spittlefleckedhyperbole:Mark Waid is a goddam...

spittlefleckedhyperbole:

Mark Waid is a goddam gentleman.

(From Fantastic Four vol. 3 #64)

He is ABSOLUTELY a gentleman.

But this needs some explanation, here.

I was email pals with Mark Waid before I ever seriously considered being a writer. He was just a kind guy who was nice to his readers and we stuck up a friendship.  

Several times, pro friends would say they were having trouble coming up with a character for a new project. I would make suggestions, just my own little weird ideas. I made many such suggestions, only a few were acted upon, but Mark was the ONLY one who ever gave me credit like this, in a book, back when I was just a fan. One pro took an idea I gave them, wrote a book with several scenes I suggested, and never once mentioned me, that was a little weird. But I DID give it to them, so I didn’t care that much.

Mark was a total gentleman. I created the idea of the Queen of Fables and named her, she was pretty much my idea, that he added professional polish to, and of course Bryan Hitch designed her. I still think of her as my character even though Mark wrote her ages before I ever did.

SENTIENT was much, much less me and more Mark. He was taking over Fantastic Four and wanted a new villain, someone to really bring a sense of wonder. This weird idea struck me, and I said, “What if they had to fight a sentient mathematical equation?”  And Mark loved that, and just went wild with it.

Truthfully, I would not have been able to make that story as cool as Mark Waid did in a million years. EVERYTHING else after that bit was Mark’s, so even calling it a ‘germ’ of an idea is pretty generous. It was a weird fannish outburst of an idea and he made something cool of it. At that time, I was just thrilled to have an idea of mine included in a real comic, so it was very exciting. 

I think I did have one idea for a scene in that story, but that’s it, so that character was 99.9% Mark, honest. He’s just being kind.