Would be awesome to have some old film noir films that you love and base your work on discussed in this newsletter and maybe how you go about translating/adapting them into the brilliant comics that you make. Thanks for everything. You’re the best writer on the stands and a constant inspiration.
That's an awesome idea Travis, I too would like to read something like that. I been on a noir movie kick since listening to Tom on Word Ballon, and watching the classics. There some great stuff out there, would love a list though!
Daniel, Ed Brubaker would often include write-ups of films as the backmatter of individual issues of CRIMINAL, KILL OR BE KILLED, THE FADE-OUT and other series.
And if you (and others!) like noir, I recommend NOIR ALLEY, which airs on TCM at midnight on Saturday (er, guess that's really Sunday) with a re-rebroadcast at 10 a.m. Sunday. The host is Eddie Muller, and his intros and closing comments are terrific - witty, informative, well-researched. NOIR ALLEY is currently on hiatus because TCM is doing its "31 Days of Oscar" programming, but I'm hoping it will return in two weeks, on April 2.
I always feel that any dip into noir has to start with DOUBLE INDEMNITY, OUT OF THE PAST, and THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE. But you're right - there's a lot out there! And I'd love Tom's take on it.
Question: One of the things I enjoy when reading your work is your use of other literature like poems. I’m not as well read in classic literature as I’d like. Any recommendations on a list of must-reads? Shakespeare? Yeates?
Bonus question: did you always have a love for literature or did you discover at University or somewhere else along the way?
Hi Tom, thank you for your incredible hard work, the works it produced, and your overall enthusiasm for the medium. Your combined talents and effort have made my reading life fuller, and while not wanting to overdo my praise, I do hope you take some pause to remind yourself that you have actually successfully turned many of your dark and complex interactions working for/with “America” / Empire into rich, beautiful, and meaningful art. I can tell you have suffered for it at times, so just wanted to say, from my perspective, your transmutation of the dark of this world into light has been a success! You’ve successfully lived the meta purpose of super hero comics!
The thing I like about your work most is you pay equal attention to adhering to / challenging formalist comics, while also focusing on the emotional / narrative arcs. I think Kieran Gillen and Al Ewing are the two other writers best at striking that balance currently. Are there any writers from comics history who you feel are under appreciated for being able to pull double duty playing with the form / format of comics, while also being able to tell clear kick-ass superhero stories? Any creatives from film, tv, or literature you feel also succeed at that duel aim?
Thomas, I agree. The Vision is a character who should have a storied place in Marvel history, as the first major character who was not co-created by Stan Lee. Instead, he has been pulled apart (in more than one sense of the word) and kicked around. Only three writers, IMO, really understood what to do with the Vision: Roy Thomas, Steve Englehart, and Tom. (And Tom's work referenced both of those earlier writers in his story.
Roy Thomas wrote SO many Marvels from mid-1960s through the 1970s! DAREDEVIL, FANTASTIC FOUR, INHUMANS, X-MEN - he left his mark on all of them. He wrote THE AVENGERS from #35 through 104, a run that included the introduction of the Vision (#57 and #58), a couple of stellar time travel stories, and the epic Kree-Skrull War (#89 through #97).
In addition, Thomas was THE writer of CONAN through the 1970s, if you're into sword & sorcery.
Steve Englehart, in more than one sense of the word, saved my life with his writing. During Marvel's glory years of the early to mid 1970s Englehart (along with the late Steve Gerber and Don McGregor, as well as select works from Jim Starlin, Doug Moench and Marv Wolfman) brought a literacy and a cerebral quality that transcended the super-hero genre.
If you're talking AVENGERS, Englehart wrote from #105 through 151. In that time, he pitted the Avengers against the Defenders (which he was also writing at the time), fleshed out the Vision's origin and married him to Wanda (#129 through 135, plus GIANT-SIZE AVENGERS #2 through 4) and later did a really fun arc in which the Avengers met the Squadron Supreme (surrogates of the Justice League - wink wink). Issue #147 included the exchange that Tom King lifted for the title of his VISION #8 ("I, Too, Will Be Saved by Love").
In addition, Englehart distinguished himself with his runs on DR. STRANGE (MARVEL PREMIERE #10 through 15 and DR. STRANGE #1 through 18) and CAPTAIN AMERICA (#153 through #186), along with shorter tenures on HULK, AMAZING ADVENTURES (starring the Beast), and CAPTAIN MARVEL.
Oh, and Englehart co-created such obscure characters as Shang-Chi and Star-Lord, who were very different from their cinematic incarnations.
