Today is your last day to try several of my more popular
titles in the SJS DIRECT Catalog for free on Smashwords. After today, all the
promotional titles go back to retail price.
The books that are a part of the Summer Campaign on
Smashwords are:
In addition to those titles
It’s also your last day to pick up Isis: Samurai Goddess and E’steem: LittleGirl Lost for free on Smashwords! So if you want to pick up these titles, pick
them up NOW!
When you see an image on a book cover it’s just not a pretty
picture. It tells a story. It’s that story in that image that gets people’s
attention. And that story can mean the difference between a book getting a sale
or getting ignored by potential readers.
In order to create the art on a cover, a publisher has to
develop a concept that tells the entire story of the novel in a single image.
It can be a picture based on something that happens in the story, or it can be
an idea of something related to the story. The image has to give a reader a
sense of what’s going on and make them care enough to pick up the book.
When I create a cover, I usually take a scene from a part of
the story and turn that into an image. It’s that one image that I believe will
define the story and get the attention for readers.
Sometimes I’ll take a scene from the beginning of the story.
Other times I’ll take a scene from the middle of the book. And sometimes I’ll
use a picture related to something in the books theme.
When I was storyboarding Bill Walko’s cover for Isis: Brideof Dracula I took an image from the middle of the story. And the image shows a
hypnotized Isis getting ready to attack John Haynes while Dracula mists above
watching the action. I thought that image would tell the story of the book and
grab the reader with one single image.
Usually when I’m designing a concept for a cover story, I
have to write and draw out what the scene is so the artist knows what story to
tell in a picture. From experience I’ve found the more information the artist
has, the more details they can add to the picture. But I don’t write too many
details, I want the artist to put some of their ideas in the story!
In storyboarding a cover, a writer has to be clear about
what they want in an image. They have to clearly describe the mood and the tone
they want to set, and how they want the image to look.
For The Legendary Mad Matilda, I believed that the scene
where Matilda takes her mugshot defined the story. And I wanted to get a little
more artsy with the image. So I drew up a concept piece:
And a model sheet of Mad Matilda. While the cover concept is
a ¾ figure, the model sheet is to give an artist a sense of Mattie’s character,
her outfit and how the elements of it work. The notes are to give an artist an
understanding of Mattie’s size, proportions, what her outfit should look like,
how the clothes drape and a sense of the story behind the character.
The Concept piece art give the artist a set of how I want
the art to look on the cover. With Legendary Mad Matilda being a novel about a African-American
Goth, I wanted to exaggerate some of the mugshot with elements related to the
subculture. So instead of height lines I gave it some stripes reminiscent of
Tim Burton and Beetlejuice to make the visual pop. The lines draw us to the
figure and the center of the piece which is the Black Widow pendant on her
chest, which represents who Matilda is as a Goth.
For the tone, I wanted Mattie to have an uneasy look on her
face and some tense body language. That’s supposed to represent her uneasiness
about being arrested and her future coming out of college. She’s nervously
holding the board that shows the her arrest in her black manicured hands that
features the title of the book.
In that image I tell a story that I hope has the reader
asking a bunch of questions. Who is Mad Matilda? What makes her a Legend? And
what happened to her to wind up in this situation? Was it a wild party? Or was
it something else? It’s those questions that will have the reader wanting to
pick up the book and check out a few chapters of the story to get the answers.
Oftentimes the final image of a cover will be open to an
artist’s interpretation. They may change some elements of a design to fit their
style. However, the goal of a great piece of cover art is to remain accurate to
the models provided by the publisher and tell the story the publisher wanted
for the cover. There’s a lot of work that goes into a cover, and that story
that single image tells has to be as well written as the words in a book.
I’d love to see how an artist would tell the story I wrote
for the cover for The Legendary Mad Matilda in pictures, and I need your help
to pay an artist to design it. So if you could donate to my Patreon or my PayPal,
I’d greatly appreciate it!
I spent another Saturday night drawing. And I finally did a
model sheet for Mad Matilda as she appeared in the first twenty or so chapters
of my upcoming novel, The Legendary Mad Matilda.
This full body sheet is based on the cover concept for The Legendary
Mad Matilda, and shows the entire outfit she wore for VampJam 95. As the Queen
of the Industrial Goth Raves Mad Matilda has a more aggressive look than the
elegant one she wore as The Black Widow in Spellbound or the more businesslike
one she wore in Spinsterella.
