of 3 f a = Fs 7 LL OC LU LU . = ye Y. ad I & : ) ‘ 2 re ae ~ ae rt »Ie es Returns With A Vengeance! Published in Association with Malibu Comics. SPAWN is a trademark of Todd McFarlane. Artwork© 1992 Todd McFarlane. Malibu Comics is a division of Malibu Graphics Publishing Group."101,000 Readers Make Advance Comics #11!" Aavance Comics features the most listings, over 2,000 items every month. This huge selection and easy-to-understand categories have made Advance Comics the favorite for readers around the world. Advance Comics is #1 for comics, cards, video, games, fiction and lots more. “Average paid circulation of consumer version of Advance Comics during the last six months. (© 1992 Catal Cy Darth, ne MSACONTENTS (ee NUMBER 10 McFarlane Interview The return of ode NeFarane. "Nu sa . 18 SkyBox Interview ° ‘Whatever you do, don't call them Impel. OUR COVER STORY 23 Spawn reveals all you wanted to MeFarane's creation reveale know about Todd McFarlane 24 30 Years of Spidey and his new cre- ‘Spider-Man's cool, but why? ation for Image Press, Spawn. 26 Lunch With Marvel ‘And wo di’ invite Galactus... 31 Hollywood Heroes The Bat, th Cat andthe Penguin... 36 Palmer's Picks Horror comies ofthe 50s~don' tell the government! 38 Art Class 101 Bart Sears tells how to draw your heroes with power! 41 Hunks & Babes Yup, is more scantily cla heroes. Dark Knight Signed & num- bered hardcover! Page 60.Top 10 Heroes Who's "n= Comic Watch Garbage fo gold-here's what you should look for Amazing Art Here's your chance tobe a future artist of America! Collecting Comics Patrick MeCallum tells you who's ontop. Wizard News ‘All he news tha its... Wizard Games nly it you're good enough. Contest No. 11 ‘Unssramble the Wizard clue and win big! Picks From The Hat Yos, it's hot hot hot! Toy Figures ‘Along time ago...wth Brian Cunningham. The Wizard of Cards ‘Al tho latst from Marvel Series Ito Star Trek: The Next Generation Market Watch ‘The industry today...and tommorrow. Comic Book Price Guide “The Industry's leasing came guide. Shows & Conventions Can‘ ind that one book? Goto a show! Magic Words ‘What Wizard readers have to say. > 199 Marvel Enerainment Group. ne ; g PAGE 42 a4 46 51 52 56 60 64 80 86 94 99 159 162 Send this form or a copy of this form along with a check or money order to: Wizard Press Back Issue Dept. P.0.Box 434 Monsey, NY 10952-0434 CLIP OR COPY COUPON Bs 'HELP! my wizard col- Oi issue 92.84.50 Issue #4-$4.00 Issue #5-$4.00 Issue #6-S0LO OUT tssue #7-$3.75 |) Iss 50 {ssue #9-SOLD OUT |_| Issue #10-$5.00 1 ' ' t ' ' t t i AIL issues-$32.00 ' Comic Con Issue #1-$8.00 ' Payment must be in US Dollars. Please ad¢ | Ship & handling: $2.90frst book US address, t ' t t (34 ois bok orsign adres: lus §50 or ach add'l, book. Prices valid nti 6/31/92 Total charges for backissues— $ +Shipping and handling £ TOTAL enclosed £ Please charge $ __ tomy: | expiration tte: § sigan: { Telephone number: = ty JULY 1992 5Coming in July... ShadowhawKk Trading Card Wolverine” Promo Card Jim Lee Interview WILDC.A.T.S" Poster Plus more of what makes Wizard #1rd aac sd ere Nc Irion DESIGN & PRODUCTION Douglas Goldstein, NATIONAL AD SALES ren Cd RRL mer Van ceaeus EUR LU Goncoe FAX: (914) 354-9278 ey Cesecur ken SUL y CT Nays eco Patrick McCallum aS errs Brian Cunningham peter Se) omnes Patrick McCallum Rugg Sea area Nea Cee al Lee arora ey Miriam Lerer PN fete iSe irr ILLUSTRATOR Comet ase) Seri) COVER aU ee ‘Mark H. McNabb, colorist Cena Re Rca Coenen “Any slatomoats mago, expressed or implied in oe een gT NC more Reiooeae meread ReMi oe rites Cea eae RCo ar Pree a ae nae) Ror eee ie eaeereaeee ea PCP Morne es ed ER rom aren en id Cae Mrarn McC! CURR eon em Ae Me ahapey eet Birding nal hey idl A Letter From Our Publisher Ay) | second McFarlane 7 Woh heh. He ‘only asked me to] do one covert ‘guy leave me alone? Todd MeFarlane,Gareb Shamus and Rob Leteld discuss Wizard covers. Oops, sorry for telling you prematurely about our Shadowhawk card by Jim Valentino. So to make up for this little oops (a word which | banned over at Wizard Headquarters), next month we will have two cards. The first will be our Shadowhawk card, and the second will be a Wolverine promo card from those great folks over at Comic Images. This card will introduce their new set called “Wolverine: From Then To Now’. There’s so much cool stuff in this issue, | won't say anything except “enjoy.” But... | will talk more about next issue. Jim Lee, Jim Lee, Jim Lee - we're talking cover, interview, poster, and pictures - it's going to be great! Next month will also mark the end of our first smash year as the number one guide to comics. Get ready for a great second year that'll be bigger and better than the first. To start it all off, Ghost Rider will be blazing onto issue 13's cover with a really slick piece by Nelson, the guy who brought you the awesome cover to Ghost Rider #18, Issue 13 will also have an original Dragon trading card by Erik Larsen--the third in Wizard's line of trading cards. This industry has gone through some big changes - with lots more exciting products. So don't expect any less from Wizard. Hang Loose Re Gareb S. Shamus JULY 1992 7A Letter From Our Editor No Impact Whatsoever A few issues back, | wrote about the unfortunate absence of comic books clearly aimed at younger readers, or at readers who were just starting to get interested in comics. | pointed to DC's Impact line as a good beginning of such an approach. It looks like “beginning” was the wrong word...i's also the end. DC has announced that the Impact titles are going on “hiatus” and will be back in a revamped form next year—a form more in keeping with what comics-shop buyers seem to want. A promising attempt to reach a new market dies aborning. Without wanting to seem too harsh here, the only word I can use to describe DC's decision is “panic”. Yes, the Impact titles were not doing well in the comics shops—but, by DC’s own admission, they were not targeted at that audience. The audience was emergent comics readers outside the direct- sales market...and DC could not possibly have had final sales figures from the returnable market on more than the first two or three issues of each Impact title when the *hiatus/revamp" decision was announced. The Impact line could not reasonably have been expected to be instantly profitable. Building the audience that DC said it wanted takes time...it isn't done in a year. And they haven't even given it that. Ideally, the line should have been given up to two years to find its audience—or, actually, for its audience to find Impact. Of course, not all the blame can be placed on DC’s bean counters. The Impact creative team dropped the ball, | think, in immediately getting into standard 1980s-'90s continued stories. If you're really looking to get new readers, you have to assume a lot of them won't find you until #2, or #3, or maybe #10, so you have to have complete-in- one-issue stories (perhaps with a few underlying subplots)—something like the earliest Marvels—or else you're confusing them just as much as 50 years of continuity wil Unfortunately, what DC once would have recognized (in the days before direct-sale), has been lost, because the direct-sale market has made it so easy to make cut-and-dried decisions on extremely short order. ‘It didn’t make the 60,000 mark (or whateverjon the first issue—cancel it as of #4!" Of course, through excellent word-of-mouth, it might have made the 120,000 mark on the fifth issue....but now they'll never know. It all boils down to this: If a subsidiary of the largest entertainment conglomerate in the world can't make a commitment to lose money for a couple of years on a line of eight books—on the premise that the line will mean greater returns for the entire company down the line—then I can't figure out who could afford it -Patrick Daniel O'Neill FROM YOUNGBLOOD CREATOR PRE-ORDER SPECIAL OF $7 (AVAILABLE IN JULY). THE ALAXY # 5 WOLVERINE #50 $9 TOO COOL FOR WoRDS! LIEFELD & IMAGE COMICS COMES BRIGADE #1 SIGNED BY ARTIST MARAT MYCHAELS SIGNED AND CERTIFIED BY JIM VALENTINO. LIMITED! SIGNED & CERTIFIED BY MARC SiLVESTRI! X-MEN #1A4-#1E $39 ALL 5 SIGNED & CERTIFIED CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? PLEASE ADD $2 POSTAGE FIRST BOOK MORE COOL STUF BRIGADE!! WE ARE OFFERING A AND SCRIPTER HANK KANALZ. on $8 NEED WE SAY MORE? Die-cUT COVER! BY JIM LEE! #3,4,& 5, $5 @! SO¢ EACH ADD'L BOOK. DO WE HAVE TRADING CARDS? DO WE HAVE ORIGINAL ART? YOU BET WE DO! SEND $1.00 (REF W/ PURCHASE) FOR PRICES ON EVEN COOLER STUFF! name address. city/svzip P.O. BOX 48742 L.A., CA 90048 COMICS & CARDS WE ACCEPT VISA/MC, CHECKS & M.O. Ca. RES. PLEASE ADD 8.25% TAX JULY 1992 910 WIZARD #11 SPAWN ™ & © 1992 Todd McFi er See SPAWNING A IZARD: A lot of people consider you to be an overnight success--that you worked on Amazing Spider- Man and boom, you were a hit. This really isn't true. What are some of your earliest published works? McFARLANE: Coyote, for Epic, was the first book I ever worked on. From there | did a two year stint on /nfinity Inc. for DC Comics, with Roy Thomas as writer, then I went to Marvel and did 1-1/2 years on the Hudk with Peter David. Somewhere in between that I did "Batman Year II" and a bunch of odds-and-ends. WIZARD: How did you get your start in the comic book world? McFARLANE: Probably the same way as everybody else. I just handed out my samples to the editors at conventions and rammed them down people's throats, over and over and over and over. Eventually they got tired of me