Off the Record...

Ultimate Spider-Man turns 50 this month, but with sales in the Top 10 consistently, it has yet to show signs of any age. Recently, we chatted with Mark Bagley, the artist who penciled all 50 of those issues, about how he got talked into drawing The Pulse, why you can't have a Black Cat costume without the cleavage, and why he's the Susan Lucci of the Wizard Fan Awards (but not really).

CBEtc: Ultimate Spider-Man #50 is a pretty big issue. The new story arc features the debut of Black Cat and I believe you have Elektra coming in. Was it just time to bring out the babes or what?

MB: You know, the motivation behind bringing out the babes was it was going to happen eventually, and it seemed like a good time with #50. [Laughs] Actually, to me more important than the debut of the Black Cat or anything, is we’re getting a new colorist on the book as of #50. J.D. Smith is taking over.

CBEtc: What’s he worked on?

MB: He’s done a lot of stuff for WildStorm. Most recently for Marvel, he did the coloring for Namor. You should see the colors. Oh, man! Beautiful stuff. Just incredible. Really brining something to it. Making me look really good, which very, very important.

CBEtc: I thought that was [inker] Art Thibert’s job.

MB: It’s everybody’s job to make me look good. [Laughs] Job #1 is to make me look good. As long as everyone understands that, we get along. [Laughs]

CBEtc: Anything you can reveal to the fans about this story arc?

MB: Well it’s kind of related to an earlier Amazing Spider-Man story arc having to do with an ancient tablet. Kingpin is involved with it and Elektra is in it. Aside from that it’s a little too complicated to get into in an interview. You need to read it.

CBEtc: You said you’re currently penciling #54, which is a new story arc. What’s going on in it?

MB: It’s cool. That issue is Spider-Man: The Movie.

CBEtc: The first movie?

MB: Well it’s just Spider-Man, the movie. We got permission to use Avi Arad’s, Sam Rainey’s, and Toby McGuire’s likenesses. And it’s basically the story of a movie company that comes to New York to film Spider-Man the movie. Peter is outraged because he’s not getting any money, he’s not getting any credit, and Toby McGuire is playing him. That’s when he breaks a door. [Laughs]

CBEtc: Who does he think should play him?

MB: We never get into that. Brian wrote it and it’s just a riot. Peter shows up one afternoon while they are doing some rooftop shooting and says "You’re movie is going to suck! You can’t do this!" and he starts flipping all over the place. Avi Arad is like "Keep it up we’re filming. That saved me about a million dollars right there." It’s good stuff.

CBEtc: You’ve mentioned during our last interview, one of the nice things about Ultimate Spider-Man is you can draw the characters without any preconceived notions of how they should look. There is no former artist that drew them first. What character designs are you pleased with the most?

MB: Hmmm… Some of these characters, their motivation leans towards what has been done before, so I’m not going to change the Kingpin. I’m really happy with Elektro. He came out really good with the black leather suit and everything. I wish we could have used him more. Doc Ock, I like my redesign a lot. I like Humberto Ramos’s design a lot more!

I really didn’t get to redesign Venom much because with marketing and merchandising, we really wanted to keep Venom the same. I really didn’t work out too much new
stuff.

You know, when you look back at the 50 issues we’ve done so far, we haven’t done that many of his classic villains. Kraven is like this little tiny character who’s there. Shocker is this little character who’s there. We’ve done Venom, The Kingpin, Doc Ock, and Goblin. The story arcs are so long, they are four, five or seven issues that repeat villains like Kingpin and Doc Ock. So it’s not that many. It’s kind of more the background characters I’ve doing a lot with too. I mean the Enforcers, I got to redesign them. They’re total tools.

CBEtc: What Amazing Spider-Man villains haven’t made it in yet that you can’t wait to take a stab at?

MB: Rocket Racer. Oh, wait… he was in it. The guy with the "big wheel" thing. No, I’m kidding. It would be cool to have an Ultimate Morbius. We sort of mentioned James Jameson, Jonas' kid, and he’s assumed dead. Which he may very well be, Brian and I have not talked about this. A new Man-Wolf might be fun.

CBEtc: What about Scorpion?

MB: Scorpion might be fun, but he’s kind of limited. You have to worry about characters that are aimed directly at Spider-Man. I notice that a lot of books get weaker when the villain’s total focus was on the Spider-Man character. Sometimes there’s gotta be an interesting character and Spidey just happens to run into him or some sequence of events. You start designing characters because it would be cool to have the Scorpion fight Spider-Man.

That’s why I’m not a writer. I stay out of that too much. It’s all just clay. It’s all just drawing, and to me that’s the fun part. If Brian says we’re doing Ultimate Mindworm or something, then I’ll sit down and work out something very cool. I’ll trust Brian to work out an interesting story around this goofy kind of character.

