Back To Press With Marvel Masterworks Editor Cory Sedlmeier

August 15, 2022

Hey, all! Gormuu here! With news of a back-to-press (BTP) program coming for Marvel Masterworks, it seemed a good time to catch up with line editor Cory Sedlmeier. He was kind enough to take some time out of his super busy schedule to share a few details about this line that’s been occupying our collected editions dreams for 35 years now!

Gormuu: Wow. What’s up? Been a while!

Cory: Has it? The last few years have been a blur…Conan, pandemic, new distributors, earlier printer deadlines, back-to-press on a lot of books. I’m surprised I can still type straight!

The news of a Masterworks back-to-press (BTP) program has gotten some folks pretty excited. I guess we can start this interview there. Can you outline what the initial parameters of the plan are as far as release schedule? 

Sure thing. I’m excited, too! Despite being busier than ever, I broached the idea of going back-to-press on the Masterworks hardcovers in my 2023 publishing plan meeting. The Masterworks hardcovers have always been the cornerstone of Marvel’s classic collected editions. I wanted to see the restoration my team and I have done since the 2002 relaunch incorporated into the hardcover line. In the meeting, the response was, “Maybe. We’ll think about it, but not until 2024.” I guess the Powers That Be warmed up to the idea real quick. Before I knew it—boom!—the back-to-press volumes were on the schedule. And not for 2024.

We will be releasing a back-to-press Masterworks hardcover once a month, every month beginning in May 2023. The volumes will be released in the original order beginning with Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1. They will be offered in both the standard dust jacket (silver-and-black) and variant dust jacket (marble) so that fans can maintain the consistency of their Masterworks library in their preferred look.

We’ll keep doing them for as long as you keep buying them. Our Sales department has asked me to stress three things: PRE-ORDER! PRE-ORDER! PRE-ORDER! Got that? Don’t wait. Don’t wonder. Don’t waffle. Don’t buy later. PRE-ORDER! PRE-ORDER! PRE-ORDER! 

And what about the contents of the books? Will we see different contents or cover choices with any of the BTP volumes?

The story content will remain the same as past printings. I’d pitched the idea of adding material to some of the thinner volumes, but it was decided that it was best that we not shake things up content-wise. 

There’s a chance that we’ll opt for different cover art on some volumes. For instance, I’d like to see ASM #33 as the cover to ASM Vol. 4. But, for the most part, they’ll remain the same. I mean, putting something other than FF #1 on FF Vol. 1? That’s nuts! To help make the new printings, which Sales has christened the ReMasterworks, easy to identify, a small Roman numeral of the BTP edition’s printing will be added by the UPC box.

There will still be material that is new to these editions. I’ve scared up a lot of bonus material since the Masterworks were relaunched in 2002—unused covers, the Amazing Fantasy #15 original art, Ditko’s ASM #31 pencil art, reprint covers and on and on. I’ll be incorporating that bonus material into the new printings. You’ll notice this by way of the solicited page counts being bigger than past editions. The 2003 edition of ASM Vol. 1 was 256 pages. The 2023 BTP edition will be 312 pages, so that’s a significant bump in behind-the-scenes and bonus material.

What about restoration? That’s been an always-evolving facet of your work with Marvel.

There will be restoration upgrades. One of the driving factors behind the back-to-press initiative is to release hardcover editions that haven’t benefited from all the restoration work we’ve done since 2002-2004. Most wholly new restoration upgrades will be select instances, maybe the issue covers could be upgraded from better quality source or maybe I scored scans of a page or two of original art. More rare will be top-to-bottom restoration upgrades; that will be more exception than rule and we’ll be sure to let readers’ know when it’s the case. There are two volumes earmarked for total restoration overhauls that I’m so happy to be able to upgrade. It’s material I’ve been advocating to upgrade for something like 17 years. 

I’ve said this before, but I’m not always certain that the point gets across: The single most important thing that’s happened related to Marvel’s classic collections—at least in the 21 years I’ve been involved, but probably ever—was the overhaul and inventory of Marvel’s archives that was done in 2008-2010. After my team and I (shout out to Mike, Wes, Sheila, Chris and Rhett, aka Gormuu) did a hand inventory and total reorganization of the 14,000-square-foot film and photostat archives everything was different. We knew every item we had. Every cover. Every issue. We knew exactly where it was. We knew whether it was an original or a dupe and with the confidence that had been vetted by an informed archivist. I cannot overstate just how important that has been logistically, budgetarily and, most importantly, in terms of the quality of the published books. Perfect source doesn’t exist for everything—sometimes it never did—but since the archive overhaul, we know with certainty that what we’re doing is the best that can be done. That is huge and I think it shows in the books.

I still have flashbacks to those days pulling, identifying and organizing film and photostats in the dog days at the archives! Why not catch up on some other things going on in Masterworks World? We just announced a couple of new volumes: Uncanny X-Men Vol. 15 and Dazzler Vol. 4. It’s a pretty amazing pair of books that show just how far this line of books has come. With Dazzler, we have the fourth and final volume of a series nobody would have ever thought would get this premium treatment. And with X-Men, we’re embarking on the Marc Silvestri era of the late ‘80s. Thoughts on those two series and what they represent? 