sending in samples so they gave me some work. WIZARD: Your style of drawing is revolutionary, You practically rewrote the rules of drawing comics and have since become one of the biggest names in the field. Have you had any formal training to develop your style? McFARLANE: | got a degree in Graphic Design to get into commercial art. So I think some of the stuff I did on Infinity Inc. was pretty wacko. Not so much on the stuff with the Hulk because they were cracking the whip on me there. But once | established my name with Marvel they gave me a lot more freedom to do whatever | wanted. Most of my stuff is more graphic design like capes. They don't flow like cloth, they're more like folded paper in that I could have sharp edges on it and not have anything soft. A lot of guys that can draw better anatomy Todd McFarlane talks with Wizard about his past and future... than I can, I just try to stay with my strength, I'm not big on formal training. The things that | think makes comic books cool, or just makes superheroes comic books cool, are not things that you teach people. People look at my stuff or Jim Lee's, or Rob Liefeld's and they have the big bazooka guns that don't exist, these Lizard man letters, the blast coming from the guys’ hands that look like they've got life; That stuff is not in our world. Do I draw a good garbage can? Probably not, but there are guys that do. There are a lot of guys out there that do great referencing and have the anatomy down perfect almost to the point that it becomes stale. They're so concerned about drawing things correctly that they've forgotten the excitement of drawing. I think as long as Visually it hits the spot and the kids kind of look at it and go “Oh my God!” Who cares whether every nut and bolt is in the right place and every muscle is structured or has the right tension. The guys that can do both generate excitement. A guy like Jim Lee can do both. He's got the anatomy down perfect and he still does all the big guns and all the cool stuff, and that's one of the reasons why he’s got such a wide appeal. He’s bringing both. He's not forcing you to accept his style. He’s giving it to you. Guys like him don't come along too often. WIZARD: How do you feel about guys who have made a career by mimicking your style? McFARLANE: | don't really think that there are that many of them out there. A lot of the things that people give me credit for, I didn’t invent. What I did was popularize it. Some of the things are recognized as mine because | did them over and over again and I just maybe happened to get credit for it. I'm not saying that I did all that much stuff original, I just happened to throw it in people's faces over and over. I don't see that many people that are really mimicking my style. What I am seeing is if Rob wants to do a huge closeup of a big eyeball and Jim Lee wants to use a border around his panels, and Erik [Larsen] wants to take something else that he likes of mine, I don’t have a problem with that. That keeps me on my toes, because even though they're borrowing some of the ideas that I have, they're also putting their own ideas in it, and sometimes I use some of their ideas. I see it more as a sharing of ideas. If somebody can use my style and do a better job than I can, then they're more talented or I'm JULY 1992 11getting lazy. It doesn't bug me really. WIZARD: In your spare time do you draw anything outside of comics? McFARLANE: Nope. WIZARD: You did a lot of work for DC before you went to Marvel. Were you happy at DC? Why the move? McFARLANE: When you're young you're kind of insecure. Like now, 'm a world-beater, I think. What happened was that I was working with Roy Thomas who is a very nice man, and I never had any problems with Roy, and we always got along, but he had tons of work for me. He would have kept me working 'tl doomsday but, at some point in my career, I just wanted to know if was in the business because Roy Thomas liked me or because I had something to offer to more than one person. I wanted to break away to see if there were other people out there that actually liked my work or responded to it, because Roy would have kept me there for ten years. WIZARD: What do you enjoy most, plotting, scripting or drawing? McFARLANE: Probably right now inking, because a lot of the stuff Ido is real disorganized but the actual inking is when I do the drawing, So, for the first time, [actually like the finished version, In a way, that's where I'm really the kid and that’s where I go ‘Wow, Toda!” Either that page didn't come out looking like you want it, or it came out looking better than you wanted, I kinda blob out a figure and ‘when T go in there with the ink is when I actually start putting ina little rendering and the cross-hatching and the fine, fine details and stuff like that work that way too so that I don’t keep looking at the work over and over again in the same way. I did thumbnails and then I penciled it tight, and then I inked. By the time I inked it I was looking at it for the third time. I want to be excited and keyed up about the work because it keeps me excited about comic books. WIZARD: Was the idea for the new Spider-Man title your or Marvel's? McFARLANE: That was Marvel. There \was a littl bit of talk of coming out with a new book even when I was on Amazing. A number of them crossed cour desk justin passing, but when I quit Amazing, | didn't know what my next job was going to be. I quit Amazing and was looking at a void. 1 quit Amazing because | wanted to start doing some writing and by a fluke they wanted to do another Spider-Man book, When I quit Amazing it was kind of at the height of my career. It didn't hurt me when I came back and then quit the Spier ‘Man book, mostly because I was COYOTE” &.© 1982 Mal INFINITY I IWVASOK™ 8© A Todd McFarlane Portfolio having a baby daughter. I think there is a lot of fear among the creative people that they can’t be off the stands for more than one month and that people are going to forget about them. T'm a perfect example to prove that it's not so: that if you keep coming back and giving them something they want, you can take a mental break. And ‘mentally I'm ready. I'm ready to go. WIZARD: How was Venom created— his character, his design? McFARLANE: He was kind of flukey. ‘The only description that Dave Michelinie gave me was that it was going to be a costume on a real big dude. I was doing the Hulk at the time so I was used to doing big guys, but jiust to make him look like Spider-Man. didn’t seem to make much sense to me. Again, if you look at some of the stuff that I did on the /lulk - I made him big and hunched over - he kinda looks like monsters and kinda rambling and stuff didn't have any details other than to make Venom big. I didn't know he was going to be human underneath, so 1 gave him that big Cheshire grin and | found out later that he was actually human. If had known that in advance ‘maybe I would have done things somewhat differently, but it seemed to work. Each time I drew him, the smile got bigger, the eves got bigger, the fangs got bigger, and the slob got slobbier. The kids like him. WIZARD: Your newest venture is ‘Spauen from the newly formed Image Comics. How did you get hooked up with Image? McFARLANE: Rob and have always been talking about doing something together; like he'd do a three-issue mini series and Td do a three-issue mini-series and then we'd tie them into each other, and we would have ourselves a cool looking thing. But when I quit Spider-Man Iwas just kinda kicking back and Rob was going todo the Youngblood thing. He really didn’t notify me. Because if L would have known, I would have had something right there when Youngblood came out. Once I saw Youngblood there, | knew I wanted to ‘come back and do something on my ‘own. [just figured at that point, too many guys had quit on their own and itwas time that we have to do something that would stay and help all of our careers. I've broken a few rules along the way, why change now, why uit now, why quit like everyone else? I'm going to quit with a bang. I could see that Rob was already talking about it. Erik I knew was talking about it too, so I knew there was thee of us. And then it was just a matter of going up there and getting alittle deeper 1992 D6 Comics, JULY 1992 13than just three people. WIZARD: How did you create the Spawn character? McFARLANE: He was created years ago. I don’t even remember the exact year - 1981 or '82. I broke into comics in late ‘84, '85. Spawn has been around for a long time, from back in my fandom days. As a matter of fact I've got about 12 guys that I created years ago and they're just sitting there now, but we'll update them for certain situations added some things to Spawn and updated him, but the actual costume is exactly the same. He actually looks a little more old fashioned than the other guys. Most superheroes seem to look more like the X-Men and X-Force and Youngblood and Jim Lee's WILDCATS coming up - more ‘Terminator-type costumes and things that. WIZARD: Does it feel different working on Spawn than on Spidey? McFARLANE: No, not really. For all intents and purposes, everything that I'm doing could probably fit into the Marvel or DC Universe. What if had quit Spider-Man and Marvel said “you can create your own book” and I said ‘Spauen” and they said “cool”? The only difference would be that I can’t have Spidey in my book, but everything that I do could probably be pretty much ina Marvel comic book. WIZARD: What are some of the early story