Yeah, I'm a fan - does it show? <g>
Englehart also wrote DETECTIVE COMICS and JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA for DC, and in the 1980s wrote WEST COAST AVENGERS and GREEN LANTERN, as well as a 12-issue VISION AND SCARLET WITCH limited series that took Vision and Wanda to suburban NJ and was a significant influence on the WANDAVISION series on Disney+.
Aren't you sorry you asked??? You can trace a line from Roy Thomas to Steve Englehart to John Ostrander (THE SPECTRE, SUICIDE SQUAD) to Tom King in terms of raising mainstream comics to another level.
But what do I know? I'm a 63-year-old f@rt who never lost his love of comics.
See what happens when you get me started??? Enjoy.
It feels a little weird singing the praises of other comic book writers on Tom's newsletter, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he shares some of my opinions and is cool with me plugging Roy's and Steve's work.
On one of your recent Word Balloon appearances, you mentioned you weren’t a particularly religious person. I found this to be interesting when one of the central themes in so many of your stories is faith. Be it theological, or the faith in oneself to do good, or be a better person.
I guess if I had a question, so much of your writing is about digging through a character’s baggage to get to their core. Do you ever find yourself walking away from certain projects questioning or relearning your own beliefs? The way you think or feel, or how you interact with others and the world around you?
Hey Tom, wanted to let you know that you signed most if not all the books I pushed your way at Wondercon 2019, before the pandemic, thanks, you're a class act and an even more welcoming guy. I remember handing you over Time Warp with your first short, and you were like, "Who is this guy?" and I said my name, "Remember it, because I'll be a writer too". I have graduated with an MFA since then, wrote an award winning short film, got some stuff published in indie mags, and now started my own Substack. I have heard yours and other writers "origin" stories on getting started. I think Substack is part of my "path" but I wanted to ask you as someone who actually hit the Con circuit pushing your first novel, and eventually meeting the great Karen Berger to get your first Big 2 gig.
My question is (sorry for the long winded intro) when did you feel like you "made" it? What was the instance that you got over the "hump", where you felt like a real writer? I tend to feel this imposter syndrome, even though I have written and published works (small things only few will read but hey it's something!). Was it when you won an Eisner or when websites were talking of your works? And what does it take to get to that place?
Your Letter Pages from The Vision was one of my favorite parts about that series, and I regret not writing in while it was ongoing. So, thank you for the chance to correct that!
First, I thought I’d offer up some letter page column name suggestions:
-Scenes Through Rain-Covered Windows (or Sights from Out Rain-Splattered Windows)
-Don’t Forget the Veggie Tray
-37 Ways to Say I Love You
-Everlasting Emails Explicated
As for questions, I watched Cash On Demand and Three Strangers recently to help me prepare for Killing Time. What movies do you suggest I watch to prepare for Danger Street? Also, do you ever miss being an Operations Officer these days? Any parts of the life in particular?
Hi Tom, hope you're well. With the novel-writing approach to comics, do you have a structure in place before you start? i.e. separating it into acts, or halves like Human Target, or do you prefer to write them purely episodically?
Hey Tom, you are truly an inspiration for me in terms of storytelling, I am still in awee when I remember what you made in The Omega Man miniseries. But, before you were THE Tom King, how did you break into comics? How did you convinced others to drawn what you had in your mind? Do you think is possible to convince a relevant/established artist when you are an unpublished wannabe author? Or is it easier to scan for an unpublished artist you see potential in? Thank you, keep up the great work here with Elsa! :D
Not the kind of question I'd ordinarily ask, but ...
Your Supergirl series was the first comic I'd felt excited by in a long time, and I savored it. It was beautifully written and rang true emotionally, and the True Grit style really worked. Bilquist Evely leaves one feeling that nobody else would have gotten it right. It's a true collaboration, as with Elsa.
I was very eager to see how you'd end the series. Part of it was involvement with the story, but part of It was also the kind of suspense you feel sometimes reading Elmore Leonard, for example -- how is he going to write his way out of this? And the thing is, I don't know what the answer was.
When Ruthye hits Krem, the first panel makes it look like a fatal blow, and in fact in the last panel he could be dead. That's consistent with what we see otherwise. Kara and Krypto look at her in what seems like reproval and walk away without helping Krem, which you'd expect Kara to do if he were alive, and Ruthye's narrative, shown during the scene, does describe the motivation for the killing.
It's harder to read the other way. Krem's arm does come up in the second two panels, and in the third it looks as if he's nursing an aching head, or despairing because Ruthye rejected him when he asked to be forgiven. In the last panel he might possibly be just lying there depressed.
