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Message

Subject: Re: The problem with JMS's Spider-Man
Date: 17 Mar 2001 05:07:20 GMT
From: jmsatb5@aol.com (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe

>> Yeah, I guess in a way. I've yet to hear a comics pro admit to a current
>> piece of their work being bad, even when it is being universally panned. No
>> matter how many people criticize it, it's always "That's just YOUR
>opinion".
>> Yeah, mine, and almost everyone else's :)
>
>If they thought it was bad they wouldn't have spent all that time doing
>it. Even "bad" work takes a lot of work.

I think, though, that you have to have some degree of perspective on your own
work.  I've actually done what the first paragraph above says, on numerous
occasions...when the B5 episode "Infection" was about to air, I made it clear
that it wasn't great, and that one of the predominant reason it wasn't great
was the script, which I wrote.  

I recalled the first draft of "Soul Hunter" from everybody in the production
team and wrote a whole new episode, and in that memo to everyone explained that
the only explanation I had for how the script had turned out was that "I must
have been temporariliy possessed by an idiot."

Hard work goes into everything; but I think you have to be open to recognizing
when you've blown it, or you can't learn and do better in future.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2001 by synthetic worlds, ltd., 
permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine 
and don't send me story ideas)