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by Steve Wacker
First of all,
thanks to Matt Brady for letting me TENURE this little
essay. I'll try and continue to be as unprofessional as possible.
Second, don't be fooled
by his nerd-knowledge. Waid's a scrapper.
Third, how did this
MAJOR story drop to 8th on the Newsarama front page!! Could someone
please introduce sex into this scandal?!?!
Whoa, Axel…I was
kidding. Easy, fella.
Ohh-kay. I think this
gem sums things up:
"why you are an ass
hole and leave 52 and dc? ASSHOLE' -Chimbo via Newsarama
And of course, my current
favorite:
I could train a retarded
orangutan to "edit" a comic book! "Ook ook ook ook!"
"Poppo says Alan Scott
is left-handed."
"Ook OOK!"
"Thank you Poppo."
(Editorial comment from
Steve: Alan Scott is ambidextrous. Ook ook.)
To say this is blown
out of proportion would be a little like saying Brevoort just has
facial hair. In fact, his beard is a face eating, crumb holding,
Falstaffian jowl coat. And in fact, 52 and DC are going to
be fine without me.
The reality is there
was absolutely no contention or animosity between DC and me when
I gave my two weeks notice. Both Dan [Didio] and Paul [Levitz] were
kind enough to talk to me about staying, but also shook my hand
at the end and said they understood the decision and why I made
it.
I'd be lying if I said
it wasn't an emotional departure for me, (after all my three-year
old is the biggest Superman fan in the tri-state area), but the
opportunities at Marvel were too good to pass up and I thank [Dan]
Buckley and [Joe] Quesada for even talking to me in the first place
and having patience as I worked my way through the decision making
process (which involved me changing my mind 3 times in the last
hour).
In a kind show of faith,
DC allowed me to work the rest of the day as opposed to leaving
within the hour which is common for many industries (especially
one as competitive as comics).
I used the time to make
a couple calls, pack my stuff, and download as much information
as possible to the new editor (which by the way is DC's announcement
to make, so don't ask me. The good thing is it's a brilliant solution
that guarantees the book won't miss a beat…or a week. You can easily
argue that 52 is better off now than it was 4 days ago.).
The reasons for leaving
are personal and involved and none of 52H8ter2006's business, but
after reading what must be the most mentions of the word WACKER
in the history of HTML, I'd like to address six things before I
climb back into my hole and get back to just making comics.
1-I have to admit,
I think I may sort of agree with folks who feel I didn't honor some
unspoken commitment to DC by not finishing the book.
I wasn't under contract
or other agreement, I was simply at DC at the whim of DC, but those
feelings of deserting the ship by leaving 52 had been wearing
on me for awhile as many of my friends know. I've put a lot of time
into the book and looked forward to every page that came in and
every phone call about it. It was not an easy decision, but ultimately
the right one for me.
So who knows, oh anonymous
truth tellers? You may be right. I didn't volunteer for the book
(as I read in one of the responses), so it's not as if I made a
promise to stay at DC no matter what, but I appreciated Didio having
faith in me to pull it off. Unfortunately, it was just for a little
over half the trip.
2-Anyone who
knows me knows I was extremely proud of this project and happily
worked on it around the clock. However, let's be honest: you weren't
buying this book for the editor* .
The real excitement
around 52 starts with four terrific writers who have worked
their butts off every day to get this book right. Greg, Grant, Mark
and Geoff. It's not just PR when I was telling you how well these
guys work together. All four check their egos at the door and only
care about what was happening between the covers of the book. Corralling
those four was the easiest part of the job and I think we made a
pretty good team. I'm going to miss it a lot.
Their ideas go through
JG and Keith who are obviously integral parts of the project and
good friends. Then it winds its way through the fantastic artists
I was lucky to work with on the book, particularly Joe Bennett (and
Joe's great agent and translator Joe Prado), Chris Batista, Ruy
Jose, Jack Jadson and Alex Sinclair who got the book off to such
a beautiful start. They were joined by other artists like David
Baron, Phil Jimenez, Patrick Olliffe, Shawn Moll, Eddy Barrows,
Andy "Beefeater" Lanning Rob Stull, Drew Geraci, Drew Johnson, Tom
Nguyen, Ray Snyder, Todd Nauck and have kept things on track and
moving constantly, never letting the book down.