Industrial Goth looks usually feature DIY modded T-shirts,
short skirts, spiked collars and cuffs and platform boots, and wild out there
hairstyles. And to make Mad Matilda’s stand out, I went with different shading
techniques so she wouldn’t be wearing a solid block of black. Goths often use
textures and shades of black to break up the black, and I used that technique
to make the blacks on Mattie’s outfit stand out in a crowd.
I drew inspiration for Mad Matilda’s Industrial Rave look
from many of the outfits I saw Goth YouTubers like Amy Nekrotique, It’s Black
Friday and Ligiea Resurrected wearing in their videos. The pigtails were
inspired by the one YouTuber Rose Nocturnaila used to wear in several of her
videos. And with the story set during the time where Mattie was in her Goth
prime I had to incorporate V-bangs as part of her look. Because V-bangs are
AWESOME.
The platforms in this design are a lot more elaborate than
in previous sketches. Taking a look at several New Rock boots online, I decided
to make Mattie’s footwear a bit more elaborate. New Rock Goth boots often use
texture and shades to stand out, and I tried to present that in her boots. They
kind of have a Jack Kirby vibe to em’ but that fits right in with the Industrial
look Mad Matilda wears at her raves. These are based on the tall New Rock
platforms with the springs in them; I think they’d be the kind of crazy
footwear an Industrial Rave Queen would wear when she hosted her shows.
Work on The Legendary Mad Matilda is FINISHED. The
manuscript is edited, pages are laid out and the paperback and eBook are
uploaded to CreateSpace, Kindle, and a Smashwords edition has been formatted.
All I need to release this book is money to pay for the cover. So if you can
donate anything to my Paypal or my Patreon, I can get this book out by the end
of the year!
A week ago Bakari Henderson was murdered outside of a bar in
Greece by a mob of Serbian men after taking a selfie with a White waitress.
While his death was a tragedy it could have been prevented if this young brotha
understood the unwritten social rules regarding being a Black man in the world.
Barkari Henderson like many young Black males who grew up
over the last 20 years grew up believing the lies about a “post-racial” America
and a world that’s a “Rainbow”. And because they have some White friends they
think that they’re free to do whatever they please wherever they please just
like White people.
That’s a lie that cost Bakari Henderson his life. And it can
cost many other young brothers their lives if they don’t understand it too.
When it comes to Black men, the world works differently for
us than it does for White men, White women, and even Black women. And a Black
man has to know how to set a course for himself to avoid the dangers around
him.
Because Bakari Henderson grew up believing that he lived in
the world of the “Rainbow” with his White friends he never taught that a Black
man has a target on his back the minute he steps foot outside of his house. And
that target grows larger when he travels abroad to places like Greece.
When a Black man goes out of his house he is on his own behind
enemy lines. And when he goes into someone else’s country he is in the center
of enemy territory. So a Smart Black man knows to watch his back and watch
himself in his social interactions with both White and nonblack people. Because
the wrong look, or the wrong move in a place like a store can lead to a Black
man getting locked up or it can put him six feet under.
A Black man taking a selfie with a White waitress may be
something innocent in some of the more liberal parts of America. But in some of
the southern, midwest and western parts of America and abroad that kind of
action can cost a Black man his life. Seeing him take that selfie with that White
waitress was all the reason those Serbian racists needed to go on the warpath.
These Beta White Knights saw a nigger in their bar with their woman in their
country acting like a White man. And they sought to send a message to all the
other niggers around the world regarding their women.
What happened to Bakari Henderson was no different than what
Carolyn Bryant’s husband and brother and law when they planned to murder Emmit
Till back in the 1950s. Those Serbs literally lynched him all for taking a
picture with a White woman.
And just like 14-year-old Emmitt Till didn’t understand the
unwritten social rules regarding racism in the Jim Crow South in the 1950s, 22-year
old Bakari Henderson didn’t understand them about traveling abroad in European
countries in 2017.
The times may have changed. But the racism is still the
same. Bakari Henderson didn’t get the survival skills a Black man needs from
his parents. And that cost him his life.
A Black man has to understand at an early age he can’t do
the same things that White men, Hispanic Men, Asian Men, White Women Black
women or Nonblack women can do in the world. They’ll always have social
privileges and freedoms he’ll never have. Thanks to White Supremacy, he’ll
always be perceived as an enemy and a threat. So he has to do things to
minimize the danger to himself. That’s why it’s important for a Black boy to
learn all the unwritten social rules regarding Black men in a White Supremacist
world from an early age. Because the earlier he learns those rules, the earlier
he knows how to avoid life-threatening situations like the ones Bakari
Henderson and Emmitt Till wound up in.