CBEtc: Is that more fun, sitting down and sketching the character, trying to come up with different designs then actually sitting down and laying out the book?

MB: No, it’s apple and oranges. It usually doesn’t take any time. When I go to design a character it’s usually the first or second sketch that I settle on. Which is sometimes good. Because a lot of times your first ideas are best. Other times, I like to have some input.

Like the Ultimate Black Cat. There were five or six sketches I was sending back and forth to Brian and the office. We were going for a different look and nothing was really clicking. Then I got a little input from Brian, and I came up with a costume that was very cat burglar, with more leather and not nearly as reveling. I sent [the Ultimate Black Cat designs] into the office and they insisted we need more cat, more Black Cat, more cleavage… the whole nine yards. So, I basically took that costume and whacked down the chest and gave her some fur. All the sudden, "WOW! That’s a real cool Black Cat costume!"

Elektro and Doc Ock were done before I even got the book. I was just playing around, doing a couple sketches for villains just to show people when we were promoting the book, before I even accepted it. Not seeing any story, I just did Dock Ock and Elektro. Brian always planned on Doc Ock but he liked my Elektro so much that he threw him in there.

CBEtc: What would you have done differently with Venom?

MB: I don’t know. I actually drew him with the spider on his chest on the cover, which I did prior to the interiors. They took it out because they couldn’t figure out why he'd have a spider on his chest. It didn’t make sense. From the get go it was he’s going to look basically the same. I morphed him out, giving him more teeth, making him more outta control, cause he wasn’t the same character any more. He much more a big glob of organic mass.

CBEtc: Why do you think the Venom character is so popular with the fans?

MB: Well it’s such a great visual. The teeth and the black costume and the tongue and everything. It’s just a really nice visceral image. And the first few times he was used especially, he was very pure and very easy to grasp onto. And it was right in the middle of the "boom days." If it happened ten years before or five years after, who knows? It was in the middle of the collector days.

Same with Carnage. Carnage is not the best character in the world. Plus when Michelene introduced him and he threw that baby from the balcony, people were like "Oh, this is a different kind of character." You’ve never seen this in a Spider-Man book before. He was totally without remorse or any concept of giving a crap. He was a sicko.

We’re bringing him back. Brian hates him, but he has a plan for him that’s interesting. I haven’t seen the proposal yet. I’d like to redesign him. I’m the one who designed him, so I can bitch about him. He’s a pain in the butt to draw and make him look good. I’d like to do a little tweaking and make him a little easier to draw.

CBEtc: The Ultimate Spider-Man creative team has been together so long. Ultimate Spider-Man was to the Wizard 2003 Fan Awards like "Titanic" was to the Oscars. It won Favorite Ongoing Series, Favorite Hero, Favorite Supporting Character, Favorite Writer, Inker, and Letterer. But not Penciler. What’s the deal? Are you like the Susan Lucci of the Wizard Fan Awards?

MB: No, 'cause she’s been nominated! [Laughs] I’d like to say "it doesn’t bother me," but it does a little bit. Some really good people were nominated. So what if I do four times the work they do? If I did a fourth of the work I do, it would be better work, but would I be as popular?

I think one of the reasons I’m so popular as a penciler is because I’m there every month. Fans enjoy and respect it. [By coming out 18 issues a year] fans don’t forget how good the story was, they don’t have to dredge it. It’s still fresh in their mind. No matter who good the Ultimates is, three months later, a new issue comes out. You go "What was going on again?" With Ultimate Spider-Man, if you’re reading, and you’re enjoying it, then another one comes out soon thereafter. Does the amount of work I do lessen the amount of respect I get? I don’t know.

CBEtc: Well, you’ve been a Wizard Top 10 artist for a long time.

MB: Yeah, that’s great. Like I said, I don’t do it for that. If my book sells really well, which is important to me financially, and gets me respect from the fans, that means more to me that anything else.

CBEtc: The picture Wizard has of you… is that you in your backyard?

MB: [Laughs] That’s me off the side of my front porch. It looks like we’re out in the woods but were not. They needed a new picture because that old picture was from 15 years ago. My daughter laughed every time she saw it.

CBEtc: Explain how you got talked into penciling the first story arc of Marvel’s new "The Pulse" series with writer Brian Michael Bendis.

MB: I love Brian. He’s on his website talking about this thing. The guys on his message board are like "I hope this doesn’t screw up Spider-Man." Brian messages "Oh, no no. It’s scheduled that he can do it at his leisure." I’m working 80 hours a frigging week. Come on! Leisure? I’ve got no leisure!

