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Dan Slott is one of the new writers on Amazing Spider-Man. Readers will
also recognize his name from She-Hulk, The Thing and Avengers
Initiative. In this phone interview we talk about those titles, his
background in Theatre and Animation among other topics. On behalf of
CollectorTimes.com, I give a special thanks to Dan for doing this over
the holidays.
Coville:
Slott: I was born in Berkeley, California.
Coville:
Slott:
Coville:
I know you went to College but which one?
Slott:
Coville:
What course did you take there?
Slott:
I was a Theater major. I was there for a bachelor degree and
learned a bit of everything and nothing.
Coville:
Was that something you were going to go into before thinking
about doing comics?
Slott:
Umm . . . No. (laughter). I had no idea. For my thesis, I wrote
and directed a play. Somehow a copy of that ended up with the guy who
was the head of Tristar Pictures. I got a great interview and he was
going to line up a job for me as a script doctor. But he wanted to see
some more from me first. So he gave me a loose deadline and he wanted
me to write a script. He said he wasn't going to buy the script, but
he wanted to make sure I could do this. He told me I could write about
anything I wanted, any topic, but it had to be completely different
from the play I'd just written.
I said okay, and then I got the worst case of writers block. I thought
now am I going to write sci-fi or a thriller, or a comedy romance?
What am I going to do? So I kept starting and stopping different
scripts. The thing I worked on the longest was this weird conspiracy
that took place in a suburban mall and our heroes were the mall cops.
Every time I started to work on it I would freak out.
I was still doing it while I was working at Kinkos to pay the rent.
For some extra money, I did a superhero strip. Even though I had just
graduated, they were paying me at the school newspaper to keep doing
this strip I'd started the year before. It was a weekly newspaper and
every week I would get 1 comic book page, but horribly shrunk down.
There was always a cliffhanger to move the story along. It was the
Adventures of the Nuke Surfer. A guy who lived in a Post Apocalyptic
world and would surf on the after blast of nuclear explosions.
I was freezing on my script and there was a comic convention in town.
A bunch of friends told me to get away from the keyboard, take my Nuke
Surfer down there and show it to people. And when I did, pros would
usually say "that's really 'nice'" or "maybe you should just stick to
writing?" From that I asked one of them "how would I break in?" They
said "You've got to make contacts, you should consider trying Marvel's
college intern program."
A couple months later I was in New York for my sister's wedding, and I
applied. But they wouldn't take me because I'd already graduated
from college. I went back again a few months later for my other
sister's wedding, and tried again. They'd totally forgotten about me.
I got a professor to sign a letter for post graduate work, hoping they
wouldn't read the small print. I lied and told them I was still in
college. I got the internship.
A couple of months in they had a staff job open, but they wanted to
offer it to me, but couldn't because I was still "in college." That's
when I dropped the ruse, got the staff job, once I got my first
monthly book I left to go freelance full time and that's been my life
since.
Coville:
I notice in your work you often add lyrics and music,
sometimes original stuff. Were you ever in a band or is music just
something you liked?
Slott:
Well, I'm a horrible singer but you could stick me in the
chorus. As part of the theater work I did both inside and outside of
College, I would get involved in musicals and summer stock. I did that
for four years. Where did you get that?
Coville:
Well, I was reading your books and I noticed lyrics,
sometimes original ones kept popping up all over the place.
Slott:
I used them with She-Hulk. I was writing a Hercules scene in
She-Hulk, where he sung a ballad about how wonderful it was to punch
somebody in the face. For the trade paper back I was going to write
the sheet music that you could actually play. But I was behind on
other scripts and Tom Breevort said "If you take time off to write up
that up, I will kill you."
When I was working for DC I did the animated Superman cartoons that
were online and I'm kinda bummed they didn't put them on a DVD. They
had 3D graphics, with voice actors and an original score. You got to
choose your adventure, to have Superman do this or do that. They
played on AOL. I had fun working on that. I said to my boss there,
since we had voice actors and people to do an original score, we could
do an original Superman Musical online.
