[triumphant music] [triumphant music continues] [triumphant music continues] [triumphant music fades] - Hello and welcome to "Comic Culture."

I'm Terence Dollard, a professor in the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

My guest today is writer-editor, Terry Kavanagh.

Terry, welcome to Comic Culture.

- Thanks.

Glad to be here.

- Terry, you began your career at Marvel Comics in the 1980s working, I guess, as an editor.

So, how do you kind of get your foot in the door?

What is the origin story?

- That's interesting.

A lot of people ask that, 'cause they want help breaking into the industry as well.

For me, it was that when I got outta school, I ended up working for construction company, started as a truck driver, got promoted to being a salesman estimator for acoustical ceiling tiles.

Terrible job, zero stars.

Do not recommend.

Eventually quit, traveled around a little, came back, and a friend of mine from high school was an assistant editor at Marvel at this point, on the Fantastic Four books.

Michael Higgins.

And I started doing letters pages for their office for the Fantastic Four, I think Silver Surfer, I'm not sure, at $25 a pop, they paid me.

And I happened to be there one day delivering a letters page when Ralph Macchio's assistant called in with mono or something for six months.

So Michael walked me into Ralph's office and said, "Here, Terry can be your assistant for six months.

He knows about comic books."

And Ralph, choosing not to put the effort into actually finding someone else said, "Yeah, okay, sure.

See you tomorrow."

And that's how I started.

I got a lot of help from people there, from Michael, from Bob Harris, from Mike Carlin.

Because Ralph, notoriously, I'm not saying anything he would not approve of, really didn't come to work till around noon or so.

And there was a lot of stuff to do before that.

So they really helped me understand what to do, and it was really a good learning experience for me that he wasn't there all the time, Ralph.

And then, I was apprenticing under him.

Eventually, his assistant came back.

By this point, most people at Marvel sort of knew me, so they made work for me.

I think I became the submissions editor for a short time.

And then Ann Nocenti, who was the editor of the X-Men, her assistant was leaving staff.

So, Bob Harris walked me into Ann's office and said, "Here, Terry can become your assistant."

And she knew me by then from just being around.

And she, like Ralph said, "Okay, see you tomorrow."

That's when I started officially as an assistant editor on the X-Men books with Ann Nocenti.

- So I guess the secret to getting into Marvel Comics is to have a friend who already works at Marvel Comics.

- Yeah.

Know Michael Higgins.

That's the only advice I can give.

- So, you know, I've had the pleasure of speaking with both Annie Nocenti and Ralph Macchio, and they are both some of the nicest people that you'll meet in comics.

So, I'm just wondering, it seems to me that, you know, Marvel Comics is probably a tough place to work, because there is a little bit of competitive spirit about who's gonna have the best book, but it's also a collegial place because everyone's looking out for each other and being, you know, I guess, trying to make sure that everyone, a raising tide lifts all boats.

So, how do you sort of handle, you know, what might be somebody who's a little less than forthright, And is looking to maybe push you out the door rather than give you an opening to the next step?

- I honestly never really experienced that at Marvel.

What we had going for us is everybody there loved what they were doing.

They had a passion for it.

We knew at the time how lucky we were.

We all were having great fun.

We would go out to lunches, we had expense counts, we'd go out to lunch and argue about whether or not Captain America would hit Spider-Man from behind, even if he was possessed by Mephisto.

And we'd argue very passionately about it.

And eventually the waiters and waitresses would stop coming near our table but, that's a whole other element.

So, we just loved it.

And we were what was known as exempt employees, so we didn't have to come in nine to five.

We just had to get our books out on time and meet shipping.

And if you could do that by coming in four hours a week, that was fine.

If it took 60 hours a week, then you weren't getting overtime either.

But most people loved it so much, they were there for far more than eight hours a day, just hanging out and arguing.

We didn't compete even that much for talent.

You would think so.

Some of it, by attrition, the competition happened.

I mean, if Bob Harris as the editor of the X-Men wanted to hire somebody, they were gonna go to that book.

It wasn't necessarily that Bob was doing anything wrong, he just, his material was more attractive to a lot of people.

Then again, you might have creators who didn't particularly care about the X-Men, so they gravitate more towards the Avengers office, or Namor or something.

