**Click here for Silver Surfer action

Silver Surfer was one of those super heroes that I knew almost nothing about. I knew of him, I knew that he was “Galactus’s herald” (whatever that meant) and that he acted as a sort of scout for the cosmic villain. He was silver, he rode around on a silver surfboard in space. I found him to be a bit silly. But it was interesting to read about exactly how he was created back in the day – literally the guys at Marvel were just chaining off of the 60s surfer craze but with a sci-fi angle. Everything has such a high bar now with high profile IP’s crowding out any new growth, but back then they were just trying literally anything. Some stuff stuck, and sometimes it was the least thing you’d expect. 

While I was down that rabbit hole I stumbled across the “Marvel Method“. I had heard of it before but wasn’t 100% sure what it was:

Stan Lee, creator and co-creator of some of the most popular comic book characters and stories of all time, is credited with also having introduced the ‘plot script’ method which became known as the ‘Marvel Method’ or ‘Marvel House Style’. In a plot script the artist works from a story synopsis from the writer or plotter. Using only this rough outline of a story, the artist then creates page-by-page panels through which the plot develops, after which the work is returned to the writer for the insertion of dialogue. It’s a kind of ‘ghost writing’ in a new form: the writer generates the basic plot but the details are completely created by another person.

This is an especially brilliant creative and collaborative method for comics since the art drives the story as much (perhaps more at times) than the actual dialogue. I think it could really inform other creative efforts as well.