Aug 1, 2026 · 1 hr 8 min · 16 segments
On this episode of Coolest Alive, the story continues. In Part 3 of my origin series, I take you behind the scenes of my career as a professional writer, working with Marvel, DC, Disney, Pixar, The…
Anyway, I'm super excited because today we're going to continue the tale of my career as a writer, working on adapting these wonderful geek culture classic mythologies from Marvel and DC and Disney Pixar and the Muppets.
I have been in the industry working for 25 years now, something like that.
And oh man, everything that can happen to a writer in comic books and other media has happened to me.
Uh, DC, where I created Dead Romeo for them, and I have been pitching, ugh, s- endless, endless good ideas to them for ages now.
Generally, they're built for their editors and their producers who are in charge, who aren't writers, who generally aren't really great creative people, but sometimes are.
They hand down mediocre ideas to people like me who dedicate their lives to becoming great writers to execute things like this to the best of their ability.
Because, you know, when you're given a crappy idea, the fundamentals are crappy, all you can do is your best.
They are writing the best version of some crappy idea that was handed to them.
Generally speaking, you have to really, really become a big name in the industry before they let you begin to creatively dictate how the storylines are going to unfold in the comics, especially when it comes to larger storylines, storylines that cross over with other books or storylines that cross over the entire universe.
You wanna do that? Your name better be Mark Millar or Brian Michael Bendis or something really big, somebody who's got some power over there, or you better be a writer/editor, like, say, Denny O'Neil or a Dan Jurgens or somebody like that who's been involved at the company for so long that they've been given the keys to the kingdom to some degree.
If you're a guy like me who's got a lot of ideas and a lot of passion and interest, it might be a while before your great ideas will actually get published by any of the major companies, which is unfortunate.
Anyway, I'm super excited because today we're going to continue the tale of my career as a writer, working on adapting these wonderful geek culture classic mythologies from Marvel and DC and Disney Pixar and the Muppets.
I have been in the industry working for 25 years now, something like that.
And oh man, everything that can happen to a writer in comic books and other media has happened to me.
Uh, DC, where I created Dead Romeo for them, and I have been pitching, ugh, s- endless, endless good ideas to them for ages now.
Generally, they're built for their editors and their producers who are in charge, who aren't writers, who generally aren't really great creative people, but sometimes are.
They hand down mediocre ideas to people like me who dedicate their lives to becoming great writers to execute things like this to the best of their ability.
Because, you know, when you're given a crappy idea, the fundamentals are crappy, all you can do is your best.
They are writing the best version of some crappy idea that was handed to them.
Generally speaking, you have to really, really become a big name in the industry before they let you begin to creatively dictate how the storylines are going to unfold in the comics, especially when it comes to larger storylines, storylines that cross over with other books or storylines that cross over the entire universe.
You wanna do that? Your name better be Mark Millar or Brian Michael Bendis or something really big, somebody who's got some power over there, or you better be a writer/editor, like, say, Denny O'Neil or a Dan Jurgens or somebody like that who's been involved at the company for so long that they've been given the keys to the kingdom to some degree.
If you're a guy like me who's got a lot of ideas and a lot of passion and interest, it might be a while before your great ideas will actually get published by any of the major companies, which is unfortunate.
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