You know, Brian can have his pick of anybody right now. And it’s really flattering that he would call me to do this. He really wanted me to do it and I can do about a book and a half a month. It’s five issues and I just thought it’s something I would want to do. So I said "Yeah." Then I got a panicked phone call from Ralph Machio, my editor, saying "You know we’re doing 21 issues next year, don’t you?" I, of course, responded "What do you mean 21!?! We’re doing 18 issues a year!" But, I’m committed. That’s basically how I got talked into it. I get to work with Brian and do his stories. I really enjoy what he writes. It’s just makes it a lot of fun for me.

CBEtc: For those who haven’t read Alias, what can you tell fans about The Pulse?

MB: The Pulse is basically gonna be set in the regular Marvel Universe, which is a nice change of pace for me. I did this huge splash page with the Vulture and the regular Spider-Man. It was kind of cool to draw him again, muscled up and in an adult body. But The Pulse is basically based on Jessica Jones. She used to be a super hero, and she went through a lot bad times. Now she’s an investigator dealing with a lot of super hero issues and things. She still has her powers, but tries not to use them.

She gets hired by the Bugle to work with Ben Ulrich to deal with super hero issues in a magazine-type format. She’s gonna be the consultant and the leg work person and Ulrich is gonna do the writing. J. Jonas is realizing that, while he doesn’t like super heroes, they are there and people are interested in them. He’s got to fill that market. So, it’s going to revolve around things happening in the super-hero community being reported on from outside the super-hero community. I think it’s gonna be pretty interesting.

CBEtc: Would you say it’s a more of an older, more mature look on the Marvel Universe?

MB: Yeah, I think so. I think it’s the kind of thing that maybe a 9- year old wouldn’t enjoy, but 13 or 14- year old would definitely enjoy. It’s written for anyone from a 13-year-old to adult type thing. It’s like all Brian’s writing.

I’ve read the first couple issues, I don’t have the full story yet, but it reads kind of like CSI. They’re investigating murders, and it’s obvious that a super-villain or something has perpetrated this murder with super powers.

CBEtc: When is the first issue out?

MB: I want to say April. March or April? Something like that. I try not to worry about details like that. I just work as fast as I can and get it in.

CBEtc: Former Marvel president Bill Jemis was big supporter of yours, are you sad to see him leave?

MB: I don’t know if "sad" is the right word. From what I gathered, he wasn’t going to be at Marvel forever. He’s got designs on other stuff. I’ve heard this from the source, I’ve heard this from people close to him, and I’m way down here in Georgia so I don’t get into the politics of what goes on. And if this is a demotion, well it’s going to be a temporary demotion, because I think he’s moving on anyway. He’s done a lot of good things for Marvel. I never had an axe to burden with him. He’s been wonderful for my career. He’s obviously a very intelligent man, and appreciated me for what I am. [Laughs] But I hear really great things about [new President] Dan Buckley. I have never met him. I think he worked for Marvel ten years ago. Joe Quesada speaks very highly of him and the guys at the office seem to like him.

CBEtc: Any big shake-ups?

MB: I haven’t seen anything. I called Joe, "So, what’s this mean for me and Brian?" His reply was "Doesn’t mean anything, we love you guys."

CBEtc: Have you read Trouble?

MB: No. I can’t bring myself to read it. It’s pretty, but… This is one of those stories that I don’t think needed telling. I don’t know why they would do a story like this. They could’ve done it with other characters. It just doesn’t appeal to me. There’s lots of thing put out that I can’t quite figure out the market for.

CBEtc: You mentioned before that you’d love to play in the DC Universe. Obviously with your schedule increasing that’s not going to happen anytime soon. What DC character would you just love to do?

MB: Superman, of course. He’s the big cheese.

CBEtc: No doubt?

MB: No hesitation. He’s so different than what I’m known for doing. I got to stretch my wings a little bit when I was doing Thunderbolts and doing giants and characters like Graviton and that sorta thing. You tend to get pigeonholed as an artist, especially if you’ve had a really long run.

I had this discussion with people. "How many writers have you worked with?" I’ve really only worked very few writers in my 18-year career, because I’ve been on such nice long runs with books. That’s the upside. The downside is I haven’t worked with a whole lot of writers. I haven’t worked with a ton of different characters. Superman would be the first one I really want to jump on over there. Or the JLA. The JLA would be perfect. I enjoy doing team books. They’re a lot of work, but with the JLA I would be able to do all the main guys over there. That would be very, very cool.

CBEtc: You penciled the Hulk movie adaptation for Marvel. Was that something you asked to do?

MB: Actually [editor] Ralph [Machio] called me. Ralph had known I’d been interested in doing the Hulk for a while. It’s such a different kind of thing. I didn’t know how funky the story would be. [Laughs] The only trouble with doing a one-shot is that it usually takes an issue or two for somebody to get comfortable doing it. I was generally pretty happy with it. There are some really cool images in it. There are also places were I wasn’t as consistent as I could’ve been with it. Give me two issues of drawing the Hulk and it will look I’ve been drawing him for 20 years.

