You guys all know about the whacky, wonderful Assistant Editor’s Month! Remember how those trusting Editors decided to go off on a vacation together and left their Assistants in charge? Remember how goofy and doofy those darn Assistants were!!??
Some of you readers out there may have remembered all the hilarity and goings on. Did any one of you-all out there think that for one second, that Marvel Comics, subsidiary of Cadence Industries, would allow under-paid ding-bats to tromp through all the titles! Now really!
Let me cyber-psychically take your hands my lambs, and take you back to January, 1984. No, remember there’s a three month lag between getting the book done and seeing it in print. So you need another month for scheduling all the delays and freelancer whinings and lies—now we’re back in August, 1983—but no! One more step…
High-as-an-elephant’s-eye Editor In Chief, James Shooter, somehow gathered us dapple-cheeked and tow-headed Assistants at the edge of the Bullpen. He has some news that will affect us. He had a crack-pot scheme that would have ALL the Editors travel to the San Diego Comic Convention at the same time. Right, crazy? And the Assistants would now have to do all the work.
With a mad glint in my eye and a sarcastic tone (that often caused Editor Denny O’Neil to turn bright red, clutch at imaginary digitalis pills) I said, “Well, when the cat’s away the mice will play.”
That’s when it happened. Jim twitched and rotated his head to peer at me. I put on a brave face and only started to hum a spiritual at this direct attention. Without another word, he then stood up, swiveled and walked swiftly away, glancing back at me.
And that is how Assistant Editor’s Month was born.
©Disney/Marvel
Yep, because I can’t keep my big mouth shut (you are right, Denny, as in many other things). The next time he brought AEM up again, it was with all the fun and folderol you have been exposed to via those issues and over all these years.
But this little confab still took place earlier. Jim had done all manner of relatively extravagant things for the trip to SDCC. My fave was renting identical classic cars for all the Editors to drive around in. But all that had to be done the month before the Con, held in July. Now we can nail down the above conversation to about May/June, 1983.
Plenty of time for mischief!
Except for me. Let me explain. The concept was that somehow, us Assistants would insert ourselves into the comics and oh, I dunno, trip some of the characters at a hilariously timed moment. But I couldn’t do that!
At that exact moment, I had been frog-marched down the hall from the quiet cloister of Editor Tom DeFalco to the battle bridge of Editrix Deluxe Louise (“Call me “Weezie” — it doesn’t induce tremors in freelancers as badly!”) Jones. Seconds before the hook got me, I managed to wave bye-bye to the short story that took place in Amazing Spider-Man #248. [Faithful indulgers of these blogs might care to refresh their memories of the fuller version of this story tucked inside my memoire of Tom DeFalco—search for “The Thing Of It Is— Tom DeFalco.”] That was my AEM contribution to the Spider Office. Stalwart and Much In Need Of A Sandwich, Assistant Editor Bob Denatale swooped in to the vacuum my departure had created.
The Weezie Office held several of the biggest, most important comics and licensed comics in history (I know, I love all my children equally too, but some of them actually make money). X-Men, Star Wars, The Further Adventures Of Indiana Jones. I couldn’t just fit myself into any of these storylines—somebody was dying in X-Men (or brought back to life again, hard to remember)! The idea of sending anything that held my brutish intrusion into a storyline to the Merchandising Corporation of America has me laughing to this day. I also happened along in time to get acquainted with Magick. But, late to the party as usual, I was just able to glance at many of the completed pages as they whizzed under my nose. No way could I interrupt Chris Claremont’s tight-as-a-Gordian-Knot plot with silliness!
©Disney/Marvel
So… what to do? When given lemons, make peanut butter—right!?
Whatever it was, we needed it pronto hasto, faster pussycat—NOW! So, tasked with putting together some kind of House Ad, I scooped up everything on my desk—including my phone and pencil/pen organizer – and ran into the copy room. Probably Weezie breezily (amusing, no?) tossed over her shoulder the above (legit) memo from Jim. But I also had those JR Jr sketches on my desk too. [That’ll give you an idea of how long ago this was in “Comic Time” – before John Jr did a lot of inking.]
I threw this one together myself, even doing the stat of the memo. This was then tossed into the gaping maw of the direct pipeline to the printers and voila! We had bought some time.
