Comics could use more creators with something worthwhile to say.
I just started the way most comics start, doing open mic shows around Sacramento and San Francisco, and eventually, I moved to L.A. After about four or five years in L.A., I got the call to join the 'The Daily Show.'
When 'Watchmen' was published in 1986, the vast majority of comics readers deemed it a watershed in comics history. The 12-part serial comic book was widely acclaimed as a genius subversion of the superhero genre, and it did much to popularize comics to adults.
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.
I started off doing indie comics that I wrote and drew myself. I was doing those for ten years before I started to work for DC. The first book that I wrote for DC was for another artist. I did some backups in 'Adventure Comics' years ago starring The Atom. That's the first time that I ever wrote for another artist.
There hasn't been enough change in comics to suit me. I don't know why exactly.
Growing up devouring horror comics and novels, and being inspired to become a writer because of horror novels, movies, and comic books, I always knew I was going to write a horror novel.
Reading and writing are connected. I learned to read very early so I could read the comics, which I then started to draw.
I don't know who made the first Aquaman joke. I'm sure it was comics readers; maybe we all did. But it's the idea that the perpetuated story of Aquaman is that he only has powers in water, and he talks to fish. I think it's the idea of him in the middle of a city just doesn't make a lot of sense to people. It's just the character itself.
The most frustrating part of working in TV and film is that you have to convince someone to let you make what you want; in comics you can do whatever you want and for 1% of the budget of TV and film.
I'd seen all the great entertainers by the time I was 14 or 15. My mother was artistic. My father was a bookmaker, so he had access to all those nightclubs, and he was smitten by certain artists, and we would go see them. We'd see comics like Sid Caesar and Milton Berle - those kind of artists - many of whom I worked with later in my life.
I'm sure that no matter what I'm involved in, I'll always be doing comics, at least in some minor capacity.
People are religious about comics the way people are religious about the Bible.
I sort of jumped out of movies and into the lifeboat of comics. I loved it right away. It was the opposite of film school. Whatever was in my imagination could end up in the finished product. There were just no limitations.
I grew up on the old EC comic books before the Comics Code in North American and with all sort of good-natured fun. I never had nightmares I think because all of the old horror stuff that I was exposed to was well meaning in a certain sense.
The comics were not only stories to enjoy; for me they were drawings that possessed me.
When I was auditioning for 'Gotham,' I got a handful of comics from different decades, so I had a perspective - it's been around for 75 years, which is a long time.
Every city you go to has television and radio talk shows that are dying to give young comics a showcase. They all want to be able to say that so-and-so started here, got his first break on this show.
There are two kinds of comics; there are the ones who build bridges, and then there are the people who walk across the bridges as though they built them. The bridge builders are few and far between.
Everybody that loves Nancy loves it in a slightly condescending way. Nancy is comics reduced to their most elemental level.
I was one of those goofy kids whose year narrowed down to focus on Christmas from about September on. I guess I was like Ralphie in 'A Christmas Story,' in that I would get swept up into the anticipation of the holiday, watching the lights go up, hearing the songs in the stores, getting special Christmas issues of comics and all that.
I didn't get into comics as a stepping stone.
If you spend any time in Washington you'll find nerds. What happens is most of them sublimate their fixations with comics, or baseball cards, or 1960s British comedies to policy minutiae and political arcana. But, like Christians in ancient Rome, you can still spot them if you know the signals.
I'm not the best person to analyze any kind of evolution in my work, but I do feel like it's been an ongoing struggle to basically teach myself how to tell the kinds of stories that interest me in comics form.
At the end of the '60s, I was trying to enter the world of comics.
I wasn't terribly aware of Catwoman. She was a DC comics character and as a kid, I wasn't terribly fond of the DC comics characters. I was a Marvel boy.
Sometimes, comics will make the observation that it's not jokes that are funny, it's characters that are funny. And isn't that true! That's why I always kill jokes. I'm terrible at them, because I get the joke right, but I can't get the character right, and it just goes down like a lead balloon.
I love 'Archie' comics.
The president of CBS handpicked me for the 'Star Search' revival, which Arsenio Hall hosted. He picked 12 comics, and I was the only female. I always look to that as inspiration.
My interest in the comic goes back a long time, because I grew up reading comics, mostly Marvel Comics, and I always loved 'Doctor Strange' uniquely. It was the presence of the fantastical, the presence of the supernatural that was in it. The idea of magic.
I think comics are really part of The Zeitgeist. They reflect back to us the issues that we're concerned about in the time they are written.
There is a certain danger in thinking about diversity in its own little box, as something that is somehow separate from 'normal' comic books and comics creators.
I started on the original comics from Stan Lee and all the artists and storytellers did from there, and I got to the graphic novel that Chris Clairmont did, which is the one Stryker comes from - 'God Loves, Man Kills', which is a brilliant story.
I really like the look of old '70s and '80s Japanese comics, so I think that style is something I will continue to draw.
I never do things fearing I could do right or wrong. I just do it because I just follow my guts. This is really how I did it for 'Elektra' because I was just amazed by all the comics. I was good for me to get inspired by them, and I just follow my guts for the rest.
Comics are printed on paper, which is expensive, making it tough to stay in business.