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Marv Wolfman is a nice man, who I first ran into at San Diego Comic Con, when I was 18 and the distraction for the pro-team at the Pro-Am Trivia contest in my Grell Night Girl costume. This year we had him as our comicbook guest of honor for AggieCon 34. I caught up to Marv at Aggiecon and asked him about writing, if he has any regrets on Blade, and what his current projects are, he answered all of my questions very amicably. Read on to see what he has to say:
Sidra:
How did you get started writing?
Marv Wolfman:
I was a fan, and I bought a few fan magazines, fanzines. I wrote my own stories and was an artist primarily. I wrote my own stories and based on that everyone said they liked my stories better than my art, and I switched over more to writing.
Sidra:
You started out in fanzines. Were there a lot when you started?
Marv Wolfman:
There weren't a lot in comic fandom at that particular point, but there were a few and they sent them to me because I had a letter published in a comic. I suppose at that point they were sending out fanzines to everyone who had a letter published, and that helped me into comic fandom.
Sidra:
How did you translate fanzine work into comic work?
Marv Wolfman:
Well, I sort of published my own fanzines. I published all different types of stories and actually I made sure that every editor in the business, and there weren't many at that point, got a copy of my fanzines. They knew my work and at one point one of them asked me if I wanted to submit a horror story for one of the monster magazines because they had read a lot of my work. People will always read a comic story. It reads fast. They may not read a script or they may not read a prose story, but they will spend the two minutes to read a comicbook story. They liked what I did enough to ask me to give it a try and from that point on I was selling material on a regular basis, slowly at first of course, but it built up with time.
Sidra:
You've worked on a lot of comics which one was you favorite?
Marv Wolfman:
That's really difficult to say because I've written so many different things in so many different mediums. If you're talking about a horror comic, then it would be Dracula. For superhero stuff it would be Teen Titans. If it was adventure, it may be Death Stroke which was a very different type of book about a superhero. There are so many different kinds of things that I've written, I really don't have a favorite. But I would tend to say Dracula, Teen Titans or Night Force are my favorites.
Sidra:
Who are your favorite artists to work with?
Marv Wolfman:
George Perez, Gene Colan, and a lot of others, but those are the ones I'm known for primarily and worked with the most. I enjoyed working with them a lot and in George's case he was a friend as well as a great artist.
Sidra:
Crisis on Infinite Earths was it inspiration or was it something DC set an objective for and you wrote the story?
Marv Wolfman:
It was something I had wanted to do for years. The concept of the storyline, not the plot, was something I had since I was a kid and wanted to do that particular story. DC had not even thought in that direction until I presented them with the idea, and they liked it because DC sales were so bad and Titan sales at that time were so good. So, they were willing to give almost anything a try, but specifically they liked the idea of restarting the entire universe.
Sidra:
You broke new ground with Crisis. Do you think comic companies have gone too far with mega-crossovers?
Marv Wolfman:
Well I think because this was a book that I strongly believed in and had worked on for years and thought about for years before that, I did something from my heart. I did something that I thought was vitally important. Also, nobody ever predicted that this would sell. They just had no concept of it. So, when it proved to be a good seller, suddenly all of the companies mandated this on a regular basis. The problem was they all sold. If you're going to do these type of stories, there should be a reason to do it. Yeah, I think they went far too overboard. I think that there's no reason to do all of those stories outside than the fact that they'll sell. Now, that maybe is a good enough reason, but I think ultimately it hurts but because they see the increased sales, they don't really care.
Sidra:
What do you think of all of the comicbook movies coming out at the moment?
Marv Wolfman:
Like anything else I think that when there's a good movie like a Spider-Man or a Blade, it's wonderful. When they're a poor movie like Tank Girl or Mystery Men I think it hurts. It really doesn't effect comics. It helps the bottom line for the companies or the creators, but it doesn't really reflect anymore in the sales. When I was writing Batman the first Batman movie came out and it boosted the sales tremendously. By the third or fourth Batman movie there was no blip in the sales whatsoever. So at this point, I don't think there's much of a reflection in what happens in Hollywood and at the movie screens and in the comic market whatsoever. It's good maybe some people will try a comic, but I just look at them as are they good movies or not and am I enjoying my two hours time.
Sidra:
What's the most difficult part of writing for you?
Marv Wolfman:
Trying to be original, to come up with something that I haven't done before. Trying to stretch from what I've done. The hardest thing in writing is to constantly reinvent yourself and if you don't you just are repeating the same stories. It's very hard when you're doing the same characters and the same type of material. It's a very difficult thing to keep doing. Sometimes you're successful sometimes you're not. I have no idea.
Sidra:
What's your favorite part about writing?
Marv Wolfman:
I love sitting down and seeing what the story is. Actually I'm one of those who actually likes the process of writing. I like the struggle of trying to get the right word or a scene to flow organically into the next scene so that you don't see the seams in the story. If you can do it, that's wonderful. Sometimes it's a struggle and you just keep hitting your head against the wall until it happens, but when that happens, it's wonderful.
Sidra:
On the Blade trial do you feel the industry stabbed you in the back?
Marv Wolfman:
I don't know. There's really no answer to that. I think all companies should be giving the creators a percentage of their characters when they're done. DC has with Teen Titans and such, but Marvel hasn't.
Sidra:
Do you regret creating Blade for Marvel?
Marv Wolfman:
I didn't create Blade for Marvel. I actually created Blade prior to Marvel. Do I regret it? I don't regret it, because certainly Blade was something that was special. I just wish of course that they'd believed because they were making money off of it, that a tiny percentage could have been given. The same goes for Bullseye who was in the Daredevil movie. That's mine too.
Sidra:
You've been working on 10th Muse. How did that come about?
Marv Wolfman:
Well that's over. The publisher went bankrupt. He called me. He was a big fan of Titans, and asked me to come up with it. He had a half a page concept and I developed everything else. It was a big fun, old-fashioned comic in a lot of ways and I really enjoyed working on it, but it wasn't a personal vision. I pretty much created it even though I didn't create it. The concept was given to me but I developed it in my own way with my own ideas for it.
Sidra:
What exactly was the last thing you submitted to Marvel?
Marv Wolfman:
To Marvel? Oh god, I think it was a Hannibal King two-parter that came out in 1996 or '95, and I thought that was a really good story.
Sidra:
What are you working on at the moment or going to be working on shortly?
Marv Wolfman:
At the moment, I'm working on a He-Man mini-series and I'm about to start a novel.
Sidra:
Can you tell us what that's going to be about at all?
Marv Wolfman:
I can't. It's based on one of my own characters, and creations. I can't really talk about it until all contracts are signed.
Sidra:
Fair enough. Well, thank you for your time.
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