Lifelong passion for comics leads to Marvel-ous job

Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Aug 27, 2000 by Bill Radford

Bill Rosemann's job is a fanboy's dream.

As associate manager of retail sales - "basically, I'm their marketing guy" - Rosemann enjoys an early look at what's coming up on Marvel's schedule, gets a peek at work still on the drawing table, offers his input on numerous projects.

He writes the "Bullpen Bulletins" found in every Marvel comic. Every Monday at www.marvel.com, he has the scoop for fans as Your Man @ Marvel. At major comic-book conventions, you'll find him setting up signings and leading panels of Marvel's star writers and artists.

His passion for comics, he emphasizes, isn't an act.

"I've been a comic-book fan for, gosh, as long as I can remember," Rosemann, 29, said by phone recently from Marvel's New York headquarters. "Even before I could actually read, I was sort of reading comic books."

It was actually the big gun for Marvel's chief rival that drew Rosemann into the world of comics. At a young age, he remembers seeing a poster of DC's Superman.

"I didn't quite know who he was or what he was. It just sort of captured my imagination, the idea of this colorful, larger-than-life hero. And from there, it just kind of grew and grew."

He grew up with a love for comics of all kinds. "You name it, I was into it."

But it was the Marvel Universe that really grabbed him, with its heroes who, outside their costumed lives, had problems just like anyone else. "That level of complexity really appealed to me."

So when he got a chance at writing some articles for Marvel Age magazine after graduating from Notre Dame, he grabbed the opportunity.

And when he left his full-time job with another publishing company to take a temporary, part-time job with Marvel, the gamble paid off with a full-time gig; he's now been with Marvel for about six years.

His job, he says, is great fun, making use of both his business side and his fan side. The business side, for example, is called on to help decide whether a revival of "The Defenders" should be a one- shot, a limited series or a continuing series. "And then the fanboy side of me is saying, Oh my God, we're going to do 'Defenders' again. It's going to have Hulk and Sub-Mariner and Silver Surfer and Doctor Strange, and Erik Larsen's going to draw it! Cool!"

But as much as Rosemann enjoys his duties, his true dream job is to be a full-time writer for Marvel. He has written a handful of "What If?" issues, an "X-Factor" fill-in and some back-up tales.

That path, he says, is a fairly traditional way for a new writer to break into Marvel. "You're not going to get in writing your own, ongoing book."

In September, he'll have a back-up story in the "Captain America 2000" annual featuring his creation of a highly trained strike force known as the Elite Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He's also been tapped to script a "Peter Parker: Spider-Man 2000" annual from a plot by Chris Claremont.

That job is doubly thrilling, he says: He'll be scripting over a plot by a legendary writer he read as a kid, and he'll be working on Spider-Man - "my favorite hero ever."

Inside insight

As Marvel's "marketing guy," Bill Rosemann gets a chance to focus attention on titles he thinks deserve the spotlight. For example:

"I think 'Captain Marvel' is one of the best books out there," Rosemann says. A fun-filled book written by Peter David, "Captain Marvel" is a match for the top-notch work David did for years on "The Incredible Hulk" and even features some of the Hulk's supporting cast.

A new limited series, "Doom," highlights the Fantastic Four's archenemy, Victor Von Doom - and the superb art of Leonard Manco.

"Sentry," another limited series, tells the story of Marvel's "forgotten hero" and features the team of Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee, who won acclaim for their work on Marvel Knights' "Inhumans" miniseries.