I’ve been busy reading over my new Goth YA novel on The
Legendary Mad Matilda. And I’ve got another chapter of the final chapter of the
Spinsterella Trilogy to share with readers. This one takes you into some of the
craziness of one of Mad Matilda’s parties!
Chapter 8
My heart pounds in my
chest as Ebony Darkness leads me through the crowds and down the hall over to
some more bathrooms on the far side of the warehouse. I’m hoping what she has
to show me isn’t bad enough to make me end the show early.
I push past the creaky
door of the abandoned men’s room praying not to see something truly macabre. My
heart stops when I see a babybat, barely fourteen years old dressed in
mismatched thrift store clothes, bad eyeliner, and teased out hair slumped on
the floor under the bathroom sink. “Oh my God!” I gasp rushing over to her.
I look into the girl’s
glazed over eyes and quickly recognize the drug she’s on. Ecstasy. “Are you all
right?”
“You’re Mad Matilda!” She
babbles. “Man, I can’t believe I’m actually talking to Mad Matilda!”
This isn’t the way I
wanted to be recognized by a fan. “Yeah, are you okay sweetie?”
“I’m okay. See-”
The girl tries to get to
her feet and stumbles back down to the floor. Shit, she’s high out of her mind.
“What happened?”
The girl manages to get
enough of her faculties to tell me her story. “I was feeling nervous. And a guy
said he could give me something to make me feel better.”
“Blue pills?”
“Yeah...” The girl says as
her hands creep towards her purse.
I reach into her purse and
take out a couple of blue pills. Just like I thought. Ecstasy. “Where did you
get these?”
“From a skinny Puerto
Rican guy in a leather jacket.”
That sounds like Louie
Escobar. I told that asshole he was persona
non-grata at my shows. Looks like he’s here to make a fast dollar peddling
pills at the expense of babybats. I catch the sick look on the kid’s face and
realize she took more than one. “Ebony, I need you to get her to St. Luke’s-”
“But that’s all the way on
Morningside-”
With all the drugs she’s
taken we don’t have a moment to lose. “The faster she gets her stomach pumped,
the faster she can start feeling better.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“I’m gonna have it out
with Louie.”
The Legendary Mad Matilda will be out…whenever I get enough
money to pay an artist to design the cover. I’m hoping it’s sooner rather than
later. You can help me get this book to the marketplace by donating $1 or more
to my Paypal or my Patreon. In the meantime you can read the other two books in
the Spinsterella Trilogy Spinsterella and Spellbound in paperback or e-readers
today!
I recently received a piece of digital fanart from a digital
artist called rundotexe. And after they saw Bill Walko’s Isis covers he wanted
to design his interpretation of Matilda Crowley, the lead character in
Spinsterella.
I love this image because it looks just like I imagined
Matilda as she came down the stairs to announce that “The Lady has returned to
the manor” in Spellbound. It clearly shows every one that you don’t need to
have a pale skintone to wear a Goth look and that Black women can be Goth and
FABULOUS while being spooky.
There’s a lot I love in this piece, from the slight
resemblance to Tia Mowry (one of the inspirations for Matilda), to the nuanced
reference to Monster High. Monster High was one of my favorite toy lines
(before the reboot) and I drew a lot of inspiration from it for many characters
including Matilda. I have to wonder if they read Spinsterella and Spellbound
and if they read my blogs and my YouTube Videos, because everything I talked
about regarding Mattie is in this image.
Seeing this digital has me thinking a Monster High Spinsterella
doll would look AWESOME on store shelves. Let’s make it happen Mattel!
I know I said I’d feature fanart in future eBooks, but I’m
seriously considering putting this piece on the refresh cover of Spinsterella.
As far as I’m concerned this IS Matilda Crowley!
I’d love to have this artist design the cover for the final
book in the Spinsterella Trilogy, The Legendary Mad Matilda. If I can get in
touch with this artist and we can work something out, I’d love to see their art
grace both covers. The only thing holding up Legendary Mad Matilda is the
cover, and if I can get the cover straight, I can get that book out by this
Halloween!
I got a chance to take in Spider-Man: Homecoming at the
Magic Johnson this Saturday at a Matinee showing. And for the first time in
nine years I was deeply disappointed in what I saw onscreen calling itself a
Marvel Studios film. Yeah, there was a character named Peter Parker who fights
crime as Spider-Man onscreen, but he acted NOTHING like the character from the
comic books I grew up with. Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man is nothing more than
Miles Morales with Peter Parker’s name on him.
