Matthew Wecksell sent me a couple of good questions to answer here. One, which requires a longer reply than I have time to write today, is about a mini-series I once instigated for DC called The DC Challenge. I'll get to that when I can but in the meantime, he asked about two comics called Sergio Aragonés Massacres Marvel and Sergio Aragonés Destroys DC that were done by Guess Who and Yours Truly. Matthew asked — tongue planted in cheek, I assume —
Did both companies need to agree to let you do both projects?
Okay, I'll treat that like a serious question: Yes, of course, since Marvel published one in which we lampooned their characters and DC published the other in which we spoofed their characters. It has been my experience that comic book companies almost never publish something without approving of it, however hard it may be to believe that of some projects.
What's more, we were somehow able to coordinate things so that they both — and don't ask me how we managed this — came out on the same day. I think. At least, that's my memory but online sources tell me that the Marvel one came out on April 3, 1996 and the DC one came out on May 1, 1996. I think one of those dates if wrong. Also, if you want get technical, the DC one was named Sergio Aragonés Destroys DC and the Marvel one was named Sergio Massacres Marvel. This mismatch was probably due to me not paying close enough attention to everything.
I also didn't catch that while Sergio's name was huge on the cover of each, and he and I were depicted on the front cover of the DC one and the back cover of the Marvel one, we forgot to put my name on the cover of either. Fortunately, Sergio caught that one and had it added, albeit awkwardly, at the last minutes.
One thing I did catch: In each, there was a full-page with an illustration of Sergio reading the comic books of one company and me looking annoyed at his dumb questions. At the last possible moment to make the switch, I decided it would be funnier if the page with him reading DC Comics, which was then in the DC book, was in the Marvel book and vice-versa so I had them swapped. So what we had was a page drawn for a DC book printed in a Marvel book and a page drawn for a Marvel book printed in a DC book. When else could that have happened?
How this whole silly thing came about isn't much of a story. As I recall, Paul Levitz (who was then one of the main folks running DC) and I were talking and the idea materialized out of nowhere. Paul said they'd do it and one of us said, "Hey, wouldn't it be neat if we did this for Marvel too?" and we both talked to someone at Marvel and I wish I could remember who it was but it was all arranged rather effortlessly. Nothing in comics these days is as simple as it was then.
I wrote both issues with story input from Sergio. He penciled the whole thing and inked the pages on which we appeared. Guest artists inked the pages on which we parodied Superman and Spider-Man and Batman and whatever else we despoiled. I learned — and I guess I knew this before we saw firm evidence — that though the guest inkers were some of the best in the business, Sergio's artwork was best when he inked it himself. The pages certainly got done faster.
We were both pretty happy with how they came out and also with a book we did a little later called Sergio Stomps Star Wars — again, done in cooperation with the folks who owned the properties we were ridiculing — and we both have signed jillions of them. I hope one of these days someone at DC will call someone at Marvel or someone at Marvel will call someone at DC and they'll arrange to reprint the DC and Marvel books in one volume but I've never heard of anyone trying to make that happen. DC has just assembled a MAD special that does some of the same things to DC Comics and Sergio has contributed some pages to that.
And that's about all I can think of to write about this topic. When I get more time, I'll tackle the challenge of writing about The DC Challenge. Thanks, Matthew.