lines on Spawn? McFARLANE: The first issue is sort of get to know this guy.” It's going to take about seven or eight months to get most of this story behind us. If you follow what I did on Spider-Man. whether you liked it or didn't like it; ‘we don’t have time to debate that now: ut at least you can acknowledge to ime that it was different from the other Spider-Man books. For better or for worse, I tried to make it different. I'm using that same attitude on Spawn in that Rob, Erik, Jim and the other guys are going to do some good classy superhero stuff, so my book is probably going to be the weirdest of all of them, just because those guys are doing superheroes. And if they do weird books, then £1 do a superhero book. It’s going to be more of Todd trying to do a David Lynch type of comic book--except you can't get that wacko because there are a lot of kids who try to follow it. But there's going to bea lot of bizarre flashbacks: Ill give you pieces of information that all kind of tie together to make a lot more sense than some of the mystery stuff I tried to do with Spider-Man. So the first issue you'll get to know him - the second issue would be more like a typical villain story. The guy is named Violator and he looks a litte fat, 54", wacky, just a little porker belly, looks like a cartoon character, and he's going to be hassling Spawn in issue #2, and try to kill him and slaughter him. At the end of issue #2, you'll see his true form and in #3 we'll meet his wife. Something like that. WIZARD: You're going to be doing a regular series, not a mini-series, right? McFARLANE: Yup—to give some legitimacy to this line, we are going to have one full series to start. WIZARD: Does Image Press have plans for crossovers like Secret Wars or Unity? ‘McFARLANE: We haven't talked about that and my feeling is that you'll see individual crossovers long before you see a big Secret Wars-type crossover. Just because it would be a helluva thing to try and coordinate and yet they're doing it over at Valiant and I admire them. That's a pretty big thing. Even though it sells and it seems to work, in my mind you can’t really come up with something that's big enough to really justify something like that. It's gotta be something like the end of the earth or something like that and the only reason that I, personally, might end up doing itis because all characters don't fit into the same story lines. Even the Secret Wars Spider-Man shouldn't be there on an alien planet. That's my personal opinion. Batman shouldn't be on an alien planet. Daredevil shouldn't be on an alien planet. Sometimes it’s hard to mix certain superheroes together, with certain bad guys, and have it work. I'd rather tell you the truth. Just cross over with characters that I think fit in with Spawn and vice-versa, and maybe go looking to other companies to do crossovers. I talked to Dark Horse yesterday and hopefully there will be a Spawn es Aliens or a Spaun vs Predator project. WIZARD: Who is your favorite comic book character to draw? McFARLANE: I don’t really have a favorite, but I wouldn't mind drawing Batman or something like that, but doing Spawn with capes and stuf like that I get my fix on it. I never really had a guy that I've always wanted to take a crack at. Part of itis that I got into comic books late so that's really never been a factor, like what books I decide to do. 1 just kind of take them like they come. I get into every book that I end up doing. WIZARD: Is there anyone in particular that you like working with, or anyone that you wouldn’t work with? McFARLANE: Anyone I wouldn't work with? For the most part, ninety percent of the editors out there, just (INCREDIBLE HULK and AMAZNG SPIDER-MAN ™ & © 1982 Marl, DETECTIVE COMICS ® & © 1922 0¢ Comics. A Todd McFarlane Portfolio JULY 1992 15because I’m in no mood to have some 25-year-old guy who's never written or drawn a comic book telling me how to write or draw a comic book. I've got a bad attitude about somebody who can't do something or has never done something I feel has no right to tell me what to do. I wouldn't profess to tell somebody how to edit, so Ill be darned if I’m going to let them tell me how to do a comic book. As far as working with somebody, I’m pretty content working by myself right now. The only guy that I'd like to share a stable with down the line would be Frank Miller, maybe draw one of his stories or collaborate on something, other than that I have too much fun working with myself. WIZARD: Who do you admire in the comics industry? McFARLANE: Artistically, Frank. Early on it was guys like John Byrne, George Perez, Michael Golden. There was a time that Art Adams was the hottest thing since sliced bread, he brought a lot of things to comics. WIZARD: Do you read comic books? McFARLANE: Nope. WIZARD: Not one title? McFARLANE: No, I hardly ever re- read my own stuff. WIZARD: Anybody recommend anything that you should read? McFARLANE: I'm pretty fickle. A lot of times I'll just thumb through a Cerebus or something like that. The superhero stuff - I really don’t read it, because I feel that if I read it, I will subconsciously do something in my book that’s already been done. I just like to sink or swim on my own. If I don’t look at a lot of stuff, it allows my own style to come through, and it comes through a little easier. WIZARD: Your run on Spider-Man has been monstrously successful, with your book constantly on the top of the charts. What prompted your exodus from Marvel? Rumors have it there was a major falling out because of a dispute over the Venom character. Any truth to that? McFARLANE: No. | think there are still some mysteries about Venom which are still unresolved. Ninety percent of why I left is because my wife and I were having our first child. I was quitting anyway. I don’t care whether everything was “hunky-dory” or everything was bad. Once the baby came, good or bad, I wasn't going to continue working. At that time, when things were going good, I was working with Jim Salicrup and 16 WIZARD #11 he was removed from the book. So it just felt like an easy time to get off. He was leaving and I knew I was leaving - so | felt here's a good time, let’s just leave as a whole. Some of the reasons why I left them are moral reasons. Nothing really to do with Spider-Man, more general reasons. WIZARD: What do you want your fans to know about Todd McFarlane that they don’t already know? McFARLANE: That | squeeze the toothpaste from the middle just like the rest of them. To tell you the truth, because of the success that I have gotten, I’ve got more sympathy to the people that are in a successful position. Once you get near the top, it’s easy for people to take pot shots at you. For the most part the people that take f pot shots at you are not the people that I really care about. Ifa guy who never reads super- heroes, and hates super- heroes, thinks my stuff sucks, it’s irrelevant—but if a 14 year old kid who reads Spider-Man doesn’t like my stuff, that concerns me because he’s my audience. Lots of the stuff that I have heard of comes out of frustration from certain people either not attaining some of their own goals or whatever, because of decisions on their own part. I think they would find that I really haven’t changed in the last ten years. I’m still the same dink. If I'm a dink today, it’s got nothing to do with being popular, it’s because I was always a dink. If I'm nice, it’s not because I’m popular, it’s because I've always been nice. What happened in my career I don’t think has really done anything to me personally. It’s a completely different thing when I’m dealing with business, I know where | stand in the field, it’s just when it comes to going to conventions and seeing the kids and things like that. I’m as accommodating and polite as I used to be. Again, crowds are a little bit bigger these days. WIZARD: If you had the opportunity to go back in your career and change one thing, what would it be? McFARLANE: | don’t really have that many regrets. The only major blunder that I have in my career would be not completing that DC Invasion project. That was more of guilt on my part, but otherwise I had a bad attitude about a lot of people because I follow my heart and I've done everything that I wanted to do. As far as I can see [ haven't suffered because | found out that I've done fairly well for myself. Even if I do get burned, I still look at the odds and look at the outcome. In the j long run, I still win 19 out of Fy 20, so usually I'm really hard to 7 teach a lesson. I guess I’m pretty set in my ways a lot sooner ., than I would have been, if I didn’t get to this level. WIZARD: How do you see the —= comic book \ industry and where would you like it to be a few years Ye now? How do you \ perceive it in terms of its growth? McFARLANE: My perception of the comic book industry is no different than trading cards were a couple of years ago. I see with the Batman movie coming out, some of the things that Image is adding and Dark Horse is A\ adding and Valiant is adding, new hip stuff that you guys are bringing to it, I seea huge growth. I see lots of growth. Unfortunately, the same could have been said about sports cards a few years ago. The one thing that I'd like to see before we get into the same B\. boat as the sports SE cards, where SPIDER-MAN ™ & “© 1992 Marvel people got stuck with stuff that they couldn't sell, I'd like to see the retailers more than anybody else educate themselves about the book. It's too easy to look at the order form