Spider-Man: Homecoming is supposed to tell the story of
Peter Parker in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After making his a strong first
appearance in Captain America: Civil War, Spider-Man Homecoming was supposed to
take us into Peter Parker’s corner of the Marvel Universe. Unfortunately, Peter
Parker’s world looks too much like Miles Morales’ world, not his own Peter
Parker now lives in the projects and all the core characters of Spider-Man’s
whitebread part of the Marvel universe have been replaced with Social Justice
Warrior diversity hires. Peter’s Best friend is a fat Pacific Islander. Flash
Thompson is an Indian. Liz is black and MJ is biracial. The store Peter gets
his sandwiches from is run by an Arab. There’s no Daily Bugle, no Robbie
Robertson, No J. Jonah Jameson. Instead of working afterschool by taking
pictures of himself, Peter works for Tony Stark in an “internship”. All of this
is meant to make Spider-Man’s world appear more diverse and more real world,
but it just doesn’t feel like the Spider-Man I grew up with. It feels like
Peter Parker from an alternate SJW universe, not the REAL Marvel Universe.
The story for Spider-Man: Homecoming was hard for me to get
into thanks to all the continuity baggage from previous films. Eight years
after the Chutari invaision, Adrian Toomes and the employees of his salvage
company are put out of work by Tony Stark and Damage Control, and that’s what’s
supposed to lead to him turning to crime. And Spider-man is trying to find his
way after the events of Captain America: Civil War. After stopping a robbery at
an ATM he soon becomes aware of the Chutari tech and the Vulture’s operation.
In his first big case he’s supposed to try to stop the Vulture from selling
Chutari Tech to criminals. Unfortunately, thanks to all the continuity baggage
I just didn’t have a reason to CARE about this story.
Thanks to the poorly written script I didn’t know whether or
not to sympathize for Toomes or to hate him. And while Spider-Man bumbled
around in his first attempts at being a superhero it didn’t really make me
relate to him or connect with him onscreen.
Yeah, Spider-Man is finally a part of the Marvel Cinematic
Universe. But he’s NOT the Peter Parker we all know and love. He’s somebody
else. And he’s not someone I think I want to see in another movie. Having Tony
make Peter’s costume just doesn’t work for me. That’s Terry McGuiness’ shtick
from Batman Beyond. Part of the charm of Spider-Man is that he’s this
intelligent guy who can make his own stuff. Spider-Man is the guy who learned
super-heroing on his own and created stuff on the fly to deal with problems.
Watching his suit have web-wings, drones, its own artificial intelligence, and
video recorders impedes his ability to be creative and resourceful. Seeing
Peter interact with his suit didn’t make me think of Peter Parker, the
intelligent kid who could think for himself. Instead I thought of Terry
McGuiness the guy who works for Bruce Wayne.
Just like Iron Man’s armor in this movie, the film feels
unfinished and incomplete. Spider-Man:
Homecoming feels like unfinished odds and ends of past Marvel Studios movies
and ancillary MCU characters like Happy Hogan cut and pasted together to make a
movie, not an actual movie. Tony Stark doesn’t take Peter Parker seriously, and
the director and screenwriters of this movie don’t take Spider-Man seriously.
And the end result is a clumsy, awkward uneven movie with a shallow storyline,
weak one-dimensional characters and no heart.
I wanted to like Spider-Man: Homecoming. But the film just
doesn’t feel like a Spider-Man movie telling a story about Spider-Man like Sam
Raimi’s Classic 2002 film. It feels like a satire of the Marvel Cinematic
Universe with Spider-Man shoehorned into it to be the butt of one big parody
where the producers of Marvel Studios take shots at their own universe at the
audiences’ expense.
Congratulations Marvel Studios you just made Superman III.
Almost 30 years after the Salkinds made the film that
heralded the beginning of the end the Superman franchise in the 1980s, and 20
years after Joel Schumacher killed the original Batman Franchise with Batman
and Robin in 1997, I think Marvel Studios has just started the process of
putting the nails in its own coffin.
The Salkinds thought adding more humor to Superman III would
lead to the film being more appealing to audiences. And the addition of
funnyman Richard Pryor would lead to big laughs. Unfortunately, people didn’t
go to see Superman yuk it up with Richard Pyor, they paid money to see Superman
kick bad guy ass. Yeah, I like some of the humorous bits in Marvel Studios
films. They break up some of the tension and made the characters relatable to
the audience. However, Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and Spider-Man: Homecoming
overdo the comedy and take Marvel Studios down the road that killed the
Superman Franchise in the 80s and ended the Batman Franchise in the 1990s.
