One of the Marvel-y related things that was happening as early as 1999 was my own web presence—I had one of the earliest Marvel fansites out there, maintaining an Unofficial Handbook of the Marvel Universe site.
Back in those days, it was rare to have anything beyond just basic HTML script, and you’d be lucky to find anything that wasn’t Geocities or something. I was committed to doing things of quality, not merely because I was a fan, but also because it helped me with my own artistic skills. Often, I would take a Marvel comics scan and retouch it with the earliest of PhotoShop programs. Over time, I found that my images were used and re-used by other sites all over the place. Perhaps a victim of my early success, I bounced around from server to server but finally had to abandon it entirely. Still, I take a silent amount of pride anytime I see one of my many scans that even today keep cropping up here and there.
At the time I started the site, however, Marvel hadn’t put out an Official Handbook for several years. If you read this autobiographical retrospective from the beginning, you can probably guess how much I longed for one to return. Such a longing was, in part, why I felt the need to pour all my energy into maintaining my fansite. From about 1993 to 2004, we were Handbook-less. I will always wonder if one of my fan-colleagues, Jeff Christianson, had any inspiration from me when he created his Appendix to the Marvel Universe website, and later parlayed that into 2004’s relaunch of the Official books. Maybe I had some part in this legacy continuing? I have to admit, as unfortunate as it was, this was about the time I abandoned my half-a-decade commitment to the fansite. It didn't seem as important now that Marvel started publishing Handbooks again.
The Official Handbook would have been among those comics that I purchased that September, 2005:
Defenders #1
Gravity #2
House of M #3
House of M #4
Livewires #6
New Avengers #9
New Thunderbolts #10
Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #17
Runaways #6
Young Avengers #6
New Warriors #2
Great Lakes Avengers #4
Fantastic Four #528
Fantastic Four #529
Marvel Comics, overall, had moved from the attempts to re-establish itself from financial (and arguably creative) bankruptcy in the early 2000s and was now solidly in control of itself and nearly the entire comics market. By this time, it had proven to be the “clearing house” of intellectual property that everyone always hoped it could be. The House of Ideas was attracting top talent in the industry, like J. Michael Straczynski, Brian K. Vaughan, and Allan Heinberg, all of whom had (or would go on to have) success in television and film writing, too. In the movie arena, this five-year period from 2000-2005 saw two Spider-Man films, more X-Men and Blade, and even a Hulk and a couple of Daredevil properties (Daredevil and Elektra.)
The true rising star at this time was author Brian Michael Bendis, who came to Marvel in 2000 from the “indie” publishing scene and exploded into popularity with Ultimate Spider-Man. By 2005, he was driving force of the Avengers titles, which entailed a reboot of the entire franchise and launched several “tent-pole” events that drove nearly the entire line of Marvel comics, such as the House of M titles, above.
In other news, by 2005, my artistic career had been over. Yes, that’s true. In retrospect, perhaps I just didn’t stick too it as much as I should have. After all, in hindsight it all looks like an incredibly short amount of time to even call it a “career” at all. Mr. Bendis himself would admit that he spent over a decade as a “starving artist” before he could find any modicum of success. But, while I did hit a few personal milestones, I came to realize that freelancing is a hard lifestyle to maintain, and to do so in Hollywood is especially trying. Instead, by 2005 I turned to another passion of mine, one that hasn’t really show up in my autobiography thus far. Youth. In 2003, I was a full-time high school teacher.
Look at all those titles above—nearly every one of them is under 12 issues, meaning that, just as *I* was starting a new life, so were many of my fictional counterparts. But rather than being the end of any story, like all new beginnings, this story is… to be continued next time!
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