and say Wolverine, Venom, Punisher, Batman and Superman and order that book just because it’s those characters without knowing whether or not there's a story behind it. You have to look at the creative people. The retailers end up getting stuck with these books just because it’s got a cool character, but it looks like a piece of shit, you know what I mean? _ ~~ Or it reads like a piece of shit or something like that and they're getting stuck with this and they’re getting mad. They should be mad at themselves more than anyone else. I'd like to see them get away from this buying stuff blindly just a % because it has a certain label on it, or something like that. You can buy a no-name character book with Jim Lee on it, and sell that a lot easier than you cana PAWN ™ & © 1992 Todd good-name character like Wonder Woman because it doesn't have anybody on it, so take a look at it and make more of an educated decision on what you're buying, because that’s what the readers are doing. That’s why you're getting stuck with these books. Because the readers know the quality. WIZARD: Anyone in the industry that you want to say something to? That you want everybody to know? Criticize or compliment them? McFARLANE: | guess my only words : would be to the rest of =>, Image. My fellow peers, something like that, just keep doing what you're doing as long as it makes you happy to know that there are other options out there. On the other hand, just because I wouldn't do what you do and you wouldn’t do what I do, doesn’t mean that we can’t be kindred spirits still. 1 think, as artists and writers, we should all be somewhat cell mates and fight for acommon cause. There are lots of options out there and I hope that there are other people that can take advantage of them. JULY 1992 17Gareb Shamus finds out about all the changes at~ INTERNATIONAL A TALK WITH PRESIDENT FRANK O'CONNELL WIZARD: First of all, why did © concerned, are you going to. WIZARD: Why Magic you decided to change the try to.re-adjust them as being Johnson as spokesman, and name, especially since Impel __ » Skybox products? who else Was considered? is starting to become a O'Connell: Yes. Actually, O'Connell: Let me first try to household name with all the everything now going forward — answer why Magic. There are kids? we're moving to Skybox. very few celebrities in the Frank O'Connell: We wanted We're not going to:drop any of world that are as recognized: a name that could be very those products, we're just as Magic. It may be - you easily identifiable. One that. * going to move them to the know how ratings are done - will be more consistent with “Skybox name. that Magic was the number ‘one, most- recognized athlete world-wide, and when you get down to all entertainers, sometimes like two or three, so that's one major reason. There weren't many options that came close to him. Secondiis that Magic relates very well'to children and relates well, Wwe feel, to trading cards, Trading cards appeal to kids and they appeal to, the kid in the adult, and we felt that that is an area where Magic is so personable and so natural. | think, when our strategy to establish a more recognizable name brand for the products. We found Hoops and NBA have been presented ina more powerful way than Impel, It’s much easier to associate with a brand name,’so now we can say Skybox baseball, Skybox football, ete. The name Impel was hard to work with because it just wasn’t relevant enough to sports and entertainment. We have been doing some testing that Shows Skybox relates to sports and entertainment, implying the best seats in the house. you see the television We figured if we're going to. commercials, he can make the change, we'd Along with changing their name touch that so sincerely, better make it;now. from Impel to SkyBox, O'Connell We've got a whole series WIZARD: As far as the and crew have hired Magic Johnson of tapes when we first older products are athe hoe started talking to him. 18 WIZARD ‘411He starts out about his childhood. "Tell me‘about your childhood, tell: me about trading cards.” You could never write a script for the way he expresses it. He collected cards as.a kid, he is. a tremendous fan and he is heavily into entertainment, so. he sees tons of movies, he goes to lots of sports events, he's got'a very wide ranging aura about hin, and J think he’s a powerful relevant spokesperson for Skybox, WIZARD: | went to the NBA All-Star game this year. It was just unbelievable. O’Connell: Very few people have the ability to be like that. He’s naturally sincere. When he-talks'about trading cards and you see him.in the commercial, it’s like you can’t write anything for him. He just says it, WIZARD: He's really good at that. What's next for the future of comic related products from Skybox? O'Connell: Well as you know now, we're-releasing Marvel Ill which is literally sold out. We're working on some of the redulingon some of this. "re going to have Hanna- Barbera products, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Marvel. Masterpieces, and we récently acquired'the license for Archie and also Garfield, which are going to be in the fourth quarter. We've got quite.an array of products. Every piece of research that we do says the entertainment side of the industry is probably the fastest growing side. About the time I came in, people were trying to question whether that was a real busit fortrading cards; and, of course, it has exploded. We've been fortunate to have great, great licenses and be:part of that. We did a piece of research of about 45,000 households and what we found out from that was that of the trading card purchasers who have'come in in the last six months, most of them came in on entertainment products. WIZARD: That's the way to appeal to the mass market and get them involved in the collecting, and once they're collecting, then you have them for good. O'Connell: We can't qualify the numbers, we haven't tried todo a piece of research that determines this, but it sure looks to us like even the traders who have been in the sports area now are starting to come into the entertainment product. We're interested in two facets. Quite frankly, number one, particularly on the entertainment side, we want to goaafter the fans. We want the.cards to’be interesting and fun when you open them: upand have an inherent entertainment value to them. Then, secondarily, it’s great if it becomes a card that people want to collect:and trade. But we're notjust driving after the collectability of the trade, because our feeling is that we have to make this market grow if we're all going todo well here. We have to keep the market growing. We need new consumers and we need consumers who are not just going to-be the high-intensity collectors, but we need people who are going to be fans as well. WIZARD: What is your background that led up to working with Skybox and Tmpel? What had you done prior to thi O'Connell: Iwas the president of Reebok and then before that president and CEO of HBO Video, pre-recorded video cassette operations of JULY" 1992.19Time; Inc. Before that I worked for Mattel: I spent most of my life dealing with kids someplace between 8 and 18. A lot of that/has been. what I consider to be new pop culture trends, and how you spot them and how you fuel those'trends and move with them. Of course, you can see I've also spent part of my time rn sports and part of my time n entertainment and, quite frankly, they come together for me. I'll give youan example - when I went to Reebok everyone was concerned that the company was kind of stalled - Nike was coming up on one side with Performance L.A. Gear on the other side with casual products, etc. and everyone was terrified that the industry was saturating. And, of course, we went to very differentiated product, which. s exactly what this industry needs to go to, so the product doesn’t look the same, particularly on'the sports, ide, because it is all starting look the same, rentiate the product, ake it innovative and exciting again, so that when. you open the package’ there is always the element of discovery and surprise: At the same time, start to move cowards consumer products, heavy advertising and promotion to go after. consumer share of mind. That’s my background ~ kind of relevant WIZARD: That's interesting: 1 started out as a sports card collector. When I was up at School, there was always something to read about as far as the baseball cards were concerned ~ what was happening. But my parents used to send me a stack of comic books and I-didn’t know what the heck was. going on in the industry. So, know, this magazine took off because of the sports cards taking off. It worked out really well. O'Connell: You're so well positioned. We're starting to see, and I hope we're going to be part of making it happen, an explosion on the entertainment side. WIZARD: | truly believe it's going to happen. O'Connell: We-can see that the sports side is getting so difficult. You have all the licensing rights issue problems now between the leagues and the players’ associations. So many licenses have been let. It's very hard to control the marketing ofa product. You're fighting share, not going after growth. The entertainment side is different. They're much more ‘wide open. WIZARD: Also all the international markets now are opening up. O'Connell: That's a great point. When you get into the entertainment side you've got a much broader world-wide awareness of a lot of those properties than you do of sports, Sports are carved up