CBEtc: What did you think of the movie?

MB: I actually went out and got the DVD. I don’t know why, but I did. The first hour of it is yawn city. I don’t know why they felt they had to go so far from the source material, and all that extra BS in there. It’s like they forgot what kind of movie they were making. If you want to make an art film, go make a frickin’ art film. You can make a comic book movie that appeals to everybody. Kids ran screaming from that film because they were so bored. I almost did!

The last hour and a half, however, when the Hulk started ripping that tank in half and beaten the crap outta the other tank with it, I was out of my seat yelling "THAT’S the Hulk! Why did it take and hour and a half to get there?" I’m very conflicted on the movie. I thought the CGI worked really, really well. There were places where it was a little weak, but it’s a heck of a lot better than Lou Ferigno ever was. [Laughs] I look forward to the next. Hopefully they learned a lesson.

CBEtc: The last time I spoke with you, you hadn’t had time to see the Spider-Man movie yet. What did you think?

MB: It was perfect. Well it wasn’t "perfect," but it was really, really good. I don’t know why he’s got organic web shooters. I can understand the simplicity of it, and it makes making movies a lot easier. But he’s supposed to be a genius. What did he do in the movie to prove he’s a genius? I think that’s actually John Byrne’s complaint. One of the few things I’ve ever agreed with Byrne on.

There were a couple of scenes that were clunky. Like the funeral scene at the end. Mary Jane calls Peter "Peter Parker" twice in the same conversation. I can’t remember the last time my wife looked at me and said "Mark Bagley." Like I said, it was written clunky in a couple places, but 99% was great. The Goblin mask sucked, but I don’t know what else they could do. On the whole, it was incredible. In fact I’ve got the backup DVD on my screen right now because I’ve got to do the likenesses of Avi Arad and Sam Rainey and stuff.

CBEtc: Have you seen MTV’s Spider-Man cartoon?

MB: Yeah, I saw a couple episodes of it. I thought the action sequences were incredible. I thought it was really a pretty good cartoon. I was a little put off by the computer-generated regular people. They kind of looked weird and moved weird, and I thought that could’ve been done better, but anytime you had Spider-Man on there, he was moving and jumping and flipping. That was really cool.

CBEtc: What’s happened in the last year that you wish you had a Spidey sense to warn you?

MB: [Laughs] I don’t know. Nothing I can think of. This last year has gone pretty darn well.

Okay, now is the time for "2099" portion of our interview. You did this in our last interview. It’s basically an "either/or" type of response, but you can answer whatever first pops into your head. Some of the questions are new, some are repeats, to see if you've changed any of your previous answers.

Interiors or Covers: Covers

Ultimate Clone Spider-Man or Ultimate Cosmic Spider-Man: [Laughs] Neither!

X-Men 1 or X-Men 2: X-Men 2

X-Box or Playstation: X-Box. It’s cooler.

Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnen: Oh, God. Sean Connery. "Pierce" who?

For backgrounds - interiors or exteriors: Interiors

Classic 60’s Spidey cartoon or MTV’s: MTV’s

Tighter costume - Ultimate Black Cat or Thunder Bolts’ Moonstone: Uhhh… Ultimate Black Cat

First print or trade paperback: First print (Previous answer: "Both")

Eat out or delivery: Eat out

Mac or PC: I use a PC

Star Wars or Star Trek: Ewww... That’s my answer [Laughs]

CD or Vinyl: CD

John or Paul: John

Georgia Bulldogs or Georgia Tech: Go Dawgs! Woof! Woof! Let the big dawg eat!

Ultimate New Warriors or Ultimate Thunderbolts: Hmmm… Ultimate Thunderbolts

Locked in a room with Venom or Speed Ball: [Laughs] Speed Ball

Oatmeal or grits: Neither

Squeeze from the middle or at the end (toothpaste): At the end

Ah ha… your response was "middle" last time. Getting a little anal as you get older?

Keep my sex life out of it! [Laughs]

Jennifer Garner - Alias or Elektra: Elektra

ART CREDITS (not official)

Ultimate Spider-Man #1 – current
The Pulse (upcoming #1-5)
Incredible Hulk Movie Adaptation
Fantastic Four #51-54
A Moment of Silence (9-11 Tribute Book)
Thunderbolts #1 – 50
SuperBoy (fill-in)
Batman / Spider-Man
New Warriors #1 - ?
Amazing Spider-Man #351 – 400s (5+ years)
Strikeforce: Morituri #23, 26-31
Psi-Brand (fill-ins)
Star Brand (fill-ins)
Nightmask #9, 10, 12