GEEKING

Last week I appeared on the Geek To Me radio show, talking about the Usual Suspects (y'know, Spider-Man, Justice League, the Grateful Dead) and you can listen to the entire conversation below.  Enjoy!

AND STILL MORE CONSTANTINE

Came across another round of Constantine: City of Demons interviews from WonderCon—featuring me, Matt Ryan and the CW Seed's Peter Girardi.  Enjoy!  And remember:  There are seven more episodes (and a full-length DVD/Blu-ray with twenty extra minutes of story) still to come.

If you haven't seen the first five yet, you can view them right here.

THE ARRIVAL OF THE IMPOSSIBLE

If you've followed this blog for any length of time, you've probably come across references to a developing project of mine called Impossible Incorporated.  My co-creator, the brilliant Mike Cavallaro, and I have been toying with this idea for years now and it's finally reached full manifestation with a five issue mini-series, coming in September from those fine folks at IDW.

Here's a wonderful teaser image that Mike put together to whet your appetite. Enjoy!  

©copyright 2018 J.M. DeMatteis & Mike Cavallaro

MORE CONSTANTINE

Just received a few more photos from our Constantine: City of Demons events at WonderCon.

And just found out that the first episode is available on YouTube.  I'm embedding it below.  (You can watch the rest by jumping over to the CW Seed website.)  Enjoy!

WONDERCONSTANTINE

Back from a short, exhausting—and very gratifying—two days at WonderCon, where we premiered the first five episodes of Constantine: City of Demons. Thanks to Team Constantine, and all the fans, for a memorable experience.

You can watch the first five episodes on CW Seed right here. But this is just the beginning: There are seven more episodes to come (and a DVD release with twenty more minutes of story).

Below are some photos of the panel I did with Matt Ryan and the CW Seed's Peter Girardi (I should have more later in the week) and the first of several video interviews.  Enjoy!

HERE'S JOHNNY!

The Constantine animated series—Constantine: City of Demons—is coming soon: March 24th on CW Seed! I'll be at WonderCon next weekend for the Constantine panel along with Warner Brothers Animation's Peter Girardi and Constantine himself, Matt Ryan, to debut the first few episodes. If you're at the convention, come to the panel (Saturday morning at 10 in Room 200A) and join us as we discuss All Things Constantine.  If not, I hope you check us out on CW Seed.

Update:  There will also be a Constantine signing at the DC Booth from 12:45 till 1:30.  (But I'm happy to sign any of my books while I'm there!)  

.  

HARRY AND SAL

Spectacular Spider-Man #200—my favorite single issue out of all the Spider-Man stories I've written—was released twenty-five years ago this month.  The great Sal Buscema turned in a brilliant job on this story, which capped almost two years of work developing the Harry Osborn/Green Goblin storyline.

My plots were usually very tight—page by page, panel by panel, crammed with camera angles, psychological shading and rough-draft dialogue—but whatever was on the page, Sal was always able to take it to another level and do things that many other artists couldn’t. 

There was a sequence at the end of that story where Harry, realizing that he loved Peter Parker too much to let him die, saves a drugged, weak Spidey from a death-trap. Peter, his wife Mary Jane and Harry’s son, Norman, all stand by, shocked and heartbroken, as Harry then collapses, overcome by the toxic Goblin formula. 

On the final two pages, Spidey accompanies Harry into an ambulance, they drive off and Harry passes away, leaving Peter Parker to his grief and memories. When the ambulance arrives at the hospital, it falls to Spider-Man to tell Mary Jane and Norman that Harry’s gone. They react, we cut to a photo of Peter and Harry in happier days...and the story ends. The sequence was small, quiet, but, on an emotional level, it was massive. 

I did everything I could to communicate the power of those last pages to Sal in the plot—along with my thoughts on how the sequence would be handled in the final script. My intention was to verbally milk the pages for all they were worth, wringing out every last drop of emotion; going big and melodramatic via captions, inner monologues from Peter or dialogue between the characters. (Another benefit of "Marvel style": I didn't have to decide then, I could make up my mind when the art was done.)

Then Sal’s pages came in: It was one of his finest hours. The panel to panel flow was cinematic and crystal clear, the characters dramatic and achingly human. And those final two pages? Perfection! At first—locked into my original vision—I began writing captions and dialogue for the end-sequence, but it quickly became clear that everything I wanted to say had already been said, and better, by Sal. It was all there in the pictures. He had translated my plot so expertly that words would have capsized the sequence and destroyed the emotional power of the moment. So I shut my big mouth and let Harry Osborn die in silence, with his best friend by his side.

That, too, is part of a writer’s work—especially in comics: deciding when to speak and when to shut up. Deciding whether to go for a barrage of machine-gun dialogue, a series of powerful captions or to surrender to equally-powerful silence. Whether we’re working full-script of plot-first, we make those decisions on every panel of every page. 

And it certainly helps the process when you’ve got an artist like Sal Buscema bringing your story to life.

©copyright 2018 J.M. DeMatteis