country by:country. WIZARD: The entertainment, Lfeel,, has a more world-wide appeal because of the American culture. Is that ‘something you're going to pursue? O'Connell: Absolutely. The other thing that’s intriguing to us, which I'm sure is like you with your magazine, is that trading cards are a medium that belong to kids. Videos and everything belong to adults, Trading cards belong to kids. It’s their medium to communicate with them ins JULY 1992 21APPEARING IN JULY Taran se; HEROES UNLIMITED MAIL ORDER ANYWHERE BUYING ¢ SELLING COMICS and COLLECTIBLE TOYS = Marvel, DC, Independents © Star Wars, Star Trek © Mego dolls © Secret Wars «= Super Powers ‘= Captain Action = Super Hero, TV, movie toys © Models @ GI Joe & other character toys »@ Non-Sports Cards Send a SASE for our comic or toy list. Contact us to sell any of the above. Heroes Unlimited PO. Box 453 Oradell, NJ 07649 (201) 385-1557IY HIS CREATION, IN AND OUT OF COMICS... by Patrick McCallum Todd McFarlane. Jim Lee. Rob Liefeld. Whilce Portacio. Erik Larsen. Marc Silvestri. Jim Valentino. Those names signify the dawn of a new age of comics, where the individual creators have total control over their creations, and are free to be their own bosses. What makes Image Comics so promising is the power Image's creators have to create awesome comics, now with fresh new characters. Most of them are at the peak of their careers, and have incredible sales potential. Image's first project, Youngblood, set a sales record of 600,000 copies— more than any non-Marvel or DC comic has ever sold. Not a bad start. Out of all the artists in Image’s stable, one of their heaviest hitters is Todd McFarlane. Best known for his work on the Spider-Man character for Marvel Comics, Todd has since become one of the biggest names in the industry. Fans were always begging for more of his work, but Todd had quit after Spider- Man's 16th issue. Now, close to a year later, he’s back. His new project is Spawn, and by the looks of it, Spawn may be his best work to date. The story starts with the untimely death of Al Simmons. Now Alis, not surprisingly, pretty upset at being dead. Desperate to return to the land of the living, Al makes a deal with the devil. In exchange for his soul when he kicks the bucket a second time, Al receives a new lease on life. That way, he believes, he can rejoin the wife he loves so very much, and lead the rest of his life to the fullest. WRONG. Oh no, don't get me wrong. The devil keeps his word and Al is brought back to life, but there’s a couple of catches to the deal. First, it's five years after his death, his wife has remarried, and the world has moved on. Simmons is back all right, but in a world that has no use for him. To top it off, Al also now possesses fantastic new powers, Powers that enable ‘Spawn to fly, grant him super speed, or even topple a skyscraper. But the more good he does, the sooner he begins his journey to the one who granted him those powers, So how does Spawn survive? Everything he lived for is gone, and by using his amazing powers he brings himself closer to eternal damnation. So what do you do when you have no reason to live and an even greater reason not to die? Well, read Spawn, and see what he does. SPAWN ™ & © 1982 Toad MeFartane SRA s)SPIDER-MAN 30 Years of Web-Slinging by Patrick McCallum Thirty years ago, a tiny black radioactive spider changed the face of the comic world. Well, not all by his lonesome. He had a little help from a shy young man by the name of Peter Parker, who, thanks to the bite of that little bugger, gained incredible powers, powers he used to fight crime as Spider-Man. But Peter Parker was just as responsible for his costumed alter ego's success as Spidey. Here was your average Joe, who spent just as much time worrying about his troubled personal life as he did battling super-powered bad guys. Spidey was a fictional character who had a real life. He was unpopular and picked on at school, girls wouldn't give him the time of day, and he seemed to live by Muphy's Law: Everything that could go wrong, did. So then why did this two-time loser become such an overnight success? Why did fans of all age groups thrill to the web-slinger's wondrous exploits? Why? Because he was like you and me--human. He didn’t have a million bucks or a secret headquarters under his mansion, he couldn't leap tall buildings in a single bound, or any really fantastic stuff. Sure, he could stick to walls, but that was more low key, more realistic. Anybody could relate to Spidey, and when you read an issue of his series, it's more like reading a chapter of his life than simply reading a comic book. Instead of simply thriling to his adventures, you cared about his quiet moments as well Okay, so if you started to read Spidey, his true- to-life exploits would get you hooked. But why would you pick up a copy of his book for the first time? Simple. He looked so cool. In an age where ever single superhero had costumes with their chins hanging out, Spidey was in a class all by himself. When you first catch a glimpse of the web- head, not only are you drawn to his eerie, almost sinister name, but to his look as well. No broad shoulders or majestic cape here, just a blue and red web pattern costume that covers him head to toe, giving him an almost inhuman quality. So we can identity with him, and he looks really cool. What other pieces are there to the Spider-Man puzzle? Time. Unlike most comics, time actually seems to pass, albeit slowly, but it passes nonetheless. Peter ages, graduates high school, goes on to college, events come and go, etc., etc. So while you read the individual comics, you get the impression you're reading chapters of some great novel, one that started this grand tale and is in the process of following his many adventures. As the saying goes, behind every great man, there's a great woman, and it holds true here as well. Spidey’s life involved many great women. As soon as Peter entered college he went through babes faster than Captain Kirk. His first girlfriend was a young lady by the name of Mary Jane Watson who, through an on and off relationship, eventually ended up marrying our hero. in-between Mu’s and Peters roller-coaster romance, Peter hooked up with Gwen Stacy, who met an untimely end at the hands of the original Green Goblin; Betty Brant-Leeds, who never really became more than a good friend; Deb Whitman, who had more personal problems than we can fit onto these pages; and Felicia Hardy, who led a double life as the cat burglar known as the Black Cat. Of course, second in importance only to the present Mrs. Parker is Peter's Aunt May, who raised him as her own child when Peter's parents were killed in a plane crash. (As of this writing, it remains unknown if they are truly dead. Rumor has it that Amazing Spider-Man #365, on sale now, reveals that their deaths were faked and they have been working under deep cover for the C.I.A. Go figure.) Actually, his entire supporting cast is pretty awesome. When the story isn't focusing on Peter in or out of his Spider duds, we can check in on any one of the colorful and intriguing people that fill Spidey’s day to day life. There's J. Jonah 24 WIZARD #11Jameson, owner and publisher of the Daily Bugle, a newspaper that’s built a reputation on slandering Spidey. The odd part is that Peter Parker makes a living for himself by taking pictures of Spidey in action, which he pulls off by positioning his camera and setting it on automatic as he does a litle T.C.B. as Spider-Man. Then there's Flash Thompson, who tormented young Parker back in the days when they went to the same high school together. All is forgiven now, as Flash and Peter are best buds. Harry Osborne was a college friend of Peter's who has more problems than you could imagine. Harry's dad, Norman Osborne, was the original Green Goblin and was killed in battle with Spider-Man. Harry himself has a long history of mental problems and drug abuse, and has since become an all new neamation of the Goblin, The most important of his male supporting cast is his Uncle Ben, who died way back when Spidey premiered in the pages of Amazing Fantasy #15. He may not have been around long, but the values he taught Peter as he grew up is what made Spider-Man the man he is today. There's an old saying, “You can judge a man by his friends,” which is mostly true. But in the comic books, your enemies boost your sales as well, and boy, does our web-slinging buddy have his villains: In @ rogue’s gallery that is without equal, some of whom are real heavy hitters. One of the first was the original Green Goblin, the aforementioned Norman Osborne who was subjected to a mysterious green formula which strengthened his body, yet twisted his mind, Donning a grotesque goblin-like costume, he discovered Spider-Man's true identity, and made his life a living hell. Doctor Octopus was a brilliant nuclear physicist with a bad hair-cut. He wae caught in an S“CS™ explosion that grafted four? mechanical arms to his © side and unbalanced his mental state, making him a dangerous opponent. The Sandman, while on the run from the law, found himself caught in an explosion near a beach, and awoke to find his entire body composed of living sand, making it almost impossible to hurt him, yet allowing him to pummel Spidey with fists of stone. The Kingpin, A sumo-sized god- father of the Marvel Universe, was as corrupt as can be, and always came out smelling like a rose. The Hobgoblin picked Cialek sear up on the deceased Green Goblin’s