- This week on Round Table.
- I write maybe every day, maybe not.
It depends, there's so
much weeping that happens.
- Cecil Castellucci,
Eisner nominated author
of Odd Duck and Shade, the Changing Girl.
- Like the third person narration thing,
it gives it such grandeur
that I do wish it came back.
- James Tynion IV, writer of Batman,
Detective Comics, and
co-writer of Batwoman: Rebirth.
- When I'm stuck with it,
I just tend to like go and get a massage.
Like one of the cheapo
hole in the wall places
because it's just like okay,
I can just lie in the dark
and like get petted for an hour.
And just be like I can't figure this out,
someone be nice to me.
- Marguerite Bennett, writer
of DC Comics Bombshells
and co-writer of Batwoman: Rebirth.
- I wanna do a really
fucked up horror story.
Like, I wanna do something
that really scares people.
(dramatic music)
- So gentlemen, how do we kill Superman?
(laughing)
- That's a really good segway
into how do we kill Superman.
I have this theory that
Superman is the best thing
for character, you know, because he's got
all the things that every
major iconic character have.
And now that I'm on the spot,
let's see if I can remember what they are.
But he has a superpower or a super skill,
something that he loves, an enemy,
oh God, there's one more, a secret place,
and super power, something that he loves,
anyway there are five things.
I can't remember what the other one is.
- Is it a super powered dog?
- No, no, but it's like if you look at
every single character, they have,
they have all of these same
qualities that Superman has.
And so whenever I do like writing classes,
you know, have to speak 'cause I do a lot
of school visits and stuff,
I always talk about how Superman,
if you look at every other
major iconic character,
they have all the things that Superman,
oh weakness, that's the other one.
- There we go, yeah.
- Thank God, I got them all.
But every single major character
has those kinds of things
so in a way it is like
sort of the beginning
of writing in a way, like
when I'm dealing with kids
and their writing, it's like okay,
well what are the characteristics
that all great characters have.
And you can do with any
of them, like Dorothy,
with Harry Potter, with
anyone, so it's interesting.
Good beginning.
(laughing)
- Cheers.
(laughing)
- Okay, I have a question
too, are you guys
plotters, outliners, or are you pantsers?
- What?
- Pantser means you just like
go by the seat of your pants.
- Okay.
- Which is what I am.
I'm just like--
- I'm just picturing
something else--
- Yeah, no.
(laughing)
I just yeah, yeah, like no.
(laughing)
Maybe, I mean I don't know.
- Is that where the conversation starts?
- If you wear these then maybe.
(laughing)
I don't like outlines.
I just like, I think the reason why
I tend to write the end of
my story at the beginning
is because that way I at least
know where I'm headed to.
But I don't know how I'm gonna get there.
So I don't outline at all.
But that's a plot, like,
so what do you guys do?
Do you guys actually plot out every issue
or you were talking about your--
- The Woods definitely
evolved to the point
where I no longer did
big, like, crazy documents
that laid out every
individual piece of it.
In Detective, I do that
kind of more arc to arc.
I will, like at the
beginning of an arc I will
kind of pace out what's in it
and I will allow, like
I was saying before,
I'll allow the story to dictate
itself in a new direction
and then run it by people
like I did the Batman,
Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles crossover last year.
And that had originally
had a different climax
and the, but then I was just
chatting with a few friends
and one of them put the image in my head
of like you should go
with the Arkham villains
and have them all turn into
like the animal mutants of,
and it was just like--
- Of course.
- That's a thing that could
only happen in this story
and is the absolute thing
that needs to happen.
And so I had to reshift a few things
because there was going to be
a slightly different climax
to the story and I kind of,
I shot Jim Chadwick and Freddy Williams,
like, my editor and my artist, you know,
like this is what I wanna do now.
And they were like yeah, go for it.
Like, hopefully
Nickelodeon's cool with it.
And they were, thankfully.
But you know, because
at that moment I needed
to start planting seeds in previous issues
and sometimes you then have to go back
and realign something in lettering,
like, to help set up the big conclusion.
But that was a thing that added,
like all of a sudden I needed to bring
the turtle's mutagen into the world
and I had to be like okay,
where in the story could like,
a character come through?
And it's just like I had Casey Jones
was gonna jump back into our world.
