When I was a squirrel
Added 2022-01-07 11:50:54 +0000 UTCIn 2016, I drew a cover for Squirrel Girl. That's right, Marvel Comics, home of Woodgod and Spitfire & The Troubleshooters, let me, Johnny A, draw a cover for a comic. Should they have? History will decide.
In the process of drawing this cover, I learned (from its filename) that the Squirrel Girl logo was designed by Mike Allred. There you are, the Marvel facts you come to this Patreon for (exclusively).
For a while (almost two years) I was talking to Marvel about working on a series. Various flags were raised to 3/4 mast before dropping again. I came to the conclusion at the time that it wasn't really what I wanted to do when I had my own things (that I owned myself) to work on.
I have just remembered that one of the series I enquired about "renovating" was Spitfire & The Troubleshooters. I think the central plank of my pitch (it was three lines) was that "she's like Iron Man, but a scientist, not a warmongering arms dealer".
FIG 1: the kind of militaristic confrontation that would have been frowned upon during my prospective Spitfire run.
One of the other characters I suggested "upcycling" was so obscure that the editor (believe me, no slouch) hadn't even heard of them.
Face facts, true believers, I was never going to be the new Jim Shooter. Jim Shite-r, more like. New Universe? NO Universe etc etc etc
Comments
I remember Neil Gaiman saying that when he started talking to DC about working for them, they asked what character he might be interested in writing, and he said "Black Orchid", and the editor he was talking too looked puzzled and said "Blackhawk... Kid?" So John isn't the only writer to know the canon better than the staff.
Philip Masters
2022-01-08 18:39:59 +0000 UTCHrm, while I appreciate all the work you've done on your own little Desmond Fishman Cinematic Universe, there'll always be a part of me that would have liked to have seen you doing work for Marvel. Ah, well, maybe someday you can recycle some of your ideas into the DFCU or something. ("Mildred Haversham and Definitely Not The Troubleshooters"?)
Brian Perler
2022-01-07 22:23:44 +0000 UTC