He asked me how would I do that? I wrote an episode where Mr. Myxzptlk
zaps everybody in Metropolis so they couldn't stop singing. The only
one that wasn't effected was Superman. And despite all his great
powers, the one thing that Superman can't do is sing (laughter). And
Superman would have to learn to sing and trick Myxzptlk into singing
his name backwards in order to make him go back to the 5th dimension
(laughter). He couldn't just make him spell it out or say it, he had
to actually sing it.
It became a running joke between me and my boss. With every script I
would pitch a song with it. And eventually we just said, we have to
pitch this. So we pitched it. I had a meeting with Eddie Berganza in
which I had to actually sing some of the songs to him. Eddie approved
it, (Mike) Carlin approved it and it was going to be a done deal until
we sent it to the people in Australia who had to animate it. They sent
it back saying "This is the dumbest thing we've ever seen and we're
not going to animate this." (laughter)
It sucked so bad! We had all these great songs in there! We had this
number where Superman was sulking because he tried to get Myxzptlk to
sing, with a big dance number and was defeated. So Superman's sitting
on "the planet" on the Daily Planet, feeling down. And that's when
Lois serenades him to fill him up with hope again.
I loved that song! It some cute lyrics. Like . . .
"Before your first single bound, Clark,
Though don't ask me why,
Before your feet left the ground, Clark,
I knew you could fly,
You're just that kind of guy."
We had everything ready for it too. There was also a great Jimmy Olson
and Perry White song. Hell, the Mxyzptlk song even had rhymes for
Mxyzptlk. I was so pissed.
Coville:
Did you have the voice actors already sing it?
Slott:
No, everything was all on paper. Eddie actually had me sing
some of the songs for his assistant at a TGI Fridays. I was literally
singing for my supper. And they wonder why I am Marvel (laughter).
Just kidding.
Coville:
I know some writers say they use music as a guide for
storytelling rhythms. Is that something you do?
Slott:
No. And Tom Breevort points out that sometimes my lines don't
always work, so the world is probably safer not hearing my stuff.
Coville:
I know you wrote other cartoons, what were those other
cartoons that did make it on air?
Slott:
I co-wrote one episode of the Fantastic Four cartoon that was
never aired in the states. I know it aired in Canada and France.
Coville:
Did they put in on the DVD when they collected the series?
Slott:
I'm hoping they will. I know they are putting them out in 4
episode chunks. Mine was episode 18, I think the next one to come out
will be at #12.
Coville:
I know with the Thing you had some long term plans for the
character that were cut short when the title was canceled with issue
#8. Can you tell us what you had planned for him?
Slott:
Umm.. No! (laughter!) Sometime I'd like to come back and do it,
even if it's in a mini. We had the next 6 issues planned out and it
was going to build to some stuff. I think had it come out it would
have been my best work. The first 7 issues of THING was very much a
fun, retro, bronze age book. But with issue 8 this nasty, horrible
moment was going to happen that would have kicked everything into a
more modern style. It would have pulled the rug out from under
everybody and freaked people out. Then every issue would have had a
topper. The first 6 issue arc that I'm doing in Spider-Man has a
structure like that. There's a WTF moment in every issue.
Like the first issue of (Avengers) Initiative where everybody went
"aahhh! you killed off the most popular character! How could you do
that?" I was so happy with that.
Coville:
It must have been frustrating to put all that time and work
into the series and then have it cut short.
Slott:
It was so weird because in my head I was thinking, Oh man,
She-Hulk can go at any moment, but this is the THING! He's been around
for years! In my mind I was thinking of how She Hulk storylines might
find a home in The Thing in case She Hulk got canceled.
Coville:
Does it change the way you write, just doing 6 issue arcs just
in case?
Slott:
I'm happy that we did the stuff we did. If I had to do it over
again I wouldn't have been so self indulgent in the first 3 issues. I
had Nighthawk, Iron Man, The Constrictor and the Thing stuck on
Arcades Island and some Masters of Kung Fu supporting characters in
there too. I was just being a big geek with a wonderful toy box.
I felt the series didn't hit it's stride until the LockJaw issue (#4).
