MARVEL COMICS: THE UNTOLD STORY
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"A WILD-RIDE ACCOUNT" —The Hollywood Reporter
"EPIC" —The New York Times
"INDISPENSABLE" —Los Angeles Times
"DEFINITIVE" —The Wall Street Journal
"SCINTILLATING" —Publishers Weekly
“FASCINATING” —GQ
"AUTHORITATIVE" —Kirkus Reviews
"GRIPPING" —Rolling Stone
"PRICELESS" —Booklist
"A MUST FOR ANY SUPERHERO OR POP-CULTURE FAN" —NY Post
"ESSENTIAL" —The Daily Beast
"A SUPERPOWERED MUST-READ" —USA Today
"REVELATORY" —The Miami Herald
"AS FULL OF COLORFUL CHARACTERS, TRAGIC REVERSALS AND UNLIKELY PLOT TWISTS AS ANY BOOK IN THE MARVEL CANON" —Newsday
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Doctor Strange, as rendered by Sal Buscema and Vince Colletta, in Defenders #27, 1975.
Steve Gerber, 1977: “I was afraid that if I accepted the assignment for Mediascene all of the bitterness accumulated over the past two years would come spurting out uncontrollably and that once again I would incur the wrath of my employers, my colleagues, and the fans, none of whom for the life of him could understand what Steve was bitching about, all of who would say so publicly.”
Does anyone know what the “once again” refers to? I don’t think I’ve seen many Gerber interviews from before 1977, except for David Anthony Kraft’s excellent FOOM piece.
Here’s a 9000-word excerpt from Marvel Comics: The Untold Story—enjoy!
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8433000/an-excerpt-sean-howe-marvel-comics-untold-story
Yet another indelible image from the sublime Howard the Duck #16. (Click to enlarge.)
While Angar is trippin’ out, Moondragon enters his soul. Art by Bob Brown and Sal Buscema; Words by Steve Gerber. From Daredevil #107, January 1974.
Other disgruntled Marvel creators began working for Malibu, which, fearful of putting all its eggs in the Image basket, was putting together plans for a shared universe—an “Ultraverse”—of its own characters. At a Scottsdale, Arizona, resort hotel, seven creators—including Steve Gerber and Steve Englehart—brainstormed in conference rooms, by tennis courts, and next to the swimming pool. They wouldn’t own the characters they created for Malibu, but they’d get a bigger share of profits than they would from Marvel. Even more important, they could follow their imaginations to the limit, creating comics about, say, a superhero who needed alcohol to manifest his powers, or a corrupt cop who was reincarnated as a sentient mass of sewage. Gerber and Englehart had grown frustrated with the thirty years of backstory baggage involved in writing Marvel characters, with having to ask editors for permission every time they wrote a line of dialogue. Walking around the complex at the end of the weekend, Gerber turned to Englehart. “This is what Marvel used to be like.”
Howard the Duck artist Frank Brunner was tired of having to follow fully scripted stories by Steve Gerber—and tired of Marvel’s refusal to raise his page rate. He left the book, and through a small mail-order company began selling poster prints of a mobster duck, titled “Scarface Duck.” It looked a lot like Howard … but then, hadn’t Howard already looked a lot like Donald Duck anyway? “I was filling a void left by slow-moving Marvel,” Brunner reasoned, “which did not immediately see the potential of the fan market—or of the duck.”
“Which part of the print,” Brunner asked Gerber, “did you write or draw? What part of the deal did you arrange?”
(Text from Marvel Comics: The Untold Story.)
Here’s a fun, rollicking podcast conversation between Entertainment Weekly’s Darren Franich & Jeff Jensen and me, about Marvel Comics. More than half an hour of gabbing about Steve Gerber, Jim Starlin, Paul Smith, Rob Liefeld, and much more—it was a blast.
http://popwatch.ew.com/2012/09/28/entertainment-geekly-marvel-untold-story/
Sub-Mariner #60, Apr 1973. Art by Sam Kweskin and Jim Mooney. Words by Steve Gerber.
Shanna the She-Devil #5, August 1973. Art by Ross Andru and Vince Colletta. Words by Steve Gerber.