And it's like now he has to
bring the mutagen with him.
And so I had like,
and then the story kind
of clicks in that way.
Like I said earlier, I like
that kind of problem solving.
I like having an outline
and then I'm very happy breaking it.
- So what does that
document look like for you?
Do you do, is it like when
you do your arc thing,
is it like, is it like
okay, here's a document
and it's got issue one, issue two,
and like a little paragraph?
Is it just like bullet points?
What is it?
- It's like, imagine like a rambling email
where I'm just like what
do you think if I did this?
- Oh God, I'm so glad.
Because I think that's what I do.
- It's very much like, and Marguerite,
you've seen some of these documents.
- I love the documents.
- Yeah, it's like every
couple of months since
starting on Detective,
I have sent Christ Conroy, my editor,
a what, like I've copied and pasted
them all into documents after,
but I've sent him the equivalent
of 10 to 15 page emails
about like, all right,
like here are my ideas for everything.
Okay, these are, this
story line can dovetail
into this story line
can dovetail into that
and some of them are like,
just like two paragraphs
and then I have like five
paragraphs for what's
going to end up being a two-part storyline
coming out this fall that's gonna,
but that was all because I'm bringing back
the classic version of anarchy.
And I wanted to create
this kind of secret utopia
under Gotham of where, you know,
anarchy is kind of built.
Anarcho-Syndicalist like many
pseudo-government down there--
- Love every word in that sentence.
- Yeah, I know.
And I love that it's a utopia.
- Yeah, I know.
- That's like the--
- Exactly.
It's sort of like, it's
creating a kind of,
like what seems to be a good place
and then it has one bad element that then
kind of shows why it's not
quite aligned with Batman
which is always the thing with Anarchy,
but it's like I wanted to
take the character Anarchy,
which also then ties into what
we were talking about earlier
because I love being able to like,
like it's touching on some
of the political reading
I'm doing about kind of leftist movements
in the early, mid-20th century and how,
and what Anarchy really is
and it's not the kind of like,
it's not just like Molotov cocktails
and I'm gonna take down the government.
It's more like no, it should
be like a bunch of people
who all decide what they
do rather than just like
oligarchs deciding it.
- It's so funny when people say that.
Like when they poo-poo comics at all
because it's like there's some deep stuff
that goes into like the actual thinking,
thinking of it.
Do you do like a,
what is your document?
- I have to outline.
Especially with Bombshells where
we have so many cast members.
Where it's the kind of
thing that I still remember,
like there was this one arc where,
it wasn't a Bombshells, fortunately.
There was one arc where
I was like, you know,
I'm just kind of like follow
the story where it takes me.
And I lost track of a
character and was like well,
I'll never see that character again.
And it was like I needed
her to show back up
but we hadn't seen her in ages and like,
it just looked super shoe horn for me to
remember that I'd forgotten
about this cast member.
And so yes,
but something that I do tend
to outline pretty heavily,
but it is the kind of
thing where it's, yeah,
definitely the freedom to
watch characters sass you back.
No, like that's one of
my favorite moments.
Yeah, and gosh, and once I
start also with the outline
and then just sort of like
I got like the outline of the arc.
And then just copy and paste
what the first issue was,
plug it into a document and was like okay,
what am I most excited about?
And that's where I start.
I don't start from the beginning.
It's like what's in here is gonna make me
so enthused for this one issue
that passion for the
project is going to overflow
forward and backward through
the rest of the story.
And so it's definitely
like eat dessert first.
That's my biggest piece of advice
- How to have a bunch of end parentheses
that then you can pull
out at the last minute
that then spread out.
It's, I mean it's a fascinating problem
that I, I approach it from
maybe the wrong angle.
I, like on Detective right now,
there's a version of The
Detective story in my head
that will end at, you know, like each,
every couple of arcs
there's kind of a perfect
like season ending that I
can turn that season ending
into the real ending of
that wraps up everything
that I've been trying to accomplish since
the first issue of Detective.
But there's also, in the back of my mind,
the like potential plan
where it's just like okay,
if I was given infinite room, like,
how do I keep this going
and how do I keep building?
And honestly, a lot of times,
those breakdowns of like,
what would I do with
another like 50 issues?
