Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Married . . . With Comics @ Comic Book Festival


The Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival is part of the annual Vegas Valley Book Festival, which runs the first week of November in various locations across Las Vegas. This year’s event was the biggest (and longest!), special guests, more panels, free films, a bevy of the city’s most popular food trucks, tons of great merchandise from local comic shops, and all sorts of other geek-tastic awesomeness!

I went on Saturday afternoon and attended the presentation, "Married with Comics." Paul Tobin writes extensively for Marvel Comics (Spider-Girl, Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man, Spider-Man & the Secret Wars, Black Widow & the Marvel Girls, Super Heroes, Models Inc., and many more) and has worked for DC Comics, Dark Horse Comics, and several other companies. He presented with his wife, illustrator Colleen Coover. Their previous work together was Banana Sunday, which placed on YALSA’s list of best graphic novels for teens. I asked him if in the digital revolution had an effect on his career. He said as a wordsmith (writer), not really. He submitted his content to the artists and they interpreted it. He developed a 13 panel plot point and one time got back the entire sequence in six panels. He works with artists around the world. He, in some cases, has not even met some of them!

I asked him what it was like the first time he got a check from Marvel. He said it was really cool... but just that. I was surprised how calm he said he took it. I would have been jumping up and down and calling everyone! He said the check it self had a Spider-Man on it with a "thwip like sound image". He said he and his Marvel buddies called the checks (they are all contract, work for hire, freelance) "Thwips.

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