Tom’s Deepest Secrets:
Tom always kept a bottle of Scotch and a stash of Dixie Cups in a lower desk drawer. Memorable was when Peter David (who was on-staff then as assistant to the Direct Market Vice President, legendary whip-cracker, the late Carol Kalish) sold his first book, Tom happily dug out his bottle and cups, poured for all three of us and we took a wee sip of congratulations. Apparently, Peter was not used to Scotch and his gulp resulted in him gasping for air and wobbling on his feet. [Peter took an actual gulp, emulating Tom—I knew to take a sip as liquor never passed my lips, but in the interests of bonhomie, I did it. The stuff tastes like lighter fluid smells.] But the Scotch bottle only came out on the rarest of occasions; Tom was genuinely glad for Peter (as was I! When the Marvel U crew was toiling on the first book, Carol was not crazy about the project; why, I could not say. But it was Peter who sent out advance Xerox copies of that first book to major distributors and vendors in order to launch it on its decades-long journey. Pete got in some trouble with Carol, which I could hear from my office located just around the corner from theirs… I made sure to thank Peter for his efforts—in private).
Tom has terrible taste in ties. The editorial gang, probably led by gag-master Gruenwald, bought him an electric tie selector that revolved a carefully selected pile of horrible and loud ties for Tom to choose from! It was mounted on the inside of his office door when Editor In Chief.
Tom was crazily enthusiastic for a series of paperbacks about an American super-spy working for an agency so secret the government didn’t know he or it existed. Remo Williams: The Destroyer. Yep, made into a passable movie starring Fred Ward and Joel Grey. Grey played Chiun, a master of impossible martial arts who reluctantly teaches Ward everything to make him a ninja-ish super secret agent. At some time after the movie came out, Marvel did an adaptation of it and several more books. The paperback book titles can tell you more than I can, here’s two: Chained Reaction, Misfortune Teller. That’s two out of over 100, spanning decades.
California 1984
Tom and I traveled to California in order to select still photos from a couple of movies Marvel was adapting (Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom and Buckaroo Banzai). On an off day, we went to Disneyland. We did a lot of rides but we both took Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride! Well, it was getting late in the day and there were no lines (this was 1984). On that very nice Travel & Entertainment-funded trip, we stayed in the Chateau Marmont, where I was indoctrinated in the wonders of room service and the continental breakfast! Later, I was indoctrinated into the wonders of filling out Travel and Entertainment forms!
Tom and I got to meet with the director of Buckaroo Banzai, W. D. Richter—who would go on to “script doctor” Big Trouble In Little China. We also got to meet the writer Earl Mac Rauch. (If you ever want to see as natural a two-way adaptation of a movie to book or vice versa, find the Buckaroo Banzai paperback book! Rauch wrote it. He did such a good job, it is hard to know which came first; it’s a ripping good read!)
Then, Tom and I got to see a rough cut of (proper title:) The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension and liked it immensely—for good reason has it become a cult classic. To tell the story backwards, Tom’s office was in charge of creating a Banzai comic book that was to be custom printed as a prop for the movie—months before we left for the Coast. We had seen some set stills in advance. Relative newcomer Mark “Vampirella” Texiera was the penciler/inker. In Cali, Tom and I spent a nice afternoon selecting more set stills for the adaptation of the movie we were going to make, also using Tex.
After that thrilling adventure, we moved on to Part 2 of our trip. For more fun than is humanly possible, Tom and I picked up Creator/Writer David Michelinie who was to adapt Indie II and we zipped off to Lucasfilm. I was all atwitter, but we were in the business end of Skywalker Ranch, a very plain 2-story brick building. The only way to tell we were anywhere near George Lucas in any way, was a spare statuette of Yoda on top of a long bank of filing cabinets and that almost every secretary’s desk had an autographed photo of some Star Wars or Raiders star on it!
The three of us met with the nice publicity lady and we went through hundreds of proof sheets of pictures in order to obtain reference images for the artist (who turned out to be nimble-fingered Butch Guice! Later in the process, Harrison looked at the finished pages and told us he didn’t like his face OR his hat just before we had to send the book to the printers! So Butch and I squatted over the coals together, near the end, to try to make Harrison Ford look more like Harrison Ford and fix his fedora! HATS!! AAaargghh).
Just in case anyone young is reading—cameras used to use strips of light-sensitive plastic called film. Black and white film was less expensive than color, but it was a negative version of what is considered a regular b&w print. The film was cut up into short strips and arranged on a piece of photographic paper, which would reverse the negative into a positive version of the image. Presto chango—those “negative” versions of the picture were made into little, but easily read, proof sheets. Yes, LucasFilm enlarged every frame we picked for us, into 8×10 prints
The California trip was a thoroughly planned working trip. We were scheduled to appear at several comic shops in LA—sorry I forget the name of this one. At that point, I didn’t have as much for people to sign as Tom did, so I took some pictures. Here a very professorial Tom is looking over art submissions brought in by hopefuls.
You might think that “Two Fisted” Tom DeFalco might be rough to deal with – and I’ve met that Tom. But when dealing with fans or even more generally meeting the public, Tom couldn’t be nicer. If you ever get to meet him as a fan at some event—you’ll see what I mean. Gentle and certainly kind to kids who have finally gotten to show their work to a professional. Perhaps they even recognize a little bit of the kid in Tom.
