Talk:Will Meugniot

"Interview"

Until that "interview" in the trivia section is sufficiently sourced, it should remain hidden. --Koveras 09:43, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree in part, although the actual "interview" should not be in the main page (aside from being unsourced it's POV) since you are talking about it here I think the "interview" and subsequent "talk" should be moved here. Honestly, everyone is just going to go looking for it anyway. 198.6.46.11 17:20, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

P.S. In my humble and completely irrelevant opinion the interviewer comes off as a total dick.

PART 1 "Interview" with Will Meugniot

Money! Money! Money!: in a candid interview (August 2006), Will Meugniot revealed:

• He hates Watchmen (DC 1986) by Alan Moore, claiming its "plot engine" is a rip-off of "that Outer Limits epidsode with Nick Adams", which he feels utterly ruined the experience for him and his friends. In Moore's defense, the The Outer Limits episode in question, The Architects of Fear, which aired in 1964, starred Robert Culp, not Nick Adams, as the protagonist: regarding the particular "plot engine", as with literally everything in Watchmen, universally acknowledged as a conscious tribute to the comic book and all of its tropes, this classic conspiracy is handily represented by comicdom antecedents that pre-date that particular episode - Lo-Karr from 1961's Journey Into Mystery #75 by Marvel Comics and Tales of Suspense #2 featuring The Invaders published in 1959.
• He doesn't believe there's any money in - and therefore there's no purpose in - writing short fiction or genre fiction, particularly science fiction, "Notice there's not a whole lot of new science fiction?" - unless it's franchise writing work-for-hire, especially Star Trek and Star Wars novels, which makes friends of his a "ton of money!"
• He believes the real money is in film, video games and television, and that this is where prospective storytellers should go--because there's a lot of money in it!
• He thinks electronic publishing is a financial disaster for comics publishing, noting that when Stan Lee took Marvel online, while the numbers were promising in a city like Los Angeles, and enthusiasm within the company was high, the projected success just didn't play out in the rest of the country, and, in fact, bottomed out so far down as to be "cartoonishly bad". Meugniot attributes this failure to a lack of access to the necessary technology, which just isn't universal and can't yet effectively support the industry, and, more than that, the fact that people still just like the feel of a comic book.
• He feels while working for Marvel that the Marvel Method, while effective at turning out a large volume of work, tends to leave the contributions of the artistic side of the equation unfairly credited--most stories worked out over the phone, Meugniot complained that at one point, his writer was so late with anything that after a brief phone call, it fell to him to create not just minor work, but essential narrative for that particular title for which he feels he should have gotten a co-writing credit and that this sort of relationship was the norm for him at Marvel. Needless to say, a co-writing credit equals more money!
• He feels The DNAgents, while creator-owned, didn't make him the money he would have liked because, being published by an independent publisher, it wasn't as sought after as it would have been had it been published by one of the major publishing houses and received the distribution and marketing such titles are known to receive.
• He is a big fan of Neil Gaiman - but not of his comics, of his prose; he has yet to read any of Gaiman's comics. And while he feels Gaiman has become an enviable financial success, he doesn't believe the author of American Gods and Anansi Boys was making much of a living while working on The Sandman - no, Meugniot firmly holds that Gaiman needed to do additional work on the BBC television series, Neverwhere, for additional income.
• He thought upon reading the script for 2000's X-Men, that the story failed by mis-using the character of Magneto, stating "Magneto is a physical villain," adding that this character's plot to alter the human population's genetics was a terrible mistake and an idea that was simply out of character for this classic X-Men villain. He has yet to see the resulting film or any of its sequels, this despite years working with Marvel and the X-Men franchise in particular.

PART 2 - Will Meugniot response to "interview"

Fellow Wikipedia Users,

This is why professionals are hesitant to talk to fans. I ran into the person who wrote this at a bookstore while browsing graphic novels. The nature of our conversation, not an interview, even a casual one, is misrepresented by the writer. It was he who first brought up the subject of money in comics and the relative rewards of pursuing different paths in the comics and film business. Representing himself as a writer, the financial part of our chat was at his behest.

As for Watchmen, I think it remains a highwater mark in comics, its only flaw being the fake alien plot twist which feels beneath the cleverness of the rest of the project. Far from expressing hatred of it, I greatly admire it -- except for that one detail.

As someone who often goes off the path with personal projects that are done for enjoyment rather commercial reward, such as the forthcoming Zombie Monkey Monster Jamboree book, I think the proof is on paper that the writer misrepresents my view on short stories and other less commercial forms.

Gaiman is a genius. I just didn't follow his comics and discovered him through his novels and the Neverwhere TV series.

As for the X-Men movies I did indeed see the first two, and enjoyed them with some caveats. Like many others, I decided the third looked more like a video rental than a night at the movies.

In any case, I deeply resent having what I thought was just a pleasant conversation between two fans of the form turned into an unauthorized "interview".

Will Meugniot

PART 3 - Interviewer's response to Mr. Meugniot

Fellow Wikipedia Users'

I, who wrote the article, am not a fan, but a professional writer. I ran into Mr. Meuginiot at Borders Valencia while browsing graphic novels. The nature of our conversation did indeed follow a casual interview as I most definitely did identify myself as a writer--and even so, even with this not being the case, Mr. Meuginiot most certainly did bring up the subject of money inside the first ten minutes of what would be a half hour conversation in which he unquestionably did reveal exactly and precisely the issues covered by my entry. Nothing I offered was misrepresented and none of this was expanded or falsified. Meuginiot made precisely the observations and precisely the comments attributed to him. I will be publishing the complete article elsewhere, no question--this has become a minor mission for me due to this experience. Don't feel comfortable taking responsibility for your words, Mr. Meuginiot? That's just too damned bad, sir. That's just too damned bad.

PART 4 - Koveras response to the both of them

Dear interviewer and interviewee,

I hope you realize, that Wikipedia is not a forum and that such discussions are only permitted (if at all) on the talk pages. Moreover, however sorry I may feel about letting such good deal of information slip, the rules of Wikipedia are definitive: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader must be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, because Wikipedia does not publish original thought or original research." See also the source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability

Interviews like this are considered unverifiable original research and, thus, not appropriate on Wikipedia. What can you do? Get the transcript of the series and post it at some reliable site then come back and put a link to it here as a reference. You can read what is a verifiable source here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources

Again, I'm really sorry but the rules on the Pedia are strict but reasonable.

Koveras

Links for later

These can be useful for expanding the article... --Koveras ^☭ 19:37, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

• http://www.awn.com/mag/issue5.05/5.05pages/dannacherlee2.php3
• http://www.teensreadtoo.com/InterviewMeugniot.html
• http://www.storyboardpro.com/bio.html