Then I take ideas from all those
and stick them in the most,
the next arc like, way before I would
actually have them play
out because, you know,
why save you know, don't
be precious with it.
You wanna give the reader,
if you have a really cool idea you don't
save it for a hypothetical
few years from now.
You save it for, you know,
you give it to them tomorrow.
- Don't hold back.
Put all the best parts right now,
because there will be more best parts.
But I think it's hard to,
sometimes it's hard, like you know,
to like, I don't know about you guys
but sometimes I'm like I'll
never have another idea.
(giggling)
This is never gonna, and that's it.
I'm tapped out, you know.
So I get nervous but I
think that is a great point
that you have to, you have to put
it all in there right away.
- That's something that
whenever I talk to,
because at conventions,
there are a lot of fans that'll come up
who have the idea for you know,
the one story they wanna do.
And you know, and the idea of even if it's
not a superhero story, even if
it's a creator owned concept
or some, or whatever,
it's something where they're just like
oh well I couldn't get a 75 issue run
on a book tomorrow so
I'm gonna hold it off.
And that's what I kind of say.
It's just like no, if
you have this great world
you're building in your head,
tell a like 30 page moment in that story
that expresses it now.
Take all the cool bits and distill it down
to the thing that makes
you excited about it
and then send it out there in the world
and then rely on the fact
that you're going to have
a better idea tomorrow.
Like, you can't be precious.
You always have to, when
I first started in comics
I was definitely a bit more precious.
I definitely, I held off on beats
and I did that and I
think in some of my runs
you can sort of see the
moments where I realized
like nope, this isn't working.
It's like, like holding
it off three extra issues
just left two kind of
boring issues in the middle.
So like, why do that?
You should just resolve that earlier
and get to the exciting part of the story.
You always need to be flexible
and on your toes, especially
in mainline superheroes
because the next day you're
gonna find out that oh,
this character is actually
moving over to this book
or is doing that.
You need to be able to rework a concept
in the face of corporate comics.
And honestly it's still
part of the fun for me.
It leads to frustration sometimes
but I like story, I like solving problems.
- Whenever I sit with writers
I always wanna talk about like the actual
butt in chair situation.
(laughing)
So can we talk about that?
Like, do you guys, like
I write maybe every day,
maybe not, it depends.
There's so much weeping
that happens, you know?
But how do you arrive to the page?
Like, what do you,
do you write every single day?
Do you write between a certain amount,
every writer has a different
thing that they do.
Like I try to leave the page open.
I feel like the page is open every day
because it's not like as an artist
you clock in and clock out.
So I'm always like working out stuff.
But like, even today,
when we were sitting here,
I got an idea for something.
I was like oh, good, duh.
But do you guys have a certain amount,
like certain time that you write?
Or what's your daily schedule?
- I am not a write everyday person.
And it's, it would probably
be better if I were.
I definitely, I do work everyday.
I respond to emails.
I think about story, I'll do that.
But I also, like I've just
never been the sort of person
that it's just like okay,
10 AM, I'm clocked in.
I'm going to write for the next two hours
then I'm gonna go do a thing,
then I'm going to come
back and write for another,
like I can't do that.
- I can't do that, either.
- It is much more of,
and I'm also more of a sprinter.
I like think, I think
through all of my stories.
I tend to, like it's very
rare that I will sit down
starting to write an issue
not knowing what's generally
going to happen in the issue.
So a lot of that kind of abstract space
or throwing ideas into documents
or just like literally sitting
and staring at a wall.
Like all of that's part of it.
But once I am sitting
down and I need to work,
then like I will all write somewhere,
like I typically will write in like
10 to 15 page chunks in a go.
But that's because I already
pretty much blocked it out.
- Right, 'cause you're working already.
Yeah, I feel like that's
kind of like what I do.
It's like I'm working it always,
but I don't do 10, 15 pages.
It's like maybe like two pages.
- I feel like I'm sort of on the inversion
because I do write everyday
and I feel like it'd
be better if I didn't.
Because at this point I
have a high risk of burnout.
I mean, just the amount of
books that I'm working on.
And sort of the not having any time
to recharge between projects
does get to me after a while.
And so it's the kind of thing, you know,
straight in the morning,
I check my email, get
up and I push the button
on my audio book which is usually
a piece of research.
