, we remember things from both the past and the future (although obviously more strongly from the former than the latter) and that, ultimately, “You should never do anything you can’t live with forever” since that’s exactly what you’ll be doing.”

On his upcoming prose novel JERUSALEM…

Moore stated that JERUSALEM will be a massive tome, potentially upwards of 60,000 words when finished (although some people in the live chat speculated that, given his tone, he may have meant to say 600,000 words), before adding “JERUSALEM is a more ambitious project than anything I’ve ever done in comics… I want it to be about everything in the world, or at least everything in MY world.”

Moore went on to reveal that the book has “found a publisher” in Knockabout, who also published his DODGEM LOGIC magazines among other works, saying that this development has lead to him realizing he now needs to focus on completing the last five chapters of the book, with the hopes of it being completed later this year.

On his most under-rated work…

Moore stated that he still thinks A SMALL KILLING, a very personal and “adult” tale, is his most underrated work.

Also of interest was that fact that, when thinking of his favorite works, he now has a hard time considering the work he doesn’t own, and instead primarily takes the most joy in his creator-owned work such as FROM HELL and LoEG.

On possible future collaborations with Melinda Gebbie…

Moore revealed that Gebbie (his wife) is currently working on an autobiography (about herself, not Moore, of course, who dismissed the idea of ever doing an autobiographical comic about himself earlier in the discussion), stated that upon finishing it she will be starting on an adaption of Moore’s seminal performance piece (with Tim Perkins) ANGEL PASSAGE. Moore was quick to add that, while “she’ll be starting that real soon,” nothing beyond some basic concept sketches are done and he has no idea when it will see the light of day.

On … professional wrestling?!?

Much to the surprise of me, at least, Moore revealed that he was a fan of professional wrestling as an art-form (yes, that’s the term he used), comparing it to classical Greek theater and espousing on how it plays upon those very same tropes. However, he went on to add that his enjoyment of it has diminished in recent years due to the revelations of the many serious injuries suffered by its performers.

On whether or not he would ever write a computer game…

Not surprisingly, Moore, who’s a self-professed luddite, dismissed the idea of this ever happening, stating “I’m not a fan of the reader getting to chose how the story is going to end. I’m not saying there can’t be great games done… but I’m a real fascist when it comes to narrative.”

On web-based and digital comics…

In what was one of the most surprising revelations of the afternoon, Moore revealed that he has been mulling-over potential idea of doing a digital-based comic with Mitch Jenkins based on a project they’ve been working on together over the past few years, joking that part of the reason he’s considered taking it digital is because it’s “become an unwieldy project with a lot of different directions.”

Moore went on to discuss the potential for digitally-based comics at length, stating that while he didn’t own an iPad or a Kindle (and most likely never would considering how he didn’t even yet own a cell phone), he certainly was aware of what they were and recognized the potential that comics had using such devices since, in the digital format, creators would not be confined to the same format that the paper medium had dictated the medium take since the 1930’s.

He then went on to discuss how, for example, Well Eisner could have delivered THE SPIRIT using digital technology, referencing the idea of a dripping faucet in an empty room only to then quickly dismiss the idea of merely adding a “soundtrack” or some simple dripping animation, saying that utilizing the potential of digital comic to its full extent was something he was still mulling over quite a bit.

On his first interactive web-based experience…

As the discussion drew to a close Moore again thanked everyone for attending and for helping to fun that project that would honor the great Harvey Pekar and then that, as much as he despises the Internet (while adding that he has nothing against people who takes part in “cybernetic culture”), he closed the afternoon by stating: “When I see something like this, which is enabling a project like this to happen… yeah, I probably won’t be going online again anytime soon, it does give me a greater appreciation of the kind of possibilities that this world apparently has these days.”

Along with being a semi-regular contributor to Bleeding Cool, Dirk Manning is the writer/creator of the NIGHTMARE WORLD Trilogy for Image Comics/Shadowline as well as TALES OF MR. RHEE, which publishes new installments of intelligent online horror comic goodness every Tuesday and Thursday, also from Image Comics/Shadowline. He lives on the Internet and can be found on Facebook and/or Twitter if you’re into that sort “cybernetic culture” thing.

Nemo appears to be on his deathbed in LOEG: Century 1910, and this adventure is set in he twenties, so something is up. More told the throng that “It takes place in Antarctica and [the work of H.P. Lovecraft] is a major component. You figure it out.” We are sadly denied a reference to King Kong though…