Adopting the Hollywood Model for Comic Books, Producers and All
Hollywood has never been shy about poaching ideas from comic books, whether
it’s the “Adventures of Superman” television series that inspired a generation
of young cape-wearers in the mid-1950s or this month’s “Spider-Man 3,” which has
earned nearly $300 million at the box office in just three weeks.
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Paul Dini, a television writer pictured with his wife, Misty.
Mr. Dini is lead writer for DC’s new “Countdown.”
But now it is the comic-book industry that is grabbing ideas from movies and
television — in this case not necessarily stories or characters, but the way
Hollywood does its work.
¶In “Countdown,” a new weekly series from DC Comics that began this month,
Paul Dini, who worked on ABC’s “Lost,” is serving as head writer.
¶The new “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” series from Dark Horse is being promoted
as the never-produced Season 8 of the “Buffy” television show and is written by
Joss
Whedon, Buffy’s creator, who is credited as the comic’s “executive
producer.”
¶Marvel Entertainment is also adopting the “season” mentality — a fresh
number of issues and then a break — on high-profile series like “Ultimates” and
“Young Avengers.”
¶Platinum Comics has adapted television’s “show runner” concept, used to
describe the top writer-producer on a series, into a “comic runner” for their
Web-only titles.
“Countdown,” a sequel to the popular “52” series that will weave in nearly
all of DC’s superheroes, will require precise coordination so that neither the
monthly titles nor the weekly series make revelations out of step with the
other. It’s a tall order for DC, which has recently faced major delays in some
of its monthly titles, including “Batman” and “Wonder Woman.”
“A lot of the DC universe is synching up, month by month, to events within
the series,” said Dan DiDio, DC’s senior vice president and executive editor.
Some of the steps have been fairly radical — like skipping the conclusion of a
story until a later date to get the monthly deadline back on track.
“Countdown” involves a group of heroes who must prevent a great disaster that
will destroy the multiverse — a collection of Earths with divergent histories
and champions. Some of the characters at the heart of the series are Mary
Marvel, kid sister of Captain Marvel; Jimmy Olsen, Superman’s best pal; Jason
Todd, the formerly deceased second protégé of Batman; and two sometimes reformed
supervillains, the Trickster and the Pied Piper.
Mr. Dini is the man who has been tapped by DC to spearhead the effort. He is
a regular writer for “Detective Comics,” starring Batman, and on “Madame
Mirage,” a mini-series published by Top Cow, about a femme fatale who hunts
supervillains, that begins next month. The protagonist is based on Mr. Dini’s
wife, Misty, a magician and illusionist.
Mr. Dini was a writer and story editor on Season 1 of “Lost” and a consultant
on Season 2, and says that the same skills will come into play in the comics.
“As a story editor in television, whether it’s live action or animation, I’m
really the one responsible for the overall direction of the story,” Mr. Dini
said in a telephone interview. In “Countdown,” he said, “each week I go over the
beats of the upcoming issue with the editor and the writers.”
If new ideas arise, he amends the series’s outline before writing the script.
He then reviews the final script before it is sent to the artist. Once drawn and
given dialogue, it is reviewed yet again. “We have to make sure the tone is
right and that we’re keeping the ultimate vision of the story line,” he
said.
A moderately popular title might draw somewhere from 30,000 to 60,000 retail
orders per issue. A successful one, like “52,” draws more than 100,000 orders,
and DC has similarly high hopes for “Countdown.”
Already “Buffy” has proved a major success for Dark Horse. The first issue,
published in March, had to be reprinted to meet demand. All told, retailers
ordered nearly 110,000 copies.
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