I know a few of you noticed there was no Fanboy Rampage last month since I got a few emails about it (“Where’s that thing that gets in the way of Lost In Pictopia?” is how one of you kindly put it in an email.)  And I suppose you all think I was just taking a leisurely month off, sitting on my ass watching big summer blockbusters like Bad Boys II and Capturing the Friedmans and Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life and Winged Migration and Spellbound and Freddy vs. Seabiscuit (I won’t tell you who won, but I will say that fucking horse cheated.  There’s no way a trans-dimensional childkiller with a knife glove is going to lose to horse.  No fucking way.)  And you’d be wrong.  Or mostly wrong.

No, you see, I was working on my submission to Marvel’s Epic comic line.  For those of you not in the know, Epic is Marvel’s “Hey, whitewashing a fence is fun” venture, whereby regular fans like you and me are given the chance to do a comic of our favorite comic book and even get paid an exciting pittance!  Even better, we sign away all rights to any sort of future licensing that might come out of it!  Best of all, this is likely being used as a working model to allow Marvel to publish as cheaply as possible and perhaps even give the large majority of its creators the boot if the Epic titles sell as well as the regular books!  Pretty awesome, eh?  It’s like high-stakes fanfic!  Just think, I could write an Angel, Dazzler and Lady Sexbot miniseries that could net me a couple hundred dollars, sell a couple dozen copies and put Chuck Austen out of work!  Brother, where do I sign up?

Anyway, although I didn’t come up with the A, D & LS miniseries until halfway through Winged Migration (or maybe it was Bad Boys II…the movies are so damn similar), I’d had an idea many months ago that I had worked up into a proposal.  And, although I’ve wanted to keep this under my hat until now, I’m happy to announce that they accepted my proposal for a Skull The Slayer miniseries!  Yes, for the last several months, I’ve been working closely with Stephanie Moore, Theresa Focarile, and even mighty Marvel bigwigs Joe Quesada and Bill Jemas.  While trying to come up with an idea for this month’s Fanboy Rampage, I figured I could actually save myself a ton of time (that could be better spent watching SWA—I mean, redrafting the character arcs of the final third of the narrative) by just reprinting a few of the emails between me, Stephanie, Theresa, Bill and myself so you could see how a project like mine grows and changes and becomes much stronger under the watchful eyes of trained editors.  I think it’s a fascinating process, frankly, one made all the more fascinating by being easily assembled with the cut and paste functions.

Now I know most Comix Experience readers are incredibly familiar with Skull The Slayer since he’s appeared ten times in the whole of Marvel’s history, but I feel compelled to recap him for those unenlightened few out there.  Jim Scully was a Vietnam vet who was being brought back to the States to be tried for war crimes when the plane he was on fell into the Devil’s Triangle.  He and a handful of survivors are thrown back into the days of Dinosaurs, a primitive world where Scully (known by the nickname “Skull”) is skilled enough and barbaric enough to thrive in such a place.  Then, after killing dinosaurs, Skull and crew come across a crashed spaceship and inside, Skull finds a power belt which gives him tremendous strength and power.  Then it’s revealed that the land they’re in is only one floor of a mighty building which contains all the epochs of history.  Then Steve Englehart comes in and kills everyone but Skull.  Then Bill Mantlo comes in and says, no, those were just robots that got killed.  And then the Editor in Chief comes in and kills the title.  And then Marv Wolfman comes in and puts Skull in Marvel Two-In-One (a two-parter) and he and the Thing save Jimmy Carter.  And Skull goes off to face trial, but The Thing says he’ll put in a good word for him.  Surely, one of the richest histories of any of Marvel’s characters, and one more than perfectly suited for a comeback.  After all, aren’t we trapped in the ‘70s all over again, what with the war, and the energy crises and everyone making it sound like there’s free love around every corner, and bad love, and wristbands, for Christ’s sakes, which are somehow back in?  (Skull not only had the power belt, he had wrist bands and head bands.  It doesn’t get much cooler than that, does it?)  What better time for a book that has everything (Vietnam Vets, dinosaurs, aliens, wrist bands, arbitrary plot decisions by Steve Englehart, and Jimmy Carter) than now, the decade that has everything?