technology, and became almost as big a threat as his predecessor. The biggest threat Spidey ever faced was a villain introduced at Spider-Man's 25th anniversary, five years ago. Combining the living alien costume Spider-Man acquired on a distant world with an ex-journalist bent on Spider-Man's death, Venom is the toughest, deadliest, most powerful foe Spider-Man has ever faced. ‘Any one of the reasons given for Spider-Man's success would make any superhero a “good” character to read. By combining all these strong story and character ideas, you get a character who has consistently been one of the industry's most popular mainstays for over 30 years. In short, a lot of time was invested and a lot of hard work went into insuring that Spidey would even be around for a 30th birthday celebration. So for all of the artists, writers, colorists, letterers, editors, and for every one of you who has spent a part of your lives chronicling the adventures of the wondrous wall crawler, let's hope the birthday cake is really, really big because you all deserve a slice.All of Marvel's secrets-have been revealed.overlunch.x, We thought itWotld be fun-to hayedunch with a few of the guys from Marvel's sales team and just chat. We were joined by 1ou.Bank, Director of Direct Sales. "Remember - he’s a double director. You can’t really top that," joked Bruce Costa, Sales Manager, who was also present. Joining us was Skip:Dietz, Head Of the Marvel Co-Op Program, Sales Manager and Catalog Coordinator, and last but not least, Editor/Writer Extraordinaire, Fabian Nicieza “who dared/us to produce at least/one issue without using the word “hot”. I would give it a shot, but he’said the “H” word just now. Maybe next issue. Nowiit's on to lunch - let's see what ensues, First question: Rumor has it that Marvel has signed plans,to builda Marvel World similar to 26 WIZARD #11 Disneyland. Any comment? "In your backyard, Gareb," retorts Fabian. "I'm also trying to figure 6ut where the rumors that Peter David is writing X-Force started--magazines like Wizard?! It seems like Lou, Bruce, and Skip will be the only cooperative ones here. Next question, directed to Lou: Any plans for crossovers with. other. publishers?)Fabian loves when fans beg, so I'll have to say no. Actually, as far as I know probably not, but we do have some large crossovers coming up, which mix some licensed characters with some of our characters, sort of like seeing that Alf vs. Wolverine yowalways wanted." Follow up: What's going to be Marvel’s big monster hit this summer? In 1990, it was Spider-Man; in 1991, it was X-Men; now summer,1992; what's it going to be?/Lou replies that he has his own ideas, but passes:the question to Fabian. Fabian takes @ chunk of chewed chicken, outof his mouth to. question the use of my word monster, He thinks the’question is loaded, and that monster implies a "negative connotation and automatically places us on the defensive." Skip attempts to voice his opinion that Marvel is trying to doa lot of big projects rather than one huge one, Yet, by the second course everyone concurrs that the Cable limited-series will be the big summer hit, with Spirits of Vengeance kickingoff the summer heat. This iswhere Fabian reveals his big announcement that he will be drawing Spider-Man: starting this fall. He’s tiredof justtbeing able to write. "I want to be able todraw. the stories\* He will be adding tivo new characters, > Stick Man‘and Circle’Boy, I saw some sketches for these two. They’re still a little rough, but they look awesome, Next question: Any big licensing pushes this year? "The X-Men cartoon in September will create an avalanche of licensed products that'll lead to lots of stuff," replies’ Lou. Bruce, immediately jumps in and fills US'in on’some cartoon plots. "It’s very ¢ontinuity= bound. The’Beast spends the first six episodes in jail. They try;to attackiTrask." At this point Bruce's 3rd Cotirse/arrives, looking like something out of "Old/Man. and The Sea." Not a nice filet.or what not, buta whole fishyust plopped on the plate coated in some mutant sauce: Needless to Say, we all/had/some type of rude comment. Bruce whithpers “Why doTfeel, like a killer?” Lou finishes theaniswer, by mentioning the release of a few new video.games: tying into the-cartoon, new X-Men toys, and some awesome tiés from»Nicole Miller, Follow up: Will there be anothemPlatinum: Spideytype giveaway for. retailers. "There actually. will be an X-Men: Premium," Lou adds. The’ cover.ta X-Men #1 E asa full-hologram thelength of the height of a sideways, comic/book. It.avillbe allocated to retailers based upon the number of X-Men they-bought. Next question: Now, I've had/a\few peoplecome up to meafter I told them about my lunch date with you guys and they really want an’answer to this question. Arejyou ready? A. unanimous "Yes" is heard. Toud and clear,.so'l continuésWith allithe hype overthe two years with Spider-Man and X-Men, many fans have complained about the decay of the older favorites like Tron Man, Fantastic Four and The Avengers. What are your plans with them? Lou takes this one."Galactic Storm did this for the Avengers titles. Also, we've got milestones for Thor, Hulk, and Jron Man; where'welre killing Tony Stark." Fabian gets up to leavey disgusted that Tony Stark is being killed»Besides, he has to finish up some,"hot! books. Skip continues, 'The Fantastic Four will be the lynchpin characters in the Infinity War as the heroes. gather around Reed Richards. Something big is going to.happervin Thor #450 ~ something really, big. Bigger than, both Bruce's fish and Fabian's ego.” "SO, any more questions?" asks Lou. Who's going to be working onall the X- Books? Skip volunteered the info. This year’s, big X- Project yet\will crossover into all the mutant titles.” Though the storyline isn't 100% \nailed down, we did:manage to get a checklist of the issues ALU CHARACTERS SHOWN HERE ™ & © 1992 Marvel involved and the‘respective creative teams; Part | Uncanny -X-Meni#294. Jo€ Quesada/Scott Lobdell Part 2 X-Factor #84 Larry Stroman/Peter David X-Men #14 Andy Kubert/Fabian Nicieza. Part 4 X-Force #6: Greg Capullo/Fabian Nicieza. Part 5 Uncanny, X-Men #295. Joe Quesada/Scott Lobdell Part'6 X-Factor #85, Joe Quesada/ScottLobdell Part 7 X-Men#15, ‘Andy Kubert/Rabian Nicieza Part’ X-Force #17, Greg Capullo/Fabian Nicieza ee ‘ X-Men #296 “Men Joe Quesada/ScottLobdell Part 10 X-Factor #86 Larry Stroman/Peter David’ Part 11 X-Men #16: Andy Kubert/Fabian Ni¢ieza Part 12 X-Force #18 Greg Capullo/Fabian Nicieza Finally, the check arrivesiand Lou snaps it up. L.guess we should have’ called this, "Lunch On ‘Marvel. JULY 1992 27UNITY™ Chapter 6 Shadowman enters UNITY and battles Solar! UNITY™ Chapter 9 The secret history of Erica Pierce! UNITY™ Chapter 4 UNITY™ Chapter 8 The story of In UNITY, the kids learn Erica Pierce's last days that Kris is going to on Earth! have a baby. UNITY™ Chapter 3 The oddest couple in UNITY finagles a shot at the Mothergod! UNITY™ Chapter 2 The ORIGIN of the Eternal Warrior and Armstrong, of Archer and Armstrong. UNITY™ Chapter 5 UNITY™ Chapter 7 Aric enters UNITY and Rai, Magnus and the battles with the Lost Eternal Warrior of 4001 Land Slavers. enter UNITY!At Spider’s Web we put the fan back into comic collecting! There is never a need to look elsewhere for a "HOT" title. We've got ’em all! Never again will you hear "Sorry, only one per customer". We believe that you should get what you want when you want it, At our store new books arrive Wednesday & Friday every week. We then prebag all of our books to maintain that factory fresh condition, no bent or creased books here. A free reservation service is available to all customers. Spider’s Web has thousands of back issues in the best condition and at competitive prices. Also for your convenience,each issue comes with it’s own acid-free backing board. There is great selection of T-Shirts, Models, Toys, Posters, and comic related merchandise. Videos! Baseball, Football, Hockey and Basketball cards & a full line of Non-Sport cards (packs, sets , individual cards and Holograms are available). Monster,Science fiction and Import magazines. Collectors supplies (Comic bags, storage boxes, backing boards etc...). We at Spider’s Web truly enjoy the comic business. We care about each and every customer and try to fulfill all their needs. So if you would like to rekindle "the thrill" of collecting comics again, stop by and give us a try. We are open till 9:00pm every day. SPIDER’S | esos SUNY campus at Purchase, all major highways including 1-95, WE eee Cross Westchester Expressway 10573. and the Hutchnson River (914) 934 - XMEN Parkway.Bat-Mania is about to grip the country again with the imminent release of Batman Returns. Director Tim Burton is one of the few people returning to the film but, as director, his creative vision shapes the whole picture. Tim’s vision of the film was set long before the first Batman, as we'll soon find out! But first... Back in WIZARD #9, 1 previewed the plot and characters of Batman Returns. A few things have changed since I was given that information, here’s an update. Marlon Wayans/ The Kid/Robin is not in the film. At all. Nada. The part was written out prior to filming, but official press releases were never sent (or never printed) in the Hollywood trade papers, leading everyone to believe Warner was putting a snow-job on writers. Marlon can be seen in Columbia’s upcoming Mo’ Money. Also, Jan Hooks does not play “Juliet,” as that character’s name has been