Not every comic shop was ready for us! This was a particularly handsome and well-appointed store in Cali, again I can’t recall the name (Golden Apple?). The gal next to Tom is Diana Schutz, a comic pro at the time who impressed Tom well enough to be tapped for the next Editorial Assistant position when one turned up.
Tom, David Michelinie and I took a very nice meal with West Coast super-stars Trina Robbins and Steve Lealoha plus family.
No Marvel trip to California is complete without a visit to The Great One –the late — Stan Lee. Here is his really nice Marvel Productions offices. Which burned to the ground very soon after we left. I think Tom smoked outside but can’t remember. The sharp-eyed among you may note that there is a bit of Spider-Man merchandising that came from the early days—a Spider-Man Ash Tray! So I use this as People’s Evidence #1 that Tom did not cause the fire… A further note is the large sculpture of Fran Lee’s head, who married Stan because of the similar word scan of her first name and his. The few times I met her, I was struck by her grace and beauty. The statue captured her well.
I believe Stan still had his Rolls Royce (license plate: SPIDERMAN) out in California. For just going to work, this VW (license plate: MRVLCMX) in LA traffic was fine.
Not-So Secret Wars!
The ins and outs of Secret Wars is a long, really long story, best told somewhere else. This is about Tom. Now the still-awake reader may recall that when I worked again for Tom I also worked for Jim Shooter and Bob Budiansky. So I am a poor chronicler of all that. Here are some gossipy highlights: Hasbro-Bradley, a gigunda toy company, needed a book written to go along with their Marvel action figures. Jim was the only guy who could manhandle the characters, the character’s regular writers, fandom’s slavering mad-dog response, etc. At Marvel every writer needed an editor. Technically, Tom worked for Jim, but we’re talking two of the biggest, most accomplished accomplished uber-pros in the biz. When Tom talks it’s hard to ignore him. Though it should be said, Jim has been ignoring Editors since he was 13.
So this sets up the best sort of shoulder-to-shoulder, let’s pull together comradery, right!? Well, mostly yeah… For the purposes of this narrative, picture, if you will, a dark and moonless night, 3:30AM, downtown Manhattan… two stumbling figures right out of Commedia dell’Arte are preparing to slap more sticks together and try to walk in straight lines… Tom and I, nerves stretched as tight as tightly-stretched rubber bands, walking from Marvel’s offices to a very nice hotel on Park Avenue (the name withheld to protect all of us). Jim in his capacity as Editor In Chief had decided that the first SW#12, all of it, was no good! Unprintable! (All these years later and I would give that much of my arm to see that original book!) And in his capacity as Editor In Chief, he assembled the Team To End All Teams at the nice Park Avenue Hotel’s Penthouse Suite!! To make a whole new and improved #12.
I think Tom and I had taken a break from the splendor of the Penthouse Suite to make Xerox copies. It was a wonderful throwback suite to another world, another time. It may have been sizeable but when you throw in 9-10 freelancers, Jim, Tom and myself… well, running off to “make Xeroxes” smelled, ah, sounded just right! Maybe; I seem to recall we had a “courier” ready to do stuff like that. We had Statman Stalwart, Robbie Carosella, standing by overnight (!) to make whatever production stats we needed. So, why Tom and I were drag-assing up that hill, I cannot recall. But whatever it was, it was important, very important.
Here are a few select images from that remarkable night.
I’m pretty sure, Jim had retired to his close-by, 32nd Street apartment, by day/night’s end. His work as writer and overseer of pencils was completed fairly early in the process so he could easily leave. A thoroughly finished book was ferried over to his office in-box by dawn. The rest of us scurried away like rats, giant rats being chased by giant cats… uh, sorry, flashback… Jack lived on 54th Street and Tom sought a shower and a brief nap there. I lived on 66th Street and thought to do the same.
We three reassembled at 9:30, back at the office, only to find that Jim had a few “little changes” for us to enact… Well, that was ‘it’ for Tom and strong words were hog-called within Jim’s office. Since Jim was smiling through this, it seems possible that his rare sense of humor was showing itself. Tom’s legs, usually tightly attached, could’ve been a little looser that morning. Suffice it to say, no further fixes were done.
Secret Wars Secrets
I mentioned Jim Shooter’s rare display of humor above—here is a more tangible offer of proof of that rare avis! This man does have his funny moments. As a gesture of “thanks” for all the yelling and screaming that took place during SW, the threats of dismissal, the “gestures” of legal action, food used as pointing devices, etc., Jim gave Tom “The Big Screw.”
To be thorough, I got a giant aspirin or a giant Oreo cookie “jar” filled with Oreos. I can’t recall which was for SW and which was for one of Jim’s Christmas presents. Both, sadly, were damaged beyond repair during moves from one eviction notice to another. But Tom’s is a much more long-lasting, standing tribute to many a hard-working day and night.
(For you woodworking enthusiasts out there, this specs out to 32-1.5 thread, 11”!)
Tom very nicely let me have The Big Screw for a very low price. For a small honorarium, I also got his autograph. This is one of my happiest lingering memories of that remarkable time.