Really, I didn't experience at all anyone trying to push anybody out the door.

- You mentioned that, you know, there might be an editor who wants some kind of talent for their book, so as somebody who is maybe making those arrangements to try and get somebody on a book like the X-Men or the Avengers, how do you sort of, you know, reach out to them in a way that is not going to necessarily be seen as that, you know, "I'm trying to poach."

Or maybe it is, if you're trying to get someone from DC.

- You know, you're offering people work.

They're freelancers, it's their decision.

And like I said, they didn't always jump to what was gonna make them the most money.

'Cause again, everybody on...

The freelancers as well, it was a passion for them.

So, they weren't in it just for the money.

Most of us would've done it for the free comic books, really.

But, so...

I never felt offended by that.

If someone was working on a project for me, and another editor asked them to do something, usually the editor would come to you and say, "Hey, I'm gonna invite so and so to do an annual for me."

And then hoping maybe it can develop into being a regular on the book.

They'd give you a little heads up and you'd know.

But it was gonna be the decision of the freelancer in the end.

It was gonna be their decision.

And you didn't want them working for you if there was a better offer out there that not only would they enjoy better, but they would do better work.

Everybody was in it together.

We really were.

As for poaching from DC, we all knew each other at both the companies as well.

But that was common, and it went both ways.

So there was no sense of, "Well, we're doing most of the poaching or they are."

It just was common and it's how it worked out in the industry.

- As an editor, you may have had to face something where you bring somebody onto a book, and for whatever reason it's just not working.

So, how do you approach someone and either try and get them to the level you want them to be at, or say, "You know what?

It's time for us to part ways."

- Usually when I hired someone to come on a project, I knew their work relatively well.

I could speak to other editors who had worked with them, and they could tell me about any red flags I should be concerned with, that maybe they can't do 22 pages a month, or maybe January's always problematic for them for whatever reasons.

So I had a lot of information going into it.

You never went into it blind.

And you certainly tried to pick the creators that were best suited to the project you were working on.

What I had in this advantage that not everyone had was, I was editing a title called "Marvel Comics Presents", and it was an anthology title.

There were four stories every issue, and two issues a month came out.

I was working with eight creative teams a month alone on that one title.

I loved it, but it almost killed me.

But it also gave me the chance to test people out on eight page stories, on short stories, and give them a deadline that would be reflective of if I was gonna hire them for a 22 page story.

I could prorate it and figure out if they can't do this eight pages, you know, in a third of that time, they're not gonna be able to give me a 22 page story in a month.

And so I could have some test experience with them along the way, and I could even try them out on the character I was hoping to use them on.

You know, Namor was an example.

I tried out Jae Lee when John Byrne was leaving Namor.

And Jae was very, very young, so I knew there was a risk factor involved into bringing him onto a monthly title.

But I tried him out in "Marvel Comic Presents" on other features, and then I even asked him to do an eight page Namor story, to make sure he could capture what we wanted for that.

And I think, since Bob Harris was gonna be the writer who replaced John when John left as the writer artist, I think I even had Bob write that eight page story, so I could see if their chemistry meshed.

And I also had a sort of policy which I learned with "Marvel Comics Presents" of, trying to team experienced talent with new talent, or vice versa.

So I knew if there was gonna be an issue, let's say with a new penciler, who wasn't doing their storytelling to the best of their ability, they might be a great illustrator, but they weren't doing establishing shots, et cetera.

I knew that the experienced writer would give them that direction or vice versa.

If I was trying out a new writer, like Scott Lobdell, who broke into the business basically through "Marvel Comics Presents", I could use a Don Heck, I could use a very experienced artist there, and know that he would help pick up some of the slack if Scott neglected to ask for an establishing scene, or to pull in for an emotional moment, or to pull back for an action moment.

I knew that an experienced artist would know to do that.

- I forget who it was, but I spoke to someone who got their start on the "Marvel Comics Present" series, and I think they were paired up with someone like Al Milgrom as their anchor.

And they talked about how having to work on an eight page story was probably the best way to train to do a 22 page story, because you had to figure out that beginning, the middle, and the end, and make it work in eight pages.

You didn't have a lot of time to beat around the bush.

