>What I don't get is, in the past, (i.e. silver age and back) writers and
>artists could produce not just ONE title and get it out on time, but
>SEVERAL. Granted not all were their best work but the fact remains that
>todays writer/artists should really be able to churn out ONE book a
>month, as this is all many (JMS, KS) are asked to do.

Well, that and write 2 other books for Top Cow, write a movie for MGM, write
and produce a TV series for Showtime...it ain't like I'm sitting around eating
bon-bons here....

That said: Let's set the record straight here, shall we? I've been writing and
selling professionally for 30 years. During that time, prior to last year, I
could count the times I've missed a deadline on one hand. That's it. In 200
TV episodes, 3 published novels, 500 published articles and short
stories...five examples. In 30 years.

Last year I fell off the face of the earth and got slammed by the worst patch
of work I've ever faced. The thing about writing is that you put a lot of
things out there knowing that only about 1 in 10 ever gets picked up. When
several happen at once, it's great but it kills you. I explained the situation
to Marvel and they said it's okay, take the extra time. They would rather have
the book done *right* than done Tuesday.

So there was a bit of a slowdown on this one front, because if an issue is a
week late, it's a week late, no serious harm to Marvel (in fact, resoliciations
sometimes went up from original figures). It had to be that way because if you
fall behind on a TV series, it's $125,000 per day down the tubes. I had to
make the responsible decision on where to slow down for a bit.

SInce then, I have not only been delivering on time, in the last 6 weeks alone
I have turned in 3 full scripts for ASM -- that's one every 2 weeks, boys and
girls -- and I expect to keep that up for the next month or so to get really
ahead of schedule.

So in this discussion, let's *try* to have a little persepective, shall we?

jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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