Uncanny X-Men has been an interesting journey. Since The Uncanny X-Men volumes were much farther ahead of the other Masterworks in terms of publication date, they were always pushing up against content challenges—longer storylines, events, miniseries and the like. Back in the day, I couldn’t get approval on doing larger volumes at a higher price point. The edict was one price point and one price point only for all Masterworks. That hamstrung me a bit. I didn’t see Uncanny volumes with only two or three issues of the core series as reasonable, and I didn’t want to lose the miniseries, et al. So much of that content is essential to The Uncanny X-Men continuity. So what to do? I slowed down the pace of Uncanny releases for a while and patience paid off. The page count and price point rule was loosened. That enabled me to do larger volumes and produce what I think are the best Uncanny collections we’ve ever done in any format. The series has gone from a point of uncertainty to one of the Masterworks lines that I’m most motivated about. I’m eyeing the end of Chris Claremont’s original run and thinking, “Yeah, that’d be nice…”

And Silvestri X-Men? Heck yeah! The man produced. They were putting out 15-17 issues and year, often with one or more issues being 40-pagers, and Silvestri was penciling almost every issue and at a high level. That’s legendary. The guy crushed it and does not get the level of credit he should. Is there another Uncanny artist that good that comes close to his per-month output? 

As for Dazzler, it’s been fun giving the series the premium restoration treatment. David Gabriel is a falling-over-backwards fan of Dazzler. He was rooting for it as a Masterworks behind the scenes for years. I was a skeptic, but once I rolled my sleeves up, I really came around. They’re genuinely fun comics. They look great restored and published with modern paper and printing. Those blue-line painted graphic novels are a beast to restore, but we make them look better than ever in the Masterworks, fixing all the trapping and registration problems that plagued them. And it’s a welcome change to experience the life and adventures of a female hero. Guys with underpants on the outside aren’t everything and shouldn’t be. And that disco variant jacket? Solid gold. If someone reminds me, after Dazzler Vol. 4 comes out, maybe I’ll treat you to the other versions we cooked up. There were at least six, maybe more like eight, totally disco treatments.

With Dazzler finished up and presumably Spider-Woman soon to follow, are there any other female-lead MMWs on the horizon? 

That’d be telling! 

Another niche in the Masterworks line is the ’70s horror characters. How is that going for you? We’ve gotten a handful of Ghost Rider volumes and Tomb of Dracula is off to a good start. 

Don’t forget Werewolf by Night! I love getting to do horror titles. I have huge respect for Steve Gerber’s Marvel work. He was pushing the medium forward in the ‘70s and influenced a lot of my favorite comics writers. So I’m hoping Man-Thing Masterworks sooner rather than later. 

Tomb of Dracula is an honor to work on. I’ve now had the pleasure of working with Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan and Tom Palmer, gentlemen and top talents to the man. And the new restoration that we’re doing for the Masterworks knocks the socks off past editions. We’ve scored original art and also have been able to utilize photostats in Marvel’s archives called “record negs” [negatives] that have amazing detail. They’re a delicate source and they take the highest level of skill to restore from (hi, Mike Kelleher!), but the results are wow. Issues #19 and #21 are an example of this. Compare the Masterworks to past editions. It’s a Masterworks mic drop!

The third and final volume of Miller’s first run on Daredevil seems just around the corner. Do you see some interesting things ahead for this line? “Born Again” isn’t too far away, after all!

It’s funny how these things work. I’ve had the Miller/Janson Daredevil run targeted as a major run that must be Masterwork’d for years. Miller’s work is what got me into comics, and Klaus is one of the best talents of his generation: smart, insightful, a great educator and nice guy to boot. But now that I’m done with Miller’s original run, it’s almost like it never happened. All that motivation has shifted to the next goal post: “Born Again” and “Love and War.” Being able to restore “Born Again” from Mazzucchelli’s original art? You could knock me over with a feather. And I already have scans of multiple complete issues of original art from Klaus’ penciler/inker run just waiting to be restored.

I loved those issues Klaus did following Miller’s first run. I’m very much looking forward to seeing those and more in Masterworks. Another top-shelf title of that era is Thor, and it seems to be doing pretty well in Masterworks. The Walter Simonson run is coming soon. How excited are you about potentially getting your hands busy with that run of comics?

Excited enough to raise Mjolnir, my friend! When I finished Walter’s ’70s run, he told me, “See you in a few years!” and that time (production-wise) is less than a year away. That’s another run that’s a bona fide dream to be restoring from the original art. Walt’s a legend. I want to be working on his run yesterday.

What are some of the candidates for Vol. 350 that you’d like to share? 

None! I’d like to share none! I’m already thinking about Vol. 400, but that’s secret, too.

Can you talk to us about the softcover graphic novel editions of the MMWs? What goes into making those books? 

Blood, sweat and tears—I mean, ink and paper and great new cover art by Michael Cho and now Leonardo Romero. 

Anything you’d like to close with?

Marvel Remasterworks PRE-ORDER! PRE-ORDER! PRE-ORDER! As well as, Marvel ReMasterworks PRE-ORDER! PRE-ORDER! PRE-ORDER! Oh, also, Marvel ReMasterworks PRE-ORDER! PRE-ORDER! PRE-ORDER! 

Thanks for talking with us, Cory! We’ll look forward to that first volume of Spider-Man “ReMasterworks”, coming in May 2023! The Final Order Cutoff (FOC) for the first ReMasterworks is November 28, 2022, so make sure to communicate with your retailer of choice about adding that book to your orders. “PRE-ORDER! PRE-ORDER! PRE-ORDER!”, as they say!

Meanwhile, if you’d like to discuss the interview please click on this link for the Marvel Collected Editions Forum!