So as somebody who is working on that book, and working with other creators, and getting them to do two eight page stories a month, if it is that many, how does that help you as somebody who makes the move from editor to writer?

- Well, I had to learn what to expect of an eight page story.

So it was a learning curve for me as well.

And I learned the same thing those writers did.

Even the artists had to approach the stories in a different way.

They couldn't necessarily rely on doing big splash pages or even big splash panels.

There was too much story to tell in the eight pages.

So if you can learn to tell an eight page story, you can...

It's like if you can learn to drive in Boston, you can drive anywhere.

You know, if you can learn to tell an eight page story, then your 22 page stories are gonna be all the richer for that.

- I will just point out, driving in Boston, where you can make a left turn, but then you can't make a left turn for like five, 10 blocks...

I don't know what they were thinking when they designed the city of Boston.

Boston, I love you, but those roads are impossible.

- And the traffic circles.

[chuckles] You can get trapped in that for 20 minutes.

- Let's get back to comics and not discussing America's roadways.

So you make the move to writing, and if I'm not mistaken, you are part of the team that comes up with resurrecting the clone Spider-Man.

So how does that sort of come about?

I mean it turns out, I mean we can kind of look back at it fondly now, but this was a huge, huge event when it hit.

So, you know, as somebody who's maybe known best as being an editor, now you're becoming this creative type who's, you know, I'm sure they're talking about in Wizard Magazine.

How do you sort of balance this new stardom, and this character and this buzz that's created?

- First off, let me just apologize.

[Terry laughs] I'd like to get that out of the way early, about the Clone Saga.

And then I can go into a long, convoluted explanation for why it's not my fault.

I was the one who pitched the story originally, but it was intended to be, I believe, four months over five titles.

A beginning, middle and an end.

And the end was gonna be that Ben Reilly was the real Spider-Man.

And we would write Mary Jane and Peter off into the distance with the pregnancy.

He would turn out to be the clone.

They would go off and they would be very organic, even to his whole, "With great power comes great responsibility."

He would recognize now that responsibility is to his family.

And then we would have a Spider-Man who had not finished school, he was not married.

We had effectively, as the creators, got married and got mortgages and did all that.

We wrote our character down that path.

So we were looking for an effective solution to that.

And we had discussed over and over again, do we divorce Peter and Mary Jane, do we widow Peter?

That was all just gonna add more baggage rather than clean it up.

So this seemed like an elegant solution to all of us, and it was an elegant solution until sales and marketing kept coming back and saying, "Well, you've doubled the sales, you can't end it now."

And it went on for two and a half years, and I left halfway through.

It was just, it was becoming toxic.

Which had nothing to do with your question, that's just my long-winded apology that I'd like to get outta the way.

I didn't feel any stardom, per se.

Being able to write Spider-Man certainly elevated my presence in the comic book universe.

I was now on a title that got attention and was more noticed, and I was working with a family of titles.

So I was working with a lot of other top-notch professionals under those circumstances.

I didn't recognize that.

Honestly, Wizard paid more attention to me as I started to get vilified for the Clone Saga.

It came out more that way.

And for a long time, you know, that was like the lead sentence on my Wikipedia page, "Responsible for the Abhorrent Clone Saga."

Or something.

And I avoided comic conventions for decades, 'cause there were literal death threats over that.

Not that I'm really afraid that anybody in the comic book industry is gonna hurt me, but... [Terry laughs] - We think of comic fandom as being this friendly place, but I have heard of other creators, you know, they kill off a character, a beloved character, and they start getting those letters.

So you avoid comic conventions, and yet this is something now, as conventions become more popular, you are at these conventions.

And that's, I think, where we met at Heroes Con.

I say this a lot on the show, we met at Heroes Con.

And so as somebody who is going to conventions years on, are you hearing back from fans who are like, "You know what, as much as you think the story went off the rails here or there, I loved it."

- Oh, absolutely.

Now what we have are adults with disposable income that come up to me all the time and tell me, "Ben Reilly was my Spider-Man."

Because that storyline went on for so long, there were kids who, their formative years, being exposed to comic books, took place with him being the main Spider-Man at that time.

And they loved him.

And he's a character that's now quite loved.

The storyline will probably always be vilified for how much of a mishegoss the whole thing became, but I think the character was, we all handled him with great respect and care.