Anyway, enjoy the following excerpts, and be sure to look for my first issue of Slayer! (The Hero, Not The Band) #1, coming very soon from Epic!

From: smoore@epic4every1.com
to: jeff@comixexperience.com
Subject: Welcome to EPIC!

Jeff, just finished your script for Skull The Slayer #1, “The Return” and I thought it was everything your plot indicated it would be: strong characterization, great action, and surprisingly relevant for these times of ours.  The opening scene of Skull building houses for the poor with Jimmy Carter and catching a falling worker showed who the man was today, and that he still had his powers.  His flashback, first to ‘Nam and then to the Devil’s Triangle was short yet effective.  And finally, his discovery that his old flame Ann had returned to the Triangle was nicely understated but still powerful.  By the time Skull left for the Triangle, knowing the horrors he was again going to face, I was fully absorbed.  I also appreciated that you ended the issue not just with the airplane breaking up in the Devil’s Triangle, but Skull falling with no parachute being attacked by a Pterodactyl.  Sets everything up for a good ride from here.

However, there’s one small problem.  I ran this by our lawyers, and they’re not comfortable having you use President Carter in your opening scene—although you show him as a saintly god-fearing man, the attorneys worry Carter might sue.  Is it possible you could change this to a fictional President?  Let me know your thoughts.

-Stephanie

From: smoore@epic4every1.com
to: jeff@comixexperience.com
Subject: Re:  Hail to the Chief!

Jeff, thanks for being so good-natured about the changes.  Yes, this President Rickard fellow should do nicely.  Don’t quite understand why you changed their conversation from the exposition about the last time they met to discussion about “a Boss named Smiley” but it should work fine either way.  This script seems straightened out, and I’d like you to get your plot in for #2 when you get a chance.  I want to know what happens next!

-Stephanie

From: jquesada@epic_is_my_copilot.com
to: jeff@comixexperience.com
Subject: Your Script....

Jeff, I’m very busy trying to make Micah Wright cry at the moment, so I don’t have a lot of time.  But I just want you to know, I read your script for Skull the Slayer #1 as swing-through I do now and again to see how the Epic books are coming along—the project is very near and dear to my heart and that icky tarry black thing Bill Jemas uses for a heart, so we make it a point to keep an eye of things.

And I just wanted to say your script for issue #1 is perfect.  Just perfect, exactly the sort of thing we want to see coming from Epic—obscure, inexpensive heroes dumb enough for a Hollywood blockbuster. However, there is one thing that keeps rubbing me the wrong way and I have to bring it up.

Skull’s power belt.

That seems kinda silly, dontcha think?  A power belt?  He puts on a belt, and it gives him strength?  What, the strength to keep his pants up?  Nobody’s gonna dig a hero with a power belt because, let’s face it, it sounds swishy.  People should care about Skully’s bravery, about his ferocity, not his ability to accessorize.  Why don’t you give him power earrings and power bracelets while you’re at it.  I can understand where you’re coming from pal, but this is the new millennium.  Nobody’s gonna go for that AC/DC stuff around here. I’m a happily married man, for Christ’s sakes!  I played in rock bands and I never put my hands down a guy’s pants, no matter how often he insisted he was wearing a power belt!

Plus, let’s face it.  Nobody wears belts any more.  Hell, I don’t even wear pants any more.  Bill and I were up late one night, shooting the breeze and trying to figure out how to make Mark Waid cry when we realized:  Pants?  You don’t need ‘em, as long as you’re wearing your shorts.  I’m not talking craziness here, mind you.  For god’s sakes, don’t start going to work commando.  Nobody wants to see you hanging brain out there, buddy.  But pants?  Aren’t they just a waste of fabric, an extra expense that Marvel can’t afford to pay for because we’re not bankrolled by big money like AOL Comics?

