01x03 - Amazing Artisans

[bunniefuu]

[man 1 in Spanish]

[woman 1 in Spanish]

[woman 2] I would say that in comics,

the artist has the most control
over the story.

[man 2] Well, how do you show emotion
with just these little lines?

Like, how do you actually
show someone feeling pain?

You know, hand gestures and eye movement

and body composition and body language.

Stan always said that the Marvel Universe
is the world outside your window,

that he really wants people
to open up a comic

and feel this is the world they live in,

and that they could find characters
they could see themselves in.

At Marvel,
we have about 3,500 artists worldwide.

We have creators working
in almost every country on this planet,

contributing to the Marvel Universe.

Not only do we have characters that
reflect all people from all walks of life,

we have creators who are bringing
their story to those characters.

The uniqueness, the style, the kind
of originality, the kind of grittiness,

the kind of different storytelling
sensibilities that we get by using

these international artists opens us up
to so many different kinds of stories,

so many different kinds of storytelling.

Now you have readers around the world,
young kids who might be inspired

by these writers and artists
who are from their culture.

"Oh, my God. You know,
this artist is from Spain?

This artist is from France?
This artist is from Brazil?

They're just like me."

They're making comic books

that are being read by millions of people
around the world,

and it's very inspiring.

What Javier Garrón has been doing
on Miles Morales: Spider-Man,

has just been incredible.

The kind of scale, the scope,
the power that he brings to the characters

when they put on their costumes,
when they use their powers,

when they go into battle, is like
no other artist that's working today.

Natacha is a magician.

The style in which she draws
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur,

she is so minimalistic in what she puts
on that page,

but she gets across the maximum amount
of information,

and it's really mind-blowing.

There are certain artists who just,
we say, have it.

Who are fearless storytellers.

Who, no matter where they're from,

no matter what walk of life they come
from, no matter what culture they are,

are taking a piece of themselves
and putting it in those characters.

Natacha and Javier
are two of those storytellers.

At the start of Marvel,

everybody lived, worked, breathed
under one roof to create comics.

Back in the day, in that Marvel Bullpen,
because they were doing so many stories,

Stan Lee sometimes would actually
come up with just a plot.

[Cebulski] There were famous scenes
of when he would just call the artists

into his office.

He'd act out the story on his desk.

He'd give it to Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko,
whoever was drawing the book,

and they would draw it out.

And, you know, they'd come back later
with a 20-page story.

There's the old adage that you write
what you know.

And just when the Marvel Universe
was created,

it was by a bunch of white guys
in New York City,

who were coming up with characters

that they kinda based
somewhat on themselves.

They drew the New York and the characters
and the people that were around them.

Just not how comics are made anymore.

This global,
creative culture that we live in

has brought individuality and uniqueness
and cultural authenticity

to the way that we tell our stories,
graphically.

People tell stories from the place
that they're at.

The life experience,
the background of an artist,

the things that are around them now
in their life, matters.

It affects how they draw.

It affects what they emphasize
when they draw.

It affects how they think
about storytelling.

[Cebulski] What I like to tell
aspiring writers and artists

is there's no boundaries for you

to become someone
who is going to work at Marvel.

[Ahmed] When you get creators
coming from different places

and have different life experiences...

informing what they think a superhero is,

the stories only get better.

[Garrón in Spanish]

[speaking baby talk]

[Bustos in Spanish]

[Jennings]
As an artist, the instrument that you use

is an extension of yourself.

There's this idea that you can actually
imbue yourself into a character,

and I think that's very true for
cartoonists and comic book illustrators.

Part of it is the fact that they're
projecting themselves onto the image,

but then also, I think that people are
reading what's there too in the linework.

Every little squiggle
of a line is an emotion.

Bringing a piece of art to life,

it's very difficult to not put yourself
into the work.

[Bustos in Spanish]

[grunting]

[laughing]

[man 3] Natacha put so much of herself
into those early pages of Moon Girl.

Anything that was coincidentally
close to her,

maybe she embraced and emphasized,
maybe she stepped outside herself.

It's a mix of everything.

We all share the co-creator credit,

but Natacha has contributed the most
to Moon Girl.

