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WEISMANSWERS 2009-04 (Apr)
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Dmitri writes...
I was just wondering...I have a very general question. How is it you or any of us know how well a cartoon does. I mean, is there a website that shows a show's ratings? I was interested in knowing how spectacular Spiderman, or any show for that matter, is doing in popularity and there seems to be little out there when I search. Great work on spectacular spiderman by the way. Best cartoon ever.
Greg responds...
I learn about the ratings from my bosses. I would think they're published SOMEWHERE, but I couldn't tell you where.
Wesley Nichols writes...
I have a question regarding Gargoyles 2198. You mentioned that the Delilah from that time period would know that she is descended from the Delilah of 1996. Since Gargoyles raise all the hatchlings as children of the Clan, how would she know? Wouldn't the generation gap be far enough that the members of the Labrynth clan would not care or even know?
Greg responds...
You'd think.
anonymous writes...
Hello.
Since we had season finale arcs for the symbiote/Venom and the Green Goblin, are you open to the idea to a Doctor Octopus season finale storyline?
Also, I hope we see more of Mary Jane Watson next season, please. Yeah, we know Venom said that Peter loves Gwen most on this show, but I'd love to see more of M.J. with Peter. And more Anna Watson, too. Mary Jane's Aunt Anna has kind of been a no-show lately.
I hope we see more of Tombstone. Kevin Michael Richardson does a fantastic job on the show. Hope Calypso and Molten Man return, too.
By the way, will we ever hear Harry Osborn's mom speak on the show?
I'd like to say thanks so much to you and the rest of the writers and crew of this show. "The Spectacular Spider-Man" is the best Spider-Man TV series I've ever seen. Hope that everyone on the cast/crew returns for many more seasons.
Greg responds...
SPIDEY SPOILERS!!!!
Thanks. We hope so too.
nacnud writes...
Dear greg,
I was just wondering, how many pages is a script to one of the episodes to the Spectacular Spider-Man?
Greg responds...
First season, we had a 38 page maximum. Second season we had a 36 page maximum, and we were often (if not quite always) still too long. It's somewhat frustrating, but the end result is hard to complain about.
Harlan Phoenix writes...
Not so much a question, but a comment. A thanks, really.
I HATE, HATE, HATE Venom. With a fiery passion. I dislike the character more than healthy, I'm sure. But I'd like to thank you and your staff of writers for not only providing me with a Venom I could really love, but making the Venom arc of the second season my favorite story arc of the entire series. The framing devices for each episode were excellently done, and Eddie himself proved to be a formidable antagonist who actually utilized the knowledge the symbiote gave him.
So thank you very much. There's little I love more than seeing initially weak characters finally written to their full potential. Great work. This is why you're one of my favorite people ever. Also, whoever wrote those episodes. I'll have to go back and check.
P.S. Although this is largely a post praising your show's Venom, I'd also like to take a moment to say that my favorite character in the show is Electro. I think he's been handled beautifully and I love the transition his character took from "pissed off villain" to "This is all I have." At least, that's how I saw it. I'm eagerly awaiting a hopeful season three and hoping that Electro, among other villains you're planning, shows up and gets fleshed out more.
Thanks for another great cartoon series, Mr. Weisman.
Greg responds...
SPIDEY SPOILERS!!!!!!
The Venom arc was written by Kevin Hopps, Nicole Dubuc and Andrew Robinson. I was blessed to have a great writing staff (including also Randy Jandt and Matt Wayne) on the series.
Planning more "flesh" for all our characters, as screen time allows.
abnormalpixarfan writes...
I just want to now do you have a final say in how a character or story ends up in spectacular spiderman or does someoneeles besides marvel get the last word in the show.
Greg responds...
Marvel, Sony and the network (Disney XD, these days) do have ultimate say, but I can't say there have been a lot of conflicts with any of those companies. Otherwise, Vic Cook and I make all final decisions. Story is more my area, so I'll take responsibility for whatever winds up on screen in that department.
abnormalpixarfan writes...
hey greg first of Ithink spectacular spiderman is my favorite show ever. 2nd love gargoyles I like the little brodway cameo in episode one of spidey I just wanted to ask you said that spectacular spiderman is sorta in a 1962 marvel comics reality so only the characters that were aroud then are aroud now.Now I hear season two is set to end in march (the timeline not reality of corse)and I did some reserch so would that mean Ironman would exist at the end of season 2.I know he won't make a cameo or anything Ijust like the idea that he is around and I think every one will nerd out if they see somthing like Pete saying somthing like "it's the latest from stark industries" or something like that. ps I live in canada so I got to season 2 is awsome.
Greg responds...
You know I don't have my Spider-Man notes with me at the moment, so I can't confirm or deny your assumptions about Iron Man. But I can confirm that the Fantastic Four, the Hulk and Ant-Man are all active at this stage, and that Professor X is just beginning to set up his school with his first couple of students (Cyclops and Beast).
Wesley Nichols writes...
I have another question regarding Oberon and Titania. Before the beginning of the Gathering and Titania offered to be his wife again was Oberon considering asking her to marry him?
