MARVEL PRESS CONFERENCE: AMAZING SPIDER-GIRL'S TOM DEFALCO

Tom DeFalco and the October-debuting Amazing Spider-Girl were the subject of Marvel's most recent telephone press conference on Thursday.

Following is an edited transcript.

Question: What's happened to Mayday since we last saw her in Spider-Girl #100?

DeFalco: She's taken the summer off, kind of like me when I hear Spider-Girl was cancelled. She's taken the summer off, gotten back in touch with her friends. She's started her junior year in high school, she's grown her hair long, she's dating and she's even running for student council. A lot of things are happening.

Question: Seeing as how this is the second go-around, what do you think you'll do differently that might jazz more people to try this book?

DeFalco: That's a very hard question. This is something Ron Frenz and I have actually talked about for a few months, and also Molly Lazer as well. The three of us have been banging out heads together because we are walking on a very delicate tightrope.

On the one hand, we have a very loyal fan base who really enjoyed what Spider-Girl was. We've discovered that a lot of readers, if they try it they like it, so we want to keep that aspect of it alive. Then on the other hand there are people who never taken the time out to try it just because comic-book fans are a cowardly and superstitious lot. They're afraid to try things that don't quite fit into their regular reading patterns.

I think Spider-Girl is the kind of comic that will appeal to anyone who likes classic Marvel stories. We're going to continue with a classical approach to storytelling. We all follow Shakespeare's rules of drama, and that started with Stan (Lee) and everybody else.

Question: How important is it to show the high school side of things?

DeFalco: Well, I think Part of the appeal of Spider-Girl is that the characters seem real. We try to create that illusion of reality with all the characters, you know, May and all her friends. I don't think we have to do a real real high school because there is no one real real high school. But we're trying to get a little of the high school experience into the situation, which I get on a regular basis from my nieces and nephews, who are calling to complain about it.

Question: What's it like for this title to get close to begin canceled and then there's always this outpour to bring it back? Why do you feel there's always this up-and-down trend with this particular title?

DeFalco: To be honest, I have no idea. I think in a certain way we are one of the last of the classical Marvel style comic books, so I think a lot of people who grew up with them just like to see this style of comic book. I think also we have a different approach to comic-book storytelling than most of the other people. To us, our focus is always totally on the characters. And we do the most we can to make them seem as real as they possibly can seem amid their crazy adventures. I think the people who have gotten hooked on the book, they care about the characters, which is kind of what we're supposed to be making them do.

Question: There's been almost a decade of Spider-Girl and you and Ron Frenz. Could you discuss what it's been like working with Ron for almost 10 years?

DeFalco: Actually, Ron Frenz and I first got together in the '80s, so we've been together a lot longer than these 10 years. We worked on Spider-Man for a while, then we worked on Thor for seven years, and then he went off to do this thing called Superman, which I've heard vague rumors of. Then he came back and we started working together again.

Ron is, in terms of comic books, he's my creative other half. He and I see the medium in the same way. We discovered this over 20 years ago at a bar at a convention. Since we started working together that many years ago, we've just enjoyed working with each other and enjoy the challenges we throw at each other, and I hope I get to work with Ron for the foreseeable future.

Question: Spider-Girl is so unique in that she's a female lead and that she's been around so long. What niche or role do you see her filling in the realm of female super-heroes?

DeFalco: I have to be honest, I've never really though about that. I think Spider-Girl is one of the few characters who is actually treated like a real person. She's not a blow-up doll. In fact, we kind of make fun of that in the first issue in the first couple of pages. She's got a realistic build. In terms of a niche, I don't really know.

Question: If you compare her to father, Peter Parker, in his first 100 issues he was just a big mess. And it seems like May wasn't. She had a confidence Peter didn't have.

DeFalco: Actually, when we were first conceiving the character we figured she's part Peter and part Mary Jane -- she has Mary Jane's social skills and Peter Parker's brains. Which isn't to say Mary Jane doesn't have brains because Mary Jane a lot of times is the slickest one in the book and certainly the most insightful one in the book on a regular basis.

Where Peter was a loner, Mayday actually fits in with both the jocks and the geeks. She has the ability to deal with all the different worlds. She was a basketball star when she discovered she had these powers.

I keep going back to the fundamental difference between Peter Parker and Mayday Parker. Peter learned that when he fails, people die. Certainly, the situation with Uncle Ben. Mayday learned when she succeeds, people live. That's a very subtle but a very profound difference. Mayday approaches this from a ... she has no guilt. She approaches this from a very optimstic, responisble way. She's not doing because she has any sort of feelings of guilt about it. She just think this is the right thing to do.