Longtime listeners of Secret Identity may remember that I was in love with the Legion of Super Heroes series from 2004-2009. That series famously ended after a troubled run that was written by Jim Shooter and drawn by Francis Manapul. Issue #50 seemed like it was from a different series, and we later learned there were some behind-the-scenes problems that doomed the book. Shooter talked a bit about the situation with CBR back in 2008, but he didn’t really get into too many specifics.
In the past few days however, both Shooter and Manapul have pulled back the curtain on what it was like to work on the book during that run. On his blog, Shooter gave commenters a look at some of the notes he sent to his editor (which Bleeding Cool later matched up with the pages from the issues in question). From Shooter’s perspective, there were problems with just about every facet of the book, and it seems he feels like no one was following the scripts as he had written them, including Manapul.
Manapul responded on his own blog after reading what Shooter had said. He attributes a lot of the issues on the book to breakdowns in both communication and storytelling philosophy.
As someone who really enjoyed the series and was disappointed by the trainwreck that it ended in, these are some fascinating reads. They really give you an appreciation for how many moving parts there are in the comic making process, and how small things can accumulate into a much larger problem for a book.
--Brian
In the past few days however, both Shooter and Manapul have pulled back the curtain on what it was like to work on the book during that run. On his blog, Shooter gave commenters a look at some of the notes he sent to his editor (which Bleeding Cool later matched up with the pages from the issues in question). From Shooter’s perspective, there were problems with just about every facet of the book, and it seems he feels like no one was following the scripts as he had written them, including Manapul.
Manapul responded on his own blog after reading what Shooter had said. He attributes a lot of the issues on the book to breakdowns in both communication and storytelling philosophy.
As someone who really enjoyed the series and was disappointed by the trainwreck that it ended in, these are some fascinating reads. They really give you an appreciation for how many moving parts there are in the comic making process, and how small things can accumulate into a much larger problem for a book.
--Brian
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