Greg responds...
One assumes they had had some conversations about this before, with him asking her, and she demuring...
Wesley Nichols writes...
One thing I am curious about is your view of the events in Shakespear'es Midsummer Nights Dream. After seeing the play, I had always been more sympathetic to Titania than Oberon, yet from your responses, in the Gargoyle Universe,you seem to set the actual event as more sympathetic to Oberon. What caused your decision to take that route?
Greg responds...
I'm not sure I'm more sympathetic to Oberon AT ALL. I think he has some positive qualities in the play and some extremely NEGATIVE qualities, and my theory that he's the (illegitimate) father of the changeling boy born of a young virgin he therefore must have seduced before she died in childbirth, doesn't per se make him sympathetic, though I do think it makes his actions more understandable. Admittedly, if your interpretation was that he wants the boy for sexual purposes, he's a monster, and I sound like a sympathetic revisionist/apologist/jerk by comparison. But if you don't attribute that horrific interpretation to the play, then all I've done is motivate his actions with something specific.
nygma619 writes...
Question on the last aired episode, Nature vs. Nurture:
Without going in to spoilers of season 2, if possible.
What exactly was the motivation for Peter to dismiss Eddie (a guy who has dangerous information he could use against Peter, and others) as not important enough to continue searching for him at that moment? Or at the very least to not keep him in the back of his mind, at some time during the thanksgiving dinner?
During that time he carried on like everything was fine. But I never got that feeling at all watching it. It took me out of moments like Peter dumping the gene clenser or Gwen kissing Peter for the first time.
Yes I know what you've said about Peter looking for him next season, and for the sake of ratings/anticipation (to get someone to continue watching) I get why this was done.
But from a storytelling/narrative standpoint I find it annoying, and it feels too much like Peter looking the other way, for my liking.
Now had something like Peter taking Eddie to Ravencroft after defeating him, then the next season he finds out he's no longer there; and never started any sort of therapy happened. I could buy that.
What I got just didn't fly with me, as it felt too much like the threat had no form of conclusion.
Anyways, was this done for the sake of audience anticipation when you left Eddie Brock out there?
Greg responds...
SPIDEY SPOILERS!!!!!
<sigh>
Of course, he searched for Eddie immediately -- as soon as he finished disposing of the Symbiote. He just didn't find him. Which seemed to me to be a scene not worth showing relative to everything else we had to fit into the episode. He searched for Eddie continually ... which we tried to indicate by both his nightmare in episode 14 and his trip to Eddie's dormroom immediately after. Those two scenes were representative of his entire search. They were never meant to be the sum total of his searching, anymore than, say, his questioning of Blackie and Patch about the Master Planner in episode 16 was supposed to be the sum total of THAT search.
Anyway, after going to the dorm, and not only NOT finding Eddie there but finding INSTEAD clear signs that he had moved out, I assume Spidey checked a few other likely locations, and then, yes, having no other leads, he probably did stop looking for a time, distracted as he was by the antics of such people as Mysterio, Kraven and the Master Planner, et al.
See, I don't deny that Pete's a distractible boy. Girls distract him. Aunt May's condition distracts him. Other villains distract him. Etc. Is Eddie ALWAYS on his mind? No. But the idea that Eddie wasn't in the back of Pete's mind during this period is belied by the nightmare, I would think. Not to mention his fear that he was seeing things when Eddie did finally show up and began gaslighting him.
Including scenes of Pete taking Eddie to Ravencroft, scenes of him checking on Eddie in Ravencroft later and finding him gone, i.e. the type of stuff you're suggesting -- well, it strikes me as a waste of precious screen time. (Besides, I have plans for Eddie and Ravencroft, as I think would be obvious by how we ended the Season Two Venom arc. Wasn't much point in feinting in that direction and then balking, only to restart that Ravencroft plotline again in Season Three. I'd rather there were distinctions/differences between how the situation is left at the end of our two Venom arcs, as opposed to duplicating the same beats.)
Again... only 19 minutes and thirty seconds of original content in each episode means I have to be somewhat economic with what I put on screen. And I'm not shy about making the audience WORK either. Making them fill in the blanks. Sometimes that tactic is successful, sometimes not. But I don't really feel I had much choice in the matter. For ANYTHING I put in, down to the shortest line of dialogue, something else has to come out. As I've mentioned before, you might feel there were other things worth dumping in favor of clarifying this point. But what you might have been okay with dumping, I can guarantee another fan somewhere would not have been. So I always have to rely on my own instincts, and thus choices are made. I felt Pete's feelings here would be fairly clear, given all he had said to Eddie and Venom during the episode. You clearly disagree.
Left with no other choice, we'll have to agree to disagree. I get that the story "just didn't fly with [you]" and believe me, I wish it did. But all I can say is that it indeed flew for me, and I hope it flapped pretty well -- or at least glided along -- for most of our audience. But I learned a long time ago that I can't win 'em all. (Though God knows I agonize over the attempt to do just that.)
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