Like most writers, there’s thirty years of “I Should Really Get Around To This” piled around my house. Things that didn’t get done. Things that still might get done. Things I’ m actually doing. The problem with this page is that it’s a lot easier to discuss completed projects than works in progress or pitches of things I’d like to do. Every writer has a drawer full of unfinished stuff and ideas. Posting those ideas puts the ideas at risk. And sometimes it takes years for this stuff to move from my desk into a book or a film, so the Projects page can get old pretty fast, with the same dozen half-eaten sandwiches listed up there. So I’ve really been twisting trying to decide what, if anything, to publicly display.
Thanks for sharing these, Priest
While I’m certainly not in any position to greenlight, well, anything, I appreciate you having the courage to post these ideas up to see if anything bites.
For myself, I would definitely be into buying Xero: the novel, 1999 (pulp heroes seem all the rage at the moment, though I do wonder about the motives of some of the relaunches, whether it’s more stake-claiming than having actual stories to tell), and Mr. Smith
Martian Manhunter has always been a guy I’ve felt works best in the background, though Ostrander and Mandrake did a nice job showcasing him a while back.
Super-Villain Team Up is a great concept. People may draw comparisons with Gail Simone’s Secret Six, but I think Seinfeld-with-supervillains holds up on its own.
I’m not as sold on Freedom Fighters, but that could just be my lack of enthusiasm of cosmic stories.
I’d be in for Star Trek (yes I know, contradicting myself already), maybe elbow Peter David for a contact or help?
I like the idea of Zion and I’m curious Dual had the reaction it had when you have works like American Beauty and The Lovely Bones that have deceased narrators, to say nothing of Sunset Boulevard.
I’m sold on The Spook already. That said, it does look like a hard sell. It shouldn’t be but…
All the best with these projects and I hope we see them soon.
Stony: thanks for the feedback. And, yes Sunset Boulevard was my first retort to the publisher, but it goes like this: if a publisher or editor isn’t into what you’re doing, you toss it in a drawer and wait. A few years down the line, somebody else will be sitting in that chair, and you dust it off and say, “Hey, how about this?” You never throw away an idea. The projects list here is mostly informational and for your amusement. Some of this stuff was shopped around, some of it wasn’t. Some of it is being considered now or was under contract and is now being turned this way or that. It’s just a peek inside the drawer.
You know, reading this, I just got really, really sad that you don’t have a better agent/work ethic/whatever it would take for these projects to get the treatment and exposure they deserve.
I’ve never really cared about the Martian Manhunter (even in JLTF, the first comic I ever followed on a regularly monthly basis, I was reading more for Ray, Triumph, Gypsy, and Vandal Savage then I ever was for J’onn), but I would go out tomorrow and buy “Mr. Jones”. And I hardly ever buy comics anymore. I think the last time I bought a comic book was over a year ago at this point. I’d watch Spook, and I’d love to see Dual get out there someday (it worked for the Lovely Bones, and that book isn’t even very good).
Seguing for a second, because I’d love to say it: thank you. Thank you for Black Panther, and Quantum & Woody, and The Ray. Man, the Ray. I used to use that book, way back in highschool, to convince my friends who didn’t read comics to start reading comics. I showed Quantum & Woody to a professor at college to make a point about comics being a viable art form, and the stubborn *redacted* actually backed off his previous stance and agreed with me, then sheepishly asked me what else you’d written. I started reading comics seriously with Justice League Task Force, and haven’t read much since the Crew. The rumor that you were coming back to Panther about a year ago had everyone at the local comic shop just shy of performing pagan luck rituals to make it true.
Hell, you’re on the short list of guys who inspired me to become a writer (I don’t work in comics, but still).
I’m rambling. You’re kind of a legend among my group of friends, and the first guy who invariably comes up when we talk “You know who I wish would write X?” So I guess I’m just posting to say thanks. Not “Please come back,” or “Why’d you quit?”, or even “we miss you”. Just… thanks.
Man, I don’t know what to say, but the check’s in the mail. 🙂 I didn’t quit, I got tired and went away. And, I want to be honest, I’m not sure I can do this anymore. Coming up with new ways to challenge Batman every month is a tough gig, tougher than it looks. Also, the enthusiasm to see me back in the biz isn’t shared by, well, the biz. There was a rumor I’d be coming back to PANTHER? LOL! FTR: never say never, but if I did start writing comics again, it would be highly unlikely that I’d ever return to the scene of the crime. 🙂 I am confident Marvel provided me every opportunity to say whatever I wanted to say w/Black Panther. It was a great ride and I am thankful to everyone who worked so hard on that series. But I think returning to it would be like competing with myself. If you’ve ever seen an artist or writer return to a previous beloved book, you’ve likely been as disappointed as elated. Also, my perhaps only criteria about the biz is that the publishers treat me no differently from any other writer, that they not see me as a “black” writer. If I ever did get lured back, I assure you the initial thing out of the box would be something more like Ray. BTW, my favorite line in the whole series was Ray commenting on how, when you’re a little kid, when things got too stressful, you could always throw up. Vomiting is like hitting the universal reset button. I’m pretty sure I’d have a lot of vomiting to do. 🙂 Thanks for the way-too-kind words. –Priest
Hey Priest,
Your Martian Manhunter pitch is really cool, and would probably make for a hip re-conception of the character, but I’m kinda wondering, is it marketable? Will Martian Manhunter’s 5 fans find the book without the title character on the cover or a weird looking green dude to draw them over? The comic book audience in general is pretty hostile to new characters, and it seems to present itself at first glance as a new character. I mean, I’d read it, with you on-board as the writer, I’m just wondering if it could sell.
