Hits and misses.

You know while I don’t talk about comics too much these days I still find myself reading them although I can honestly say for the most part there is a lot that repels me as a fan. I don’t buy into sensationalism and comics has for the most part become just that in the sense that each and every year there is some overreaching ‘event’ that is supposed to have incredible ramifications for all the characters a given company publishes.

I get it, it’s an attempt to drive sales especially where completists are concerned but if story is the key in any entertainment much of the time these things miss the mark by a huge margin.

DC has had some really incredible misses but Marvel isn’t immune either.

I will admit though there are people who I will follow. The people whose work is intelligent or beautiful to look at. Work that pushes the medium further because it’s smart. I read the Superior Spider Man which is a few years old and just loved it as well as the Spider Verse thing which was a little over the top but still managed to be entertaining. Then there was The Clone Conspiracy which actually managed to make one of the most insipid plotlines in Spider Man canon entertaining.

By the way, that clone thing... you know there are times I think about that. See, I wonder how much I had to do with that because there is a back story there.

See way back in the dark ages, I was driving a cab. At the time, I was still trying to get into comics halfheartedly after a couple of near misses. Mind you, I had been taking my work up to both Marvel and Warren Publishing as a teenager. Marie Severin was probably one of the most wonderful people on the planet and I can honestly say she made this 15 year old’s year by looking at my work, giving me advice and also being nice enough to show me around the bullpen (all thanks to another Marvel stalwart, Danny Crespi).

Louise Jones was so very indulgent when I came up to Warren and so very nice, even years later I can’t think of enough nice things to say about her (or about how talented both those women were and are). You know a few years back when Val D’Orazio made some off the cuff remark about how her gender hadn’t produced a Grant Morrison or the like it enraged me because it so offhandedly ignored so many great creators that I guess didn’t rank in Val’s book as she was trying to talk about gender and comics.

Anyway, so aside from being up for keyframes for an Underoos spot (that I lost out to Herb Trimpe on), I sporadically found myself coming into the orbit of people who worked in the industry through my circle of friends.

One of those folks was Terry Kavanaugh...

Terry was a good friend of my taxi driving partner Kevin. Kevin and I worked at the same garage and shared a cab (we rented the cab for the week alternating days driving) and though Kevin I met Terry going over to his place and hanging out, meeting Mike Rockwitz, Mike Higgins, Bobbi Chase and other folk...

I get a sense of where I was going on this. I as going to talk about the three very unique ideas I had, story points that all wound up being swiped from me and winding up in comics.

What’s the biggest one of the three?

That would be the Clone thing in Spider-Man. Terry swiped from me but he did give me my first published work in comics so it’s kind of hard to really complain about it. I likely wouldn’t have gotten the coloring jobs I did wind up doing for Marvel if Terry hadn’t had felt guilty on some level for swiping my ideas.

The great thing about someone swiping an idea though is that their execution may not be what you were shooting for and that was the case with the Clone Saga.

Originally, throughout much of the eighties I had been working on different ideas for comics. I had been up at Marvel, Warren and DC throughout my teens and early 20s showing work to various editors and getting crits. I hadn’t landed work but I also worked on story ideas as well.

Kevin who was my taxi driving partner at the time was longtime friends with Terry and I happened to go with Kevin up to Terry’s a bunch of times, I think we were playing Risk and getting lit. Terry lived up around 84th or 85th and 1st and I met a bunch of Marvel people up there.

So, Kevin and I were planning on getting an apartment together and I was working on these ideas... and the big idea I had at the time was a two year arc of stories for Spider Man. The big problem for Spider Man was moving away from the roots of the character and my thought was to unite the New York street characters of the Marvel Universe into a Gang War scenario.

Of course Owsley swiped that (and that’s likely something he got from Keith) but again I benefited from Owsley and Kavanaugh both.

Anyway, the upshot was that the big surprise at the ending was supposed to be the clone that we never really saw die during Conway’s run on ASM.

At this point I have to mention, somewhere around here I still have Jim Owsley’s writing guide (Jim Owsley is now known as Christopher Priest), let me tell you... Priest knows his shit and that writing guide that he put together was one of the best things that could have been handed out to anyone looking to write for comics.

Anyway... I probably was going to bitch about the whole swiping thing but it taught me a very valuable lesson... KEEP YOUR FUCKING MOUTH SHUT!

In other words get out there and write your piece and then worry about someone swiping it once you’ve finished your work and got something to point back to so you can sue their asses off!