From there on we were golden. The artist Andrea DiVito was doing
amazing artwork and it took me that long to catch up and come on
strong. But by then we were in trouble. If issue 4 could have been our
issue 1 I think the world would be a better place. I take the hit on
that. That was me being over indulgent. But y'know, you live and you
learn.
Coville:
You worked on last year's Deadpool/GLI Summer Fun Spectacular
Special. Deadpool feels like such a natural fit for you as it can be
quite dark but also humorous. Do you want to write the character on a
regular basis?
Slott:
You never know. Right now I'm on Spider-Man and never in a
million years did I think I'd get to work on Amazing Spider-Man. My
two favorite characters are Spider-Man and Batman. Anytime somebody
asked me who my favorite Marvel characters are they've always been
Spider-Man, Moon Knight, She Hulk, Ben Grimm and Dr. Doom. But Spidey
has always been in the top spot. That's my dream gig.
Avengers Initiative is a big toybox and I get to play with everything.
The whole Marvel Universe is open to me. I'm having a fun time doing
that with (writer) Chris Gage. I'm really a two book kind of guy. I
think the quality of my work would really suffer if I stretched myself
beyond that. I'm not up to Bendis or Brubaker in terms of doing
multiple books.
I have to take hits on Initiative because the Spider-Man stuff is so
big and so massive. All of the Spider-Man writers are working all the
time because it's coming out 3 times a month and you always have to
keep the artists fed. And we are all looking at each others stuff.
While my first story is already done and in a drawer, I'm already
working on the next two to make sure we stay on schedule. So in a way
it's already 2 books a month in order to keep up with the schedule. So
I'm already pushing myself to the max.
With Chris's help on Initiative it feels like I'm doing 2.5 books a
month, which is my peak capacity. So Deadpool or any other book is
really out of my hands. Would it be fun to do Deadpool one day? Yeah
it would be fun. But right now my universe is Spider-Man and the
Initiative. And that's great!
Coville:
Getting back to She Hulk. You used the Jennifer Walters
character a lot. Did you go back and read her old stuff and use that
personality or did you find yourself having to create a new one for
her?
Slott:
For an established Marvel Character, I don't think you ever
have to create a persona for them. It's there already in the material.
I already had Jennifer Walters in my head when I wrote the comics.
I've read every single appearance of She Hulk and Moon Knight out
there. Every issue, every guest appearance in another title, even a
single panel in The Champions or whatever. That's something that's way
too hard to do for a flagship character like Spider-Man. But for
She-Hulk? I already had my take on the character.
By the time you got to the end of David Anthony Kraft's run of Savage
She-Hulk, Jen made a decision she didn't like herself and wanted to
live out the rest of her life as She Hulk. She was like Billy Batson,
who could say Shazam and become Captain Marvel. Jennifer Walters could
control when she became She Hulk. It would be creepy if Billy Batson
simply said Shazam and decided he never wanted to turn back.
She is Jennifer Walters. She Hulk is a different aspect of her. It's
not multiple personality disorder or anything. It's like how you might
act differently around your parents than you would your friends. There
is a different "you" at work then there is at home. We all have
different aspects of our character. She Hulk was just a facet of
Jennifer Walters, just as the Hulk is Bruce Banner's rage.
To me that's creepy. Especially when you consider the only reason
she's showing that less inhibited version of herself is because she's
under the influence of gamma rays. If you had a friend who was acting
differently under the influence of something, you'd say wow, they must
be really unhappy and need some help.
There is a story that John Byrne did in the She Hulk graphic novel
where she was exposed to radiation while fighting mutated cockroaches
and for some reason that meant she was locked as She Hulk. Which was
weird because she had been exposed to radiation before. So I took it
another step and said, what if it's a mental block? What if she just
didn't want to be Jennifer Walters anymore? Then we took that crutch
away from her . . .
Well, we didn't. Geoff Johns was writing an Avengers story where she
had to become Jennifer Walters again. So what John Byrne had set up
obviously didn't work anymore. Saying she couldn't be Jen Walters
again and here she was Jen Walters again. We explained it as a mental
block. We used it, making the story about Jennifer not having to run
away into She Hulk to be beautiful or strong. She had to find her
inner beauty and strength. And that there was people out there that
would accept and admire her for that.