Marvel Studios is in TROUBLE. Only they don’t know it.
I started to see fractures in the Marvel Studios model with
Avengers: Age of Ultron. And those fractures started to turn into cracks with Captain
America: Civil War, Jessica Jones, the back six episodes of Luke Cage and that
abomination of a Netflix show called Iron Fist. From what I saw in Spider-Man
Homecoming the wheels are slowly coming off the Marvel Studios bus. Kevin Feige
better get it together because Marvel Studios is very vulnerable at this point.
All it takes is the right studio with the right project to beat them at their
own game. As much as I hate Zack Snyder’s DC Cinematic Universe, Patty Jenkins’
Wonder Woman was a MUCH better film than the slop he presented onscreen calling
itself a Spider-Man movie.
I can’t recommend Spider-Man Homecoming. The film just
doesn’t meet the high bar established by 2008’s Iron Man or 2009’s Captain
America: The First Avenger. Those two films were true to the source material
and the heart of those characters. Spider-Man Homecoming is true to what Disney
and SJWs want Spider-Man to be, not who he really is. Spider-Man may have come
home to Marvel Cinematic Universe, but all I saw onscreen was a reason to stop going
to Marvel Studios movies.
Actress Halle Berry recently made an appearance at the
Essence Festival to promote her movie Kidnap. And while she was there she made
several disingenuous statements about how she was so concerned about the issues
of Black actresses, the lack of opportunities for Black actresses, and the low
pay Black actresses receive in Hollywood. This chick is full of shit a toilet
bowl gets jealous.
I find it funny how Halle Berry is so concerned about the
issues of Black actresses now that her star has faded with White Hollywood. She
wasn’t worried about the issues of Black actresses back in 2001 when Lee
Daniels was paying her $1 million for starring in Monster’s Ball, the film that
destroyed the image of the Black woman. Nor was she concerned about the low pay
or lack of opportunities for other Black actresses when she was being paid
$10-$15 million a picture for films like Gothika, Die Another Day, and Catwoman
by White Hollywood.
I wonder how concerned Halle was about the issues of Black
actresses and Black people when she threw the Black community under the bus by bashing
up Eric Benet in her divorce, saying things like she “Tried” Black men in the
pages of Ebony Magazine, and flaunted White men like Gabriel Aubry and Oliver
Martinez in the faces of Black people. Back then she didn’t seem too concerned
about the struggles talented Black actresses like Tia Mowry, Salli Richardson
Whitfield, Kimberly Elise, and many other sistas who could have gotten a boost
from playing a supporting role in one of her films. Nor was she concerned about
Black directors like Ava Duvernay who were trying to uplift the image of the
Black woman. Halle could have easily used her A-list star power to help any of
those sistas take their projects or their careers to the next level.
But she didn’t. After Halle won her Oscar it was all About
TEH HALLE. How many doors did that Oscar open for you and other Black women Halle?
The same amount you closed in the faces of all those sistas
behind you once you got yours. Now that you can’t play the role of the Jezebel
for White men anymore and you’re too light to play Mammies, you’re so concerned
about the struggles of Black actresses.
Fuck You Halle. Fuck You.
You only want to be “Black” and be around Black people when
it benefits you, not when you can do something for other Black people. Piss
off.
If Halle Berry had reached back for a single Black actress,
worked with an indie Black director like Ava Duvernay, or a helped Black
screenwriter like myself get their script greenlit after that 2002 Oscar win
her appearance at the Essence festival would mean something and her words would
have resonance with Black people. As they stand right now they’re just
bullshit. Now that she’s a washed up 50-year-old single mother with two kids by
two different White fathers, she’s not worried about the lack of opportunities
for Black actresses, she’s worried about the lack of opportunities for herself.
In her old age she sees that her Oscar has no value to White people anymore.
And now, she’s looking to go back to the Black community to get a few slices of
bread from Black people’s tables.
And because many Black men are a bunch of dumbass SIMPS she
thinks she can get it from them. Broken down old Halle Berry knows that because
many Negro men are thirsty and have ABSOLUTELY NO STANDARDS they’ll accept a
50-year Bustdown baby momma with two kids by two different White fathers just
because they think she’s light skinned and pretty like in her old magazine
pictures from the 1990’s.
