Posted in: Comics, san diego comic con | Tagged: Comics, dustin weaver, entertainment, jonathan hickman, sdcc, Secret Wars

SDCC'15: Spotlight on Jonathan Hickman

By Joe Glass

Jonathan Hickman has been enjoying a hugely successful career at Marvel, even bringing their two main universes to an end in this year's mega-event Secret Wars. As well as that, he's been making fantastic creator owned work with Image that is regularly blowing fans away.

So it is perhaps without much surprise that the writer is finding himself wanting to narrow and focus his workload, and is making decisions on what to do next.

In this panel, Hickman moderated himself, and basically went into a long Q&A session with his fans, with one caveat – they had to tell him before they asked their question whether they think he should stay with Marvel, go to DC or just do Image.

He started himself however by apologizing for delays in The Dying and The Dead and Manhattan Projects, which he seemed genuinely remorseful over. In terms of Secret Wars, Esad (Ribic) has the scripts, he's drawing them now but yes, they are a little late, so the series will be a book a month. Issue five was sent to press this week.

Hickman openly theorized that the next five years will see the best comics in years coming out, as more and more creators make the move to creator-owned work and the growing success of Image. He also frequently praised Image for being a place where creators are getting the full financial credit for their comics and that they generally make him a lot more money than his Marvel work.

Hickman and Dustin Weaver's oft-delayed book, Shield, should come out again in October/November – after Secret Wars. Issues 1-4 will be reissued as an over-sized comic, and then in the following weeks after that we'll see the final two issues.

When asked about what he would have done if he had more time on Secret Warriors, some of his earliest work at Marvel, Hickman just said he'd have let the ending breathe more, spreading it out with more issues on the other secret teams and focusing on the Hydra factions.

He did say that when Marvel let him finish off that series, that was when he realized that Marvel was really invested in him.

He pointed out that when you first start off as a writer, you have loads of time for research. However, as your popularity and workload increases, you get less time. A writer fan followed this up with a question about how Hickman keeps his thought threads on task, so that when he's reached the end of the project we can see the hints of that ending in the start. Hickman explained that his 'head just kinda works like that' and that you end up mining your own continuity, which makes you look way smarter than you are.

He mentioned one thing he ever wanted to do at Marvel that got nixed, and that was his turning point in Ultimates would have involved the Hulk freeing Tibet, but there were concerns this may cause problems in those areas and was shot down.

He then went more into his sense of exhaustion, feeling that over the last couple years he's been doing too much work, been stretched too thin, so he's keen to focus on fewer books, and those his creator-owned series'. He also mentioned working on some very weird, strange things with Image to come.

He did point out that even if he did stay at Marvel or move to DC, he would do Image too as it's so much more profitable.

He reminisced about his run on Ultimates, saying he considered it some of his best work at Marvel, but when DC launched their New 52 reboot, it just buried the Ultimate Universe and was it's true death knell.

When asked which Secret Wars tie-ins he's most enjoying, Hickman immediately said Jason Aaron's books were particular favorites, before pointing out he's not actually had chance to read any of the books yet; he's basing these opinions off what he knows from the writer's meetings and pitches. He did say he was excited to see Peter David write the Maestro, and that the end of Kieron Gillen's The Shield series is fantastic.

He was asked what books he was most excited about, and again he mentioned Aaron, this time his Doctor Strange book, which Hickman enthused will be 'cool as shit'. He then also admitted that the other coolest stuff he can't talk about, as it's not yet been announced.

He ended by noting that the next thing he does he will be both writing and drawing, as reported on Bleeding Cool earlier. Oh, and that final tally? Only one person thought he should stay with Marvel, four wanting to see him bring his writing skills to DC, and the by far most popular choice, ten people just said to stick with Image.

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