But the first interpretation seems too nihilistic for where the story had been going, and the second, while still dark, seems to fit. Ruthye couldn't kill him before, after all, but it isn't implied she'd ever forgive him. It could be a darkly humorous let's-get-real moment.
I wouldn't guess this was meant to be ambiguous, since it's not clear what would be gained by it. Anyway, putting aside all that lifted pinky intentional fallacy stuff, where does this all come out?
Hello, Tom. For a first newsletter, you did very well! (HAH!)
Thank you for sharing the idea that you are now taking a "novelistic" approach to your miniseries. Though I have to wonder how you decide on which beats to hit when. To use HUMAN TARGET as the obvious example, I'm sure you knew from the start how it's going to end. But what about deciding the order in which Christopher would meet the various JLIers, and parcelling out the information. Obviously, Ice had to be issue #2, but then deciding to go to Booster, then Beetle, then J'Onn.
I'm sorry if this isn't stuff you want to discuss, but as someone who once fancied his hand at writing, I'm really curious about the details of the process.
One more thing: Do you "hear" your characters' voices in your head when you write? Do you model their voices after people you know, celebrities, etc.? (I'm trying to avoid the obvious "Who would you cast in the movie version?" question, though I guess that's what I'm doing here. Again, apologies!
Tom - Huge fan ever since your Vision series. I grew up primarily on Marvel comics and, as such, don't know nearly as much about DC Comics backstory and history. I've bought several of your DC series and will continue to do so (love all of them, by the way). Just curious if you're a DC exclusive right now and/or if you think you'll ever write anything Marvel again. Your Vision series is one of the absolute all time greatest things I've ever read. I was a huge West Coast Avengers fan when I was a little kid, so having that history added layers of understanding and context to your Avengers run and reading your DC material, I've been really eager for you to write more Marvel material because I know there are layers to the DC characters and stories that I'd appreciate even more if I had that history to my comics knowledge. Thanks so much for everything you've written so far!
Would be awesome to have some old film noir films that you love and base your work on discussed in this newsletter and maybe how you go about translating/adapting them into the brilliant comics that you make. Thanks for everything. You’re the best writer on the stands and a constant inspiration.
That's an awesome idea Travis, I too would like to read something like that. I been on a noir movie kick since listening to Tom on Word Ballon, and watching the classics. There some great stuff out there, would love a list though!
Daniel, Ed Brubaker would often include write-ups of films as the backmatter of individual issues of CRIMINAL, KILL OR BE KILLED, THE FADE-OUT and other series.
And if you (and others!) like noir, I recommend NOIR ALLEY, which airs on TCM at midnight on Saturday (er, guess that's really Sunday) with a re-rebroadcast at 10 a.m. Sunday. The host is Eddie Muller, and his intros and closing comments are terrific - witty, informative, well-researched. NOIR ALLEY is currently on hiatus because TCM is doing its "31 Days of Oscar" programming, but I'm hoping it will return in two weeks, on April 2.
I always feel that any dip into noir has to start with DOUBLE INDEMNITY, OUT OF THE PAST, and THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE. But you're right - there's a lot out there! And I'd love Tom's take on it.
Question: One of the things I enjoy when reading your work is your use of other literature like poems. I’m not as well read in classic literature as I’d like. Any recommendations on a list of must-reads? Shakespeare? Yeates?
Bonus question: did you always have a love for literature or did you discover at University or somewhere else along the way?
I'm also interested in his answer for this
Hi Tom, thank you for your incredible hard work, the works it produced, and your overall enthusiasm for the medium. Your combined talents and effort have made my reading life fuller, and while not wanting to overdo my praise, I do hope you take some pause to remind yourself that you have actually successfully turned many of your dark and complex interactions working for/with “America” / Empire into rich, beautiful, and meaningful art. I can tell you have suffered for it at times, so just wanted to say, from my perspective, your transmutation of the dark of this world into light has been a success! You’ve successfully lived the meta purpose of super hero comics!
The thing I like about your work most is you pay equal attention to adhering to / challenging formalist comics, while also focusing on the emotional / narrative arcs. I think Kieran Gillen and Al Ewing are the two other writers best at striking that balance currently. Are there any writers from comics history who you feel are under appreciated for being able to pull double duty playing with the form / format of comics, while also being able to tell clear kick-ass superhero stories? Any creatives from film, tv, or literature you feel also succeed at that duel aim?
Thanks!
If you were ever to write for Marvel again what characters would you be interested in writing ?
I'm just here to say that I re-read Vision for the third time recently and it still brought me to tears. Now that's art.