All those names are
why you're buying the book and they ain't going anywhere.
(And if you aren't
buying the book, can I interest you in New Avengers? Or even
Civil War?)
* (unless you were
such a big fan of Sonic Disruptors, Spanner's Galaxy and
Silverblade that you were dying for a background mention
of them somewhere in a DC Comic before you die. And if you are that
person, then go ahead, you can die now…but don't miss the Angel
Love mention way back in JSA #81, you sad freaks who
are just like me.)
3- Like I said
before the book is in great shape editorially. My former assistants
Harvey Richards and Jeanine Schaefer are helping the transition
and did a lot of the trafficking anyway while I was there, so barely
a beat will be lost.
However, the real heavy
lifters getting this book out on time aren't in editorial, they're
in DC's Production Department. There are dozens of people in Production
whose names you never see who deserve many, many kudos for getting
52 out the door every week, Alison Gill, David Cichowicz;
Henry Manfra, Nick Napolitano, Rob Leigh, Cherie King, Chris Burns,
Corey Breen and Aaron Tappen, just to name a few. I owe them all
a lot of thanks.
Led by Alison,
these are the folks who literally rearranged how DC's machine worked
to make the book happen. As long as they're working, you'll have
no problem getting 52 every week (which, considering I'm
the competition now, really stinks and I should find a way to undermine
it.)
4- I was lucky
to meet a great crew of editors at DC and made some good friends
up there (except for Mike Carlin and Mark Chiarello, who I pretended
to be friendly with for several years now so they'd show me their
Eisner Awards and tell me Macchio stories). No doubt DC's got a
lot of excellent talent in editorial that I'll miss.
However, I want to give
a public thanks to Senior Editor Peter Tomasi who pretty much taught
me how to edit a comic. For my money, he's the finest editor in
comics and I'd take a bullet for the guy (though he'd probably just
push me into it after this diatribe). It's next to impossible to
quantify exactly what an editor does on any given book, but in my
experience, he's made every page he's worked on better than it was.
A lot of editors from
the generation before me looked to former editor Archie Goodwin
for how to do it right. I look to Pete.
(Hey, Newsarama. Here's
a behind-the-scenes-secret: About 300 people at DC and Marvel are
rolling there eyes right now and making that finger down the throat
"gag" gesture. I know this and I'm still honest to ya!)
5- Most of the
hubbub around my leaving DC is naturally based around 52,
but I worked on a lot of books at DC that had wonderful talent and
good friends attached. Most recently Legion of Super-Heroes
(with Barry Kitson and Mick Gray), and JSA (with Dale Eaglesham
and Art Thibert, and Alex Ross). Both titles have outstanding stuff
coming up, so I look forward to the competition.
6- And finally,
I went into my new workspace today and Marvel made me feel right
at home. I met my new assistants Aubrey Sitterson and Molly Lazer
who showed me where everything was and I got a quick tour of the
joint and my last free lunch.
I no longer have my
own office, no window out to Broadway, no free Thursday manicures
from the nice girl in the Batwoman costume…
…but…
…the people are energized
(or drunk); the place is crazy packed with excitement and ideas,
and most important…Brevoort does nails.
Make Mine Marvel!
Steve Wacker
Newsarama
Note: After receiving this statement from Wacker, we had a follow-up
question to his reference of someone of the controversy surrounding
the reporting of his move, specifically related to his use of the
word "Tenured"
Newsarama:
Steve, there was a Wizarduniverse.com story that quoted you as confirming
you had "quit DC to go edit at Marvel"… A story that ultimately
proved apparently accurate but was pulled from publication.
Do
you have any knowledge of why it was pulled or why it needed to
be pulled? Some rumors have questioned the validity of the quote,
as it quoted you using the obviously wrong term…was it accurate?
Steve
Wacker: No comment.
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