As part of my regular column (co-written with YA scribe Mark London Williams Nexus Graphica, I [interviewed writers Paul Benjamin (Muppet King Arthur), Alan J. Porter (Cars), and Bill Williams (Spike: The Devil You Know). The trio offer some frank, behind-the-scenes commentary on working with licensed
properties.
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| PB:The amount of creative control varies greatly depending on the property. Sometimes the publisher can be invasive, while other times, it’s the license holder. In the case of Muppet King Arthur, Patrick and I didn’t really get any interference from either Boom! or Henson. One or the other might have killed a joke or two for various reasons, but they also gave great suggestions for gags throughout the series. In fact, I’ve been pretty lucky on this front. I’ve really had a lot of creative freedom on my licensed property work and most of the feedback from on high has been constructive criticism that really added to the final product. Or maybe I’m just more open-minded because I used to be an editor and I have to burn off the karma of all the times I was invasive with my writers (sorry about that, guys and gals). |
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| AJP: Getting into licensed comics came by a different route. After several years of pitching comics stories, I made a sale for a manga series at Tokyopop (God Shop). My editor on that book moved over to Boom! to oversee the launch of the Disney books, and as soon as I found out I’m not afraid to say that I begged for a chance to write the Cars book. Luckily, both he and the folks at Disney liked my story ideas. |
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| BW: One of the scenes I had to cut was a splash with Spike holding a demon informant upside-down in a toilet as he asks him for information. The grilling-the-stoolie scene is a staple of detective fiction and every fourth Batman comic book seems to have him dangling some lowlife off of a high-rise. But I was told that Spike was a hero and that kind of behavior was out of bounds. No using a green-skinned informant as a demonic toilet brush for my little script. |