Specter313
Ghost of all things X
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Okay, okay - Civil War has had scheduling problems. We know that much.
To help round out the schedule, Marvel announced that it would be offering a variety of specials and tie-in issues, created, ostensibly enough, to scratch the Civil War itches during the long stretches without an issue of the main miniseries.
Thing is, when you plug in previously unplanned specials to fill in holes in the schedule, you’re immediately behind the eightball, time-wise. Case in point, this month’s Civil War: Choosing Sides. The 48 page issue had to go from zero to done in a timeframe that allowed for no mistakes, no delays, and no slow creators. And there were plenty of creators – from the solicitation:
While the heroes wage war on one another, just what are the villains of the Marvel Universe up to? Mac Gargan, the supervillain known as Venom, is looking at a country full of preoccupied heroes. That spells trouble for anybody in his way. Written by Marc Guggenheim with art by Leinil Franics Yu, this Venom story shows why the psychotic symbiote’s bloody role in Civil War is just getting started. Everyone will be amazed where his story continues.
Danny Rand, the man who has recently moonlighted as Daredevil and who possesses the power of the Iron Fist, has joined Captain America’s Anti-Registration crew along with his former partner Luke Cage. Find out the reasons behind Iron Fist’s decision in this story by Matt Fraction and David Aja in a story that leads into the new Iron Fist ongoing series from Fraction, Brubaker, and Aja coming this November.
In a story by Robert Kirkman and Phil Hester, Civil War sees the birth of brand-new superhero with a classic name in the Irredeemable Ant-Man. When a low-level S.H.I.E.L.D. agent comes across Hank Pym’s prototype for a new Ant-Man suit, the entire Marvel Universe is in trouble. This “hero” isn’t looking to help mankind, he’s looking out for himself. Not only does this story feature the first appearance of the new Ant-Man, but it leads directly into the new ongoing The Irredeemable Ant-Man #1 in October.
Captain America has chosen a side, but what about the man who briefly took up his mantle, the U.S. Agent? In a story by Michael Avon Oeming and Scott Kolins, John Walker has to choose a side – the government he has always remained loyal to or the man whose legend he attempted to uphold? The answer won’t be what you think.
Plus, “Civil War: I’m With Howard!” What happens when you’re an alien duck stuck in a Civil War? The most asked for tale of Marvel’s Civil War…does a Master of Quack Fu need to register? Find out what the Super Human Registration Act has in store for everybody’s favorite surly duck in a story by Ty Templeton.
We spoke withy editor Tom Brevoort about making Choosing Sides happen under the gun.
Newsarama: So first off - can you explain a little about how and when Civil War: Choosing Sides - as well as the other specials came into the schedule? Were these planned all along, or were they added into the game when Civil War slipped its schedule?
Tom Brevoort: Most all of the specials and extra tie-ins—the Casualties of War books and such—were conceived in the week right before we announced that Civil War #4 was going to be late. Civil War: Choosing Sides was actually the last book into the pipeline, and was created when David Gabriel realized that we weren’t going to have a regular issue of Civil War on the stands in October, and wanted to build something to help out the retailer community, who might be counting on some Civil War revenue.
NRAMA: Can you pull out the original dates for when Choosing Sides came up - what was your deadline like from the original inception date to the drop-dead, had to be at the printer day? How did that timeframe compare to a regular monthly?
TB: I don’t have the actual dates of conception handy, but it would have been right before the Newsarama article went up [September 7th], so you can probably work it out easier than I can. What I can tell you is that we pulled the whole book together in 32 days total, from the point at which it was conceived to the moment it went out the door to the printer. To give you a comparative example, the other specials and one-shots we came up with are mostly shipping in December or January, giving us up to three times as much time to produce those books. 32 days for a double-sized one-shot like this is probably some kind of record, at least in the last few years at Marvel.
NRAMA: That said, did the timeframe in which you were operating dictate the creators who you sought for the stories? That is, given the brisk pace this had to move at, what were you looking for both in writers and artists?
TB: The timeframe didn’t dictate the creators, but it did factor into the overall conception of the book. Because we had to produce it quickly, rather than doing a single 32-page story, we instead opted to do multiple 8 page stories—that way, multiple creative teams could be working simultaneously. But just like with the other Civil War tie-ins, I was very concerned both with the quality of the final product, and feeling confident that it made a legitimate contribution to Civil War as a whole. That’s why we focused in on the characters we did—almost all of whom are going on to bigger things in the next few months, and almost all of whose stories were produced by the creative team that’ll be working with these characters in the coming months.
NRAMA: Were there any unexpected bumps along the way? Did the pace of the book require any shortcuts or late(er) nights than usual?
TB: Not really, the process went surprisingly smoothly, actually—even after I made life more difficult for myself and my guys by bumping the page count up to 40 pages of material, because I wanted to include the Howard the Duck story. Also, I should mention that, while I was overseeing everything in the book, each of the individual stories was handled by a different editor, typically the editor who’ll be handling the later project with the character in question. So Warren Simons ran the Iron Fist story, Andy Schmidt took care of the USAgent segment, Molly Lazer dealt with the Venom story, and Aubrey Sitterson managed the Ant-Man entry. And I kept the Howard tale for myself—though Aubrey did a lot of the nuts-and-bolts work on that one as well, in an assistant capacity.
NRAMA: Conversely, there are people out there who work better under stress and a tight deadline - do you think this issue pulled a homerun out of someone who is known for hitting doubles and triples?
TB: I think the whole issue came together incredibly well, and I’m happier with it than I am with other books that had a much greater lead time. Kirkman’s Ant-Man story, for example, is probably the sharpest one he’s done to date. And David Aja’s art on the Iron Fist story is simply incredible.
NRAMA: And as you said, you you did make your dealine?
TB: Oh, we made it all right. The ironic thing is that Civil War: Choosing Sides is one of the titles that was selected to carry the Guiding Light tie-in story - so there’s actually 48 pages of content, and that story was the last one completed—we could have had the book out the door in 31 days if it hadn’t been for that.
http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=87416
