WonderCon 2025: Dan Slott Felt Like An Invisible Man Early At Marvel, But In A Good Way
by Gary Catig
Dan Slott is a superstar comics writer who has done work at the Big Two with superheroes from Spider-Man and Silver Surfer to his upcoming project with Superman. However, before the success, he had to make his way up in the industry. One of his first jobs was as an intern. Like any intern, he felt he was invisible in the office at times.
But he didn’t necessarily see it as a bad thing. This past weekend at WonderCon, Slott shared some entertaining stories about his time as the “art returns” guy at Marvel. He happened to be in the right place at the right time for some pretty unbelievable moments.
As the art returns guy, Slott was responsible for giving back the original art to creators whenever they were in the office.
“There’s this one day when all these famous guys came in and I had to hunt them all down. They had these giant stacks of all their art and it was tiring for them to walk around with it so they kept on coming back to my office to catch a break and put the art down,” Slott said. “They forget I was sitting there, and they’re talking like ‘Do you think they’re going to buy our company idea?’ I’m there at the birth of Image and I’m just sitting there not saying anything. [They’re] saying all these secrets.”
Speaking of one of the most influential independent comic publishers, Slott also talked about a surreal moment he witnessed with founder, Jim Lee, in the Marvel office.
“Jim Lee came in and I gave him all this art and Mike Mignola came in at the same time. Whenever two artists were in the art room together, and they each had their art, the obvious thing they start doing is going, ‘I like that. Oh, I like that.’ At one point Jim says to Mike Mignola, ‘I love how you spot wax on a page. How do you do that?’ And Mike Mignola flips over a page and it’s Mike Mignola doing an art lesson with Jim Lee. I’m like, ‘Shut Up! Don’t say anything. Just blend into the wall. It’s awesome!’”
It’s crazy to think that even someone like Dan Slott has his own star struck moments in comics.
