As soon as March arrives and the new semester begins, there are suddenly many teenagers on the bustling streets of Manhattan. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 Although they still hang out on the main shopping streets on weekends, on weekdays, the only people who can come and go here are all kinds of adults, foreign tourists, office workers who commute between office buildings and homes every day, or business people from all over the world. New York is a city that never sleeps, and this phrase is for the South Island of Manhattan.

As the world's first modern CBD, which emerged as early as the thirties of this century, Manhattan's countless skyscrapers have the characteristics of the era, that is, the British style of stone buildings, especially the Empire State Building. At least as far as the term empire is concerned, it was originally inspired by the builders of Great Britain, not the concept of American soil.

DC Comics' headquarters is one of the many buildings in the row, and although it has had its headquarters in California since it was acquired by Warner in '69, it is the absolute heart of the comic book distribution center.

John Murdell has been in the editor-in-chief position for five years, having previously worked as an average senior editor at Marvel and remained there for seven years until he had to resign for Canada due to family reasons. When he returned to Manhattan, he didn't choose his old club as a place to continue working, but instead came to his "sworn enemy", sharing the DC work in the American comic book industry with Marvel, and directly served as the editor-in-chief.

Today, because it was Monday, he waited three times on the subway before it was finally his turn. Walking into the office building, taking the elevator to the corresponding floor, and finally stepping into the door of the company, the time is already a quarter past 9 in the morning.

Like many companies of the same type, DC Comics hires artists who work upstairs, and the privacy of the space ensures creative efficiency. However, for ordinary operation staff, ordinary editors who are responsible for receiving external manuscripts, and other types of employees, they can only share an extremely spacious space.

In fact, for the convenience of practical work, even Merdell, who is the editor-in-chief, and some other senior editors, only have a single room with transparent walls on this floor. The so-called secluded and elegant working environment is only needed by painters, and since they are doing such hard work as painting, of course, they must enjoy the highest equipment.

"William," Murdell felt a little sleepy as he walked through the door, and said to the staff sitting near the entrance, "Go downstairs and buy a cup of coffee, a big latte and a strong latte, I remember you just got a Starbucks membership card, right?"

William joined the company as an intern only last month, and strictly speaking, is still in college as an intern. The editor-in-chief was speechless, and he immediately got up and said, "Okay, Mr. Murdell, I'll be back in ten minutes!"

Ten minutes was certainly too late, but Murdell couldn't help but laugh at the sight of William running out of the gate at a rapid pace.

"Mr. Murdell!" Joanna, who was sitting at the door, saw him and immediately said, "Miss Alice arrived at the office an hour ago, and is now waiting for you in the conference room." ”

"What?" The sudden sentence made Meddle, who was thinking about how to drink that cup of coffee slowly, suddenly stunned in place: "Miss Alice has already arrived? It's been an hour!? Didn't she say about ten o'clock in the morning? Why is it so early?"

In the past few days, Joanna has been the first to arrive at the company and be responsible for opening the door. She said with some embarrassment: "I arrived at the company at half past eight this morning, and she was already standing at the door, and said that she had been on this floor for about fifteen minutes......"

"Oh shit!" Murdell didn't know what to say, "Let William put the latte directly in my office, and Joanna, and tell Pris, Edward, Kennett, and Moraise to hurry to the conference room!"

Saying the names of the company's four senior editors in one breath, Murdell no longer had the same calm and calm as before, he looked nervous, clenched his fist with one hand, and the soles of his feet were hard, and immediately rushed in the direction of the conference room like the wind.

Soon, the door opened, and he spotted the target in the first chair near the door.

"Oh, you must be Mr. John Murdell. Putting down the DC comics in her hand, Alice, who was wearing jeans and a casual top, stood up and stretched out her hand: "I've seen the resume photo at Warner, I believe you shouldn't be his twin brother, right?"

Seeing that the other party had the intention to laugh, Murdell couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, and immediately held Alice's hand and said, "I'm really sorry, Miss Alice, there are too many people on the subway today, I waited until three times to squeeze in." ”

"Understand, understand. Alice said sincerely, "I've also squeezed past the Tokyo subway line during rush hour, and New York is still far from them." ”

"Come on, come on, let's sit down first. Murder also calmed down, after all, the result of the long wait was also due to Alice's early departure, and when the two of them took their seats in front of the table, the four named editors also entered the conference room, and shook hands with Alice one by one to introduce themselves.