And then from there, you know,
my schedule can also be kind of erratic.
Just the number of responsibilities I got.
But it's the kind of thing I like to start
working at mid-morning.
And you know, get done.
Sort of like eat dessert first.
It's like what scene am I excited about?
Okay, start there and then work backwards
and work forwards.
And then yeah, I try to
do about 10 pages a day.
Like, if I go beyond that,
it might be because I'm switching
to a different project.
It's hard for me to work just on the one
like all the way, you know, to completion
without jumping around to something else
is just sort of, you
know, shot and chaser.
- What are your strategies
for writer's block?
'Cause we all get writer's block.
My strategy is to wash my hair
or to do the dishes because I feel like
it lets my brain sort
of go to a dream place.
- Yeah, mindless repetitive
tasks really help.
Like I've put, when I've been in crisis,
like the moments I've
been the most stressed
in the last five years,
at every one of those moments I've bought
a very complicated Lego figure.
And just sat down and built it.
Like in one night.
And I just will, I'll just
follow the instructions.
Maybe I'll be playing some music
or I sometimes will just
do it all in silence
and I'll just like do it for five hours.
And that will help realign me.
But honestly, for me, it's
what I'm always trying
to chase is the flow of the story.
And there are sometimes that it is brutal,
like, trying to get into that.
And you just have to kind of hack at it.
And know that you can rewrite
it all tomorrow if you need to
but just keep going.
But for me, it's the,
like The Woods and Detective,
the way I write a lot of scenes,
I will just write the dialogue flow.
I won't break it down into panels.
I won't break it down into
even panel descriptions.
Like I might say he throws the glass
against the wall or something like that,
but there's, I will just sort of
follow the flow of the conversations
and just see where it goes because I know
the general shape of the story
and I know the characters at this point.
That works the best with The Woods,
where I can see, I know
the characters well enough
to be like okay, this
character will pipe in here.
This character would pipe in there.
Here's the core of the
speech that needs to be made.
This is how they would comment on it
and I'll just try to hook in
and hopefully it'll just
carry me all the way home.
'Cause it's just like what,
it's finding that moment where
time stops meaning
anything and then you look
at the clock and three hours have passed
and you have a whole bunch
of words on the page.
And there's like, you know,
there's no surefire way to get on that.
Some days it doesn't come.
Some days I just won't get a
big chunk of work done but--
- That's the thinking part.
That's like, it's like a lot of writing,
I think people forget a lot of writing
is actually not writing.
It's like thinking.
- Percolating on it.
- Yeah.
- And just the kind of thing where,
you know, if you're
hitting writer's block,
there's a point where it's
like over exerting a muscle
and at some point it's
gonna be bone on bone.
You're just going to be doing damage
to your story if you're
going when you're burned out.
If you're going when you're sick.
I do also wanna caution folk from using,
you know, oh I just need to rest.
I just need to wait for inspiration.
Because nothing's ever
gonna be good enough.
- Then you're never, well exactly.
It's like I always think of writing,
it's like a document of where you were.
And at some point you
just have to let it go.
- And you just sort of
have to make an agreement
with yourself where it's like okay,
I'm gonna take the next hour off.
I'm gonna take the next 24 hours off.
But you know, or maybe you can switch
and work on something else.
Or like, you know,
do the chore or whatever
that you've been putting off.
You know, something
that is still productive
towards your life and
ideally towards your career
or your art but not to
the point that you are
changing the story or
progressing the story
but progressing it right into a hole.
You know, or trying to
stretch it until it tears.
When I'm stuck with it,
I just tend to like go and get a massage.
Like one of the cheapo
hole in the wall places.
Because just like, okay,
I can just lie in the dark
and like, get petted,
you know, for an hour.
And just be like I can't figure this out,
someone be nice to me.
- It's the same thing because
you're going to that dreamy place.
It's all about getting
to that dreamy place.
- No emails going on.
Like the kitty cat's leaving
me alone for two minutes.
- Can't see Twitter.
- Yeah, can't see Twitter,
can't see any of the new notifications
for oh, this new PDF just came in.
It's just like the suspended animation.
