>Makes a lot of sense if you've got any intelligence at all: Selling 10 books
>at $4.95 is $49.50 as opposed to 2 books at $4.95 is only $9.90. Simple
>math. Stretch the story out and you'll make more money, unless you screw
>over the audience and put out crap. Which is the whole point. If Joemovie
>doesn't like the way Marvel takes a 2 issue arc and makes it into 10, then
>simply don't buy the books.

I'm sorry, but as everyone else here has pointed out, your math simply doesn't
work.

On ASM, they collect together about every six issues for graphic novels.
Doesn't matter if I do one, two, three, four, five or six issue arcs, the size
of the GN is the same. More to the point, the people who buy ASM are the
people who buy ASM. Every month it sells about the same number of books, give
or take. We're pretty consistent. Writing big arcs doesn't make Marvel any
more money than small arcs. Or no arcs.

And, in truth, I get yelled at no matter *what* I do on arc stuff. If I do a
three-issue arc, I get yelled at for padding...if I do a one-issue stand-alone,
I get yelled at for writing "filler."

But understand, straight from the horse's mouth (or the opposite end if you're
so inclined)... there is no pressure to do any length in my story arcs, they
let me tell the stories at the pace I feel works best for the structure. And
there is no more money made by Marvel if I do a long arc as opposed to a short
one. Zip. The sales are the sales, the GNs are the GNs.

>DC and Marvel are both guilty of this practice. Granted, some writers take
>longer to get the story out, JMS being one of them, but the publishers have
>a great deal of say in this sort of thing.

Again, they haven't said boo to me on this thing. Not once.

Finally, as for Supreme Power...I gave everybody fair warning in every
interview I did on this book: it's not going to be a conventional book, it's
not going to be plot driven, its going to be a strong character story and it's
going to develop over time into something extremely intense. There's some
serious action coming up very soon, but it's not aimed at stopping Doctor
Destructo before he can unleash his Whammo ray and turn Chicago into gold so he
can clean up. It ain't that kind of book. It's kind of an experiment, which
is why it's under the Max label. Some dig it, some don't, no harm, no foul.

jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2003 by synthetic worlds, ltd.,
permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine
and don't send me story ideas)