"So, let's get down to business. After briefly getting to know these tricks, Alice said to Editor-in-Chief Murdell: "I'm not the first person to deal with the position of 'Editor-in-Chief', and I won't interfere in any way with DC's current business in comics." ”

This sentence really made everyone relax a lot at once. Murdell's nervousness and caution were not for nothing, and he directly called the four core editors to create some momentum for himself, all the moods and actions, precisely because he did not understand what the new boss who had just bought the comic book company from Warner Group had.

"I have a strong Silicon Valley vibe, but it's not been a day or two since I stepped into the entertainment industry, and as I believe you all know, I am a contributing writer to DreamWorks and a shareholder in it. ”

Of course, this Murdell knew, so he looked moved and asked, "Will our company be affiliated with DreamWorks again?"

Alice nodded and said, "Mr. Merdell, I've read your resume, you've been an editor at Marvel for seven years, right?"

"That's right," Merdell replied, giving a brief introduction to the four colleagues: "Priss worked for Vertigo Comics for three years, Edward is our old man who has been working at DC since college, and Kennett and Moras were poached from the dark horse by the former editor-in-chief. ”

Alice listened to him patiently, and then said: "Since you have a lot of experience, then you all know that Marvel and DC have changed their works into movies in the past few decades, but the number is very rare. Right?"

"Yes," said the editor Edward, who had worked for nearly twenty years, and he had already given up, "After all, almost all of our comics are superheroes, and it is not an easy job to express them perfectly. As far as we are concerned, the sale of the rights to Superman is nothing short of a miracle!"

Alice was the first to laugh, and the others were also smiling, and Kennett interjected: "Superman who can fly, Louis who always loves to fall from buildings, how many times has he been rescued?"

This sentence drew more laughter from everyone, and after a while, Alice waved her hand and said, "So, Superman who can fly, Spider-Man who can spin silk...... Well, not to mention Marvel, even if we started with detective comics, it was difficult for film and television companies in the past to make superheroes have enough flavor, but now...... But it's not the same as it used to be, what do you say?"

The news that DC Comics was suddenly acquired by Alice came about half a month ago, and it was enough time for every employee who got the news to ponder for a long time. At this moment, seeing that she turned the topic to making movies, how could everyone not think of the reason?

"The special effects in Alien II are really impressive," says Murdell, "I remember the newspapers repeatedly emphasizing the role of computers when they explained the film in detail, but computing power is one thing, and it definitely needs to be supported by software." ”

"The biggest difference between Warner and DreamWorks is you, Miss Alice," Murdell smiled, "Just think it's my nonsense, Miss Alice, you can buy us from Warner so quickly, Miss Bennick must be helping, right?"

Murdell is just the editor-in-chief, the company's highest-ranking worker, and the owner of the comic book company will always be a capitalist. In '69, Warner bought the DC Entertainment company behind it, and one of the major shareholders who opposed it at the time, Murdell, remembers very well that it was Ms. Bennick, who is over 60 years old this year.

"That's right," Alice said, "and the Warners are too limited to carry DC's work forward, and that's why Ms. Bennick was opposed to the takeover." But obviously, DreamWorks and I are very different from Warners, so let's just say that the skills of playing PS are ......"

Suddenly interrupting her, Murdell appropriately slapped a sycophant: "A teenage billionaire who invests in multiple industries, accumulating a wealth of more than a billion in three years, and a few days ago, Ms. Oles complained to me, saying that you refused another interview with Fortune?"

However, this topic obviously touched on some of Alice's pain points, and the girl immediately rolled her eyes: "Again? for the third time! Every time I make money, those annoying editors want to give me another report! Well, I know it's all big news, and Time wanted to interview me about the '87 stock market crash arbitrage in January...... But am I that idle!?"

What a child, it was when the new boss met the company's employees, but she complained about other things: "You guys can interview me if you want? Just beg me to write a book like a bantam, just delete the spam email, these magazine editors are good, they are all directly harassing me! I said Murdell, you DC haven't done this kind of harassing thing, have you? Phone harassment!?"

"Rest assured, rest assured, you can absolutely rest assured of this. Listening to the hearty laughter of the attendants, and looking at Alice's look of "I'm so painful", Murdell laughed and said, "In DC, it's always the folk cartoonists who submit articles to us, and there is absolutely no time when we take the initiative to hire people!" (To be continued.) )