Thomas, I agree. The Vision is a character who should have a storied place in Marvel history, as the first major character who was not co-created by Stan Lee. Instead, he has been pulled apart (in more than one sense of the word) and kicked around. Only three writers, IMO, really understood what to do with the Vision: Roy Thomas, Steve Englehart, and Tom. (And Tom's work referenced both of those earlier writers in his story.
Do you have any recommended issues / arcs from those two writers?
Oh, man...
Roy Thomas wrote SO many Marvels from mid-1960s through the 1970s! DAREDEVIL, FANTASTIC FOUR, INHUMANS, X-MEN - he left his mark on all of them. He wrote THE AVENGERS from #35 through 104, a run that included the introduction of the Vision (#57 and #58), a couple of stellar time travel stories, and the epic Kree-Skrull War (#89 through #97).
In addition, Thomas was THE writer of CONAN through the 1970s, if you're into sword & sorcery.
Steve Englehart, in more than one sense of the word, saved my life with his writing. During Marvel's glory years of the early to mid 1970s Englehart (along with the late Steve Gerber and Don McGregor, as well as select works from Jim Starlin, Doug Moench and Marv Wolfman) brought a literacy and a cerebral quality that transcended the super-hero genre.
If you're talking AVENGERS, Englehart wrote from #105 through 151. In that time, he pitted the Avengers against the Defenders (which he was also writing at the time), fleshed out the Vision's origin and married him to Wanda (#129 through 135, plus GIANT-SIZE AVENGERS #2 through 4) and later did a really fun arc in which the Avengers met the Squadron Supreme (surrogates of the Justice League - wink wink). Issue #147 included the exchange that Tom King lifted for the title of his VISION #8 ("I, Too, Will Be Saved by Love").
In addition, Englehart distinguished himself with his runs on DR. STRANGE (MARVEL PREMIERE #10 through 15 and DR. STRANGE #1 through 18) and CAPTAIN AMERICA (#153 through #186), along with shorter tenures on HULK, AMAZING ADVENTURES (starring the Beast), and CAPTAIN MARVEL.
Oh, and Englehart co-created such obscure characters as Shang-Chi and Star-Lord, who were very different from their cinematic incarnations.
Yeah, I'm a fan - does it show? <g>
Englehart also wrote DETECTIVE COMICS and JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA for DC, and in the 1980s wrote WEST COAST AVENGERS and GREEN LANTERN, as well as a 12-issue VISION AND SCARLET WITCH limited series that took Vision and Wanda to suburban NJ and was a significant influence on the WANDAVISION series on Disney+.
Aren't you sorry you asked??? You can trace a line from Roy Thomas to Steve Englehart to John Ostrander (THE SPECTRE, SUICIDE SQUAD) to Tom King in terms of raising mainstream comics to another level.
But what do I know? I'm a 63-year-old f@rt who never lost his love of comics.
Haha wow what a response 😅 got my work cut out there! Appreciate your time.
See what happens when you get me started??? Enjoy.
It feels a little weird singing the praises of other comic book writers on Tom's newsletter, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he shares some of my opinions and is cool with me plugging Roy's and Steve's work.
It’s been about a decade since it came out, so looking back, how do you feel about A Once Crowded Sky?
On one of your recent Word Balloon appearances, you mentioned you weren’t a particularly religious person. I found this to be interesting when one of the central themes in so many of your stories is faith. Be it theological, or the faith in oneself to do good, or be a better person.
I guess if I had a question, so much of your writing is about digging through a character’s baggage to get to their core. Do you ever find yourself walking away from certain projects questioning or relearning your own beliefs? The way you think or feel, or how you interact with others and the world around you?
Hey Tom, wanted to let you know that you signed most if not all the books I pushed your way at Wondercon 2019, before the pandemic, thanks, you're a class act and an even more welcoming guy. I remember handing you over Time Warp with your first short, and you were like, "Who is this guy?" and I said my name, "Remember it, because I'll be a writer too". I have graduated with an MFA since then, wrote an award winning short film, got some stuff published in indie mags, and now started my own Substack. I have heard yours and other writers "origin" stories on getting started. I think Substack is part of my "path" but I wanted to ask you as someone who actually hit the Con circuit pushing your first novel, and eventually meeting the great Karen Berger to get your first Big 2 gig.
My question is (sorry for the long winded intro) when did you feel like you "made" it? What was the instance that you got over the "hump", where you felt like a real writer? I tend to feel this imposter syndrome, even though I have written and published works (small things only few will read but hey it's something!). Was it when you won an Eisner or when websites were talking of your works? And what does it take to get to that place?
