A post from my Marvel blog of a decade ago clarifying the purpose behind the series on Bad Comics I Had a Hand In,
April 28, 2007 | 1:00 AM | By Tom_Brevoort | In General
I think some of you are maybe taking the wrong message from my series of entries on Bad Comics I Had a Hand In. I’ve seen it stated around the net in various places that these columns are either a set of excuses (“and now, I’ll never make a bad comic again!”) or a condemnation of some of the people who worked on those books. But neither is quite accurate.
First off, if I’m listed as the editor of any given issue, then I take responsibility for its contents, whatever they may be. Editors get the Blame. While these pieces are intended to give people a feel for the sort of thing that goes on when a comic book is being put together, it’s not meant as some kind of attempt to deny culpability.
Secondly, most of the other folks involved in these tales had long and varied careers within the comics industry. Their legacy cannot be summed up by a single anecdote, or even a single individual issue. In specific, Bob Budiansky was the guy who first hired me at Marvel, and the person I worked under for my first four years or so on the job. So it’s only natural that most of the amusing or insightful anecdotes I have to tell you from that period in some way revolve around him. Similarly, Danny Fingeroth shepherded the Spider-Man titles through some difficult times. Danny’s never been anything but friendly and helpful to me over the years. And so forth and so on–insert whichever name I mentioned that you want to here.
Finally, tales such as the ones I’ve told are fairly common. It’s not unreasonable to assume that, at some point, Andy Schmidt or Aubrey Sitterson might write a column about how I screwed up some project they were working on. It’s the nature of the beast. The editor’s job is to make decisions to the best of his or her ability. Not all of those decisions are always going to be correct, or going to be the best. But no one decision should be made to sum up a person’s entire career history. People are far more complex than that.
More later.
Tom B
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