YEAR IN REVIEW '24

LegalDispatch 120

Earlier this week, my youngest observed that I’m a workaholic. Guilty as charged. Though the entertainment industry landscape is such that being a workaholic is like being an alcoholic during Prohibition.

Nevertheless, my addiction is such that I’ve gotten very good at keeping myself busy even when employment pickings are slim. Specifically, this has meant a lot of comic book scripts and unpaid development (to use the television industry parlance).

As a result, as I review my work from 2024 — more on this below — I was somewhat dismayed to realize that very little of what I’ve been doing has gotten out to the public yet. On the bright side, I suppose, it means a lot of content coming from me in 2025…

FEEDBACK

Robert Emmerich writes:

Nice one [last] week. My kid who just graduated with a B.S. degree in video game design and development feels your shrinking entertainment world pain.

Congratulations!

I'm focused on Juan Soto proving that money isn't real and Hanukah starting Christmas night.

For far too many years, the Mets were owned by people who didn’t realize (or care) that they owned a major market athletic franchise. Steve Cohen gets it. I now know hope.

Maybe the aliens will finally announce themselves that night.

I think that’s literally the only thing left on the 2024 Bingo card. We should ask them about all the drones…

SL Willen writes:

“We have to fight for liberal values without being illiberal ourselves. We have to meet people where they are instead of proclaiming from atop our high horses where we think they should be. Instead of constantly telling people they need to be better, we need to be better.”

True that. But then again, just as in In Any Lifetime, we may have to accelerate (truly evolve) and persist in order to arrive in (bring into being) the multiverse we desire.

This post made me smile. Thank you.

SHOOTING MY MOUTH OFF

In this week’s edition, I chat about universe-building…

FROM THE VAULT

For reasons I can’t go into at the moment, I was thinking about Legends of Tomorrow earlier this week. So, to commemorate (?) that, here are some initial pieces of concept art for the Waverider.

I’m afraid I’ve long since forgotten the name of this/these artist(s) — if I ever knew them at all.

STAR WARS: JEDI KNIGHTS

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

Somehow, In Any Lifetime has reached nearly 6,000 reviews on Amazon.com.

This is truly amazing and I thank all of you who have posted a review. Engagement of this kind is huge, particularly for Amazon publications, so you have my deepest thanks.

If you haven’t read In Any Lifetime and you have an interest in my work, you can download a free sample to your Kindle by clicking here.

YEAR IN REVIEW

And now we come to my recitation of the various scripts, pitches, outlines, and whatnot that I wrote over the past year. There are a few projects here that I’ve never mentioned in this newsletter before, so consider this also a series of semi-announcements. I’ve also endeavored to provide a little more specificity and context about some projects compared to what I did last year…

JANUARY

• PROJECT SUBWAY — 1st draft of a spec action thriller which, sadly, has failed to find interested parties.

• 2.5k-word introduction to Marvel’s Micronauts Omnibus Vol. 2.

FEBRUARY

• PROJECT SERENITY — A pitch for an animated show that marks my first collaboration with my wife since our graphic novel, Halcyon.

• PROJECT AFTERLIFE — A pitch for a television show that I’m doing with a good friend of mine.

• PROJECT MARBLE — A pretty significant rewrite pass of a screenplay.

• A pitch for a television show that I didn’t bother to give a codename to. It’s just as well as everyone passed on it.

• TOO DEAD TO DIE — A significant rewrite to attract an A-level star. Hope continues to spring eternal on this one…

MARCH

• GREEN LANTERN #14 — Script for an 8-page backup story.

APRIL

• PROJECT MASQUERADE — A pitch for a television series based on a Japanese format that I’ll be taking out in the New Year.

• PROJECT RECURSION #2 — Comic book script.

MAY

• STAR WARS: JEDI KNIGHTS — Series pitch and outline.

• BLACK, WHITE & BLOODSHOT — Script for 8-page comic book story.

• LAST FLIGHT OUT — Outline for pilot script.

JUNE

• Ideation work on a project for Disney Imagineering that I’m NDA’d to within an inch of my life on.

• PROJECT MARBLE — Another hefty rewrite.

JULY

• STAR WARS: JEDI KNIGHTS #1 — Script.

• PROJECT RECURSION #3 — Script.

• STAR WARS: JEDI KNIGHTS #2 — Script.

AUGUST

• PROJECT CYCLONE — Outline for TV pilot.

• STAR WARS: JEDI KNIGHTS #3 — Script.

• Introduction to Marvel 1965 Omnibus.

• ASSASSINATION NATION — 47-page comic book script.

• Webinar presentation on writing for Writer’s Digest online seminar.

• A really detailed pitch for a Star Trek comic.

• PROJECT HOVERBOARD — A pitch for an animated series based on a YA novel that I’ll be taking out in the New Year.

SEPTEMBER

• STAR WARS: JEDI KNIGHTS #4 — Script.

• LAST FLIGHT OUT — Pilot script.

• PROJECT CYCLONE — Pilot script.

OCTOBER

• STAR WARS: JEDI KNIGHTS #5 — Script.

• FOUNDATION — A pitch for Season 4. Fun exercise, but I didn’t get the gig…

• “LIBERTY WITHOUT REFUGE” — An op-ed piece (published as a LegalDispatch edition) on the impact the Supreme Court could have on the 2024 presidential election.

• STAR WARS: FREE COMIC BOOK DAY 2025 — Script for 8-page Jedi Knights story.

• PROJECT SINISTER — Outline for a Marvel (non-Star Wars) comic book project.

• STAR WARS: JEDI KNIGHTS #6 — Script.

• PROJECT FEDERAL — A pretty significant pass on a pitch for a TV series I’ll be taking out in the New Year.

• PROJECT MONARCH #5 — Comic book script for a creator-owned series that will be getting announced in the spring.

• PROJECT MARBLE — Revisions to screenplay, but not the same script previously referenced. (Ooo. Mysterious…)

• PROJECT ODD COUPLE — A series pitch for another Marvel superhero project. This was a “bake-off” situation where Marvel commissioned, as they often do for big projects a variety of takes from different writers.

• PROJECT SMALLS #1 — Script for the first issue of another creator-owned comic book series. This one will drop in 2025.

DECEMBER

• STAR WARS: JEDI KNIGHTS #7 — Script.

• PROJECT ODD COUPLE #1 — I got the gig! And wrote the script for the extra-sized first issue.

• PROJECT WINDOW — Script for an immersive short film for the Apple Vision Pro.

• PROJECT BRIMSTONE — Series format for Netflix series.

• PROJECT MISFIT — A pitch for a DC Comics extra-sized one-shot that, in success, would become an ongoing series.

And that’s a wrap on 2024! My brain has been railing against the concept that it’s already the end of the year. On reflection, I realized that I basically lost the entire back half of 2024 to election anxiety and, then, grief. At the top of my New Year’s resolutions is my vow to no longer allow American politics to live rent free in my head.

Happy Holidays!

Be good to each other.

Best,

Marc

Century City, California

12.19.24

A regularly-updated list of upcoming releases and events:

FAN EXPO NEW ORLEANS (January 10-12, New Orleans, Louisiana)

STAR WARS: JEDI KNIGHTS #1 (March 5, 2025)

STAR WARS FREE COMIC BOOK DAY 2025 (May 5, 2025)

GALAXYCON DES MOINES (September 12-14, Des Moines, Iowa)

GALAXYCON ST. LOUIS (October 10-12, St. Louis, Missouri)