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WAITING
FOR TOMMY - HEIDI MACDONALD
By Richard Johnston
Heidi MacDonald
is a party girl. Despite both industry and her own best efforts,
comics seem to be in her blood. She can't stay away from reporting
on them or editing them. Currently heading up Comicon's journalistic
efforts, especially with her 'The Beat' gossip diary column,
she's been involved in The Comics Journal, Disney, DC Cartoon
Network and DC Vertigo, working on titles such as Transmetropolitan,
Midnight, Mass and Y: The Last Man. She's also first at the
bar and can remain standing when even Jimmy Palmiotti is sucking
gravel. She was a hardline comics activist before Warren Ellis
had even started his Delphi Forum, Ninth Art wasn't even a holding
page and the reason you couldn't get anything at Savant's web
address because no one had thought of it yet. She co-founded
Friends Of Lulu, an outreach organisation to get women and children
interested in reading comics. She's also a repeat member of
the Dude Ranch outings, where comic industry people meet to
drink and shoot things, and she's the rumour columnist that
rumour columnists read. And so much more.
Right, is that the arse kissing over with? Good. Next. Heidi,
will you please put Rob Liefeld down and come and talk to
me? Thanks. RICHARD
JOHNSTON: Let's get this straight. Comics journalist to
Disney, to DC to comics journalist again. Are you some sort
of masochist?
HEIDI
MACDONALD: Obviously. But actually writing was always
my first love. I got into editing at magazines mostly to pursue
writing. When I stopped editing comics I got a second chance
to see what I wanted to be when I grew up, and journalism
really comes very naturally to me. That turned out to be something
that I'm very good at, so why not get paid to do something
you're comfortable doing? Plus, as an editor I was only dealing
with a specific little world.as a journalist I get to muck
around in whatever I want, and that really suits my temperament.
RICHARD:
Tell us about your temperament. The reason you got fired from
Vertigo?
HEIDI:
I prefer to say "ejected," RICHARD. What can I say, things
didn't work out, and DC wasn't a very good environment for
me. The day I started I realized I was never going to learn
anything while I worked there, and I was proven correct. But
that said, I don't have any hard feelings against Paul Levitz
or Karen Berger or anyone there. There were definitely misunderstandings
on a lot of fronts. I just chalk it up to experience.
RICHARD:
And is going from Cartoon Network editor to Vertigo editor
a common career path? Isn't it a bit like going from Noddy
to Hellraiser?
HEIDI:
Yeah, that was a weird switch for sure. But Joan Hilty did
the reverse commute - I like to think of her as my "evil"
twin, and she's done very well at it, as well she should,
because she's a very smart cookie. It is odd in that when
I was doing kids books for Disney and WB, I was very, very
sensitive to what was or wasn't allowable, and probably a
lot more PC than anyone would ever suspect. Vertigo, obviously
is a lot more freewheeling on the face of it, but it was fun
to cut loose for once.
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