MARC BERNARDIN is a Senior Editor at Entertainment Weekly. He edits the Galleries that you find on EW.com, so he says, “whenever you see ‘25 Best Action Movies Starring Danes’ or ‘13 Peruvian Documentaries’ that’s my fault.” By his own admission, he’s also their Resident Geek. “I get called into every meeting that involves comic book, sci-fi, videogames, or general nerd subject matter.” Despite the turmoil in magazine publishing Marc admits he’s “survived the bloodlettings that have been sweeping the publishing business for the last six months or so. I guess there’s still some value in having a geek-in-residence…” That’s his day job. By night he, mostly with writing partner Adam Freeman, is a comic book writer who’s already squeezed some very nice books into the marketplace: The Highwaymen (Wildstorm), Monster Attack Network (AiT/Planet Lar) and Push (Wildstorm, and on sale now). Their upcoming series, Genius, was one of two winners in 2008’s Pilot Season contest from Top Cow.

TOM: First off, congrats on winning Top Cow’s 2008 Pilot Season. How long is the upcoming series going to be and when can we anxious voters expect to see the first issue?

MARC: Thanks! It was a long road, but with the help of a legion of voters, we crossed the finish line. (And thanks to Warren Ellis, who plugged us on his site, which is, as you know, viewed by everyone who’s anyone.) As for how long the series is gonna be, we’ve got the first arc planned out, and that’s gonna run five more issues. We’ll see what happens after the first couple drop—starting, I think, in May. If the response is there, maybe we’ll keep it going for years and years and years.

TOM: Let’s go back a little to your first graphic novel. How did Monster Attack Network come about? How did you end up at AiT/PlanetLar?

MARC: Well, Larry Young – half of AiT’s braintrust – asked us to pitch him something. I’d been friendly with him for a couple of years, after meeting him at my first San Diego Comic Con, and I liked the books he published. When I decided to hand off editing the comics reviews at EW and try my hand at writing them, he was my first call. So my writing partner, Adam Freeman, and I dusted off this old idea about a tropical island lousy with giant monsters. Like any place besotted with natural calamities (tornados, wildfires, earthquakes, floods), the people learned to peacefully coexist.

TOM: How did you find Nima Sorat for MAN? Did he come with you guys or did you find him through AiT?

MARC: We were having some artist issues—the first guy on had a familial situation that precluded his participation. Given that MAN was a back-end deal, I can’t hold it against anyone, not being able to deliver 96 pages of finished art for no upfront cash. Larry did a little outreach and Nima’s name came down the pike. And we were in love with his style. It reminded me a lot of The Incredibles—that big-up-top, skinny-on-the-bottom look. His men looked like men and his women looked hot.

TOM: Who at Disney is producing and how did they wind up with it?

MARC: The guy most responsible is Brigham Taylor. As it was explained to me, he’s the executive who was wandering around Disneyland and said “You know, I think we can make a movie out of this Pirates ride.” So he’s got an eye for the big franchiseable properties. A Disney creative exec named Shane Snoke was walking the San Diego floor last year, stopped at the AiT booth and, after enduring the hard sell Adam and I were giving everyone who passed by (“Do you like giant monsters? Who attack things? Who doesn’t?!”), he bought a copy. He called a couple of hours later to see if the rights were available.

TOM: How’s it going so far?

MARC: These things are glacial, man. Disney first expressed their interest in summer of 2007. And we just got the contracts in December of 2008. Of course, the writers’ strike threw a giant monkey wrench into the proceedings, but we’re taking a slow-and-steady-is-better mindset. But every indication is that Disney wants it to be a big honking summer blowout flick, and that’s jut a-okay by me!

TOM: Do you think it would have been successful if you’d just written the screenplay or pitched it around the old-fashioned way, or did having the graphic novel give you an added boost?

MARC: The graphic novel definitely makes a property more attractive to Hollywood but, ironically, it limits your involvement. Unless you’re already an established name—or are willing to say no to any deal that doesn’t include you writing or producing — a giant movie studio isn’t going to let a nobody take first crack at scripting. Especially if, as we did, you wrote the equivalent of a $200 million dollar FX-heavy tentpole action movie. So, in that regard, if we wrote this as a spec, at the very least we’d get to arbitrate for screenplay credit…but getting it on the right desks would’ve been a lot harder.

TOM: So are you glad you went the graphic novel way?

MARC: Ultimately, yes. We’ve got a book we’re proud of that will always exist; even if MAN goes through the development grinder and comes out the other side barely recognizable, we’ll still be able to point to the shelf and say “That’s the story we wanted to tell.”

TOM: As the project moves from graphic novel to movie, what’s your involvement?

MARC: The production company that’s running point, Jason Netter’s Kickstart, has been pretty cool with us so far. They’re not contractually obligated to keep us involved, but their mindset is “What does it hurt?” At least, until we start making sweeping and unreasonable demands. “I think the big monster should be a chocolate bunny! In fact, I want to be paid in chocolate bunnies!”

TOM: They’d probably be happy to pay you in chocolate bunnies, so be careful. What’s it like having a writing partner?

MARC: For me, collaboration is the bees’ knees. Comes from having been on staff at a magazine for 12 years. I like having someone to bounce ideas back and forth with, someone who can say if something is working or not. Adam and I have known each other for 25-some-odd years so there’s a comfort level we’ve got, when it comes to the work.

TOM: How do you break down the work?

MARC: A lot of the early plotting and breaking of the stories gets done via phone and email and IM, as he’s in Los Angeles and I’m in New York/New Jersey. Then, when we get down to the hardcore scripting, we just bat it back and forth: I’ll do a few pages, and send it to Adam, who’ll do a few more and send it back. We rewrite each other along the way, so by the time we’re done, it feels like one coherent piece, and not a Frankensteined monster.

TOM: Malibu Comics never sold more than 3000 copies of any issue of Lowell Cunningham’s Men In Black. Monster Attack Network feels like a similar situation, and he got two big summer movies and an animated series out of it. It seems like a comic doesn’t necessarily have to come out of Marvel or DC to hit the blockbuster jackpot.

MARC: Not at all. It seems illogical, but it makes sense once you look at the numbers. Even if you take the best selling comic book of any given month, it’s selling, maybe, 100,000 copies. Maybe 200,000, if you’re killing Captain America. Which is a huge hit, in the publishing world. But, if each of those people bought a ticket to the movie on its opening weekend, you’d only have a $2 million debut. Hollywood doesn’t look to comics for an audience, it looks for the idea they could use to tap into the already existing audience. (Of course, it’s different when you’re talking about character recognition — Superman, Spider-Man, or Batman are icons that exist above and beyond whatever comics they’re appearing in. And Watchmen is its own unique situation, given that it’s sold millions of copies. Those numbers do translate.)

TOM: What are the next couple of things you and Adam have going on?

MARC: We’re finishing up our licensed miniseries for Wildstorm, a prequel to Push, a big sci-fi movie coming out this year. Then, some more Top Cow work and a mini for a smaller publisher. We’re trying to wrap our heads around an anthology we’re dying to put together.

Thanks, Marc. You can always find out more about Marc by visiting his blog, Rhinoplastique, which he updates frequently. Also the Top Cow website will no doubt have information shortly about the upcoming release of Genius. Time to bookmark!