I really wasn’t able to pay attention to all the other guys who got to play in their books. They could play and horse around, have their little fun at the expense of comic characters… I did appear in the X-Men Annual thanks to the book being super late! [So late, lucky Weezie got to throw pages at con attendees to complete—Weez really did get a lot done with a mere smile — more on that… ]
As much as I’d prefer tagging Weezie with the idea of doing a “gag” page with me doing doofy stuff that was not related to the book at all– instead of a letters column page, I think it was me. Just not sure. At any rate—I got out a sharp #2 pencil and got to work. I delightedly handed out my horror-show pencils to my pals, Mike and Mark to ink. Now my measuring the X-Jet page was inked by Legendary Ink Stylist Steve Leialoha—so nice that Weezie could strong-arm him into saying yes. For no possible reason, I saved the pencils!
It’s just possible that this was a “Weezie Con Special” done over at the con. I am anxious to blame any of this on her. Regardless of who did the inks—my bestest Bullpen buddy in the world, Rick Parker, did the lettering! Of mild personal note: I was literally right in the middle of penciling the X-Men Blackbird Jet tech page of the Marvel Universe. So this is a snap-shot of the time-line I was on.
Star Wars #79 ©Disney/Marvel
Nothing makes me laugh like myself. This still gets me. It’s so stupid—as cartoony as I could make it (if only to avoid George Lucas getting mad at me). I was perfectly delighted with Editor Mark Gruenwald’s inks. I watched him ink it, as he did it in the office and he was giggling at various parts which warms me all these years later.
The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones #13 ©Disney/Marvel
I was also happy to get Assistant Editor (to Mark, so he was easy to find) Mike Carlin to do inks on this travesty of marketing injustice. Mike may have done a lot of executive time in the world of comics, but I also know him as a very talented artist and caricaturist. So getting him to ink over my pencils is still a treat (that I have proudly displayed on my living room wall)! Personal note: the top panel reflects the view from the Louise Office at the end of the hall. Indeed, Virginia Romita Traffic Director, AKA: Hit Mom (I’ll let you unravel that one) sat wa-a-ay down at the other end of that hall. That way it was much harder for Editors or Assistants to sneak out when necessary.
Again, lettering done by Rick Parker—a letterer who is thrilled by the challenge of recreating a movie logo before lunchtime and for a regular page rate! That’s a pal! He did give me guff about the “–Hiddem widda pie!” bit of transliteration. But after a couple of hours of listening to Virginia give you grief about all the screw-ups and mistakes you made this time, but aren’t going to make next time… blah, etc. well, you focus on her Queens accent.
Last but not least—Weezie on the West Coast, basking in solar radiation and fan adulation, with the room service conga line outside her door—sent me the last pages of the X-Annual #7. Pages came crawling in from the con-going freelancers who managed to shrug off hang-overs and fans, finish inking the damn pages and get them to her… Finally! The last page was in.
In my best snap-to attention to duty, I proofed, corrected via the battle weary Bullpen, proofed again, corrected again… Gather up the coloring, the corrected coloring and made sure all the pages were in order, piled up the art with coloring, whacked a rubber band around it… and stopped.
Something was missing. Something… important (say it like Shatner). Nah, c’mon, war nerves is all. A copy of the book was shot off to Weezie. Then I get a call from Weezie still at the Con, the tinkle of champagne glasses in the background. “Where’s the title and credits for this issue, Eliot?”
I quickly grabbed up some newspapers from the garbage can, began rustling them, my sweat pumps switched to “104%” and said, “Credits… why they’re right here!” That’s about when you take a nickel and rub it on the phone mouthpiece claiming there’s a bad connection.
Whatever the timeline of this latest demonstration of Louise “Weezie” Jones having reached Sainthood was, I got that page done. Again, Steve Leialoha rose to the tough job of making me look good. As Weezie and I bi-coastally conferred, figuring out who did what darn page, no matter how many times I brought this back to Rick Parker with fresh names and page annotations, Rick merely dipped his pen in his ink and stabbed the back of my hand. Which was not bad, because as we all know, blood is a perfectly good ink.
X-Men Annual #7 1983 ©Disney/Marvel