Interviews/Christy Marx

This is a navigation hub for official and fan-run interviews for Christy Marx.

## Fan-run

Without her, we would not have a series to enjoy, at least not as we know and love. Let us give a grateful thanks and applaud of appreciation to the creator of the series, Christy Marx:

**1. Could you please introduce yourself, including but not limited to your role in the Jem series?**

I've worked in the fields of TV, film, animation, videogames, comics, graphic novels, manga, non-fiction books and educational writing. I've created TV, animation, videogames and comic book series, and served as a story editor on numerous TV and animation shows. I was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award for contributions to field of animation writing by the Writers Guild of America/Animation Writers Caucus. I'm the author of Writing for Animation, Comics and Games, a practical guidebook on how to write for these three fields of media.
Jem and the Holograms is one of many series that I was hired to develop and write.
My full list of credits is found here: http://web.archive.org/web/20190914002346/http://www.christymarx.com/writing.htm
**2. How were you hired to write for the series?**

I was writing on the G.I. Joe series for Sunbow Prods. They'd become familiar with me and everyone there liked the episodes that I wrote a lot, so I had a strong relationship with them. I was one of the only female writers doing action animation shows at the time. Sunbow Prods. was doing a lot of animation production for Hasbro Toys. When Hasbro came to Sunbow to produce an animation series based on a line of dolls for girls, the producers at Sunbow offered me the opportunity to create the animation series, no doubt based on the two factors that I was a) a strong writer and b) a female writer.
**3. As the creator of the animation series, did you get to choose who was on your writing team?**

To some degree, yes. Initially, I was too busy writing to do the story editing and Roger Slifer was acting as Story Editor. That means Roger was selecting the writers. Later in the series, I took on some of the Story Editing duties and at that time I chose the writers I wanted to use.
**4. How did you decide who would be on your team considering some of them were male?**

I used people that I knew who were good writers, who I could depend on to meet a deadline and turn in a good script.
**5. In retrospect, if you knew Jem ended at 65 episodes, would you have chosen writers/changed anything else differently?**

I wouldn't have changed the writers. I think the writers were had were fantastic. Bear in mind that the main story editor was Roger Slifer. I spent most of my time doing the development work and writing a ton of episodes and didn't get around to story editing until towards the end. There were some stories I wouldn't have approved, if I'd had the control, but all in all I think we had a great team. The only thing I might, possibly, have changed would have been to bring the Jem/Rio/Jerrica triangle to a close, rather than leaving it open.
As it was, I barely had enough time to wrap things up with the Ba Nee story to the extent that I did.
**6. Do you think there's a "more masculine" feel to the story episode when it was written by a man vs. woman?**

Not necessarily. I'm a woman writer, but I can write hard-edged action. In fact, I'm known for it. I know men who can write sensitive, character-driven material. It's more about the inclinations of the writer than it is about gender.
**7. Do you think working with Roger added a balanced male-female feel to the entire series overall?**

Again, I think it's more about the sensibilities of the writers. Any good writer worth his or her salt should be able to write convincing characters of either gender. Otherwise, you'd see only male writers writing male characters and only female writers writing female characters, and that would frankly be absurd.
**8. Were you or any of your writers ever upset when Roger made an edit? I presume it was to maintain the 22 minute time frame.**

Not if they're being professionals. It's a story-editor's job to edit. I have no idea how much editing Roger did because he worked separately with his writers and I worked with mine, but a professional writer understands the realities and necessities of being edited.
**9. Could you please differentiate the contributions between you and Bill Sanders? Were you already given dolls with dyed hair and play accessories to attach to a story or did you help create the toys for Hasbro to sell?**