changed to “Jen,” and her partner has been changed from “Punch” to “Josh.” And finally, the Riddler is not mentioned at the film’s end anymore. Now, to the real subject of the column. The Batman that almost was and may yet be... Tim Burton's original idea for his Batman film. Burton was unhappy with Sam Hamm's script for Batman II, and brought in Dan Waters and Wesley Strick to start anew. But, as you'll see, the tone and style of Batman Returns may have some resemblances to the following... written seven years ago by the Burtonmeister himself! Written by TIM BURTON and JULIE HICKSON — October 21, 1985 Although this is only 43 pages long, it seemed much longer. With three acts, all overly full of bat- doings, this plot by Batman director Tim Burton with co-scribe Julie JULY 1992 31» @ Hickson could a j well have been By; ry yoacel movies. wasn’t so stupid, contrived, and, well, comic-booky in the worst sense of the phrase. Bat-historians will note that this Treatment/ Outline was turned in in 1985, quite a bit after the Tom Mankiewicz scripts, but well before Sam Hamm's script. This outline is an odd mixture of scene descriptions, dialogue, camera angles, and plot synopsis. Reading it, one feels very much as if it were written by four different people, in four different styles. Act One, entitled “Loss,” begins with a full- screen shot of the Joker laughing, before fading to Gotham City: “a little New York, a little Max Fleisher, a lot of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.” With aerial tramways and blimps, it if it 665! sounds more like Watchmen combined with Metropolis than anything else. As we switch to Gotham Municipal Courthouse. Thomas Wayne, counsel for the Subcommittee on Investigation into Racketeering, rails on against mob boss Rupert Thorne. We cut to the Waynes at home that evening, preparing for a costume party after an evening trip to the Gotham Opera’s Der Fledermaus (“The Bat- Man”). Thomas, of course, wears a “majestic bat costume,” while Martha is a “delicately shimmering fairy queen” and young Bruce is a “small whirling harlequin.” Walking home from the party, while “our hearts are melting for the uniquely harmonious family, the unthinkable happens.” A Mr. Softee ice cream truck lides around the corner, and to the “insipid tinkling style music,” the Waynes are gunned down. As Bruce lets loose with an “eerie, guttural, animal-like screaming ofa boy in unthinkable pain,” he manages to see the murderer in the truck: a 17-year old boy with green hair, white skin and a red- lipped smile! As the police show up, Alfred Pennyworth vows to Bruce that “as long as I live, you will never be alone.” Days later at the funeral, Bruce makes a solemn vow to avenge his parents’ death and declare war on crime. Act Two is called “Preparation- Transformation,” and in it, Bruce trains to become Batman. He continues collecting information about Rupert Thorne, who he is sure ordered his parents’ death, and, grows ever closer to Commissioner Gordon. Years later, a newspaper headline screams out “Joker Escapes Prison! Vows Revenge Against Mayor Rupert Thorne.” That day, the Joker begins a “carefully masterminded reign of terror in Gotham City,” which includes releasing animals from the 200, preempting TV broadcasts, painting all the windows of Gotham’s skyscrapers black, and making the subways run backwards! When the Joker pre-empts himself into the Love Boat (with guests Tom Bosley, Cloris Leachman, and Andy Warhol), Bruce begins to take notice. Bruce goes to his room, dons his Batman suit for the first time, and slips out a window. “ThePrince of Darkness is Born!” In Gotham Square, the Joker is busy launching the city's Christmas tree into space, Batman shows up and they start to duel on the ice-skating rink — punctuated by all the requisite silliness of pratfalls.” The Joker gets away now, able to carry out more pranks against Gotham, including painting the entire city candy-striped colors, coercing union leaders to call strikes throughout the city, and setting off bombs. Bruce cannot track the maniac down until Joker sets off fireworks at a performance of the Midsummer Night's Dream. There, Bruce saves the life of singer Silver St. Cloud, who is portraying Titania, the Fairy Queen. While Bruce is spending the night with Silver, as the Joker plans to mock- elect himself Mayor and throw a parade at which several balloons will carry his special “Grimacing Gas.” After the Joker uses the gas on performers at a comedy club, Commissioner Gordon establishes the Bat-Signal to contact Batman, who he’s now asked to help out on the case. The Joker strikes next at a charity circus where Bruce and Silver are in attendance. There, in disguise are the Penguin as the ringmaster, the Riddler as a clown, and the Catwoman as a trapeze artist. When Catwoman. pours acid on the trapeze of the Flying Graysons (“the main attractions”), John and Mary fall to their death, while young Dick miraculously survive: Running to the sobbing Dick's side, Bruce scoops him up and carries him to his car, promising him that “As long as | live, you will never be alone.” Sound familiar? Finally, in Act Three’ “Retribution — Family, Bruce adopts Dick, the Joker dresses as the Mad Hatter and is “interviewed” by Barbara Walters (whom he’s holding at gunpoint.) The Joker kills Rupert Thorne in a “mayoral” debate, then throws a parade on Christmas Eve, where “with Jokerian humor, election eve has been designed to coincide with...” When Bruce looks closer at the parade, he realizes that the Joker's hoods are wearing gas masks underneath their Mardi Gras masks. Bruce also realizes that the huge parade balloons are filled with the “deadly Grimacing Gas.” A confrontation soon ensues, where the Joker and Batman are both carried aloft by the helium balloons. When they both crash through the skyli Gotham City Natural History Museum, it’s up to the new hero, Robin, to save Batman’s life. When Batman throttles the Joker and puts a gun to his head, Commissioner Gordon arrives and puts an end to the potentially ugly scene. The movie ends as Bruce, Silver, Dick, and Alfred open presents on Christmas day. Reaching for the last present under the tree, Bruce is shocked to see that it is wrapped in purple and green, with a clownish Jack-in-the-box face on it. As the screen fades to black, the laughing face of the Joker appears agai What's probably most interesting about this Batman treatment is how many elements TimBurton kept in his first film. Although it was Sam Hamm who reworked and used the parade- balloons/Smylex sequences, it was Burton who decided to make the young Joker the murderer of Martha and Thomas Wayne. It was also Burton who wanted Gotham to have the Gothic “Fritz Langlan” look it had in the movie (remember, this is years before Dark Knight). Still, despite it’s Gothic city descriptions, Burton’s early Batman was not as gothic in tone, nor as dark and foreboding. Its elements of camp and bizarre humor are unmistakable. The fact that Batman Returns has many similar elements to Burton’s draft shows just how much control Burton wanted to wield on the project. This Batman has many more problems than it has good points. The movie still focuses too largely on the Joker — even before Jack Nicholson was probably even discussed. Starting and ending the movie with the face of the Joker filling the screen leaves in the viewers’ minds no doubt who is the star of the film. This script leads all to believe that Burton’s real interest lay in exploring the Joker rather than Batman, a criticism levelled by many, after the filmed version’s premiere. Many elements of the movie make little or no sense. Penguin, Catwoman, and the Riddler pop up out of nowhere, and disappear back into the wings after their brief cameo. The Rupert Thorne business seems completely unimportant to the plot, serving only to give a completely convoluted version of the Waynes’ deaths. Also, the idea that costumed villains have existed in Gotham long before Batman existed is a disturbing and somewhat ridiculous notion. The script is full of too much business to have worked in one film; instead of a concise and clear story (as the eventual filmed version largely tended to be), we have several (AN material ™ 8 © storylines . going on at hs y once. The U dE Joker’s various PUC>: antics would be HER incredibly difficult to film, and, if had he done even a tenth of them, the movie would have been full of several hours of Joker jokes. Overall, when compared to the final filmed version, Burton and Hickson’s original Batman isa silly and trivial story — something a pair of ultimate geek fanboys might dream up ona junior high school afternoon. Thank Warner that this wasn’t made into a film...or was it? That wraps up our second Bat-spotlight. Next month, you can train your Bat-Signal here for a fabulous look at the upcoming Batman: The Animated Series! Plus, be here for the debut of my exclusive movie news column, imported over here from Amazing Heroes! It's a date! AT Ran 9Palmer’s Picks Tom Palmer, Jr brings us a look at the hysteria of the EC horror and crime comics of the 1950s. This month (and next month) 'm going to take a break from the usual tecommendation of a specific comic or type of comic and focus on some- thing different: history. Now before you close this magazine to avoid being bored to tears, you should realize a couple of things. Many of today's trends and styles in comics are a faint echo of the events that took place in the early to mid 1950s. The