And because Black women have absolutely no moral position they’ll
accept Halle Berry back in their community as a fellow Sista because they want to
keep getting a pass to continue getting away with all the irresponsible, reckless,
and immoral behavior Halle legitimized as social norms over the last 15 years.
If they let Halle come Back and be a Black woman in the Black community, then
they can cement whoredom as a social standard for Black women and not make any
efforts to raise the bar for moral standards out of the dirt Halle dropped it
in.
Thanks to Halle Berry participating in Monster’s Ball the that
bar for Black women’s moral standards is buried so deep beneath the earth’s
crust it’s right at the molten core right next to the self-esteem of the Black
woman. All those ass models in magazines like King and Smooth and pointing
their butts up for a camera on Instagram? All those Twerk videos on YouTube?
All those fight videos in fast food restaurants between Black women? Those porn
websites like Ghetto Gaggers where White men humiliate Black women and call
them the N-Word? All those reality shows like Love & Hip-Hop, Basketball
wives and Real Housewives? All those TV shows like Scandal where Black women
play the role of a side piece to a White man? All those Swirlers online praising
White, Asian, Hispanic and Arab men as better than Black men?
You can thank Halle Berry for all that. That’s her legacy.
That’s what she’ll be remembered for years from now. Driving the image of the
Black woman straight into the GUTTER and corrupting the minds of a generation
of young sistas to devalue and degrade themselves and hate their own men.
However, Essence Magazine celebrates this woman as some sort
of hero at their Festival. Showing us how much the moral position of Black
women has declined over the last 15 years. An unrepentant sellout betrays the
Black community. And Black women embrace this harlot without holding her accountable
for anything she’s done.
Damn. Just Damn.
The old African Proverb says “A Race can rise no higher than
the moral position of its women.” And I see how low the moral position of Black
women is when they accept someone who is as disgraceful as Halle Berry back
into their community. In any other community a traitor like Halle Berry would
be shown the door. But because Black people have no standards for anything,
they accept her with open arms. Showing the world the reason why no one needs
to respect Black people. Because Black people have no respect for themselves.
Marvel Comics has been having a problem with spelling
grammar and punctuation in some of their publications lately. There have been
quite a few typos in many of their recent comics. And one of their senior
executives Tom Bevoort is in denial about the problem.
I’m an indie publisher running a one-man operation off his
laptop. And I’ve run into my fair share of quality control issues in the
fifteen years I’ve worked on publishing my own books and eBooks. However, I’ll
admit the problem and make an effort to correct them in my books. When I’m
alerted to an issue by readers, I’ll proofread a story and re-upload it so future
readers can have the best quality publication.
Unfortunately Tom Bevroort, an executive at Marvel, a
subsidiary of a multibillion dollar corporation like Disney can’t seem to do
anything about typos in Marvel’s comics. This is a man with hundreds of
editors, assistant editors, and freelance proofreaders on his payroll. It’s a
sad day when an unemployed guy working on a shoestring budget is willing to
take the editing of his publications more seriously than an executive who makes
six figures at the division of multibillion dollar corporation.
But this is par for the course with SJW Marvel. Where
22-year old kids fresh out of college are working in their editorial department
without any guidance from a seasoned professional to teach them the craft of
comics or the basics of working in a publishing house. Most of these kids
probably haven’t read the Chicago manual of style, Elements of Style, or the
Bedford English handbook. So they don’t know how use these tools to improve the
quality of their work. If they did they’d know what grammatical mistakes to
look out for before they sent a book out to the printers.
A combination of inexperienced staff and poor leadership
usually what leads to quality control issues like typos in publications. And
when there’s a quality control issue like typos in comics, the only thing a
senior manager can do is admit the problem and try to do better. While no
publisher will make perfect publications all the time, a smart one will make
efforts to rectify them so they won’t keep reoccurring.
Marvel’s problem is that their editorial department is run
by people too young to understand what craft is. An editor on a publication
should be someone with years of experience working with publications, deadlines
and schedules. That’s someone who’d be able to catch something like a typo in a
proof before a final publication goes to print.
I’ve made my fair share of mistakes publishing books. And
over the last eight years running SJS DIRECT on a laptop with a shoestring
budget I’ve made efforts to improve the quality of my paperbacks and eBooks. While
I aspire to get to the point where I can produce books that are 99% typo free
on my own, I’d like to think Marvel could do the same with the billions of
dollars Disney is pouring into all the new staff they’re hiring.If Tom Bevoort can’t make his editorial
staff get a handle on something simple like typos in comic books then maybe
it’s time for someone new at the top at Marvel.