I knew nothing about the existence of Bill Sanders until twenty years after the series was over, by which time he was -- sadly -- dead. I wish I could have met him. I did have the chance to meet with the executor of his estate and see some of the original sketches and notes that Bill made for the idea. He originally came up with a concept for a boy band and it was a more boy-action concept. I have no idea who decided to change them to female characters.
I was hired because Hasbro was creating the line of dolls and wanted an animation series to go with them, as they'd been doing for G.I. Joe and Transformers.
I was given a slim set of concepts to work with from Hasbro: the singer with holographic earrings and secret identity of some kind, a sister named Kimber, a boyfriend named Rio, the holographic computer called Synergy, and the Rockin' Roadster. I was given the product names of the two groups and their members. I think the only names that didn't change while I was developing the series were Rio, Kimber and Pizzazz. They had no "real" names (no family names or surnames) or anything else to distinguish them except an indication of what instrument would be packed with the doll. After much begging, I finally got Hasbro to send me Polaroids of the doll prototypes, so that I could have some kind of visual inspiration.
Everything beyond those few elements came from me.
**10. We start out with two siblings along with two close friends who live in an inherited house turned foster home for girls. How did this concept come about?**

To be honest, I don't remember exactly why or how I came up with that. I may have been thinking that it would be a way for the young girls watching the show to more closely associate with one of the Starlight Girls. More likely, I did it because it gave Jerrica and her friends a solid, altruistic purpose behind their actions. They weren't doing this for fame, glory or money. They were doing it to benefit the foster girls they cared about. It's a good hook. In retrospect, I should have kept the number of Starlight Girls down to less than a small horde.
**11. So when Raya, Jetta, and The Stingers came to town, did Hasbro tell you, "We have these new dolls, fit them into the story somehow?"**

Yes, Hasbro would let me know that they had new dolls to add to the line and I would decide who they were as characters and how to integrate them into the overall storyline of the series.
**12. Speaking of Raya, one of the things that amazes me was the racial diversity of the characters. Raya, Shana, and Aja would be considered racial minorities in the United States. Was this your idea?**

Having a representative balance of minorities amongst your good guys has been a standard practice in the animation business for a long time and I'm not surprised it was reflected in the development of the dolls. I had nothing to do with what sort of dolls they would add to the line. That was up to Hasbro.
**13. Do you think the racial diversity added more pizzaz (pun intended)/flavor/fun towards writing the stories?**

I think people are people and what makes them compelling or interesting or fun is who they are as characters, not what minority they do or don't belong to. I've told one amusing story, though, dealing with the attitude that was commonly taken back then about what was acceptable for a minority character and what wasn't. I was in a conference with the producers on the series. I was told that we'd be adding a new character to the Misfits (I had no visuals to work with at that point). I commented that the Misfits were entirely white and it would be great if the new character could be black. "Oh, no," the senior producer said, "we can't do that. But she could be British or Australian." So basically, no ethnic characters could be "bad", but any white American, Brit or Aussie was fair game. And that, by the way, is why I made Jetta a Brit. At least it gave her a different spin.
**14. If your agent called with an offer to write episode 66, would you drop what you are currently working on to take the offer?**

You bet I would.
**15. Would you give true Jem fans a hint of what direction a new Jem story would take the characters?**

What I would love to do the most at this stage is finally deal with Jerrica finally telling Rio the truth and move forward from there.
**16. So if the love triangle was connected, would a new series be so radical, it would reflect Hasbro in 1986?**

Here's what I'm talking about: In 1986, the G.I. Joe main baddie, Cobra Commander, was replaced with Serpentor. More radically was Transformers. In 1986, Optimus Prime and Megatron were replaced with Rodimus Prime and Galvatron and the battles were no longer on Earth, but in outer space. In that direction, would a Jem series starting with episode 66 be a new story line Jem fans would not even expect?
I don't think that simply picking up Jem and the Holograms in the 1980s and trying to do the exact same show would succeed. The story needs to move forward. The trick is to seemingly "resolve" the love triangle without actually resolving it. Yes, it would be a radical change, but I know exactly how I would do it and exactly where I would go with a new series to keep the spirit and essence of Jem fresh for a new decade and new generation of viewers.
**17. It seems (some) fans got the impression there was a truce between the three bands in the last episode. Would the Misfits and Stingers still be the cause of trouble or would there be new band battle rivalries?**