Coville:
Okay, moving on to Avengers Initiative. There are a lot of
new characters in that. Who created them?
Slott:
I wrote 'em up, and Stefano Caselli came up with their designs.
And then we bounced ideas back and forth from there.
Coville:
What if one of the characters becomes the next Wolverine?
Will you be getting financial compensation for that?
Slott:
(big laughter) My biggest worry is the minute I'm not looking
out for them somebody is going to kill them. That's the way the
Marvel Universe is these days. I'm actually feeling responsible for
Bill Foster being dead. I put him back on the radar when I used him in
the Thing. Yay! Bill Foster is back, he's in the Thing! We had other
plans for him in there too.
I'm just worried somebody is going to say "Hey we need somebody to
kill in this mini series for it to have an impact. Who is this Cloud
9 character? Lets kill her." That is why Stefano and I are killing a
lot of them ourselves. We're not going to give those bastards the
benefit (laughter).
Coville:
Okay, lets move on to Big Max. That's a really wacky title.
What inspired it?
Slott:
I got to make my own little superhero universe and a company
was going to run it. When the first issue got solicited, it didn't
show any art, had very little description of the book. It wasn't a
Marvel or DC Comic so it was in the back of Previews. The numbers that
came in for it were horrible. So they pulled it and said well, we'll
wait. They said they would re solicited it at a later date and give it
a better push.
That later date never happened. So I'm sitting on this comic where all
the art is done, everything is finished. It was one of those that got
away. So much love and effort went into Big Max.
Later on my pal Ty Templeton was working for a small imprint in Canada
called Mr. Comics. They were looking for stuff to print but didn't
have a budget. So he called me up and said "Do you still have all the
files for Big Max?" We had to rescan the art, it had to be recolored.
Ty and his company relettered it. So it got to see print and I was so
happy!
I got a big stack of them at home and I give them out to everybody.
The book is like those 60s DC comics but with a modern twist. Like all
those great Julie Schwartz covers with gorillas on them. In this
universe Big Max is their Superman, their Thor, their big gun and he
just happens to be a talking gorilla. The mammal of might, the top
banana, The primate who lowers the crime rate.
Coville:
I heard you got it got licensed somehow?
Slott:
I believe they are going to adapt the comic for cell phones in
China. I think my agent can sell anything (laughter). There has also
been some bites for movies, but the reason that hasn't happened is all
me. I've been so busy with all my Marvel stuff I haven't had time to
write up a movie treatment.
Coville:
You wrote the Free Comic Book Day Spider-Man book that came
out quite a while ago hinting to what's happening now.
Slott:
Yeah, with all the Spider-Man stuff I can't take credit for it.
We're all in the room, we are all throwing around ideas. The germ of
the idea for Jackpot came from C.B. Cebulski and then we all started
playing around with it. I just got to be the first to write her in
print.
As you'll see in the upcoming Wizard, Marc Guggenheim will be the
playing with her in his first story arc. It's weird. I'm reading a lot
of things on the Internet, people guessing and making assumptions
about the character. I can't say which way it goes. You're just going
to have to read about it yourself. I can't confirm or deny anything
about Jackpot or Swing Shift. They're running a directors cut version
of the FCBD comic in January which will have more stuff. That I'm
really excited about and you'll have to wait and see.
Coville:
You wrote Spider-Man before with the Spider-Man / Human Torch
book. Do you feel you need to do the character a little differently
for Amazing Spider-Man?
Slott:
Yeah, with any project you are working on, you are putting on a
different hat. For people reading She-Hulk, there is a really specific
feel for that book. With the Thing it was the style of a bronze age
comic. With Spidey / Torch, it was a buddy book thing. There was an
emphasis on humor and nostalgia. With Avengers Initiative, it's a post
Civil War book. The book plays around in the Mark Millar universe with
that kind of outlook and feel. Every book has a different feel for it.