And look at manga!  That shit is huge, and you know we’re trying to figure out why.  Well, we commissioned a focus group where we took a bunch of bright kids—real sharp learners, tops of their class, read all the Harry Potter books three times, and yet are completely well-adjusted, not like the guys who were reading comics when you and I were growing up—and we showed them some manga and asked them what they liked about it, what drew them the most.  And you know what all of them said, or a statistically significant portion of all of them said?  Short pants.  Yep, that’s right.  The success of manga apparently derives from the frequency of the character’s pantslessness.  The more likely they are to be wearing shorts, or short pants, or no pants, the more kids love it.  That Pokemon show?  The kid wears short pants.  Hell, they’re practically fire-engine lederhosen and yet that’s what brings these kids in, and leaves ‘em wanting more.

So.  Here’s the deal.  I love this book.  Truly, truly love it.  The next time you come to town Bill and I want to give you a sensual foot massage.  That’s how good this script is.  But.  No power belt.  And no pants.  If Skull’s got to get his power from an alien, I want him to get the old fashioned way—through a painful and terrifying anal probe that’ll make a hot coffee enema seem like a soulful rim job from Mark Millar. We’re going to put your hero in short pants, and show him kicking dinosaur ass in short pants, and we’re going to see him rising to the top of the comics charts…in short pants.

So get right on that, and throw me a new draft of your script, pronto.  Comics this good can’t wait.

-Joe

From: smoore@epic4every1.com
to: jeff@comixexperience.com
Subject: Re:  A New Look for an Old Hero...

Jeff, nice work revising the script.  I just talked to Joe and he assured me you’re on the right track.  He understands your concerns with continuity (although both he and I had to ask another editor what that was, again) and he agreed to let you keep your  origin with Skull lifting the power belt from the dead alien, as long as you have the new sequence explaining how Skull cut the belt up into power patches he’s sewn onto his shorts and shirts to give him varying degrees of strength and speed.  Although now I think you’re cutting into that scene between Skull and “Prez” (as Skull calls him) Rickard a little too heavily to show all that.  Perhaps it would be better if you cut into the later part of the script and end the first issue with Skull finding out about Ann’s disappearance.  Then, in issue #2, you can show him already in the Bermuda Triangle and explain how he got there.  You really want to have the chance to let your characters shine through.  The sooner you can get us this draft the better, because everyone here is very enthused about Skull and where you’re going with this.

-Steph

From: bjemas@epic_is_worth_a_thousand_words.com
to: jeff@comixexperience.com
Subject:  Re: A New Look for an Old Hero, Take 2…

Joe Quesada and I have been talking about this script, in between trying to plan out where Marvel has to be in the next year in order to remain at the head of the comics industry.  (We finally settled on “in front,” although “back there, and wait for the industry to fall back in line” is still very tempting.)  And as the guy who created Origin, the guy who thought up all the good stuff in The Truth and the guy who’s writing Namor with some help from ol’ what’s-his-name, I feel compelled to bring up a very valid point about your script.

It has a flashback.

As you know, flashbacks are, literally, a thing of the past.  Like thought balloons.  And captions.  And single-issue stories.  There’s no future in flashbacks.  They’re confusing.  One moment Skull is sitting there talking to President Rickard (I voted for him by the way) and then suddenly he’s holding a knife and struggling with a triceratops.  How? What happened?  Is it teleportation? Are dinosaurs against building houses for the poor?  And where’s the President?