[in Spanish]

[Montclare] In the late '70s,
Jack Kirby, all by himself,

created a strip called Devil Dinosaur.

Moon-Boy was a character in it,
and he was a young caveman.

And they became friends.

It was not a success.
Only lasted nine issues.

It was brilliant visually, but it was
really a rudimentary story.

And I thought,
maybe we could come up with a Moon Girl,

and instead of having her be
a cave person, have her be a modern girl.

I had had this character
kicking around in my head.

She was socially awkward and really smart.

Just this idea of somebody
that would roller-skate around town

and she'd just fight crime.

The look for the Moon Girl books
really came from a whimsical place.

[Bustos in Spanish]

[Reeder] She wanted it to be a little more
cartoony because it was for kids.

[Bustos in Spanish]

[Reeder] Moon Girl is the smartest person
in the Marvel Universe.

As we started to develop it,
we put a lot of thought into,

"What does this mean, and what is it
about her that is so smart?"

The future of our society is gonna
be based off of technological advances.

So, what does it mean to actually have
people of color in those spaces

that are talking
about engineering and mathematics?

[Bustos in Spanish]

Comic book creative teams, typically,
are pretty much arranged marriages.

You're asked to work on a book
as a writer, and the editor says,

"And we're going to pair you
with this artist."

[Reeder] But sometimes
you can strike gold, get lucky,

and you just get
the right kind of collaborators

and the right combination of people

where you can really make
something special.

As a writer, everything that you do,
in my opinion, has to be driven to,

"How do you set the artist up to succeed?"

[Ahmed] Your entire process there is aimed

not at a final reader
who's going to read it.

Your actual text,
it's aimed at the artist.

[in Spanish]

[in Spanish]

[Cebulski]
Spider-Man is one of Marvel's most,

if not the most,
iconic character in our universe.

He's the character
that every writer and artist

from when they were a kid wants to draw.

[Ahmed] Spider-Man is a character
that people can see themselves in.

I think the fact that people can look
at Spider-Man and imagine,

"That's how I'd be if I was a superhero,"

in a way that they can't
with some other characters

who are billionaires or aliens
or whatever it might be.

I think that's the ultimate appeal
of Spider-Man.

[Cebulski] Brian Bendis with, you know,
some encouragement from Axel Alonso,

who was Editor in Chief at the time,
created Miles Morales,

who is the Spider-Man of this time.

Sara Pichelli, the artist,
came on and designed the character

in the comic at that time.
The rest, as they say, is history.

[Ahmed] When Miles was first proposed,
he really shook up the fandom.

There was a segment that freaked out
at the thought of a black Spider-Man,

that freaked out at the thought
of a Puerto Rican Spider-Man,

that didn't want their stuff messed with.

He's a sort of different person, right?
Miles is black, he's Puerto Rican,

he's from Brooklyn, not Queens,
he's younger than Peter...

and yet,
embodied all the values of Spider-Man.

Self-sacrifice, insisting on decency...

perseverance to serve others.

He's classically Spider-Man
because of those things.

[Cebulski] And what Saladin and Javier
created for Miles

is what Stan and Steve created
for Peter Parker back in the day.

New characters, they can't just be
reflections of the characters

that might have been their inspiration.

And that's what Saladin
and especially Javier in creating--

The visual world that he's built
around Miles has been so key too.

[Ahmed] Before we ever saw the pages

of the first issue
of Miles Morales' Spider-Man,

Javier turned in a character sheet,
and I was blown away.

He'd added something to the book

that I had not put
nearly enough thought into,

which was, "How do teenagers dress?

How do they get their hair cut?"

In a way
that I just wasn't equipped to do.

I'm a middle-aged shlubby guy,
and Javier is much hipper.

I knew that we had, sort of,
hit gold with that

when I started seeing people on Twitter

talking about how Miles needs
to get his own Instagram. Right?

For his fashion.

That's really when it feels like
you're telling a story together

in the most primal way

where you're really forging this thing
from the ground up together.

