"HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, FLASH"
LegalDispatch 0.79
Hello again.
This’ll be a short one, I fear, as I don’t have the much to write about this week. On Monday, I delivered the script for Issue 3 of Beware the Planet of the Apes and that was (cringe) the only deadline presently pushing on me. The rest of the week was spent preparing a feature pitch and giving a TV one and generally avoiding some of the spec feature work I’ve been meaning to get to as I wait for various pitches to be set and deals to close.
In other words, even though the WGA strike is “over,” the ongoing SAG strike continues to — at the very least — slow the business to a crawl.
CORRECTING THE RECORD?
I received a lot of very nice feedback to last week’s newsletter about the WGA’s silence in the wake of the 10/7 attacks in Israel. (TLDR: After speaking out on such matters as #MeToo, BLM, and attacks on Asians, the WGA has decided to draw the line at condemning terrorism.)
A few reporters reached out and — my big mouth not having gotten smaller — I spoke on the record to them. In an article that was published yesterday, I told Vanity Fair that I’m withholding my union dues until such time as I feel like my union supports Jews. A couple of people have interpreted this as me leaving the WGA. I’m not. (At least, not yet.) I’m simply making a protest statement with my dollars (or, more accurately, withholding thereof).
15 YEARS AGO
I wouldn’t normally include this kinda thing in the newsletter, but like I said, it’s a pretty lean week.
One of my favorite newsletters is Man With A Hat, the Substack put out by Marvel Editor Extraordinare Tom Brevoort. Every Sunday, he answers reader questions and pulls back the curtain on the making of comics. I look forward to it every week due to Tom’s refreshing candor and the fact that it’s the most informative and inside baseball (in a good way) newsletter about the comics industry that is out there.
This past Sunday, he was kind enough to mark the 15-year anniversary of Amazing Spider-Man #574, which I wrote back in 2008. (And didn’t remember, until Tom’s newsletter, that it was released on my brother Eric’s birthday.) Thank you, Tom!
The issue is a self-contained, “done-in-one” story, not about Spider-Man, but about his Number One Fan Flash Thompson, who is being interviewed in connection with becoming a potential recipient of the Medal of Valor for his Spider-Man-inspired heroism during the Iraq War.
In addition to providing what I hoped was an emotional and surprising story about what Spider-Man means to another kind of hero, the issue also gave me the opportunity to work with one of my heroes, artist Barry Kitson. (And, not for nothing, I got to make Flash Thompson being a Billy Joel fan canon, worked in some very deep cut Billy Joel lyrics, and even made a joke about premature ejaculation that, to this day, I can’t believe ever saw print.)
It’s the single comics issue I’m most proud of and am grateful to Tom for marking the anniversary of its release. It lives on in digital form on Comixology and Marvel Unlimited if you’d care to check it out.
Hopefully I’ll have more to chat about next week.
Be good to each other.
Best,
Marc
Encino, California
10.27.23