Fall2008Fall

2008

$695In the USA

#19#19

INSIDE: SECRETS OF THE DARK KNIGHT MOVIE!INSIDE: SECRETS OF THE DARK KNIGHT MOVIE!

ALL ABOUT DC’SZUDA

COMICS

ALL ABOUT DC’SZUDA

COMICSBENDIS& YU’SSECRETINVASION

MILLAR& HITCH’SFANTASTICFOUR

MAX ALLANCOLLINS

DENNISO’NEIL DINI &

NGUYEN’SBATMAN

R.I.P.

DINI &NGUYEN’S

BATMANR.I.P.

BENDIS& YU’SSECRETINVASION

MILLAR& HITCH’SFANTASTICFOUR

MAX ALLANCOLLINS

DENNISO’NEIL

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WRITE NOW | 1

MAGAZINE

Issue #19

Danny Fingeroth’s Write Now! is published 4 times a year byTwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh,NC 27614 USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Fax: (919) 449-0327.Danny Fingeroth, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Write Now!E-mail address: WriteNowDF@aol.com. Single issues: $9Postpaid in the US ($11 Canada, $16 elsewhere). Four-issuesubscriptions: $26 US ($44 Canada, $60 elsewhere).Order online at: www.twomorrows.com or e-mail to:twomorrow@aol.com All characters are TM & © their respectivecompanies. All material © their creators unless otherwisenoted. All editorial matter © the respective authors. Editorialpackage is ©2008 Danny Fingeroth and TwoMorrowsPublishing. All rights reserved. Write Now! is a sharedtrademark of Danny Fingeroth and TwoMorrows Publishing.Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

Fall 2008

Conceived byDANNY FINGEROTH

Editor-In-Chief

Read Now!Message from the Editor-in-Chief .....................................................page 2

Managing EditorROBERT

GREENBERGER

Consulting EditorERIC FEIN

ProofreadingERIC NOLEN-

WEATHINGTON

DesignerDAVID

GREENAWALT

TranscriberSTEVEN TICE

Circulation DirectorBOB BRODSKY,

COOKIESOUPPRODUCTIONS

PublisherJOHN MORROW

Special Thanks To:MARC BILGREYALISON BLAIRETOM BREVOORT

MAX ALLAN COLLINSKIA CROSS

F.J. DeSANTODAVID GREENAWALT

DEAN HASPIELDAVID HYDEJACKIE KNOXPAUL LEVITZMIKE MARTSJIM McCANNJEFF NEWELTERIC NOLEN-

WEATHINGTONCHRIS POWELL

ELLA ROBINSONALEX SEGURA

VARDA STEINHARDTAUSTIN TRUNICKMICHAEL USLAN

STEVEN TICE

Writing The Dark KnightReflections by Christopher Nolan,Jonathan Nolan, and David Goyer ................................................page 3

The Denster ReturnsInterview with Dennis O’Neil ............................................................page 8

The Essential Batman EncyclopediaRobert Greenberger tells how he compiledthe Dark Knight’s data........................................................................page 14

Man of MysteryInterview with Max Allan Collins ..................................................page 24

Spotlight on ZudaWriters of DC’s online imprint tell how andwhy they chose to go digital............................................................page 41

Amazing True StoriesJim Ottaviani on how he writes non-fiction comics ..............page 56

Writing about ComicsEvander Lomke explores the world ofwriting books about comics ............................................................page 67

FeedbackLetters from Write Now!’s Readers(including a cartoon by Marc Bilgrey) ........................................page 71

Nuts & Bolts DepartmentScript to Pencils to Finished Comic: DETECTIVE COMICS #849Pages from “Batman R.I.P.: Heart of Hush,”by Paul Dini, Dustin Nguyen and Derek Fridolfs ..................page 10

Script to Pencils to Finished Comic: SECRET INVASION #6Pages by Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Francis Yu ........page 19

Script to Pencils: FANTASTIC FOUR #560Pages from “The Death of the Invisible Woman,”part 3, by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch ..................................page 37

Script to Sketch to Pencilsto Finished Webcomic: STREET CODEPages from “Awful George,” by Dean Haspiel ........................page 54

Script to Thumbnails to Sketches to Finished Comic:BONE SHARPS, COWBOYS, AND THUNDER LIZARDSPages by Jim Ottaviani and Big Time Attic ..............................page 65

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WRITING THE DARK KNIGHT | 3

alk about Darkknight Detective work!

When we were unable to getexclusive interviews about the writing ofThe Dark Knight movie (busy jet-settingHollywood folks and all that), we did thenext best thing: scouring the web fornuggets in press conferences and inter-views where the writers of the TDK scriptrevealed precious tidbits about importantaspects of writing movies in general, andof writing The Dark Knight in particular.Think of us as crusty old miners panningthe media rivers for the best and bright-est nuggets of information and advicefrom screenwriters Christopher Nolan,Jonathan Nolan, and David Goyer.

—DF

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN is the director, co-writer, and producer of The Dark Knight.He co-wrote and directed the ground-breaking 2005 Batman Begins, as wellas Memento, Insomnia, and ThePrestige.

JONATHAN NOLAN is the co-writer ofTDK’s screenplay, and was the storywriter of the Academy Award-nominatedscreenplay for Memento, as well as themystery thriller, The Prestige.