It's finally the time to be like okay,
if you're sitting in a dark theater,
what comes on the screen
that would make you
be like I'm gonna see that story?
- I love taking a little writing class.
I'm also part of my process,
I take acting classes
every once in a while.
- Oh, interesting.
- Yeah, just like little, tiny workshops.
Like I've done Suzuki Viewpoints and like
Shakespeare speaking and just all kinds
of little union dropping in,
like kind of weird things.
Because I feel like, as a writer,
like we're always just sitting around
in our pajamas, you know, sort of.
(groaning)
And creating character in theater
is the same as creating
character when you're writing
except it's in your body.
So you know, so I don't like,
I mean I'm not taking like long classes
but a little weekend workshop
or something like that.
Because I feel like it gets,
it gets the word sort of off of my fingers
and into my core and I feel like that then
helps me to get back into my fingers.
- So I'm an audio book addict.
So it's like wake up in the morning,
I'm still in bed and I check my email
and you know, see if anything's on fire.
And then as soon as like
those fires are put out,
it's push play on whatever
audiobook I'm listening too.
And it's get up, brush
my teeth, wash my face,
you know, make coffee, make breakfast.
You know, it used to be walk the dog
and then later tend
the garden or whatever.
And doing that entire time
for the first like hour
or two hours of my day
is just audio books.
And so it might be a piece of fiction,
it might be non-fiction.
It might be like the, Audible
has these great courses
that you're supposed to
sit for an hour a day.
And so it's just pulling all the stuff in.
And so especially working with things
like Bombshells which
is an ultimate history
or with Animosity which deals so much
with just the biology.
And all the new things that we're learning
about animal behavior and all the theories
that we have about the
effects of domestication
on different species.
You know, I just don't have
the time to just sit down
and maybe dedicate, or maybe
I don't learn the same way
where it's just the difference in reading.
But having someone explain it to me
in this very conversational
and friendly way
is fantastic and that's
something that I love.
- I've been taking some Coursera classes.
You know, the massive
online college classes?
And partly I like when
I take history classes
because I feel like
when I'm world building
that sometimes sort of
having the scaffolding
of like, World War II or whatever,
is sort of interesting for world closing
when I'm creating new worlds.
But it was really interesting because
I wrote this Princess Leia novel
and I was taking this
class by happenstance
called The Paradox of War.
And it was about like, the
good and bad things of war
and like what they bring.
You know, the good things and
bad things that they bring
and I was like, wow,
this is curiously relevant
to writing about the
empire and the rebels.
You know, and so yeah.
I love bringing that research in
and I love that you listen to audio books.
I never even thought of that because,
I guess I'm dumb or something.
(laughing)
- Girl, girl.
- But it's like, you know,
it's like I just never thought
like oh, I could take a walk in this.
Instead of like I clearly
have to go to the library
and read all these books.
- It's been very tricky.
Like the reason that woman sort of has
elected to dress himself?
Baseball player, the main thing I wanna do
came from Jackie Mitchell
who in the 30s, you know,
went out and tried out for
these major baseball leagues.
And struck out Babe Ruth.
And two days later, women were banned
from playing in National leagues.
And it was just sort of like,
it sounds like I made that up
and I'm making some like,
and she was 17 years old.
It sounds like I'm making some sort of
scolding point.
I didn't come up with that.
Take issue with someone else.
(laughing)
- That's amazing.
So that's why you put it in there?
- Yeah, uh-huh.
I wanted her to draw
inspiration from someone else
who was told like, you can't do this.
And you know, and just sort of like
watch me now mother fuckers.
(laughing)
- What about you?
What do you do, do you pull
in things from other places?
- For me it's always been
a bit more media focused.
Like I think I, I sort of try
to exist in a genre a bit,
especially when I'm developing something
from the ground up.
Like, when I'm working on a horror,
a horror story, I will,
I'll go into it and I
will basically watch.
First I'll re-watch the, like the films
and TV shows and short stories and novels
that gave me a real love of the genre
and then I'll go from there
and start, I'll start finding the things
that are the closest to
what I'm trying to do
and see what they did and
what doesn't quite work
and what did work.
Right now I'm working on superhero stuff.
I've been going back to a lot of,
you know, I have a fresh memory
of some of the more contemporary stuff
but when I'm starting on the current run
of Detective Comics which is a team book
with all of the Bat Family characters.
