Aardvark Comment: Adam Beechen 5/12/2022

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Our "regular" contributor Adam Beechen checks in:

I REALLY need a
new photo Adam...

12 May, 2022
Hi Dave –

Well, I haven’t lived up to my promise of being a better correspondent in 2022, but it’s been that kind of year so far. I lost two friends, then one parent, to non-Covid related illnesses, then the other parent just had a much-anticipated and worried-about spinal surgery that had been postponed from February (she’s recovering well; I’m writing this from her hospital room while she sleeps). Work for me has been scarce and stress has been high. But amid all of this, there’s been some action on the “Hench in Hollywood” front, and I thought I’d bring you up to date, if you’re interested.

At the outset of the pandemic, a television showrunner optioned the book to pitch as a TV series. On the heels of the success of Black Panther, the writer wanted to take the book to prominent actors of color, and to their production companies, to see if they had any interest. Well, the pandemic slowed that process down a lot, many of those actors had full plates, others weren’t interested in television, and some of them weren’t interested in superheroes. The writer even took the property to production companies belonging to top athletes (as the protagonist of the book is a former athlete), but not one of them bit either. Last fall, the writer gave up the ghost and returned Hench to me so he could focus on other things.

With no other interest on the horizon, I decided I’d write a third and final chapter of the book, pair it with the first two, commission a new cover and some pinups from artists I admire (how I wish you were still drawing; I’d be knocking on your door right now), and put together a mess of new supplementary materials to give readers who’d already bought or read the book even more reason to get this new publication. Then I’d put it out through Amazon, just to give myself the closure on the print life of the book. I wrote a really flawed first draft of the script, commissioned the new cover from Howard Chaykin and a pin-up from Bernie Mireault (both amazing), and that was where the matter rested until I had lunch with an old boss of mine from the animation world who’d started his own independent comics publishing outfit. I filled him in on what was going on, and he asked if he could read the book. When he was done, he was keen to re-publish it right away, no bonus material needed, and get it back into comic shops, on convention tables, and into the hands of a new generation of studio execs and producers who’d come up since Hench’s initial release in (gulp) 2004.

We were starting to haggle over the details of a deal between us when I took an unexpected phone call from an executive at the production company of a major director with a major superhero movie ready for release. This exec had long been a fan of Hench and, when he was with a different production company a few years before, briefly optioned it and attached a prominent British TV writer and a well-thought-of director of Black Mirror to the property. The exec hadn’t forgotten the book in the intervening years, and was now with this major director. He’d had a conversation with a really big animation studio that’s put out a jillion movies and television series, live-action and animated, featuring well-known superheroes, and brought Hench up to the studio head. I’d worked for the studio head many times in years past on different series – He knew my work and had even read Hench when it first came out. He re-read it (with the sequel I’d added in 2012) and loved it. They started talking between themselves about the possibility of adapting it in such a way that it could fit in the same universe as the other superheroes in the studio’s stable. Then they decided it would work better as a stand-alone, direct-to-streaming, animated feature. They talked about finding a cutting-edge animation studio to create it and do it in a really “avant-garde” way. The exec was calling to ask me if Hench was available and to ask if I’d be interested. I said sure.

I went back to my publisher friend and explained the situation. Being a TV industry veteran, he was very understanding, and we put our discussions on hold, to be returned to in case the feature deal couldn’t be worked out. The big studio sent over an initial option offer and my reps prepared to get down to business negotiating. The initial offer wasn’t very favorable for me, which was unsurprising, so we came back with our own requests, the key one of which was that I’d get to write a first draft of the script – not an uncommon request. The studio responded by approving some of my requests and denying others, including writing the script’s first draft.

I thought about it, and decided I could live without the other stuff, but I needed to be able to write that first draft. There was the obvious reason: It’d be amazing to adapt something I’d written in one form for another medium. But also, I figured I was far and away the most qualified person for the job. I created and written the comic book material they’d liked so much, I’d written comics for DC, I’d written animation and live-action television, and I’d written an animated film. More than those things, however, Hench is my most marketable piece of intellectual property. If someone wanted to make it into a movie, I felt I needed to get more out of the transaction than the low option fee and purchase price, and a screen credit to the tune of, “Inspired by the graphic novel Hench created by Adam Beechen and Manny Bello.” I needed a feature script that I’d been paid for that I could use as a writing sample for other prospective employers. I wouldn’t ask for a ton of money, and as far as I was concerned, if they really wanted to use another writer or already had another writer in mind (which I suspected), they could pay me for my script, throw it in the trash and get that other writer working. But who knew – Maybe, just maybe, they’d find a thing or two in my script they might like and want to use. But if they didn’t, fine.

Instead of rejecting the counter-offer out of hand, I called the executive and told him that the rest of the agreement looked fine to me and I was ready to sign – if we could get past their reluctance to let me write the first draft. He said he understood and would talk to the studio about it. He did – and they said a flat no. It was their way or the highway. My agents suggested they go back to the studio and let its business affairs department know the same thing I’d told the exec: There was really just this one issue holding up a successful deal. The business affairs attorney said he’d talk to the studio creative side, and I thought there might be some hope. But no, the studio came back a final time – there was no way I’d be able to write a draft of the animated feature script of my own graphic novel. Because of the “avant garde” approach they wanted to take, and the “amount of reinvention” it would require, I just wouldn’t be suitable.

No deal.

So, I licked my wounds for a week or so (as much as to give the studio a chance to change its mind as anything else – which they did not do), then reconnected with the publisher. He’s still interested in republishing the book, but doesn’t want to go with a new third chapter because the resulting length of the three chapters put together would take the book to a space where it would need a higher price point. In fact, adding any new material to the two existing chapters would pump up the price point and make the venture financially unfavorable for him.

That’s where we stand now. I need to re-examine the initial publishing agreement he sent me, make sure the terms work or ask for some changes, see if we can agree, and if we can, Hench could return to comic shops for the first time since the mid-2000s (hopefully, with Howard’s pitch-perfect new cover), and maybe I show up at a few comic shops and conventions to promote it.

Before I sign off, I wanted to extend my condolences to you on the death of Neal Adams. I don’t know how much you and he kept in touch after your amazing Niagara Falls excursion that was recorded in Following Cerebus, but you seemed friendly in that conversation, and I know he was a considerable influence on your artwork and visual storytelling, as well as in business. He’s been gone about two weeks now, and George Pérez followed him a week later. I didn’t know either man, but they’d been familiar and important names to me, and storytellers whose work I’d much admired and been able to immediately recognize, since my first days reading comics as a little kid. They gave me a lot of stories I’ll fondly remember and enjoy revisiting often.

I hope this finds you well.

Best,
Adam Beechen

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I sent this to Dave, who responds:

I asked if running his letter was okay, and he said okay.

There's a whole Blogpost of Rigamarole. It's down below this post.

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