premiere comic book company at the time (in attistic terms, if not sales) was the Entertaining Comics, or EC line. Their trend-setting comics were highly literate, yet were misunderstood by the general public. The misinter- pretation led to a Senate sub- committee hearing on juvenile delinquency and the founding of the Comics Code Authority. I plan to describe the back- ground of the ECs this month, and next month | will show the impact the EC line had on the comic industry. Back in 1933, Max C Gaines and Harry |. Wild- enberg were the first to make what is today considered a comic book. Their magazine was called Funnies on Parade and consisted of reprints of Sunday comics. Hundreds of thousands of copies of Funnies on Parade were used as give-aways for companies like Canada Dry and Milk-O- Malt. Surprisingly, the comic was a success, and Gaines decided to publish comics to be sold on new- stands. Eastem Color Printing, with Max's help, published the first issue of Famous Funnies in May 1934 with a cover price of 10 cents. Over time, the comic industry grew, with more and more compa- ies and titles appearing. By 1943, Gaines was publishing comics under the name Educational Comics, with such wholesome titles as Picture 36 WIZARD #11 a A Stories from the Bible, Tiny Tot Comics, and Animal Fables. These comics appealed to parents, but were not popular with kids. Max Gaines soon died in a tragic boating accident, and his son, Bill Gaines took over the business with the com pany over $100,000 in debt. Comic books at the time, like today, were run by trends. When Funnies On Parade © 1994 Eastom Color Printing one company was successful with a certain type of comic, such as crime ‘comics or superheroes, the others followed. Bill Gaines, and his associ ate Al Feldstein, developed the western and romance comics of the time to add to the EC line of crime comics, with such titles as Modern Love and A Moon, A Girl Romance. Eventually, these comics ran their course, and Gaines and Feldstein changed their remaining crime comics into horror comics: The Crypt of Terror and the Vault of Horror. With the premiere of these books, Gaines renamed the compa- ny Entertaining Comics and started new line of comics called the “New Trend” comics. These books includ- eda third horror title, The Haunt of Fear, two science-fiction comics, Weird Science and Weird Fantasy, and two crime comics Shock SuspenStories and Crime SuspenStories. The New Trend comics contained four or five different stories, each drawn by a dif- ferent artist. The quality of writing was above-average with Gaines and Feldstein dealing with such topics as prejudice and twisted crimes of passion. EC became famous for utilizing the "O Henry" ending, where each story would end with a twist to surprise the reader. As time went by these twists became more ghoulish and gruesome, especially in the crime and horror comics. EC was also known for the high quality of art in its comics. Each artist was given enough time to put alittle extra into the rendering of each page while also being encouraged to develop his own style. This led to the recognition of such artists as Wally Wood, Bernie Krigstein, Frank Frazetta, Graham Ingels, Jack Davis, John Severin, and Al Williamson, Gaines used the successful crime and horror comics to keep the lower-selling science-fiction and newly added war comics to the New Trend line alive. The EC line contin- ued to grow, eventually adding Mad and Panic, two humor titles, to its line. But, by 1954, the public began to take notice of the content of the comics. The success of the New Trend comics, like other successstories of the time, spawned many imitators. These comics contained all of the gore of the EC line, but did not match their sophisticated level of writing. The amount of violence and gore in the comics led psychologist Or. Frederic Wertham to write ‘Seduction of the innocent. This book linked comic-book violence to juve- nile delinquency through a series of disputed cases. Adding to the furor was the publication of the first issue of Panic by EC. This comic contained a parody of “Twas the Night Before Christmas” that angered many parents and politicians. The situation grew worse, with just about every popular magazine attacking comic books and many people holding comic- book burnings. On April 21, 1954, a con- gressional investigation was launched, with Gaines and Wertham as the star witness. Nevertheless, the hearings did not bring about any legislation, nor did they settle the clamor over the level of violence in comics. Gaines decided to act before any actual laws were passed and gathered his fel- low publishers. The publishers decided to ban horror and crime comics and form the Comics Magazine Association of America. Gaines walked out of the meeting, stating that it was not what he had in mind. The group went on to write the Comics Code as a form of compro- mise with the distributors. Only comics with the code seal would be allowed to be sold on the news stands. Gaines sought to circumvent the code by discontinuing the New Trend comics and starting the New Direction line. These comics would deal with such tame topics as jour- ralism in Extral, adventure in Aces High, Impact, Piracy and Valor, and medicine in M.D., and Psychoanaly- sis. These comics did not carry the code approval and were faced with disappointingly bad sales. But Gaines did not give up, as he dropped all of the New Direction titles and changed Mad into a full- ized black-and-white humor maga- zine. By getting rid of the comic-book format, Gaines was able to finally get around the Comic Code Authority. The Vault Of Horror #23 © 1952 EC. Publications Mad was an instant success, and is still being published today. With the publication of the first full-sized Mad in the summer of 1955, the EC line came to an end. Through the efforts of politicians and horrified parents, an important trend. in comics was halted through the implementation of the Comics Code. Although somewhat downplayed, the code is still in effect today, as a reminder of the hysteria of the ‘50s. RECOMMENDED READING If any of the events or people mentioned intrigue you, the following books go into much more detail From Aargh! to Zap! - Harvey Kurtzman’s Visual History of the Comics—An 11"x15” book that serves as an over-view of just about ‘every aspect of comics. This should be in the art section of your local bookstore. Completely Mad—written by Maria Reidelbach. A com- plete history of Mad from comic book to magazine, which should also be available in bookstores. The Mad World of William M. Gaines—A biography of William Gaines by Frank Jacobs which should be in your local library or a second- hand bookstore. My Life as a Cartoonist— Harvey Kurtzman’s autobiogra- phy should be in larger book- stores or smaller second-hand bookstores. The Complete History of Marvel Comics: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics—A complete land thorough history of Marvel by Les Daniels containing rare photos and illustrations. Should be available in any bookstore. ‘Seduction of the Innocent —The original edition of this book is extremely rare and is very difficult to locate. Kitchen Sink Press plans to publish a new version with an introduction and annotations by Wertham’s biographer, James Jeibman, sometime soon, Next Month: I'll take a closer look at the actual artists involved in the creation of some of the EC comics and explore how they have influenced the artists of today. JULY 1992 37Hi, welcome to the second installment of Brutes and Babes, im gad to have you back here with me again, there's a Jot more to do. This month, we're going to look more closely at the torso, the masses that we use to construct it, how it bends and twists and how to finish it off dearly, cleanly and correctly. So sharpen your pencils and. let's get tt! ji The most popular, most BART. powertul and easiest to draw view ESIC pr the torso is the front view. I ve lustrated this view here in both a finished style and in the underlying bubble style of structuring that we explored last month, Lets pick apart the structure n first. Notice the almost egg- shaped bubble underneath it all; this is the all-important rib-cage. Study the relationship of all of the other bubble shapes to the rib- ' cage. Notice how the pectorals, or §, WIZARD #11 The torso is the heart of any good figure drawing. For a ‘Superhero, the torso has to appear strong and muscular, yet flexible ‘enough to twist that hero out of the way of even the most lethal death blasts. Right now, let stake a look chest muscles, overly it ike two huge slabs; how the stomach washboard ‘muscles cut up into it; how the two extemal obliques (the two small side muscles on either side of the stomach and below the rib-cage) seem to cradle it. Notice the ball of the shoulders, how high they ride on the chest and the cutting V-shape ofthe two large back muscles (he latissimus dorsi or lats) as they slope {rom the middle of the shoulder to the bottom of the nib- cage Now look at how all thos bubbles translate into a more finished drawing. Look at how things are angled, creating a look of chiseled strength and hardness ‘of for not present in the bubble {or80. You I! notice in this drawing, as well as in many other drawings Ive done that a lot of the linework is broken, the muscles aren t completely outlined, letting the ce filin the gaps, creating a flow ‘and movement to the musculature that is usually absent from a more ‘outlined, less organic finish.