You should totally post that Star Trek Nemesis thing you were working on. I figured that was lost for good on one of your old defunct blog sites. I remember you did a cool riff on the bomb planted in the Romulan senate- but you have the Romulans too smart to fall for that- so they transport out. That was cool.
Scott: Mr. Jones, as with most DC/Marvel ideas posted here, is one of the pitches in Priest’s Big Bag of Ideas Lying Around. I am not making a formal pitch on that page, just sharing some thoughts for your amusement. Is it marketable? Two thoughts: first, that’s really up to DC to decide, how would I know? Second: it seems, these days, that comics are marketed almost exclusively to the fan market. Fans will almost instantly get the word that Jones is about the MM, and they will also instantly like or hate it, depending on their first emotional hit of who or what JJ is. If DC were making a MM film, this is how they should go. A comic, however, would sink or swim on the strength of whether or not there is an audience for MM, whether or not that audience will be there if I take away the swim trunks and boots, and, frankly, the audience’s disposition toward my witting. These days, it’s as much about the creative team as anything that happens between the covers. Get the right creative team and you could sell “My Dinner With Andre,” featuring The Hulk and Thanos.
Oh, and,yes I’m planning to repost the Trek thing. Give me a week or two to get to it.
I’d pay money for a good chunk of these, in particular the XER0 ideas. But then again, I’m a fairly atypical comics reader, a white guy who doesn’t care what race the hero is.
(You may remember me from back when I moderated the BP board on comicboards.com)
A good story is a good story. And Priest, you tell good stories.
Mario: You are unforgettable. Hey, is that board still up? And thanks for the very kind words –cjp
Thanks. As far as I know, it’s still up, but last time I poked my head in there, traffic was almost nil.
I may be in the minority here, but I would prefer seeing the non-comics projects come to being. I wish for you to write the things you most want to do and comics doesn’t seem to be it. Sure, I’d love to see more comics by you but seeing something on the big screen or between two hard covers would be better. The Star Trek thing would be cool and the idea about Xero is something I always wanted to see.
I think I still love comics but don’t care much for the business. The way many people love God but are disillusioned by the church. Rather than reboot the comics and the continuity, the majors need to reboot the offices. Pass out the pink slips. If the same guys are sitting behind the same desks, there is no real change. A new administration should arrive with its own team.
Hi Priest, just noticed you’re blogging again; sorry for replying to a month-old post but yes, while I’ve liked a number of the books in the DC relaunch, I agree that nothing really changes when you keep the same guys in charge.
I got to thinking, recently, about the question of “Who SHOULD they put in charge?” and the answer is probably “Nobody I’ve ever heard of.” But I also got to thinking, hey, if they want to build a fanbase, it seems to me that Paul Dini and Bruce Timm would be the guys to do it.
I was 10 when Batman: The Animated series started. By the time Justice League rolled around, I was in college, and surrounded by people who had grown up watching Batman and were thrilled that that world was still there. Every Saturday night we’d gather in a dorm room and watch Justice League.
And a couple weeks back, I had a couple of those college buddies in town to visit, and what’d we do? Put on the first episode of Timm’s newest DC toon, Green Lantern.
I’m not going to make the typical comic-book-nerd mistake of assuming I’m representative of the general population. I’m sure the vast majority of people who loved Batman: TAS have NOT continued to watch Timm’s various series over the subsequent 19 years. But I’m also willing to bet that the show has retained a lot more of its fans than comics of the same era. And that those loyal fans have bought the DVD’s and those who have kids are turning them into a new generation of DC animation fans.
Of course, the reason why DC won’t transfer Timm from animation to comics is obvious: because he’s still making them money hand-over-fist in animation; why would they risk the profitability of their much-more-lucrative animation division on trying to get more people to buy their comics? And of course comics is a different business than TV; there could be a million reasons why Timm wouldn’t be able to oversee the same kind of quality in a line of comics that he has in his cartoons. Lots of different books, lots of different creators — and indeed I wouldn’t WANT a line of comics to have the same kind of consistency of art and storytelling as a cartoon series.
But when he works with talented people, it sure shows — the high quality of Justice League Unlimited doubtless came more from Dwayne McDuffie than anyone else.
(Dini, meanwhile, is writing for the new Spider-Man toon. I expect great things.)
Anyway, that’s a lot of blather and rambling based on three sentences — it’s what I do, I guess.
On the topic of the article: great that you’ve got some ideas out there. Look forward to seeing what you do next, whether in comics or elsewhere — and you’d be surprised how often your name comes up in comments threads on various comics sites by people who wish you were still in the game there.