Here’s something that takes me back to my days as an editor—and my previous posts here at the SWC blog that I called Tales of Development Hell…
Just last week, on April 17th, the online version of the comic-book industry magazine The Comics Journal posted an extensive interview with Stephen R. Bissette, the legendary artist of DC Comics’ Swamp Thing (along with fellow artist John Totleben) during Alan Moore’s memorable run, and the creator/writer/artist/publisher of Tyrant,an indie comic that was intended to follow the accurately detailed life of a Tyrannosaurus Rex from birth to death, only for the series to be canceled four issues in due to the collapse of the comics distribution system in the 1990s.
It’s a lengthy, informative read that plays catch-up with Bissette and his career since his last TCJ interview, which was conducted in 1996. But it was one recollection in particular that caught my attention, about a project he was supposed to start writing in 2005:
“…I got approached by an editor working for Byron Preiss, as part of his ibooks imprint, and they wanted me to do a trilogy of licensed Swamp Thing novels…. The problem was our publisher [Byron Preiss] didn’t really know who I was. It was the editor who knew that [John Totleben and I] had worked on Swamp Thing and wanted us for this project.”
In case you haven’t guessed by now, I was the editor who approached Bissette in 2004 and got him to sign on for writing the trilogy that was meant to star DC’s muck monster with a heart of gold. The editor who was fanboyishly looking forward to working with him, John Totleben (who’d agreed to provide spot illustrations for the three books), and Vertigo imprint head Karen Berger on a massive storyline involving Swampy clashing with his old nemesis, Anton Arcane, the hellish villain who refuses to stays dead no matter how often he’s killed.
The editor who wound up quitting ibooks, inc. before the project really got underway.
It had nothing to do with Bissette, of course—I really wanted to be the editor on those books—but with my growing frustration with being overworked and underpaid (I was actually ibooks’ editor in chief, overseeing up to 25 releases a month)…and then having a raise I’d gotten rescinded a week later for a ridiculous reason. When ibooks’ managing editor raised the concern that such treatment might lead to my departure from the company, the response was, “Sure. Where’s he gonna go?”
Well, out the door. Which I did, in January 2005, to write a couple of books for another publisher (the original novel Final Destination: Dead Man’s Hand, based on the movie franchise, was one of them). The ibooks Swamp Thing trilogy not so unexpectedly fell apart soon after I left; in the interview, Bissette explains how it turned out for him.
Oddly enough, I was still doing work for ibooks on a freelance basis after my departure, writing the second and third issues of Stan Lee’s Alexa, a planned three-issue superhero series that “The Man” kibitzed on (I’d scripted issue 1 based on existing art when the original writer left the project); and signed to write the second book in a trilogy of original novels starring DC’s Justice Society of America, based on a plot outline by Geoff Johns.
The latter assignment, in case you were wondering, came about because I’d written three verysuccessful original novels for Byron from 2000 to 2003: X-Men: The Chaos Engine Trilogy. Much to my surprise, when DC licensing initially told him I couldn’t write one of “their” books because I wasn’t a “name” author, Byron not only insisted that I had to be involved, given the X-Men sales—there were a quarter million copies in print by that point, with the first novel, X-Men/Doctor Doom, going through three printings—but that the JSA trilogy wouldn’t happen at all if I wasn’t. They groused about it, but backed down.
But then Byron died in a car accident in July 2005, all projects—including Swamp Thing, JSA, and Alexa—were canceled, and the company closed by the end of the year. It was a swift, surprising end to ibooks, inc.
Some ibooks-DC projects, however, did find their way into the market before the shutdown: Crisis on Infinite Earths, author Marv Wolfman’s novelization/expansion of his own massively popular comic book maxiseries from 1986 that destroyed and then relaunched the DC Comics universe; The Forensic Files of Batman, a nonfiction examination of the Caped Crusader’s crime-solving methods and tech, by Batman and Master of Kung Fu writer Doug Moench; and Green Lantern: Sleepers, a trilogy of novels by Christopher J. Priest (better known these days as just Priest, writer of Vampirella, Black Adam, and Superman: Lost), Mike (Nexus) Baron, and Michael Ahn. And many years later, the author of the first Justice Society novel, comics veteran Paul Kupperberg, was able to self-publish his never-released contribution to the line—it’s still available, and is called JSA: Ragnarok.
So, yeah, I’m the editor Bissette is talking about in his TCJ interview (I wouldn’t expect him to remember my name, this happened almost 20 years ago). I wish things had worked out—even without my involvement, I was still looking forward to reading the trilogy. After all, y’know, I actually knew who Bissette was!
To read the full interview—and you should, it’s fascinating—head on over to The Comics Journal.
