Editors in a lot of ways are the great unsung heroes in comics. When you have good ones, like Alejandro Arbona or Steve Wacker, they can sometimes be as good of a guarantee for the quality of a book as any writer or artist is. When you have a bad one, books can suffer from many different maladies that can befall a comic each and every issue.
Warren Simons is undoubtedly on the good side, starting in comics at Marvel and editing books like Fraction, Brubaker and Aja’s “Immortal Iron Fist” and Fraction and Larocca’s “Invincible Iron Man” before moving on to become the Executive Editor at the resurgent Valiant Comics. He’s done it all, and the work he’s doing over at Valiant is something few editors can say they’ve done: he’s cultivating an entire new comic book universe, right in front of our eyes.
Thanks to the team at Valiant, we spoke with Warren about his path to becoming an editor, his favorite part about his job, what books he enjoyed working on the most, and much more. It’s a fascinating read about one of the secret movers and shakers in comics, and if you’re a Valiant fan, this guy is a big reason why you are. Take a read, and thanks to Warren for chatting with us.
WS: Well, first off, thanks for the very kind words. And you are correct, only the deranged enter this medium wanting to work as an editor! But as crazy a job working an editor can be, I really do love the gig, and feel incredibly lucky to work at Valiant and to have spent a number of years at Marvel.
I fell in love with comics as a kid in the ‘80s. I loved Marvel and DC, and was enamored with modern masters like Frank Miller, David Mazzucchelli, Mike Zeck and John Buscema, Byrne and Claremont, Alan Moore and later on the creators like Kirby, Ditko, Eisner, Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima.
Professionally, I worked as a journalist and in magazines prior to comics. I always had a real love for magazines, particularly the now defunct Spy Magazine, and knew that I wanted to work in print in some capacity. I’d interned at a number of magazines in college, including Rolling Stone and Interview Magazine, and after graduating worked as a journalist at regional newspapers in New York and at ESPN The Magazine. I was working at an editor at Resume.com in 2002 when I applied for an assistant editor gig at Marvel via Monster.com, and after a few months of interviews was hired.
You’re someone who has been involved with some pretty amazing runs on books, and ones that hit on every level of what makes comics incredible. Obviously to achieve the best, you need good creators telling stories that matter to them, but to you, what is the secret sauce that makes a good comic great? How do the assorted writers and artists and inkers and colorists and letterers and more take a book to that next level, and how do editors help pull that all together?
WS: Well, again, thanks — I feel very lucky to have worked with some incredibly talented creators over the years. They really are the engine that powers the car.
An editor’s job, at its most bare bones, is to work directly with the five disciplines that comprise a monthly comic: the writers, pencilers, inkers, colorists, and letterers. At a publisher like Valiant, we produce 22 pages of work every 28 days, so it can be a labor-intensive proposition. While there’s no secret sauce that makes a good comic –besides for possibly beer – every creator is different, and every project has different demands. If you can create an environment where creators can do their best work — as simple as that might sound – I think you’re off to a great start.
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WS: You know, it’s a great question. Editing the launch titles at Valiant — X-O Manowar, Harbinger, Bloodshot, and Archer & Armstrong — was certainly a career highlight and a unique opportunity. I really love the last few launches we’ve done — Matt Kindt and Clayton Crain have been making Rai sing, and Matt and Doug Bratihwaite’s Unity launch was, I felt, one of the best first issues I’ve worked on. And in addition to being a great writer, Joshua Dysart’s very handsome. Dreamy voice. So that’s always a bonus.
At Marvel, I was able to work with the genius that is David Aja, and I really loved his work with Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker and Matt Hollingsworth on Iron Fist. Ed and Michael Lark’s Daredevil, Fraction and Salvador Larroca’s Iron Man, JMS and Coipel’s Thor, and limited series like Magneto: Testament, Daredevil: Battling Jack Murdock, Spider-Man: Doctor Octopus Year One, Angel: Revelations, and Terror, Inc., also provided me the opportunity to work with a murderer’s row of brilliant, uber-talented creators, and are some of my favorites.
As with just about everyone working in a creative field, I’ve definitely learned a lot from projects that weren’t deemed hits, at least if you’re looking at them in a commercial and critical light, but I try not to harp on misses. As the great Satchel Paige said, “Don’t look back, something might be gaining on you.”
With Marvel, you worked on a lot of great but disparate projects, as Immortal Iron Fist certainly didn’t impact Invincible Iron Man and The Order didn’t have an impact on Thor. But with Valiant, your team and the creative teams are building a world. How has that experience differed, and how does your approach change when you’re working on a connected universe instead of a slew of individual titles?
WS: We’ve relaunched an entire universe at Valiant, so we were faced with a number of unique challenges prior to our launch, especially as the titles had been dormant for about a decade. Those included modernizing the characters, redesigning the costumes, building the publishing plan, and most importantly, bringing in a group of writers and artists to help architect the books.
As with any shared universe, it’s been vital to get far ahead of the publishing plan, and to see how the pieces are going to interact with each other not just next month, but six months or a year down the line. So there’s been a lot more coordinating between titles, especially when the books are interacting with each other, as is the case with the upcoming Armor Hunters event.
Luckily, we could draw from the ideas of some of the most iconic creators in the history of the medium, like Jim Shooter, David Lapham, and Barry Windsor-Smith, who birthed the Valiant Universe in the 90s.
WS: I love talking story with the writers at the front-end of a project or an arc, and just kicking around ideas. It’s great when you’re in an environment where there’s an open exchange of ideas. I also really love talking to an artist about an approach to a page. I see Klaus Janson, who’s obviously an icon in our medium, every few months, and it’s always a real treasure to be able to chat storytelling with him.
Just last week I had a chance to talk to a new creator who’s coming over to Valiant later this year, and I was reminded of just how absolutely cool and down to Earth 99% of the creators in this medium are, and how they’re here for the love of the game, for the chance to build a great story and innovate. But when the new comics arrive, and you’re holding a printed issue in your hands, that’s when I’m truly reminded of how amazing this job can be.