I started back from the beginning
of Chris Claremont's X-Men run.
I just started re-reading
all the way through
and it was really, really fascinating
seeing the things that were used there.
Like story techniques and down to like
third person narration and the way
panel breakdowns would work,
that would still feel very
vibrant and relevant today
but aren't used so much.
Because I feel like there was a moment
that they became a bit trite.
And people sort of put them in a box
and put them away.
The same way that you, you know,
you don't see thought bubbles that much
in mainstream comics anymore.
And but there were lots of different,
the third person narration things,
it gives it such grandeur
that I do wish it came
back and it's like--
- You can bring it back.
- One of the major similarities
that I'm hearing, understandably,
that when you're doing
a licensed character,
you do need to read the work that deals
with those characters.
Back stories and their appearances.
But a lot of it seems to be like
not just drawing from comics,
because if comics is
all that you're reading
then that's all you're being influenced by
and so you just regurgitate
what's already been created
in your very tiny industry.
So the influence, you know,
from movies or television or you know,
they're non-fiction or just all of this,
definitely seems like it's
a much more, you know,
something that truly enriches the art
that you then produced.
(dramatic tone)
- When I write for DC I
have to do full script.
But when I write my graphic novels,
I do open script and I have
a discussion with that.
Can we talk about scripts?
- Yeah.
- Sure, no.
- I'd love that.
- Please.
- So tell me everything.
- Oh, Lord.
(laughing)
Oh goodness.
I mean I, I don't know, I know
I'm a bit of a control freak
so I definitely block everything out
and I just cram my Word documents
full of reference images.
To the point that it's
like this is too large
to be sent to your artist.
Damn it.
(laughing)
- That's what hyper links are for.
- I know.
(laughing)
But sometimes they don't get clicked
or it doesn't open or it's gone
by the time they get there.
So yeah.
- You know what I do?
I have a shared Pinterest with the artist
and the colorist for Shade.
And so Kelly and Marley and I
have this Pinterest that we started
when we were first starting the book
so that we would be able to build
a sort of shared visual vocabulary.
So I suggest Pinterest.
- I guess Bombshells is sort of a universe
in and of itself and it's sort of like
the same variation on superheroes.
From you know, again since
it's an entire world,
even though we just have one title,
and so with Bombshells,
which is an alternate
history World War II,
where all the super heroins came first
for anyone who's unfamiliar with it.
It comes out in these 10 page chapter
weekly installments and so
for every single chapter,
when we start it out,
it focuses on a different heroine
and I wanted to round
out the world completely
so it wasn't just a single genre
as though there's only
one tone to the world.
It was like no.
So Batwoman was our lead character
so she's this sort of like
cheesy 1940s adventure reel,
radio reel.
And then Wonder Woman is a war story.
Supergirl is a propaganda film.
Zatanna's like this black and
white universal horror movie.
And Aquawoman is a romance.
So we were able to just sort of define
each one with it's own tone.
And from there, the
rating and the dialogue
and everything was very focused on like,
okay so each one of these
are a separate genre stories.
And then they eventually
wind up merging together.
But I think that like,
as far as the actual
script writing, it's
still super basic for me.
And I still script out like full dialogue
and everything and just pile stuff
with like okay, here's your back story.
It's not gonna come up yet
but just so you know.
Yeah, and I like before
beginning anything,
to get on Skype with the artist
and sort of like find out you know,
what do you want me to share with you?
Like, what do you want from this story?
What would make you happiest?
What do you never want me to send you?
How do you feel, how many panels of pages.
Do you like, how are double page spreads?
And some kind of thing like I,
it's like that story from
when they were making Lord of the Rings.
And in order to get
some of the characters,
you know, to truly look like the people
that they were portraying like with Eowyn.
Like he had embroidered
special Norse underwear
made for her and it's like
maybe don't spend a ton of time
embroidering underwear
that no one's gonna see.
I'm sure it gets a great performance,
but there is a certain level
at which you sort of
have to cut yourself off
as far as like how much,
how far down the rabbit
hole am I going to go
for something that the artist may not want
and something that my
not necessarily translate
or enrich the story.
