Waiding for Tomorrow
Veteran editor Mark Waid is here to save the day
Some years ago, I picked up a run of the first two years or so of the 1989 version of Legion of Super-Heroes, known colloquially as Five Years Later thanks to plotter/penciller Keith Giffen and scripters Tom and Mary Bierbuam skipping ahead five years in the book’s story.
The first six issues are masterful; it’s a subtle, witty and complicated space opera that tried to update the beloved Legion for the post-Watchmen generation. The book was still pretty good after the first six issues, but it seemed markedly less subtle, a little more straightforward and poorer for it. The only change? A then-27-year-old editor named Mark Waid had left the book.
The next 18 or so years were pretty good to Waid, who has become one of the most well-regarded and popular mainstream superhero writers. His credits include a character-redefining five-year run (ha!) on The Flash, the popular mini-series The Kingdom with Alex Ross, a two-year bid on The Fantastic Four with the late Mike Wieringo, the weekly series 52, and many, many more. But he never seemed to return to editing, a much-needed skill in today’s undisciplined, seemingly rudderless mainstream market.
Until now. At the 2007 San Diego Comic Convention, upstart company Boom! Studios announced they hired Waid as editor-in-chief. Some of us wept for joy.
His first order of business? Make comics that work as comics again. “Honestly, I want to get away from this trend of start-up comics companies publishing comics that are nothing but screenplays on paper,” Waid says from his home in Los Angeles. “There are these comics that are obviously loss leaders to be translated into movies.” (Cue more weeping for joy.)
Comic books that vibe as little more than storyboarded movies are one of the industry’s more pervasive 21st century trends, from the “decompressed” style of the Ultimate series at Marvel to the massive influx of TV writers “getting into” comics and producing, well, comics that move like TV shows. (Controversial writer Grant Morrison hit the nail on the head when he described decompression as having a “strange ‘within budget’ quality.”)
“Come to me with your screenplay that’s brilliant and expect an artist to translate it into comics and that’s not going to happen,” Waid explains. “If you have a good story and want to know how to translate that into a comic book, I can help.”
Will he be avoiding superheroes? “Oh God, yes,” offers Waid. “If someone comes to Boom! with an amazing drop dead superhero concept, we’ll see. But I’m much more interested in other genres. I don’t see much point in competing head-to-head with Marvel and DC with superheroes.
But Waid is known as one of the better superhero writers. “It’s not as if I think, ‘Those damn superhero comics!’ They’ve been my bread and butter, but it’s a crying shame that that genre comprises 85 to 90 percent of the marketplace.”
Waid wants Boom! to be about stories that only comics can tell. The old joke is that comics have an unlimited effects budget, but there are plenty of nearly effects-free stories that feel unique to comics. The comic book soap opera Love and Rockets is offered up as an example. “That’s a great one!” he exclaims. “No way that book could work as well in any other medium.
”There’s something about the language of comics that is unique,” Waid says. “I think in comics’ quest to be more ‘legit,’ we think we want to be ‘as good as TV’ or ‘as good as movies.’ In our relationship to TV and movies, comics has been like that fat kid on the playground who will give you his sandwich if you play with him.
“We’ve been willing to compromise what comics are and can be for a slice of that pie,” Waid concludes. “That’s kind of sad.” —Joe Gross