Then I read the script a second time and it made sense…with a caption.  But, Jeff, readers don’t read captions.  Captions are passive.  They’re not dramatic and, frankly, they’re kind of fruity.  Joe Quesada and I were in the steam room the other day, rubbing out those hard-to-reach spots on each other’s lower backs, and we were talking about just this.  Look at Bendis.  Bendis is a genius, and he did a great job at following my suggestions with Ultimate Spider-Man.  And Bendis always shows you.  He doesn’t just tell you with a caption.  He gives you four pages of a character telling you.  They’re telling you what happened, how it affected them.  You can see light and shadow on their face.  Sometimes their faces move around the page.  Sometimes the faces are upside down, like they’re confused, or lost, or standing on their head because of how emotional they are.  But captions?  Bendis doesn’t use captions.  And he doesn’t use flashbacks.  Because those are cheats, Jeff, and we don’t cheat the readers here at Marvel.  Only the retailers.  And occasionally the creators.  But not the readers.  Unless we get the impression they really want us to.

So here’s what I want you to do.  Tell this story without flashbacks.  Start this story off where it should be started off:  at the beginning of time.  I want you to show us prehistory, maybe through the eyes of a loveable dinosaur, a brachiosaurus or something.  Then show us how the Devil’s Triangle came to be.  Then show the founding of America, the betrayal of the American Indian.  Then, maybe a nice little comedic break.  I don’t know.  Maybe you can have some newsies tease each other about their short pants, or something.  Then back to the story.  Skull Senior meets Mrs. Skull.  Pow:  it’s love at first sight.  They can’t keep their hands off each other, like Chuck Austen and whoever he’s with in the elevator.  And then: boom.  The beginnings of life.  the sperm meets the egg and we see the true “origin” of Skull the Slayer.  That’s really what we mean by an origin, Jeff.  Not people stealing each other’s clothing accessories or getting bitten by radioactive something-or-others.  I went to an Ivy League school, Jeff, I know what radiation leads to.

Not super-powers, my friend.  No. Herpes.  I can’t believe I’m one of the few guys in comics who actually knows that.

Anyway, that’s Skull’s origin.  And that’s issue #1.  By issue #4, after learning some hard lessons about life and the importance of shortpants, we can show Skull out on the roof with President Rickard, then the dinosaurs.  Then, just when the audience is hooked, we wrap up the first miniseries and leave ‘em wanting more.  Because at the end—wait for it—Skull finds out it was Earth all along.  He wasn’t on another planet, it was Earth, his Earth, thousands of years in the future.  They blew it up!  Damn them!  Damn them…all…to Hell!

Eh? Eh?

So, rework this and get it back to me by Tuesday.  Remember:  flashbacks.  You’re not comfortable enough with your masculinity to pull it off. You’re barely a man at all.

Okay, bye bye!

-Bill J.

From: tfocarile@abone2epicwithU.com
to: jeff@comixexperience.com
Subject: Skull The Slayer Problems…

Hello.  Stephanie Moore, Joe Quesada, and Bill Jemas all mentioned to me that I should write to you.  I’m heading up what is called the “Second Tier” of Epic titles which might be released under the “Pantsless Marvels” umbrella.  They’ve all signed off on your script for number one, although they ask that you remove your reference to a “Devil Dinosaur” as Bill Jemas knows a lot about dinosaurs and says this particular dinosaur is made up.  Also, cavemen don’t wear short pants, he was very clear about this.  Also, Joe Quesada realized that Skull the Slayer didn’t sound particularly dramatic, as he and Mr. Jemas believe that definite articles are “too wimpy” to use in today’s comics, and many movies drop definite articles in their movie titles whenever possible.  So we’re changing the title from Skull the Slayer to Slayer! (The Hero Not the Band).  (Originally, it was supposed to be just Slayer!, but legal had some problems with it).

If you could just make those changes, we’ll be ready to see your script for issue #2.  Stephanie, Bill and Joe would like to see it as soon as possible, so that they may have a chance to critique it:  Bill’s expressed some worries you won’t make your newsies particularly funny, and thinks he might have to contribute a scene or two.  So the sooner you can get that to us, the better.

Thank you for contributing to Epic Comics:  Please drive through.

-Theresa Focarile