I think the focus would need to shift somewhat away from these simple rivalries, though I would still have either the groups or their key members around to play their roles.
**18. Comparing to Transformers, would you start a new Jem series in this day and age with today's music, fashion, style, and attitude(s) or would you maintain the style of the 80's?**

While I would begin in the earlier time period, I would want to move the story forward toward present day. I don't think that a series made today set entirely in the 1980s would work.
**19. I've imagined this, but since the last Jem episode, computer technology has obviously enhanced graphics. Have you imagined Jem in Pixar or 3-D style before?**

I haven't, actually. That would be something to explore should the chance to do Jem again become a reality. I'm not someone who immediately jumps on the 3D bandwagon as being right for every project. There's plenty of room for good 2D storytelling.
**20. You've piqued my curiosity. Do you have set ideas, plans, or standards for 2D vs. 3D?**
No, only that I would want to keep what worked for the original series (in terms of the look), while updating it for the present.

**21. You wrote the first episode of the G.I. Joe half-hour stories, "Countdown to Zartan" which was the same year as Jem, 1985. Did your mind switch writing modes, action mode vs. glam, glitter, fashion, and fame?**

It was the work I did on G.I. JOE that landed me the job to develop JEM. As I recall, I had finished writing the five episodes of JOE when the JEM opportunity came along, so I didn't have to switch back and forth between the two genres.
But yes, it did take some mental gear switching to shift from the hard action material to the very different requirements of JEM. It took a little while to mesh with what Hasbro wanted and expected while taking into account that JEM was originally sandwiched as a short segment between two "boy-oriented" segments. So Hasbro wanted the fashion/glam/romance, Sunbow was concerned about having enough (but not too much!) action to keep the boys from changing the dial in the middle of the show when Jem came on, and I was trying to harmonize these elements into a compelling story told in eleven minute pieces.
**22. Another work of yours that amazes me was the first episode of season 2 of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the return of their arch-enemy, The Shredder.**

What I think of in contrast was all the short moments of the one-shot villans... the punks in the supermarket, the robbers in the park, and Slash and the students of his dojo.
In Jem, there were less cameos and more focus on the main characters. Do you define character development differently for each story based on certain factors? TMNT was an established show, so writing the script required working in the manner that the series had already laid out. With a show like this, I was coloring inside the lines, so to speak. It had its own set of requirements about how action could play out. The turtles couldn't use martial arts weapons directly against any one; the action had to be indirect and involve inanimate objects, for example. It wasn't up to me to do character development, only to make it consistent with what had come before.
Jem was wide-open for me to develop, however in Jem we had an enormous cast of characters from the start: Jerrica/Jem (basically two characters), three Holograms, Rio, Eric Raymond, three Misfits, the Starlight girls...that's a lot. There wasn't much room to step aside and spend minutes of screen time on incidental characters, though we managed to do some of that. The emphasis of the series was on our main characters and that was rightfully where it should be with such a character-driven show.

**23. You have attended a JemCon. What was the experience like?**

Fantastic! I've been the Guest of Honor at two JemCons and they were some of the best experiences ever. I love the enthusiasm and warmth of the fans and it was wonderful to finally meet some of the voice cast after all this time.

**24. What would you say about Jem overall when either compared or contrasted from the rest of your works, perhaps in the sense of her being your project and original creativity?**

Jem was unique. I had never written anything like it before and it showed me that I had the ability to do this kind of character-driven material. I had tremendous freedom to be creative. The people on the production team were a joy and a pleasure to know and work with. I would say it represents some of the best and most worthwhile work I've done in animation.
**25. Any final words to say to all Jem fans out there?**

Thanks for your appreciation and support. You are all truly outrageous!