We wanted this character to be able to carry the mantle of Spider-Man once he adopted it, which was the original plan.

When Bob Harris became editor-in-chief, he decided he did not want Ben Reilly to be the real Spider-Man.

But that was the plan the entire time we were writing it.

So we were very careful and protective of that character.

- It's funny too, because now we see, you know, the Ben Reilly Spider-Man appearing in other media.

I'm imagining that, you know, when you see people at conventions with the hoodie on, and the different type of web shooters and whatnot, are you getting that little bit of like, "Gosh, you know what?

I can't believe that, you know, this design has held up and and aged so well."

- Yeah, of course.

And look, one of the privileges of being in this industry as a creator on any level, is knowing that we probably had some impact on people.

And then to get that visual reinforcement of it.

I can honestly tell you that every day that I was even on staff at Marvel, and then when I left staff and I was a contracted writer, comic books were so important to me as a child that I was aware every single day of the privilege I had of maybe being able to have that effect on one or two people out there.

But still, you're working in a vacuum.

You don't know that.

Now I go to these conventions, and you have the kids that come up, or grownups, really, 'cause most of them that would know me are not kids anymore.

And they come up and they have tears in their eyes trying to tell you, "I was going through identity issues, you know, as a teenager, and Ben Reilly's story really resonated with me, and it helped me out a lot."

And some of them will hark back to, "I was going through these identity issues, and my dad ended up bringing me some of these comics 'cause he thought he... And my dad has since passed, and I just wish he could see the development of the character now, and how much impact it had on me."

So, that is unbelievably rewarding.

- It's one of those things that you really can't put a value on other than, you know, there's a satisfaction at the end of the day that you can just say, "I've made a difference."

And, you know, it's funny too, because you are continuing to make a difference in comics and as I understand, you are going to be taking a position with Carl Choi's company, 247 Comics.

- Yes.

That's very recent.

We've been working together for a little while.

I was working as a consulting editor, but I've just come on as an executive editor for them, and they're gonna be launching more and more titles in 2025.

And I'm directly editing some of them, and I'm just sort of spearheading some others.

And it's very interesting to me because, and I know this speaks to what you were talking about about editing.

When I was an editor for Marvel Comics, we owned the characters, the company owned the characters.

So if I hired someone to do a Namor story, and they did something that didn't work for me, or if I needed something else done, I could insist on it.

That really was how it worked.

Now, working with this company, which is mostly creative partnerships and creators that it's their material, it's their characters, at most, I can give suggestions about how to strengthen the story or to strengthen the characters.

Not that as an editor I was a particular bully anyway, but it's not even an option now, when you're working with sort of creator owned material.

It's like, all I can do is make strong suggestions, and you can honor that or not.

- There's a fine line between somebody who is helpful in getting the best story out of a creator, and somebody who is maybe just saying, "You're doing a bad job and let me tell you why.'

So as an editor, and you're working with somebody, it's their character, I know for me, if somebody's giving me criticism, I sometimes have to remove myself from that ownership that I have and think, "This person's out really trying to help me get better."

So how do you sort of make that connection with somebody who might feel a little precious about something?

- Every creator, their creation is their baby.

And I've known this forever.

And anything you say, any criticism you say, they're gonna hear as, "My baby's ugly, You're saying my baby's ugly."

So it's how you present it.

You can just bluntly say something that doesn't serve anyone, 'cause then they're gonna get defensive, the creator.

Or you can say, "Your baby has such beautiful blue eyes that I really think if we added a blue scarf, it would help bring out the beauty in those eyes."

And then they're not hearing any criticism of what they've done.

They're not hearing anything negative.

They're understanding that they're just being presented in a way to strengthen what they're already trying to do, and improve on it.

And if you do that, you're not gonna get the normal resistance and defensiveness, which isn't worth putting the effort into overcoming.

Just avoid creating that resistance, and then you don't have to put the effort into overcoming it.

- I guess you're looking for the positive that you can highlight to therefore maybe just reflect a little bit of the weakness.

And I'm imagining this is something that, you know, dealing with creative types, again, I deal with students here at the university, and sometimes they will feel that if any criticism of you is like you're saying that their baby is ugly.

