🥇Remembering Margaret Clark

A long overdue tribute

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Margaret Clark passed away on March 16. It forced me to confront a long absence of consideration for someone who meant so much to me, both professionally and personally.

I worked with Margaret and knew her in a multitude of ways at the start of my comics career. She was the associate editor at Epic Comics when I joined as an assistant editor to her, Archie Goodwin, and Jo Duffy. Despite her title, Margaret was responsible for a good third to sometimes half of the eclectic, challenging, and innovative titles that Epic was charged with putting out under its creator-owned mandate. She was the absolute right person to be there for those creators, that creativity, and that innovation.

She may not be a name you’re well familiar with when it comes to editors from that era: folks who stand out with higher profiles because of what they worked on or their larger-than-life personalities. But she was a formidable figure and deserves more recognition. She was a dedicated steward, who took great care in looking out for these talents and what they were looking to achieve in their titles.

If you’re not familiar with Epic books, they invariably had higher quality production than most comics at that time. Margaret was extraordinarily responsible for helping to define that Epic identity, and ensuring that every facet of comic book production lived up to those exacting standards. If you were to sum up her editorial mantra, it might be, “Sweat the details. And never suffer fools.”

Margaret would go to battle with printers — and even the mighty Marvel bullpen itself. She once took on a haughty and uninformed production manager intent on gluing word balloons directly on pages of painted artwork. She would dig in her heels and make it her mission that the production values excelled in representing the vision of the creators in every aspect.

That may not have won fans among the “But we’ve always done it this way!” crowd. But it earned the respect of those comic creators reaching for the next level.

As an assistant, I shared an office. Listening to her as she interacted with creators from around the world was an object lesson in how to mix humor, direct feedback, support, and goading toward deadlines. It was everything an editor has to achieve — but done in a way that was never about her. It was about getting the best work from these people she represented within the halls of Epic. (Well, Epic as a department only had one hall — so extend that to the halls of Marvel altogether.)

She was the sort of person who would selflessly reach out to make things work for people. When I was unexpectedly forced out of my apartment and wasn’t certain where to go next on my limited salary, she put the word out to a larger network than I had or was comfortable activating. That gesture led to a fantastic place at a cheap rent, which helped me regroup and stand on my own feet for the rest of the time I lived in New York City.

Margaret was responsible for beautiful tone-poem comics like Moonshadow and groundbreaking English language editions of Akira and Moebius’ work. She was the “go to” editor for artists like J. Muth and Kent Williams when they wanted to combine their fine art with the superheroics of characters like Havok and Wolverine. It would be hard to imagine anyone else working at the level she did on their behalf.

My next-level relationship with Margaret was through our shared desire for more opportunities at Marvel: to write and up our profile. Those doors weren’t opening as readily as we hoped. Margaret had been at it a while on her own, but faced some resistance because she was a woman — and at that time recognition or opportunity could be harder to come by. In my case I thought I had something to offer, but was so introverted where it mattered I wasn’t even certain how to knock on a door.

As we spent time together in that office, we realized we had simpatico ideas regarding pop culture and storytelling values. We thought we might help each other by brainstorming stories and elevating each other’s work through partnership — a combination that could help break through each other’s real or perceived roadblocks.

Together we believed we could add up to more. That experience became one of the foundational truths allowing me to become not only a better writer at that time, but also the writer I am today. Our collaboration was a chance to learn from each other.

I especially appreciated Margaret’s range of obscure facts and eclectic influences, reaching for strange details which would then become something inherently unique in a story. That meshed with my fledgling approach to things and helped me to codify it as how I would fashion stories, both at that time working with her — and over time, building on it in my own way. Without her foundation — without that early and encouraging back-and-forth — I’m not certain I would have gotten there.

That partnership did what we intended it to do. It allowed our work to get better, gave us both the confidence we needed, and projected a team that could overcome prejudices and personality quirks. Some doors began to open where we started getting fill-in issue assignments.

Then came an incredible “gift” from Archie Goodwin, our boss at Epic, to write all three of the in-house superhero titles he had created under the Shadowline banner. There’s nothing like managing a mini-shared universe to kick your writing chops up a bit.

In time, the positive aspects of that partnership would develop into a personal relationship as well, which had its own many positives for a good many years. During that time, we powered down on the co-writing, mostly due to my own financial necessity. When you’re co-writing, you don’t get twice as much as your rate — you split it. But we did maintain some projects, such as writing the Punisher-Captain America team-up, Blood and Glory.

In the course of scripting that series , that personal relationship would end — and not in the best of ways. Nonetheless, we had a job to finish. Amid a lot of tension, we regrouped multiple times to put aside feelings in order to do the best job for the title — and ourselves as pros.

And to once more illustrate Margaret’s high level of dedication, those efforts were focused on scripting those characters to the best of our abilities — not just under those conditions, but at any time.

I look back at that project — completed under perhaps the worst of circumstances — as a high mark of what we were capable of as writers. At the end of it, as we finished the last panel with its last caption and last word — the emotion hit hard and harsh things were said. I’m ashamed to say those awful words were the last time we ever spoke, many years ago.

I can never take that back. My regrets in life are thankfully few. But this is one of them.

A more thoughtful version of myself would have used the time in between to reach out — not with any illusion of mending bridges but just to acknowledge a relationship that mattered far, far beyond that one hurtful exchange. But that did not happen.

Instead, I’m left with thoughts of all she represented to my growth as a professional and as a person. And for what this newsletter is worth — to acknowledge her as the extraordinary person she was to me. All I can give is thanks.

If you find yourself working on something and there’s a sudden voice in your head telling you to push it a bit more — that’s Margaret talking. Listen, if you know what’s good for you. She did.

Noting the care and attention that Margaret singularly put into so many people and so many titles, editor and writer Joe Illidge smartly summed it up that she was the secret origin story of countless creators. I can attest to that personally.

“Each moment is a place you’ve never been.”
— Mark Strand

Amazing Times

If D.G. Chichester looks pretentious, feel free to just call me “Dan”, and have a go at the last name as Chai (like the tea) Chester (like it looks). I’ve written comic books like Daredevil, Terror Inc., Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD and Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, along with all manner of digital widgets in the world wide web of marketing. I like weird tales, so if things here bend that way — now you know why!

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