That I've just now
spent a ton of resources
that I could be spending
on editing, on dialogue,
on something else.
So yeah, a lot of it just comes down
to communication with
the artist beforehand
and figuring out how I can tailor
both the story and the
execution of the script
to what they want to get from me.
When am I just overwhelming them
and turning them off to
the project completely?
And when am I giving
them something that is
especially made for them and like,
I feel like when you're happiest,
you're gonna make your best art.
- Is there like a dream
thing that you'd like to do
in any of your books that
you're working on right now
that you haven't been able to do yet
but like you're like
oh, I'm poised to do it?
- I'm really, like honestly
it's one of those things
where it's stepping a bit further
away from clearness.
But I wanna do a really
fucked up horror story.
Like, I wanna do something
that really scares people.
Like, because I think horror is,
it's the genre I'm,
my two favorite genres are
like young adult fiction
and really dark nihilist horror.
Like, so it's like I'm a weird person.
- You naughty man.
- Yeah.
- By weird you mean awesome?
- Yeah.
(laughing)
But it's, you know, horror
and comedy are kind of like
two sides of the same coin.
I could do little funny moments and stuff
but I'm not a comedian.
But I do think that you know,
I have a bit of an eye for horror.
I did my senior thesis
on horror in college.
And International Horror Cinema.
And it was, honestly,
being able to add
something into that myth.
I was being able to be the first person
who kind of takes the horror lens
toward a cultural fear
is something that I want to do.
And put that, first you need the insight.
You know, and I'm very
proud I've done these
series of apocalypse stories.
The Memetic Cognetic and the third one
that's not announced yet.
But like Mametic I was very proud of
because it was kind of,
it was about the fear of
the spread of information
and the fact that we're reaching towards
being a society where an idea can spread
faster than we know whether or not
it's a good idea or a bad idea.
And then if you actually weaponize that
and make it destructive,
it can be you know, a really,
really horrifying force and could
destabilize the entire world.
Like if everyone who looked
at the internet one day
died that day,
it would destroy the entire world.
(giggling)
Like, so I don't know,
it's playing in those worlds
that I've dabbled in it.
But there, like I feel like there's a big
horror story that's brewing in the back
of my mind that hasn't
quite taken shape yet.
- Can I just say that like,
you keep talking about young adult things
and I know we were taking
earlier, like outside,
like you know, I think, please
write a young adult book
or middle grade book
because I think you are,
that is, you just, you are already that.
And you just need to do it.
- Yeah, I would also love,
like that, that's the other thing
I really desperately want to do.
Like, I'm just getting started.
- Yes, we're all just getting started.
- I'm very, you know,
there are lots of stories I wanna tell.
- What about you?
Is there anything specific
that like, you know,
like maybe with queer
stuff that you're like
I absolutely wanna you know,
get this story out there?
- I mean I'm horribly spoiled.
I just wanna say that
I'm fully aware of that
because I got termed Angela Queen of Hell
and had like this
wonderful lesbian romance
like Orpheus and Eurydice.
And I had, I mean with Bombshells,
it's this wonderful merging.
I have a completely queer cast
with like this ultimate
history World War II.
No animosity.
It was good to have so much fun.
I've got my creator on it.
I'm writing Fat One who's my favorite
super heroine ever.
And then I did an insect
which was this like
foray into like feminist body hard.
And so it was just, you know,
I've been very, very fortunate
and I'm very, very grateful
for the readership especially
that let me tell those stories
and let them find an audience.
And I'm actually the latest excursion
is into pros.
I'm working on a horror novel right now.
And so that's, it would just,
like a queer documentarian
who gets in this fucked up situation.
And so that's definitely,
it's the same thing where horror
has been like one of the major things
that I just come back to
over and over and over again.
It's a thing that I can
talk about for hours.
It's something that makes me happy
is to dissect or like the movies to watch
or the stories to watch and to analyze,
you know, why this particular
thing evokes a fear.
What separates a horror that you know,
like gives you like an adrenaline rush
or you know, creates
a moment of catharsis,
like the same thing in a relationship
between horror and comedy.
You know, what are the different horrors
based by culture, based by nation,
based by the political climate going on
in each nation at that time.
You know, how much is the
influence of your culture
and how much is your individual fear?
And all of these things.
