BlackJack

[Bedlam66]

Hey Dan I Loved your Blackjack storys in Amazing 15 and was Wondering if your willing to do more. I asked joe a few months ago but since your here I thought I'd ask you. I was thinking it would be Cool if you got little shorts to run in the back of marvel Books each week for a year. 2 page 4 page I don't care I just think it would be cool to see these guys again and if it ran all year we could get 104-208 pages of Blackjack.

[Lemonade Lady]

I'd like to see Black Jack return in some form, as long as the stories remain short.

[Bedlam66]

Yea that was kind of My idea about it. Put 52 shorts in the back of all Marvel books for a year. A different Short story Every Week and they could put them in every book out that week incase someone wanted to read them but didn't want to have to buy a book they norm didn't get.

[tom daylight]

Too bad Pete Woods is DC exclusive now :(

[Jef UK]

WE MUST HAVE MORE BLACK JACK!!! Those were just great, Dan.

[Crimson]

Wasn't the most voted one, meant to get a mini or something? I can't remember who won the poll.

[Dan Slott]

Wasn't the most voted one, meant to get a mini or something? I can't remember who won the poll.

Yup. And I believe Greg's MASTERMIND EXCELLO beat us out by a hair.

Foo!

Seriously though? I love BLACKJACK too! And I'm dying to run Ace & One-Eyed Jacquie through the gauntlet again.

If I got a shot at doing a BLACKJACK mini, I'd like to mix things up and make each issue an anthology:
The first issue would give readers what they expect: three 2 page stories (like the original strips), two 4 page stories, and a full 8 pager (which for Ace and Jacquie is almost like getting a novel!).

From there, once the reader sees (hopefully) that Ace & Jacquie can support stories OVER two pages (;) ), then we could play around with stories all kinds of lengths-- heck, maybe even try an issue that was a full 22 pages! Just sayin'.

I'm really bummed that Pete Woods is exclusive to DC-- 'cause, BOY, did he knock those original Blackjack pages out of the park! But after working on jam issues like SHE-HULK #100 and the GLX-MAS SPECIAL, I kind of like the idea of working with a zillion different artists and seeing what THEIR takes on Ace & Jacquie are. I'd kill to see how my ARKHAM buddy, Ryan Sook, would draw a Blackjack story! Or what kind of funky tale SPIDER-MAN/HUMAN TORCH collaborator, Ty Templeton, could help me pull off. Or try to get my pal, Amanda Conner, to do a two-pager (wouldn't she draw an AWESOME Jacquie?!).

I think that could be one of the book's strengths. I mean, heck, you wouldn't be asking a creator to do a FULL issue-- just 2 pages! How can you not find room for 2 pages? :) The mind boggles... Y'know, I may have something here...

Anyway...

Back to work!
ttyl
Dan

[tom daylight]

I was just disappointed because the original announcement made it look like Amazing Fantasy was going to become an anthology proper, whereas in reality it was just for the one issue. It's the only issue of AmFan I ever bought, and I suspect I wouldn't have even bought that if not for Dan's involvement.

I didn't really feel immersed enough in the other stories; it was clear that each of the writers were trying to set something up in the eight pages and got bogged down in that (most of them felt like the middles of stories as opposed to whole ones), whereas Dan showed off the fact that you don't have to worry about that; just accept there isn't much room to tell the story, and tell a story that fits the space. I think a lot of writers seem to worry that they're going to run out of story ideas so get as much mileage out of the few they come up with; Dan never seems to have this problem, or at least he never lets it show in his work!

[Dingo]

I was just disappointed because the original announcement made it look like Amazing Fantasy was going to become an anthology proper, whereas in reality it was just for the one issue. It's the only issue of AmFan I ever bought, and I suspect I wouldn't have even bought that if not for Dan's involvement.

I didn't really feel immersed enough in the other stories; it was clear that each of the writers were trying to set something up in the eight pages and got bogged down in that (most of them felt like the middles of stories as opposed to whole ones), whereas Dan showed off the fact that you don't have to worry about that; just accept there isn't much room to tell the story, and tell a story that fits the space. I think a lot of writers seem to worry that they're going to run out of story ideas so get as much mileage out of the few they come up with; Dan never seems to have this problem, or at least he never lets it show in his work!

I don't think it is a lack of ideas in most cases, I think it is expectations.

I think writers believe that the expectation is that every single story that makes it to the page must be that best, most impressive, most enourmous story ever told with vast concequences for the character and their future and for every person on the planet. It is all or nothing in other words. Dan understands this is not the case.

These comics are chronicles of the lives of these heroes. Sure it has to be interesting but everything these people do is not earth shatteringly important. It is often the quiet moments that tells you the most about a character. It doesn't have to be the biggest moment ever every month, and Dan knows that. That is why he did so well in the eight page constraint. In fact he did so well as to put the other writers to shame and fit it into two pages.

[Elijya]

Since you want to see other artists do Black Jack, couldn't it be possible to have two page back-up stories in She-Hulk for a few months? They could be stand alone or continuous. Kirkman's doing that with Capes Inc. back ups in every issue of Invincible lately.

[Jef UK]

Since you want to see other artists do Black Jack, couldn't it be possible to have two page back-up stories in She-Hulk for a few months? They could be stand alone or continuous. Kirkman's doing that with Capes Inc. back ups in every issue of Invincible lately.

Excellent idea!

I really dug MASTERMIND EXCELLO too.