The Marvel Method

[jayvee]

If I'm not mistaken, Stan Lee used to just hand his artists plots with very little to no dialogue and then he'd run off and write a dozen more plots while that guy penciled whatever he damn well pleased. Lee would then jump back in after pencils and inks were done and write dialogue.

(Silver Surfer was actually created on accident when the artist thought the book needed an extra character. Also, the entire LOST series was created in a similar fashion, with the head of ABC had an idea and a bunch of writers came in to flesh it out.)

Is this a fairly accurate portrayal of the Marvel Method...?

How well would this process work in a modern environment? Would the artist and plotter need to be in constant contact, or just talk at hand-offs? Know any Net groups experimenting with this sort of thing, or artists willing to try it?

[dragonaces]

I remember Jim Lee's run on X-Men using Scott Williamson as his inker. In an interview he expressed that he didn't have to do complete pencil work on his drawings because he loved Scott's inks so much. He would only draw part of the panel and let Scott fill in the rest on inks alone because they worked so well together. I know its not the writing side of it but it is a microcosim of what you are talking about.

[nolan]

Honestly, I would not be comfortable doing this unless I was co-plotting with the artist.

[jayvee]

I think it would be fun to try once.

[davidaccampo]

I think you've got it about right. I think it really had to do with the goals for creating that type of fiction at the time. It would be a fun experiment, but I don't think most writers today are comfortable with it. Especially given the nuance created by more cinematic storytelling -- that'd never work in a plot first method unless the artist and writer were really heavily in synch.

That said, there are all different levels of complexity in the full script. Sometimes even ONE writer will change his style for different artists.

It would definitely be a fun exercise, but I don't know if I'd gamble on it for more serious works.

[nolan]

There is one thing that bothers me about this.

It worked a lot more easily in the days when you could only do a few panels of characterization an issue. I think that this would be difficult to really be able to do this on a project if you haven't plotted out your character scenes and know where they're really going. I'm not sure how well this would work.

[jayvee]

If you do it one issue at a time without writing anything in advance, it's possible that both the writer/plotter and the artist could remain relatively close in their ideas. And, well, with most of Marvel's stories back then being self-contained stories, they had that going for them, as well.

[nolan]

I think the danger is that it would be harder to do today without co plotting with the artist.

Lets face it, most artists aren't Kirby or Ditko.

And fans want higher quality books and writers are seen as SOOO much more important now.

[davidaccampo]

nolan said:

There is one thing that bothers me about this.

It worked a lot more easily in the days when you could only do a few panels of characterization an issue. I think that this would be difficult to really be able to do this on a project if you haven't plotted out your character scenes and know where they're really going. I'm not sure how well this would work.

That's exactly what I was getting at. Today, a theme like "Peter questions the choice that he just made" could actually play out over multiple pages, with small little nuances and actions taking place that help to enhance the complexity of the moment.

But if you write that same sentence in a Marvel style plot, the artist basically dictates whether that's ONE panel or Three pages. So, if you're story revolves around little nuances of character, it's realllly hard to guess what artist would put the right emphasis on that one line, you know?

I mean, let's be honest, most comics artists will want to draw big spaceships or cool fight scenes anyway, so they'll make those more important. And that worked for Lee and Kirby, in its own way. But times have changed and the demands of the audience have changed.

[nolan]

davidaccampo said:

nolan said:

There is one thing that bothers me about this.

It worked a lot more easily in the days when you could only do a few panels of characterization an issue. I think that this would be difficult to really be able to do this on a project if you haven't plotted out your character scenes and know where they're really going. I'm not sure how well this would work.

That's exactly what I was getting at. Today, a theme like "Peter questions the choice that he just made" could actually play out over multiple pages, with small little nuances and actions taking place that help to enhance the complexity of the moment.

But if you write that same sentence in a Marvel style plot, the artist basically dictates whether that's ONE panel or Three pages. So, if you're story revolves around little nuances of character, it's realllly hard to guess what artist would put the right emphasis on that one line, you know?

I mean, let's be honest, most comics artists will want to draw big spaceships or cool fight scenes anyway, so they'll make those more important. And that worked for Lee and Kirby, in its own way. But times have changed and the demands of the audience have changed.

I think thats the rela danger of this in the present climate.

It would work great for action scenes and it worked well when the purpose of the story was to construct a story around a few of those.

But when it came down to more character oriented stories, I'm not really sure that this wouldn't be a huge drawback.

[weit]

One of the reason I believe Stan was able to use this method was because of the talent he had at his disposal. Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and John Romita Sr were all amazing artists that knew their craft extremely well so the reason Stan could trust them. But of course this method is not for everyone but if you know and trust your artist very well then this method is very much possible and as mentioned by a previous poster it also depends on the goal.

[nolan]

weit said:

One of the reason I believe Stan was able to use this method was because of the talent he had at his disposal. Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and John Romita Sr were all amazing artists that knew their craft extremely well so the reason Stan could trust them. But of course this method is not for everyone but if you know and trust your artist very well then this method is very much possible and as mentioned by a previous poster it also depends on the goal.

Stan Lee did have some of the best artists working at the time collaborating with him. And that was certainly one of the reasons why this was able to work.

Another reason was that the artist was the most important part of a comic team.

And another reason was that things like pacing, characterization and dialogue weren't particularly important.

So in a modern context...

You could probably get some of the best artists. Thats the easy part.

Writers have become ten times more important then they were in lee's time.

And more is expected from comic writing.

Honestly, unless you were co-plotting with the artist (which, honestly, is a pretty good idea), I really can't see this approach working all that well.

And in lieu of this, I'd probably co-write it with the artist. I think that would solve all the issues without all the ienvitable storytelling problems this could create.