TEAM UP by Karl Kindt IV [ Click here for a printer-friendly version. ] Copyrighted © 1999 by Karl Kindt IV | Published digitally 17 April 2000 "Did Poppy see Declue about this yet?"
Marjorie slouched against the door frame of Cummings’s office and did not reply. She held a box of markers close to her chest and shrugged.
"That nutty old fart probably tried to go over my head, damn it," Cummings said. He stood up from his drawing table and began pacing back and forth the three steps it took him to cross his office. Every time he turned his ponytail flipped from one shoulder to the other.
"He’s supposed to be here by now. He’s supposed to come to my office. We were supposed to meet about this."
Marjorie shrugged again and said, "I don’t know, Cummings. It’s up to you guys. I just need the finished pages by the end of the week to get it colored in time to go to press."
He stopped his pacing and looked into her eyes. They were the color of old grass, and Cummings thought they were so big they made her look like Betty Boop.
"I’m sorry. I shouldn’t take this out on you. It’s our brilliant editor Declue who paired Poppy and me up on this assignment. I never should’ve taken it. I’m sick of drawing other people’s stories. I want to write my own, and I thought this project might give me the chance to have more input."
He sat back at his art table and looked at the rough sketches that were strewn across his workspace.
"Take a look."
Marjorie came into the office and looked over his shoulder at the pages he had penciled.
"You usually draw Wild Man, right? I think I colored one of your annuals two years ago."
He nodded. "Yeah, and Poppy writes Uberman. They’re like night and day. Declue thought it’d be cool to get them together for a special limited series, kind of like the old Batman and Superman stories in World’s Finest. Poppy used to do some really good stuff back in the old days. Hell, I grew up reading his first series. Remember Tripster?"
She shook her head.
"Man, it was great stuff. Every issue this dude would travel to some country and find these extremely weird bad guys trying to take over the world and stuff. He’d travel back in time sometimes or end up on some strange planet where everybody could read minds or something. Some issues you’d read and you’d almost swear you’d taken drugs or something, it was so wacked out. He used to be cool, but now he’s just spinning his wheels, doing that dorky Uberman crap like he’s some sort of boy scout."
"Hello, Cummings, sorry I’m late."
Cummings and Marjorie looked up from the artwork to see Poppy standing in the doorway. He held a notebook at his side with one hand and pushed back his glasses with the other.
"I was just going," Marjorie said as she tried to make her way past Poppy.
"You can stay," he told her.
"Yeah," Cummings chimed in. "I’d like you around for this. Colorists are people too, you know."
She looked from one to the other and then decided to sit on the stool near the door. She flipped a stray lock of her hair behind her ear and set her markers down on the nearby bookshelf.
Poppy had only taken one step into the room and did not appear to want to sit on the only vacant chair left in the office. He flipped open his notebook and thumbed through it deliberately.
"I spoke with Declue this morning, and he said you had some problems with the script changes."
"Problems? Damn it, Poppy, I’m going to have to redo the entire last eight pages of the first issue."
Poppy put his free hand on his hip and looked over his notebook at Cummings.
"You knew there were going to be changes. You had the rewrite last week. I cannot help it if you decided to--"
"No, that’s not the problem. The problem is Wild Man is marginalized. It’s only a four issue limited series, and in the last part of the first issue you’re putting him out of commission."
Poppy sighed. "He’s coming back, and you know it. We’ve got to provide some tension or this will end up just like every regular issue of Wild Man, with him never really being threatened. I am trying to be a little more logical with his character than you guys usually do in his own series. He has no super powers, so the idea should be that he is more vulnerable. On the other hand, Uberman is virtually indestructible so it only makes sense that--"
"Come on! This is supposed to be a team-up book. You’re acting like Wild Man is making a guest appearance in Uberman’s book."
Poppy flipped his notebook shut and looked over at Marjorie.
"How about we get a third party’s opinion. She’s read the script. What do you think, Marj?"
Cummings hopped up from his stool before she could speak. "Get out of here, man. Just leave her out of this. You don’t have to drag her into this."
Poppy smiled and said, "I thought that was why you wanted her to stay, so we could discuss this. Are you questioning Marj’s professionalism?"
Cummings’s face turned dark red. He shook his finger at Poppy as he replied.
"Don’t try to pull that crap, old man. She’s on this project at my request ‘cause she’s the best colorist in the whole company. Marjorie leaves the page better than she found it, which is more than I can say for your hack color man on Uberman. Has he learned yet there are more colors than blue, red, and yellow?"
Poppy’s eyes darkened. "He’s been with me since the beginning, and he knows more about art than you ever will. You and your ridiculous crosshatching. All your faces look alike, like you put different hair on the same face, over and over."
The artist plopped back down on his stool in front of his sketches. Cummings shook his head back and forth with a slow, protracted motion.
Marjorie stood up and grabbed her marker box. She looked at both men in turn.
"I can’t take it anymore. I don’t want to watch you ground Cummings’s ideas into the ground, and I don’t want to listen to you whine about how Poppy is old fashioned. You both have good ideas, you both are doing what tons kids dream of doing when they grow up, but neither one of you can just be happy about it. It’s a comic book, for crying out loud. It’s supposed to be fun."
Before either man could reply, Marjorie stormed out of the office.
"What was that all about?"
"No idea," Cummings replied. "So much for mild mannered Marj."
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