Hey Tom,
Your Letter Pages from The Vision was one of my favorite parts about that series, and I regret not writing in while it was ongoing. So, thank you for the chance to correct that!
First, I thought I’d offer up some letter page column name suggestions:
-Scenes Through Rain-Covered Windows (or Sights from Out Rain-Splattered Windows)
-Don’t Forget the Veggie Tray
-37 Ways to Say I Love You
-Everlasting Emails Explicated
As for questions, I watched Cash On Demand and Three Strangers recently to help me prepare for Killing Time. What movies do you suggest I watch to prepare for Danger Street? Also, do you ever miss being an Operations Officer these days? Any parts of the life in particular?
I loved the superman and supergirl stuff you did, hoping you get to do more stuff with them.
Hi Tom, hope you're well. With the novel-writing approach to comics, do you have a structure in place before you start? i.e. separating it into acts, or halves like Human Target, or do you prefer to write them purely episodically?
Hey Tom, you are truly an inspiration for me in terms of storytelling, I am still in awee when I remember what you made in The Omega Man miniseries. But, before you were THE Tom King, how did you break into comics? How did you convinced others to drawn what you had in your mind? Do you think is possible to convince a relevant/established artist when you are an unpublished wannabe author? Or is it easier to scan for an unpublished artist you see potential in? Thank you, keep up the great work here with Elsa! :D
Question(s): What are your favorite mangas? Do you like architecture? Any favorite architect?
Ciao! :)
Hi Tom,
Not the kind of question I'd ordinarily ask, but ...
Your Supergirl series was the first comic I'd felt excited by in a long time, and I savored it. It was beautifully written and rang true emotionally, and the True Grit style really worked. Bilquist Evely leaves one feeling that nobody else would have gotten it right. It's a true collaboration, as with Elsa.
I was very eager to see how you'd end the series. Part of it was involvement with the story, but part of It was also the kind of suspense you feel sometimes reading Elmore Leonard, for example -- how is he going to write his way out of this? And the thing is, I don't know what the answer was.
When Ruthye hits Krem, the first panel makes it look like a fatal blow, and in fact in the last panel he could be dead. That's consistent with what we see otherwise. Kara and Krypto look at her in what seems like reproval and walk away without helping Krem, which you'd expect Kara to do if he were alive, and Ruthye's narrative, shown during the scene, does describe the motivation for the killing.
It's harder to read the other way. Krem's arm does come up in the second two panels, and in the third it looks as if he's nursing an aching head, or despairing because Ruthye rejected him when he asked to be forgiven. In the last panel he might possibly be just lying there depressed.
But the first interpretation seems too nihilistic for where the story had been going, and the second, while still dark, seems to fit. Ruthye couldn't kill him before, after all, but it isn't implied she'd ever forgive him. It could be a darkly humorous let's-get-real moment.
I wouldn't guess this was meant to be ambiguous, since it's not clear what would be gained by it. Anyway, putting aside all that lifted pinky intentional fallacy stuff, where does this all come out?
Hello, Tom. For a first newsletter, you did very well! (HAH!)
Thank you for sharing the idea that you are now taking a "novelistic" approach to your miniseries. Though I have to wonder how you decide on which beats to hit when. To use HUMAN TARGET as the obvious example, I'm sure you knew from the start how it's going to end. But what about deciding the order in which Christopher would meet the various JLIers, and parcelling out the information. Obviously, Ice had to be issue #2, but then deciding to go to Booster, then Beetle, then J'Onn.
I'm sorry if this isn't stuff you want to discuss, but as someone who once fancied his hand at writing, I'm really curious about the details of the process.
One more thing: Do you "hear" your characters' voices in your head when you write? Do you model their voices after people you know, celebrities, etc.? (I'm trying to avoid the obvious "Who would you cast in the movie version?" question, though I guess that's what I'm doing here. Again, apologies!
Tom - Huge fan ever since your Vision series. I grew up primarily on Marvel comics and, as such, don't know nearly as much about DC Comics backstory and history. I've bought several of your DC series and will continue to do so (love all of them, by the way). Just curious if you're a DC exclusive right now and/or if you think you'll ever write anything Marvel again. Your Vision series is one of the absolute all time greatest things I've ever read. I was a huge West Coast Avengers fan when I was a little kid, so having that history added layers of understanding and context to your Avengers run and reading your DC material, I've been really eager for you to write more Marvel material because I know there are layers to the DC characters and stories that I'd appreciate even more if I had that history to my comics knowledge. Thanks so much for everything you've written so far!