So when I'm working on Amazing Spider-Man, it's not anything like
Spider-Man / Human Torch. It's not even Swing Shift. The hat I was
wearing for Swing Shift was it's an all ages book for the Free Comic
Book Day event. The tone for that book was for anyone of any age to
pick up and say "Hey, it's Spidey!"
This is going to be . . . Amazing Spider-Man. It's going to be more
serious and have action and adventure. It's going to be one of the
more mainstream books I've written. It's not going to be a niche book
or have an offbeat flavor. It's going to be head on Marvel, straight
up Spider-Man. Hard core Spider-Man!
Coville:
Are you going to be using all the classic villains or be
doing new ones?
Slott:
All the classic villains, we are taking them and putting them
on the shelf for about 6 months. We are doing that because there are
way too many comics out there where the classic Spidey villains have
got their heads handed to them. We see that all the time with Doc Ock
and the Rhino and the Vulture. We see them as punching bags with glass
jaws and that robs them of what makes them special.
We want to make sure that when Spider-Man fights Electro, he's not
fighting Electro for the 800th time. So we want to put them on the
shelf for a while so when they do come back it'll be a big story that
elevates them and makes them cool again.
In the meantime, Spidey's gotta fight somebody. So we all get a chance
to add to the legacy and take our best shot of coming up with the best
new Spider-Man villains we can. My first guy is going to be a little
like the Kingpin. He deals with drugs, guns, girls and all that
stuff. He's Mr. Negative. He's going to look like a photo negative.
You know when you look at a photo negative of your mom or your sister
and it looks really creepy and you don't like it? oooOOOooo (laughter)
it'll be like that. Where the pupils are white and the whites of the
eyes are black . . . There's something trippy about that.
My next story will have two new female villains. The first is
Screwball who is going to provide a really unique challenge for
Spider-Man. Spider-Man is a pretty funny guy who is always
distracting the villains with his sense of humor. For the first time
ever Spider-Man is going to go up against a villain that is funnier
than he is, and that's just so annoying. He'll be like, "stop it!" and
she's never going to let up.
My next villain is called Paper Doll. A lot of villains have the very
basic m.o. of:
"I'm going to rob a bank and get money." Both with Screwball and
Paper Doll they've got completely different objectives. Different
things they are using their superpowers for. They aren't going to just
rob a jewelry store. That's what's cool about them, what they really
want, what they're after. I don't want to give it away so I'm not
going to say anything more.
Coville:
Will you' be using some older, obscure villains like The Grizzly?
Slott:
With Initiative and She Hulk we had a lot of guest appearances
like that. I'm a bit scared of when the toybox opens up I'm going to
go BAM here is my Stingray story and see what they say. Everybody
knows I love the obscure stuff and we all know some readers who love
the obscure stuff, but I think it's time for me to go right down the
center. Go straight to the vein Spider-Man stories.
I'm already working on my run of stuff where I get to play with the
classic baddies. In my first story with them I get to hit the biggest
Spider-Man villains there are. And oh man that's such a dream. I grew
up watching the Spider-Man 60's cartoon that was in syndication. I'd
come home from school and watch them and I'd see Electro and Mysterio
and all those guys. So this is going to be a real trip. That's one of
the coolest things about this. It has nothing to do with the money or
the prestige, it's just I get to write Spider-Man. And . . . Wow.
I've done it before with Spider-Man / Human Torch and other places
here and there. But this is Amazing Spider-Man. That's like finding
out you're not just playing ball, you're playing ball for the Yankees.
What's really great about this run of Spider-Man is the editor Steve
Wacker has gone out of his way to get the BEST artists in the industry
to work on this with us. That takes so much of the fear away. Suddenly
you're on the Yankees but you've got the best guys pitch hitting for
you. My first 3 issues I get to work with the entire art team from
Civil War, Steve McNiven, Dexter Vines and Morry Hollowell. So right
There, you're pretty set.
The other artists coming in are top notch and their work is so
beautiful. You would have to work really hard to screw it up. So that
gives you the freedom to cut loose. Plus I get to see what everybody
else is doing and I'm constantly blown away. I've never worked on a
book like this before. Nothing this high profile. And it's getting so
much support too.