Honestly, if I had a gun to my head
and they was like you have to pick
a new career tomorrow,
I'd just go into something weird
like analyzing horror or
writing about how I feel.
- I've always been fascinated by like
the westerns and the idea
of sort of exploration
and settling and stuff.
- Yeah.
- Like I don't necessarily want to write
a typical like American Western
where we like go and whatever.
But I like the idea of like,
sort of western in the stars.
Sort of--
- New frontier.
- Yeah, new frontiers kind of thing.
Like that, has always been a thing.
But for me, my voice has
always been young adult.
Like it's what I love so
much about young adults.
I mean, talk bout horror
you've got body horror,
things erupting everywhere.
- 12 years old.
- And everything is the end of the world.
You know, it's like you know,
you just feel like you're
walking around with no skin on
and I just feel like it's that moment
where a character, a person,
throws down to figure out what kind
of a human being they wanna be.
Do they wanna be good,
do they wanna be bad?
And they're experiencing
everything for the first time.
And I don't ever feel like
that actually changes,
like in life.
It's not like you get out of adolescence.
I mean you're like yep, I don't have
any problems anymore.
It's like there's fucked up shit
and like, you know, weird
high school lunch groups
like, still, in adulthood.
- And it's understanding
that we're one part
of such an elaborate storytelling team.
This is not a solo endeavor.
This isn't writing a novel.
And even writing a novel at some point
is taking it out of your hands
and putting it into the publisher.
- And everywhere, yeah.
- With this, you know,
we're just the start,
and not even the start, in some cases,
of a chain where it's like, you know,
it's the editor and you know,
like come swiftly with the prompt.
We need this project.
And then you write the script
that goes to the pencil
then it goes to the ink
then it goes to color
and then it goes to letter
and then it goes to all the proofreaders
and all of the people higher up
to make the decisions
and it comes back down.
It's just sort of like you are one part
of something that's much a community.
It is much larger than you.
And a team that is much larger than you.
- I think some young
writers have a hard time
grasping at the very beginning
is the idea that a script
is not a piece of work.
That is not, it is not a final product.
It is not a thing that
goes out into the world.
It's not a thing that
exists for any reason
other than being a production step
in the process of creating a comic.
And like I remember when
I was in high school,
I think I was reading an
interview with Neil Gaiman
who described it as it's
writing a letter to an artist.
And it's not a, like it
is nothing more than that.
All you were trying to do is to,
is to get the artist to express the story
that you're both excited about
and to help them along that road.
If you aren't working in tandem
and if you don't have
the right support system
or anything and if you're too precious,
once again, if you are
precious about any of it
and if you have this kind of ego
where you think that your contribution
is more important than anyone else's,
then you aren't going to
end up with a good comic.
- You better damn well believe that
the words that you put on the page
that go to the artist
might not be the same
words that end up in the comic book
because a lot of times like,
with Snoopy Leaves Home,
like once I saw the art I was like oh,
we don't need any of these.
Where I think I can
just throw them all out.
Or like I can adjust what
I've written in the captions
because now I can take it to a new level.
So it's like you can't
be like well this is
my masterpiece and
therefore all my words are,
it's not like a play where you can't,
no one's allowed to like change
any of their words.
It's like no, you better change the words.
- It's organic and it has
to be able to be flexible.
That's the kind of thing, you know,
even though you may be early on
in the thing that gets
this entire thing moving,
you also have the ability
to create the most
harm in some ways.
It's like if you are late,
that means every other
person in that chain
doesn't get to pay rent this month.
And so it's like you gotta
get your shit together.
- That's right.
You're a responsible mama.
You gotta like, you know, you gotta do it.
- Which comes back down until
you're nothing precious.
Understanding that with
serialized storytelling,
whether it's the best
issue you've ever written
or the worst issue you ever written,
you have another issue again next month.
You know, these things are not eternal.
Ideally you make a work
that means a ton to different people
and to different readers and lasts
and their consciousness.
But there's always gotta
be something else coming
that you cannot rest on your laurels.
You have to stay hungry and
you have to stay excited.
And that is my favorite
part of this job, honestly.
- Yeah, to being hungry
and excited about our work.
- Cheers.
(glasses clanking)
(dramatic music)
(playful music)
