Mark Waid
The fun of writing established characters is that there's a rich mythology to draw from - you get to play with toys you loved as a kid.
There have been many days when I have had to work up to writing 'Irredeemable' because I just didn't feel like wallowing in that world, feeling those emotions... but that's the process.
Know what your characters want, know what they need most, know what they fear most, and don't be fearful of facing it, no matter how unpleasant it may be.
Style and entertainment tastes change, but the core emotions of being a kid - which, not coincidentally, are the core foundations of any good story - are constant.
There's a reason Archie didn't go the way of Betty Boop or Davy Crockett or Woody Woodpecker, forgotten relics of a bygone era, and it's because when 'Archie' stories are at their best, anyone of any age can see a little bit of themselves in them.
We're brought up to believe in a fairytale-romance sort of way that true love is out there and true loves don't care about what you look like and stuff, just what's down inside. And that's probably true, but what's also true, sadly, is that true loves are very rare and very hard to find.
For me, it's infinitely more interesting to read or watch a character making decisions they think are right, but the audience knows differently, and seeing that disconnect. The only way characters can grow and learn is by making the wrong decisions and then learning from them.
I'll still do print comics; as long as there's a market, I'll still be there. I just have a hard time believing that's the future.
Serial fiction is a conceit of comic books and soap operas. As one goes, so goes the other in terms of public consciousness.
What I need is for comics to not cheapen out and just do what they think a bunch of bloodthirsty 15 year old fans want.
I'd still love to work with John Romita Sr. at some point. That's the dream.
Years ago, I was asked to come up to do a store signing in Vermont. The short version is the two younger guys who own the store pick me up at the airport and start driving me around Vermont, showing me the sights and the textile mills and the restaurants, and the punchline is there's no store. There is no store!
There are other ways to create tension and drama than to have somebody stabbed through the back with a sword.
What I've found over the years working on various projects is, you can have a clever book or clever tagline, but there has to be a story to go along with it that leads to something bigger. Something with a little more texture to it.
I think comics are really - superhero comics are at their best and most primal when they're about joy and flying, and about escaping the gravity of the world. But, at the same time, that's not to say all stories should be happy.
The best stories, the most-fun 'Avengers' stories, explore the relationships between the characters.
I love what Max Landis is doing with 'Superman: American Alien.' That's a really good book.
Captain America is an interesting character because it makes you ask those questions in yourself as a writer. What do we want as a nation, what do we mean as a nation, what is our role in the world as a nation? What are our strengths and weaknesses as a country?
The beauty of Captain America is that you didn't have to come from a distant planet, like Superman, or he didn't have to be born into a family of billionaires like Bruce Wayne. He happened to be in the right place at the right time, and someone gave him a magic potion, and he grew muscles and became a superhero.
I think it's imperative of me to advance that theory that you can win your small victories against the dark.
The nice thing about working with BOOM! on 'Irredeemable' and 'Incorruptible,' man, was they let me have my head. No one said boo about anything.
I got taught a lot of great lessons by superhero comics as a kid about virtue and self-sacrifice and responsibility. And those were an important part of imprinting my DNA with ethical and moral values.
In a perfect world, I'd like to start running comics for kids - by kids.
You can do all of the world-building you want; at the end of the day, what's important is the heart and the drive of the story and the heart and the drive of the characters.
I think there's a moral imperative when you're writing fictional heroes to give characters who somehow give us something to aspire to as opposed to dragging them down to our level.
I am just tired of writing about heroes that we're dragging down to our level, and I want to write about heroes that we want to be.
Flash is about freedom; Flash is about expression. Flash is about just the joy of exuberant running and of freedom, and the moment you weight him down with too much Batman-like baggage... that's not the Flash anymore.
When you're writing a team book where every character already has his or her own series, you don't have dominion over them as individuals - but what you can exploit is their relationships with one another.
I genuinely enjoy the puzzle put before me with a crossover - how do I use this bigger piece of the Marvel Universe to tell a character-based tale I wouldn't normally think to tell?
Teaching is good for me. It forces me to articulate ways of doing things or rules of thumb that I've sort of taken for granted.
I just love rolling up my sleeves and doing research, and I especially love doing research on the origins of folklore and the origins of mythology.
We want the reading experience of digital comics to be as simple as tapping a tablet or an arrow key or mouse button to move forward or back.
It's always an amazing gift to be able to work with storytellers who 'get it' and who can not only draw anything but can draw it better and more dynamically than you'd ever envisioned.
I was the last guy I imagined anyone would ever associate with 'Daredevil,' but once I gave the character some thought, much like with the 'Fantastic Four,' I found my hooks and, I think, some angles on the series that have never been explored.
I think there are things that digital can't do as well as print thus far. Even an iPad is only 80% the size of a standard comics page, so the images are going to be smaller. You don't get your big, whopping two-page spreads.
I think someone like Jack Kirby, for instance, would suffer greatly in the transition from print to digital were he still around.
Dialogue is one of the easiest ways to get character conflict across immediately in comics.
If you come into any creative project without questions, you're gonna bore yourself, and it'll show on the page.
I do believe that any sort of electromagnetic energy that can be measured beyond the moment of death is, by the definition of energy, eternal. But I cop to the fact that calling it a 'soul' and presuming it sustains our consciousness in any form is, to put it kindly, a leap.
Real science is the greatest, most exciting springboard I have available to me as a writer, and I don't feel the least bit constrained by it.
Jan. 26, 1979, was the most important day of my life. Because that's the day that I saw 'Superman: The Movie.' I came out of it knowing that no matter what the rest of my life was going to be like, it had to involve Superman somehow.
The problem with most digital comics is that you're simply taking print material and adapting it. It's like reading through a cardboard tube.
I'm a big believer that if you buy a comic, you ought to own it.
I think of it this way: When you hear that people have downloaded your comic, appreciate that thousands are eager to hear what you have to say. The poetry club down the hall may not have the same problem. That's a good problem to have.
I love print comics.
Socrates should have written comics.Collection: Should Have
A superhero is someone who, at some point or in some way, inspires hope or is the enemy of cynicism. Even if you bog it down with political allegory, or even if you're doing celebrity allegory. You still need to take the cynical out of it.Collection: Political
Super-heroes were created to represent the best in all of us. We should aspire to match their nobility, not their ability to shoot big chrome guns.Collection: Hero
One of the greatest sins in any story is false suspense. The kind of 'suspense' that disintegrates the moment you give your reader one second to think about it. And it's an easy trap to fall into, so watch carefully for it. If your story hinges on the question, 'Will Superman be pushed so far in his battle against Lex Luthor that he'll have to kill him?', or if your big cliffhanger moment is, 'Wow, is Spider-Man really dead this time?', then I understand Food Lion is hiring.Collection: Book