A frequent complaint I hear from editors is that every freelance team
they're working with always feels they aren't getting enough publicity
no matter what book they're on. If they're working on a smaller book
they'll say "You're not giving me enough push, you're always pushing
the big thing." If they are working on a big book then they'll say
"You're not giving me ENOUGH push. You should be pushing it more."
They always think they are not getting enough push.
I'm going to break that trend. I think I'm getting enough push on
Amazing Spider-man (laughter). Marvel is doing an amazing job of
hyping the book and making sure everybody knows about it. And I never
felt that way in my entire career. I've got my company behind me and
the other creators behind me. Everybody is striving to make this the
best thing and that everybody knows about it.
I've seen a lot of people saying "Oh Marvel is doing this for the
money, Marvel is doing this for whatever. They're axing the other
books and moving it over to Amazing for the money." And it's not.
There is so much extra time and planning that goes into this.
All 4 writers are constantly e-mailing each other with huge e-mail
chains. We're calling each other at home. I just talked on the phone
for hours with Marc Guggenheim over different aspects of the
Spider-Man stuff. We all talk on conference calls. We have this crazy,
massive virtual spreadsheet we keep adding and taking away from. We
have sit-down meetings every now and then where they fly everybody in.
Everybody is reading everybody else's plots and scripts. We are all
communicating on everything, spending a lot of time and devotion to
make sure it all works. It really is a team effort, I've never done
anything like this in my entire career. It's so much extra effort and
I think it's really going to pay off.
Coville:
Do you like the committee style writing?
Slott:
It's not really committee style writing. When we sit down to
write our stories, it is not, not, not, what they did with the
Superman titles in the 90s, where they had that little triangle in the
corner. The way they did that was the editor would say you have to
write chapter 1, and you have to write chapter 2 and you have to write
chapter 3. It was like a relay race, constantly passing the baton.
We're not like that. Each writer gets to tell their own story. Each
writer has a different flavor. We'll all be in the same zone, but the
readers will be able to tell each writer has their flavor and we'll
each be allowed to tell our stories.
But we have amazing back up in that we can get notes from the other
writers. Bob Gale or Marc Guggenheim will say "what if you did this or
that instead" and I don't have to listen to it. But if somebody throws
something at me that a gem, then I'm taking it. And the flipside goes
for them too. So we all work as a group and I think the readers are
going to get the best of both worlds.
What we all work out together are the greater stories, the bigger
stories, the over arcs that we're moving towards. Like some big
mystery that's going to be in all the books throughout the year. Or a
major soap opera that's happening, or where all the major characters
lives are going. We're all working on this, making sure we're moving
the bar up, even on our own stories. It some ways it's a team effort,
like a part of a play with everybody playing their part.
Coville:
So how is this going to come out, will it be 6 issues of all
your stuff coming out at once or will it be jumping around from writer
to writer?
Slott:
What we're doing right off the top for our first story was
going to be 3 parts from all of us. So you get three parts from me
then 3 parts Marc, then Bob, then Zeb (Wells). Then the plan was we
all go crazy. If you want to do a 6 part story you do it. If you want
to do a 2 or 1 part story, you do it. You use however many parts you
need to tell your story. But it just so happens my next story, which
was originally going to be a 2 part story happens to be a 3 part story
because it was such a good beat to end on. When I told my editor, he
rolled his eyes and said, "yes, you can do another 3 part story"
(laughter). But once we clear that, then we're all over the place. My
next story after that is going to be a 6 parter and that's kinda cool.
Coville:
Do you know how long your run on Spider-Man is going to be?
Slott:
Coville:
So it's not some set time?
Slott:
It's not going to be until I quit, because I'm never going to
quit. It's going to be until I'm fired. How long am I going to be on
Spider-Man? Until they pry it from my cold, dead hands (laughter).
It's Spider-Man. You don't walk away from Spider-Man. Right now it's
an open end book for all of us. This thing we're doing, this 3 times a
month schedule, we'll keep doing that as long as the demand is there.
And I'm hoping that's for a good, long time. That's the plan.
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