Zitat des Tages von Ann Nocenti:
I actually have a peculiar feminism that does not involve the idea that women shouldn't be sexy. Female characters written in comics have always been pretty damned sexy, and used their sexuality. And I don't have any problem with that.
I have a fascination for extra-judicial societies and underground cultures, and in situations where justice can only be found outside the law, and how these societies have evolved over the centuries.
I'm one of those people who believes you are what you do.
I think writers process their own experiences through the characters and situations they write. So for Batman, I used my own experience of losing a loved one. Grief is a strange place; it's like an altered state. You might sleep too much, so you can see the dead in your dreams.
When I first started writing comics, in the way-back days, Typhoid Mary was my explosive response to women characters in comics - I made her an innocent virginal type, a clever, dark, liberated woman, and as Bloody Mary, a feminist bent of punishing men - all in one character. She was an instinctual rather than a calculated creation.
The things that churned inside Daredevil were deeply religious, somewhat guilt-driven traces of the messianic, with his powers being a compensation for and driven by the vulnerability of being blind. Green Arrow is not driven by dark forces.
There is an unspoken feminist layer to Katana. She's an aggressive modern woman with traditional Japanese roots. She was in love with her sword because she believed it contained her husband.
There are a lot of Chinese comics, but the Chinese comics tend to be more historical and conservative. Japanese culture, just the comics are amazing. They're like films: very few words; they move so much in these books with hundreds of pages.
There are a lot of writers who just want to do their own thing and avoid the rest of the Marvel Universe. But for me that was one of the things I loved about Marvel: that shared universe. So of course you would run into a mutant in Manhattan. You would run into another hero in Manhattan. For me, I figured why not? Why not have that fun?
Comics shouldn't be 'tools' for anyone's agenda except for the characters. And I am speaking only of super hero action comics. I love many of the alternative comics that are like journalistic stories. Documentary comics, a mix of reportage and fiction. Those are just great.
Mythology contains a rich history of legendary weapons, most famously 'Excalibur,' weapons that could only be used by the pure of heart.
Green Arrow was a very complicated character to take on because he has archaic weaponry. Catwoman, I think is more of a simple archetype to grasp, so it will be about nuance. But I think you need three or four issues before you say, 'Ah ha! Now I really know how to write this character!' You're carrying them around with you.
I'm dying to fool around with the distance between Selina Kyle and Catwoman. And, you know, the whole double identity thing is endlessly fascinating. I mean, you can always find another riff for it.
I know I've erred in the past putting too much of my social justice sentiments in comics, but hopefully not too much, and I tried to only do that with characters that it made sense with it. These days, with the 'social justice' aspects of the two books I write, 'Catwoman' and 'Katana,' the concerns are more about moral justice.
I want Green Arrow to have fun. I don't want him to be a tortured hero. I mean, I've written plenty of tortured heroes, like Daredevil. But it's all there in Daredevil's origin as to why he'd be a tortured adult. Green Arrow doesn't have that kind of origin. In fact, he's such a clean slate that he doesn't even have an origin anymore.
I like talking about comic book process, and one of the things is that I have plans going ahead for years, and the plans constantly get thrown away and shifted. There's a difference between planning and what actually happens in life, and comics have a life of their own.
Catwoman has an awesome, iconic personality. It's a blast to write her. You get her; she's an archetype. You can just kind of put on the cat-suit.
I am thrilled to be working with Alex Sanchez as the artist on 'Katana.' His work is wildly eclectic, exciting and powerful, yet slyly humorous, which is a perfect match for Katana.
Catwoman isn't a 'joiner.' She's a solo operator. She isn't naturally heroic; she's fairly selfish.