TOM DEFALCO

The following is an e-mail interview with TOM DEFALCO, a Marvel editor/writer whose experience covers a vast number of books, most recently the MC-2 series set fifteen years in Marvel's future. This interview was conducted on February 20, 1999.

JOHN DALTON: What is your earliest comic book memory?

TOM DEFALCO: I was about five years old and visiting a cousin who showed me my first comic. What I remember about it was that it starred Batman, and I was intrigued.

JOHN DALTON: What, in your early life, best prepared you to work in comics?

TOM DEFALCO: My family owned a supermarket, and everyone had to pitch in, and work long hours to keep the store going--kind of like the way a team has to work together to keep a monthly comic on schedule.

JOHN DALTON: How did you break into comics?

TOM DEFALCO: I had worked for a local newspaper, produced a weekly comic strip for my college paper, and had sold a few short stories. When I graduated college, I made copies of my samples, and sent them out to a few publishers. Archie Comics saw the work, liked it, and gave me a call.

JOHN DALTON: Your work has extended through the length and breadth of comicdom. What are you most proud of?

TOM DEFALCO: I am most proud of my work on Thunderstrike, Green Goblin, and I'm real happy with the MC-2 comics.

JOHN DALTON: You have been an editor and a writer. What are the challenges of both?

TOM DEFALCO: As an editor, you have to keep the lunatics in line. As a writer, it's your job to be a lunatic.

JOHN DALTON: Some claim that the "Dark Age" or "ImAge" of comics is over. If so, then what's next?

TOM DEFALCO: Your guess is as good as mine. (Dark Age of Image?!--Hoo-boy! Sounds like somebody has an axe to grind!)

JOHN DALTON: What do you see changing in comics, for better or worse, as we enter the 21st Century?

TOM DEFALCO: I see a slow erosion of the actual craft of visual story-telling. The older masters are leaving the field, and the new crop of raw talent hasn't anyone to teach them the basics.

JOHN DALTON: You have had an opportunity to do a little of everything in comics. Is there still a "dream project", a group of characters or book, that you would like to work on?

TOM DEFALCO: I've always had a thing for Captain America...and I'm curious what a DeFalco/Frenz Superman would be like.