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Waiting For Tommy XXIV
By Richard Johnston
Interview with Bill Jemas
RICHARD: Blacklisting and ignoring are also two different things, but hey, you seem to happy ignoring my questions as well. Right. Talking of books getting published, the first six issues of Marville has been solicited as a trade paperback. Both a critical and a sales failure, it's arguably (so far) done more to damage your reputation as a writer. Although I quite liked issue 4, it looks like hardly anyone else read it. The demand in the direct market for this trade paperback is currently not there. And the argument for it being a bookstore title also seems thin, many of the gags have been insular, being more of an exercise in satire than storytelling it seems. So, why the TPB, aside from an abuse of power?

BILL: The abuse I have to suffer from on-line columnists for the sake of my art...

RICHARD: Not without cause, currently. Okay then, you described Andi Watson, co-writing Namor with you, as now being able to move on to "the next level" on Namor. As if writing the book was a promotion, or critical leap. Do you believe it will be a better comic than, say, previous works of his such as Slow News Day or Breakfast After Noon?

BILL: Well Rich, don't ya think Namor will have a few more readers than Slow News Day?

RICHARD: Spider-Man did better than Unbreakable. Which is "the next level" of film making?

BILL: Is this like an SAT question: Spider-Man is to Unbreakable as Namor is to Slow News Day?

RICHARD: I don't know anymore. I really don't. You know, I could have an easy job reprinting press releases, or asking nice easy questions about how you're so wonderful, but no, I had to take Nick Barrucci's bet and now I'm being driven insane by the publisher of Marvel. At least I never got this from Paul Levitz. Sorry. Where was I? Right. I mentioned the cultural history of Marvel Comics before. Naturally, you like to look to Marvel's future as opposed to their past, but do you feel any duty to preserve its historical output? There are many items that have never been reprinted through the decades. The Essentials line, reprinting some of Marvel's classic stories in cheap black and white phonebooks, seems to have been popular with readers, I know I've got a stack of them on the shelf. Any reason you know of for their recent decline in publication? The Timely and Atlas Comics, the bedrock of Marvel, are in danger of slipping away from memory or historical record, is there anyway you can rectify that?

BILL: Marvel has preserved the film for our major works and will reprint materials when the projects are commercially viable.

RICHARD: Do you believe Marvel has a cultural duty to preserve and make available it's historical work?

BILL: You tell me what's a cultural duty and I'll tell you if we have one (that's a rhetorical question by the way). And by the way Rich, Marvel has a warehouse full of film archives that are currently being digitized. If you are interested in buying the physical film, the whole library, lock stock and barrel (but no underlying rights), yours for $350,000 plus shipping.

RICHARD: You'll make that from The Hulk movie surely? Oh, maybe we can start a fighting fund. The digitised thing sounds like an interesting step. Any chance of access? Or is this a useful bargaining chip for a potential buyer. do you have any intention, currently, to see Marvel bought by a larger multimedia company? If so, what benefits do you believe that would bring Marvel, the artform and yourself? Do you have a spot marked out in Tahiti waiting for you yet?

BILL: Marvel does very well as an independent creative shop and intellectual property manager, and I do just fine down at the Jersey shore.

RICHARD: Okay, then do you believe the situation will have changed in give years? Are you aware of any events that might change this?

BILL: Rich, a Marvel exec can't answer this kind of question except in formal SEC communications.

RICHARD: Why break a habit. What's with all the Brits at Marvel at the moment? Can no one manage Marvel's true contribution to American pop culture better than a bunch of low life scum from a country you cut yourselves off from years ago?

BILL:It was more like we kicked your butts than we cut ourselves off.

RICHARD: Well, is New X-Men, Ultimate X-Men, Ultimates, Captain America, X-Force and 1602 revenge enough? Is it time for the UK to take back its colony, one comic at a time?

BILL: The sun never sets . . .

RICHARD: Don't you believe it. I'm tired, I've been beaten, I hope you all got something out of it, I'm going to sleep it off.

I bet Jim Lee will be nicer.

Marville is published monthly by Marvel Comics and a trade paperback is to be published soon, around the same time as the first two issues of Namor. Bill Jemas' name appears in every Marvel comic.

And you can read some of Marvel's possible new projects, revealed in my rumor and gossip column, Lying In the Gutters .
The Waiting For Tommy Archive

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