And finding that path is always a bit of a challenge, because every person is different.

So in your career working with, whether it's an established artist, or whether it's somebody who is just getting their foot in the door, you know, how do you sort of make that connection so that they know that they can trust you, that you have their best interests in mind, when you're making that constructive criticism?

- Well, in the first place, I wouldn't have hired them if I didn't think there was talent and ability there.

So if there is nothing positive for me to find in the work, I likely didn't hire them.

So it was already something I would know what their strengths were, I would know what their weaknesses were going into it.

In most cases.

There was some new talent that you didn't, and you were trying to sort of help hone that.

But if there's nothing positive there, you shouldn't be working with that person in the first place.

So if there is, start from the positive.

That's how you get to the connection.

You can start from the positive and say, "I love this, this, and this.

I'm a little concerned that this thing here doesn't serve those three things that I love really well."

And if you can't find three things to say that you really love, then you should just scrap that story and not be working with that creator.

- One of the things I noticed about Modern Comics is that the storytelling is a little different.

It's a little bit more grounded and a little less, let's say, Kirby-esque in its scope, where you might have a really bizarre angle, but it really serves the story.

So as somebody who is working with an artist who might be more grounded in reality, how do you sort of get them maybe to relax a little bit, and lean into the fact that, you know what, these are four color heroes, and you can be a little bit more experimental.

The audience will go with it.

- You know, strangely, that's not difficult to do it all, because in most cases, those people who are working in a really grounded way have been encouraged to do that, by either the writer or the previous editor.

And they don't need much encouragement to say, "Oh, no, no, let's go Galactus on this."

Because that's what they've been itching to do all along anyway.

They're just looking for the opportunity to do that.

And comics are different now, so you can't just go Galactus out of the gate.

You have to build to it.

And I'm learning as much as anyone about how comics have evolved, and how stories are told differently now.

I mean, I come from an era where three issues of a comic now, we would've told in a half an issue back then.

66 pages now, we would've told in 12 pages back then.

And it's a little more decompressed for business and trade paperback and all those kind of things.

And it also allows, I think, for a lot more characterization.

And that's a hugely positive thing, because that's the baseline of not just comic book storytelling, but all storytelling everywhere.

It's about the characters.

If your audience doesn't care about those characters, they're not gonna care if Galactus shows up, or how big the villain is or how big the threat.

If they don't care about the characters, then there's really nothing at stake for them.

- Characters are why we care about those stories, and why we care about what happens.

I mean, if New York is eaten up by, you know, Galactus, who cares?

But if Aunt May is sick and in the hospital, and Peter's gotta defeat the Galactus, not that I think Spidey would... You know, so again, you know, when you are dealing with the ideas behind the story, how do you kind of make sure that you're... And again, this is a loaded question for just a few minutes left in our conversation, but how do you sort of ground it in that, it's about somebody and not just about something?

- That's always the effort that has to be put in.

And what we used to describe as the difference between Marvel and DC Comics back then, not saying it applies now, was that the Marvel stories were about the people behind the masks.

So a Spider-Man story was more about Peter Parker than Spider-Man.

Whereas a Batman story, Bruce Wayne is the fake identity.

He's really Batman, all day and all night.

And he's pretending to be Bruce Wayne.

And it would be the opposite way with Peter Parker and Spider-Man.

If every Spider-Man story you wrote was from the perspective of this is about Peter Parker, then what you're looking at is, "What would Peter Parker do in this situation?"

Not, "What would Spider-Man do?"

And it's going to be more realistic, because Peter Parker is more realistic than Spider-Man.

- Well, Terry, they are telling us that we are just about out of time.

If the folks at home wanted to find out more about what you're doing and your new work at 247 comics, where can they find you on the web?

- Well, you could probably find me soon at 247.com.

Or 247comics.com.

Also, Howard Mackey and I have a company called inksmyth.com.

I-N-K-S-M-Y-T-H. Where we do custom comics as high-end gifts for people, telling their story in a fantastical way, and turning them into the heroes that their friends and family view them to be.

- Well, Terry, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule.

It's been a fun and fast half hour.

- Thanks, Terence.

It's been great.

- I'd like to thank everyone at home for watching "Comic Culture."

We will see you again soon.

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