Galactus!

One of the really cool/uncool things about working at Marvel over the summer was that I was privy to a lot of information that I was not allowed to share with the public. For example, I had to make sure people knew Phil Jimenez was working for Marvel before I wrote that post about him. If it hadn't been public knowledge someone might have noticed and drawn conclusions, which would have been bad news for me.

Another example was one of the funniest things I witnessed during the summer, which was my editor Tom Brevoort dressed up as Galactus for an extra on the Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer DVD. I desperately wanted to post a picture but decided it was not a good idea. Anyway, Tom has now posted about it over on his blog, which means I can write about it. Of course, that mostly just entails me telling you to follow that link because the pictures are priceless and his summary of his time as one of the most powerful entities in the universe is equally hilarious.

Yeah, I'm done.

Spider-man Shake Shack: The Reckoning

So I know it's been over a week since my last post, and specifically over a week since I said that I'd post a picture of Spider-man at the Shake Shack, but never let it be said that I do not deliver when I make a promise.
(Click the image for full-size)


EDIT: Here's a picture of the real thing for comparison purposes. (The cup is also dead-on identical, but I couldn't find a good picture of that.)


I heard they bought several issues over at the Shack after I told them about it. And by I heard I really mean that my manager friends over there told me.

Another interesting thing is that the shack says "Master Shack" on it, which I can only assume is a reference to Master Shake from Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

(As a semi-related note, astute readers may notice I did not use the summer tag on this post. That's because I'm now back at school, which is why my scanner is set up, which is how I'm able to bring you this image. Word.)

Things you discover in random conversations at Marvel Comics

Ever notice that Star Wars has basically no female characters? I'm talking NONE. Not only is there only one female protagonist in the entire original trilogy, but there aren't even very many secondary characters.

Here's my list:
Leia
Mon Mothma
Oola the slave girl
Aunt Beru

Am I missing any?

You know what's worse, though? The new trilogy really doesn't rectify anything. It's still Amidala, Anakin's mother, Aunt Beru (again), and some random unnamed jedi. You'd think Lucas would get with the times.

(As an aside, there is a whole website devoted to proving me wrong, but they draw from the books and are generally too obscure for me to count. If I don't know the character's name, she's probably not relevant enough.)

Spider-Sam

I KNEW there was something more important that I wanted to blog about tonight and I finally remembered what it was.

I am officially a published comic book writer. Okay, so it's only the letters page for Friendly Neighborhood Spider-man... but that's still more than you have on your resume, generic person who isn't as cool as me! So there!

(PS go to your local comic book store and look for Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #22 if you want to see it.)

culturebloggin'

We interrupt this Bonnaroo stuf to write down the cultural stuff I can recall:

COMICS:

-Secret War - Not my favorite Marvel book, but it was painted rather than drawn and thus is very beautiful. Also, it's sort of important for those who want to understand what's going on in the Marvel Universe right now.
-Young Avengers - Another one of those "so much better than you'd think" books. The characters are really well done and feel like real teenagers. It deals with things like race and sexuality while still having kickass fight scenes with Kang the Conqueror. What more could you want?
-Marvel Zombies - Hilarious. It's worth it simply because The Hulk eats a bunch of flesh and then turns back into Bruce Banner only to have his stomach rip open because he ate too much food.
-Planet Hulk - So maybe the story of Hulk being imprisoned on a foreign planet, then becoming a gladiator, then rebelling and becoming the emperor isn't the most original thing ever written, but it's told well enough that you won't notice. It's the Hulk story that actually gives the Hulk something worthwhile to do. It's kinda sweet. (That's an understatement.)

MOVIES:

-Transformers - I saw it at 10:30 AM this morning. It was both the dumbest movie ever made and the coolest thing I've ever seen.

In which Sam decides to actually post ABOUT work

I've found that one of the really cool parts about working at Marvel, besides reading lots of free comics, is one that I didn't really expect, namely photocopying.

I guess I should clarify. I'm not talking about photocopying some random skrull-related issues of X-men to send to Brian Michael Bendis. What I enjoy is photocopying hand-drawn inked artwork. There's something magical about taking an 11" x 17" inked page and shrinking it down to 8.5 x 11. All of a sudden the clean lines become even crisper, the large black regions, loosely colored with a big marker, become pure black. In short, the already-beautiful artwork becomes, well, this:


(Well, not technically this, because this is a DC page, but it's by Phil Jimenez and I've been scanning his work lately. Also, talking to him about The Bionic Woman. Nice guy. Anyways...)

It's a moment where you can really see the process happening, and I find it very cool to be part of, even though when you actually think about it, it's just photocopying. I guess intern work is what you make of it?