INSIDE: HOW TO CREATE GREAT CHAARRAACCTTEERRSS!! # $ 95 11 5 January In the USA MAGAZINE 2006 2277 PROS REVEAL THEIR WRITING SECRETS! DDeeFFAALLCCOO && FFRREENNZZ OONN MMAAKKIINNGG CCOOMMIICCSS TThhee MMaaggaazziinnee AAbboouutt WWrriittiinngg FFoorr CCoommiiccss,, AAnniimmaattiioonn,, aanndd SSCCII--FFII MAGAZINE Issue #11 January 2006 Read Now! Message from the Editor-in-Chief . page 2 Professional Secrets 27 top comics and animation writers and editors tell you the most important things they know about the art, craft and business of writing. Learn what STAN LEE, NEIL GAIMAN, MARK WAID, and two dozen other top professionals know that you don’t! . page 3 Creative Chemistry Conceived by Interview with Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz . page 11 DANNY FINGEROTH Re-imagining a classic: NANCY DREW Editor-in-Chief Jim Salicrup, editor-in-chief of Papercutz Comics, talks about Cover art by how the young detective became a comics star . page 48 RON FRENZ and SAL BUSCEMA Same/Not The Same: One Man’s Reflections on Cover colored by Writing for Film and Comics TOM ZIUKO shares his thoughts . page 53 Robert Tinnell Associate Editor Feedback BOB BRODSKY Letters from Write Now !’s Readers . page 70 Assistant Editor LIZ GEHRLEIN Nuts & Bolts Department Designers RICH J. FOWLKS Plot to Printed Comic: WHAT IF #105 with CHRIS DAY Pages from “What If Spider-Man had a Spider-Girl?” Transcriber by Tom DeFalco , Ron Frenz , and Bill Sienkiewicz . .page 39 STEVEN TICE Creating Characters Publisher John Ostrander talks about Character and characters and JOHN MORROW how to make the latter have the former . .page 43 Special Thanks To Outline to Script to Finished Art: NANCY DREW GRAPHIC NOVEL #4 THE 27 PROS!! Pages from “The Girl Who Wasn’t There,” by Stefan Petrucha and and Sho Murase . .page 49 ALISON BLAIRE JOHN OSTRANDER BOB BRODSKY ADAM PHILIPS Script to Finished Art SAL BUSCEMA CHRIS POWELL Pages from “Vengeance is Mine: A Terry Sharp Story” by KIA CROSS BEN REILLY Robert Tinnell and Adrian Salmon . .page 57 CHRIS DAY JIM SALICRUP AUGIE DeBLIECK, Jr. STEVEN TICE Danny Fingeroth’s Write Now! is published 4 times a year by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614 USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Fax: (919) 449-0327. FRED deBOOM ROBERT TINNELL Danny Fingeroth, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Write Now! E-mail address: [email protected] . TOM DeFALCO SHO MURASE Single issues: $8 Postpaid in the US ($10 Canada, $11 elsewhere). Four-issue subscriptions: $20 US ($40 Canada, $44 elsewhere). Order online at: www.twomorrows.com or e-mail to: [email protected] RICH J. FOWLKS STEFAN PETRUCHA All characters are TM & © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise RON FRENZ VARDA STEINHARDT noted. All editorial matter © the respective authors. Editorial package is ©2006 Danny Fingeroth and TwoMorrows Publishing. All rights reserved. Write Now! is a shared trademark of Danny Fingeroth LIZ GEHRLEIN NEIL VOKES and TwoMorrows Publishing. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING. ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON WRITE NOW | 1 READ Now ! Message from Danny Fingeroth , Editor-in-Chief eady to be amazed? Then you’ve come to the right place! Then there’s Bob Brodsky ’s interview with Steve Englehart about his past and R You hold in your hands the hard-earned advice— present writing career on comics such as ”Professional Secrets,” if you will—of 27 top comics and Batman , Captain America , Coyote … and animation writers and editors. They developed this wisdom the Batman again! And that’s not to mention old-fashioned way. They or someone they knew had to make his TV and videogame career! mistakes somewhere along the way and figure out what to We’ve also got an amazing Survey of Comics Editors who do—and what not to do—in given situations. Now, they’re tell you (via Paul Benjamin , himself the former editor of Metal passing the insight gained from all that experience on to you. Hurlant comics), what they look for in submissions. You don’t I asked them to give the most important piece of creative want to miss that, do you? advice and the most important piece of business-related Speaking of editors, Marvel’s Andy Schmidt will tell you how advice they had for aspiring writers. The 27 didn’t hold back. to break in—and, just as important—how to stay in comics as Stan Lee , Neil Gaiman , Tom DeFalco , Trina Robbins , J.M. a writer. DeMatteis , Mark Waid and 21 other folks were generous And the amazing Ostrander will give you more writing enough to share what they’ve learned with the Write Now! lessons. This time, John will be giving us the lowdown on audience. Individually, their opinions are impressive. theme —also known “moral,” or “controlling idea.” You know— Collectively, they’re an education in life and art. I can’t thank what a story’s really about. the contributors to the section enough. And, of course, we’ll have a passel of inspiring and instructive Nuts & Bolts material that will show you how various But that’s just part of what we’ve got for you this issue. aspects of comics writing are done! Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz are an amazing pair of comics Write Now! #12 and you—perfect together! creators. They’ve worked together on Spider-Man , Thor , Thunderstrike , and Spider-Girl . SHAMELESS PLUG DEPARTMENT: While they’ve both done terrific work with other creative The How To Draw Comics From Script to Print DVD is still partners, whenever given the chance, they always come back available at comics shops or from the TwoMorrows website. to working together. In their joint interview in this issue, they (www.twomorrows.com ) While it focuses mostly on art, talk about why they always look forward to collaborating and coloring, and lettering, a large section of it is devoted to what makes the relationship so special. What they have to say, teaching the tricks of the comics writer’s trade. We’ve had not just about teamwork and chemistry, but about the state of nothing but enthusiastic feedback on the disc from folks who the art, craft, and business of comics as it has evolved over have bought it. the past 20 years is something no serious comics creator And my book Superman On the Couch: What Superheroes should miss. Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society (from For good measure, Tom and Ron have provided us with the Continuum) is in its third printing! Join the cool kids—check plot from which Ron drew the first adventure of Spider-Girl , as out a copy! well as pages from the finished comic story. Yes, the plot . They work Marvel style. And they’re not shy about telling you why. Before I let you go, I want to welcome some folks who Also this issue, Papercutz editor-in-chief Jim Salicrup tells have joined the Write Now! team. Bob Brodsky (creator of the how kids’ adventure perennial Nancy Drew has made the leap O’Neil Observer and the upcoming Yancy Street Gazette ) is from prose to comics form. Jim then narrates a Nuts & Bolts Associate Editor, and Liz Gehrlein (sparkplug of MoCCA—The section that shows how a Nancy Drew story is created by the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art ) is Assistant Editor. writer-artist team of Stefan Petrucha and Sho Murase Welcome aboard, folks. (And Fowlks— Rich Fowlks , that is, And if you thought John Ostrander ’s article last issue about who’s been doing such a terrific job as new designer for WN! ) how to structure a story was informative and inspiring, wait’ll Now… secrets await you. Go forth and unleash them… you read his piece about creating characters! Talk about a revelation! Write Away! Plus, Robert Tinnell talks about writing comics and movies— both of which he does! He’s brought along samples of his work to show you, too. Danny Fingeroth And what about next issue? Well, in Write Now! #12, we’ve got my in-depth interview P.S. Want to know what my Professional Secrets are? Drop with DC Comics President and Publisher Paul Levitz . Paul talks me an e-mail ([email protected]) or a snail mail message about how he got to where he is, and about controversial (c/o TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC issues confronting the comics industry today. 27614) and I’ll tell you! 2 | WRITE NOW S T E R C E S L A N O I S S E F O R P S T E R C E S L A N O I S S E F O R P S T E R C E S L A N O I S S E F O R P S T E R C E S L A N O I S S E F O R P S T E R C E S L A N O I S S E F O R P ! W O N E T I R W ! W O N E T I R W ! W O N E T I R W ! W O N E T I R W ! W O N E T I R W W S R T I E T R E C N E S O W L A ! N P R O I O S F S S I S E E O E S F S O I F O N R P N ! A L O A W O S E N C E R R L T E I T R S W W P S R T I E T R E C N E S O W L A ! N P R O I O S F S E E S F S O I O R P N ! A L W O S E N C E R T E I T R S W W S R S T I E T R E S C N E S O W E L A ! N P T R O I O S F C S E E E S R F S O I O R P N ! A L W O S Everybody loves secrets.