Reading this great interview with Priest at BleedingCool (shockingly), I noticed that most of the editors Priest mentions at Marvel are/were also writers, mostly very good writers archive.is/eMiOj
I think this is a fundamental problem with the big 2 today, editors that do not write. I think it creates several issues 1) A lack of creativity in narrative direction 2) A lack of true understanding of what it takes to make a good script 3) A disconnect between writer and editor that makes communication over corrections difficult
Does anyone agree?
Jose Gray
I agree.
Editors are there as support and to make sure the writers behave (I.e Mark Millar), it shouldn't be shit like enforcing continuity or events.
I'm not to happy with the editors of Marvel, they seem to be forcing writers to do outrageous stuff in order to generate news.
Nathaniel Brown
Certainly.
It's not unique to Marvel or comics in general. It's clear, more and more, that these inner-circle positions (editorial for comics; executives in TV/film; in general, people who have the power to greenlight, approve directions, etc.) are being filled by people who've only worked and studied to get exactly those positions. They have training in business, management, etc.
But they RARELY have training in any kind of art, which means they usually affect the artistic output in a negative way. The worst state of affairs (which is now commonplace) is for these inner circle people to literally not give a fuck about quality and only care about possible profit.
Austin Kelly
>Priest I hope this nigger doesn't write Deathstroke the way he writes Quantum & Woody, with those retarded titles every two or three panels.
Justin Perry
They either do that or just let writers write the most trite bullshit with no effort to punch up the stories, dialogue, action, etc. They also make no effort to curtail the shitty "commentary" on social issues that are crowding the shit out of their books
Joseph Turner
That's not really true of the Marvel editors (and likely DC) at all, most of them have English Language Literature degrees. However comics aren't just literature, they're also art, so knowing prose doesn't really help very much. However, you can't study comics outside of a fine arts school, where you will mainly learn the artistic portion. It's too niche to actually get training in off the job.
Oliver Fisher
You know Priest wrote like dozens of comics, right? Why would he write a modern comic the way he did one 20 years ago?
Luke Perez
Because after writing Q&W that way he did the same with Black Panther.
William Williams
Except he didn't? Can you post an example of what you're talking about, this is an imageboard
Thomas Price
They both have sort of a "television" style writing to them I suppose.Q&W was intended to feel like an offbeat sitcom, and BP had its own TV procedural feel. still, that's two titles out of many and not exactly the same anyway.
Thomas Nguyen
Its funny you mention that, because if you actually read the OP link..
>So I wrote the first issue of Black Panther – which I ought to post somewhere sometime – and Joe and Jimmy read it and they called me up and they rejected it. I wrote a very traditional, straight forward plot. >They said “No, no we want you to do what you’re doing in Quantum and Woody. We want it episodic, we want those little title cards and we want you to tell the story out of sequence.
Matthew Gomez
Well, that sucks because it works in a book like Q&W but in BP it is simply tiresome.
Grayson Watson
Karen Berger and Shelly Bond weren't comic writers. From the current editors, Andy Khouri isn't a comic writer. Priest was an editor, and has always claimed he was shit at it. Old writers were editors too, because they would just edit each others books.
Dominic Kelly
So we've got what 3 good examples here? Obviously there are going to be some good non writer editors (Berger is a GOAT) but as a rule, all non writer editor staff is bad
Dominic Thompson
>>Now working at Marvel was like working at a frat house. It was swinging from the rafters – it was so laid back and casual. Jim Shooter wanted us to reinvent the wheel every month so he was listening to ideas, he was encouraging innovation. He was often heavy handed in crafting his vision. That was his effort to raise the quality of the books and he got a flack for it, but man, it was fun over there. What went wrong?
Justin Sullivan
Bob Harras and subsequently Ike Perlmutter.
Anthony Lopez
>you will never be transported by bus by Christopher Priest ;_;
Jace Howard
That bus shit is wild, I can't believe the guy didn't ask what he likes about bus driving so much Priest is so based
Evan Watson
Having interned there it's really sad that it's not like this anymore. Most of the interns were straight edge nerds too. Damn shame
Jaxon Sanchez
I'd say a big part is that not very many writers are in the New York offices outside of the annual/semi-annual writer summits. It's mostly editors wrangling writers and artists via phone and email with some interns and office types.
Carter Hernandez
>I think this is a fundamental problem with the big 2 today, editors that do not write.
I don't know about Marvel, but at least on DC side the problem has been the opposite: editors like Didio believing they're writers and forcing actual decent writers to conform to their own shitty ideas of what makes for a good story.
William Wright
>Editors are there as support and to make sure the writers behave (I.e Mark Millar), it shouldn't be shit like enforcing continuity or events. What exactly do you think editors are supposed to do?
Robert Rivera
Didio hasn't done that in like 10 years
Isaiah Miller
The comic companies have made a conscious choice to separate editing and writing. When Priest joined Marvel there was almost no separation - all editors were encouraged to do some freelance writing for other editors. (Partly because editing didn't pay much and the guarantee of writing work was kind of a kickback.)
Today there is an understanding that writers write and editors edit.
I think the separation of editing and writing has some good points. In the '90s at Marvel the editors were constantly hiring each other to write their books and it all started to seem like a racket.
On the other hand editing experience helps a writer know how to write this kind of comic.