[Garrón speaking Spanish]

[Bustos in Spanish]

[Garrón in Spanish]

[Bustos in Spanish]

[Garrón in Spanish]

[Bustos in Spanish]

[Garrón speaking Spanish]

[patrons chattering]

[woman in Spanish]

[man in Spanish]

[waitress in Spanish]

[man]

-[Bustos in Spanish]
-[man]

[Bustos]

-[Bustos]
-[woman]

[Bustos in Spanish]

Cadmium Red. Lipstick Red.

Lipstick Red. Lipstick Red is good.

-I'm gonna take one of these.
-[clerk] Okay. That is six.

Six, okay.

Would you like a bag?

No need. I'll just put it in the pocket.

-It's great.
-Okay.

[Garrón in Spanish]

[Ahmed] Spider-Man,
he's really a very local hero.

From the beginning,
I wanted to set out to make the comic

that was about a certain place,
that was about a family in that place,

a school in that place.

[Garrón in Spanish]

[Ahmed] You know, a lot of Marvel stories
take place in Manhattan.

Brooklyn's been a sort of neglected space
in Marvel mythology.

[Garrón in Spanish]

[Ahmed] I've lived in Brooklyn
for a good number of years,

but Javier is based in Europe,
and so, this was not something

where he could go outside his door
and say,

"Here's what this block looks like."

[Montclare]
The Marvel Universe really is New York.

You know, they go off into outer space and
maybe they're in other states sometimes,

but New York is such a big part
of everything that's Marvel.

Putting Moon Girl on the Lower East Side
on Yancy Street was specific,

because Yancy Street is the fictionalized
Delancey Street of Jack Kirby's youth.

[Bustos in Spanish]

[Garrón in Spanish]

[Bustos in Spanish]

[in Spanish]

[in Spanish]

[Garrón in Spanish]

[chuckles]

[Reeder] Brandon did a short story
in an anthology with Natacha.

So he had her in mind
when we were looking at artists.

[Montclare] Separate from our work
together on that short story,

she was working for Marvel
doing a one-shot,

a filler issue of Spider-Woman.

[Bustos in Spanish]

[Montclare]
So we had a whole list of artists,

potential artists,
for Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.

And she was on the list,
but there was a challenge

because Natacha didn't have
a very long track record.

Do we need a bigger name?

Do we need somebody
who's done a monthly book before?

But it seemed to me that if anybody
was going to take Moon Girl

and put themselves into it,
it would be Natacha.

[Bustos in Spanish]

[Garrón in Spanish]

[Bustos in Spanish]

-Hey.
-Hi, how you doing?

I'm okay. How are you?

Fine, thanks. What can I do for you?

Well...

[Ahmed] Some people weren't ready
for Miles when he was first introduced,

but between film, between video games,
between the comics,

Miles has really won over fandom

in a way that you rarely see
with a new character.

You know, it's been very exciting
to be part of that legacy.

[Garrón in Spanish]

[Bustos in Spanish]

[Jennings] Just think about
being a little black girl, right,

and reading Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur
for the first time.

I can't even imagine what that feels like.

Think about how empowering that is
to see someone,

"I wear my hair like that."

Or, "I have this affinity for tinkering
and stuff like that."

[Bustos in Spanish]

[Ahmed] With great power
comes great responsibility, right?

And the actual saying
in the original comic is,

"With great power there must also come
great responsibility."

In other words, it's not automatic.

And so I think about my responsibilities
as a writer

and trying to create that world

where a kid can just pick up a comic

and it's not weird to them
that Spider-Man is black.

It's not weird to them

that there's a girl with a Muslim name
who's brown-skinned,

who's the teenage superhero
representing them.

That should be normal.

[Jennings]
You're gonna see more characters of color,

more characters from various backgrounds,

and, you know,
maybe a window to a better future.

Now, through the global creators
that we're working with,

we're inspiring a different generation
to maybe follow their dreams.

We want our heroes to be inspirational.

We want people to read the books
and want to go out and do better,

to be heroes in their own right.

Stories are empathy technologies, right?

The superhero is a type of technology
that connects us.

[Ahmed] If, like me, or like a lot
of other creators who are just now

starting to have a voice in the field,
you come from a background

where that didn't seem possible
when you were growing up.

We have to remember it will be hard.

Despite that, it's possible.

[Bustos in Spanish]

[Garrón in Spanish]