DAVID GOYER is co-writer of the story for TDK, andwas the co-writer of Batman Begins. He was thescreenwriter of Blade and Blade II, and wrote, pro-duced, and directed Blade: Trinity. He was also co-writer of DC’s Justice Society comic series.

ABOUT THE MECHANICSOF WRITING THE SCRIPT:

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN: I think the big challenge indoing a sequel is to build on what you’ve done in thefirst film, but not abandon the characters, the logic, the

by Danny Fingeroth

T

WRITING THE DARK KNIGHT:

NOLAN, NOLAN, AND GOYER SPEAK!

The writers of The Dark Knight screenplay: Christopher Nolan,Jonathan Nolan, and David Goyer. [© 2008 the copyright holders.]

tone of the world that you created for the first film. Sothere are elements the audience will expect you tobring back that you need to bring back. You also haveto balance that with the need to see something newand to see something different and that’s been thechallenge through the whole of making the film…

I think that what makes a good sequel is a film thatfeels inevitable and that when you go back and seethe first film you completely understand that the storyhad to continue with a second film. … The pitfalls aresimply repeating yourself but on a bigger scale. Andthat’s something we’re not doing at all. We’re reallyvery much creating a second half to the story….

JONATHAN NOLAN: David and Chris went off andbutted heads for a while and came up with this story,a really great story…. They handed it over to me andlet me take a crack at the first draft. Chris is alwaysgoing to take the last pass on his scripts going in.

DAVID GOYER: It became apparent as we were talkingfairly early on that Harvey was actually the protagonistof the movie. The Joker doesn’t change and Batmandoesn’t really change. But Harvey is the one thatchanges as a result of his interaction between theJoker and Batman. Obviously, he changes in a tragicway and that means the movie has to be a tragedy.

JONATHAN NOLAN: The arc of the film is the tragedyof Harvey Dent, which is, in a sense, the origin of thevillain Two-Face. Which, I think, we’ve told [as] a morecomplete story.

DAVID GOYER: The jumping off point [for the story]was the last scene in Batman Begins. We knew wewere going to tell a story about escalation, and weknew we were going to tell a story about The Joker…

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Christopher Nolan, his brother Jonathan, and David S. Goyer all freely acknowledge Batman Begins and The Dark Knight owea lot to the tone and sensibilities established in Batman’s comics, especially The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: The LongHalloween and Batman: The Killing Joke. [© 2008 DC Comics.]

I think that there are elements from The Dark Knight[comics series], elements from The Long Halloween,elements from The Killing Joke. But it’s not like wewere specifically adapting one specific comic book orcomic book arc.

I worked with Chris for about a month, and Chrisand I wrote a treatment together with the beats of thestory. Then we gave that to Jonathan and he did, Idon’t know how many drafts you did.

JONATHAN NOLAN: These guys gave me a really sub-

stantial outline. They really figured the story out, sofor me it was a pretty straight-ahead job of justtaking it and building it out into the world. Chrisalways takes the last pass of the scripts before hegoes into production…

The script is always an evolutionary process toit. Chris has a confidence where he can playaround with things a little bit as he gets into theproduction, but for the most part he wants tohave it nailed away before they start to film…

It felt like a very easy job—one of the easiestI’ve had because these guys [Goyer and ChrisNolan] nailed it right out of the gate with thisincredible story…

ABOUT THECHARACTER OF BATMAN:

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN: I think he is a morecomplete version of himself as it were. I thinkhe is, he has moved on, and he is less torturedby his distant past, so we get to torture himmore with fresh [problems]. He’s never entirelyfree from torture one might say…

He can’t mope, he can’t have a self-indulgent angst. He has to be substantial. Wetried to tell a story in the first film whereby hedid confront and overcome various aspects ofwhat drives him, of the angst, and let othershang. So in this film we try to have ChristianBale’s character start from the point of he’snot sitting around moping over that hisparents were killed etc., etc. We dealt with

that in the first film. But he’s nevertheless a very darkcharacter.

JONATHAN NOLAN: A lot of the stuff that in the filmfeels contemporary, Batman wrestling with the ques-tions of how far is too far in trying to catch someone?They are as old as stone in the books. They have beenthere since the very beginning. That question ofBatman as a vigilante and what’s appropriate, what’slegal, what’s not legal, what does he do?

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN: Batman definitely much moreeasily in this story assumes more of a detective role.There was something that was important to get in thefirst film, we got it in in a small way, but in dealingwith the origin and in dealing with all larger aspects ofthe character it became very difficult to get that in.

WRITING THE DARK KNIGHT | 5

The TDK movie poster image of Batman (Christian Bale) set againsta building with a burning bat symbol indicates to audiences thatthis film is as much about Batman’s legacy in Gotham City as it isabout the Joker’s campaign of chaos and murder.[Photo Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures. TM & © 2008 DC Comics]

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ennis O’Neil is the writer of the novelizationof The Dark Knight (published by Del Ray).But that’s just one of his many accomplish-

ments. Denny is one of the most highly acclaimed writ-ers and editors in the comic book industry. For morethan 40 years, he has crafted groundbreaking storiesfor both Marvel and DC Comics. At DC Comics, he hadsome of his greatest successes. He wrote the ground-breaking Green Lantern/Green Arrow stories, illustrat-ed by Neal Adams. Also with Adams and editor JulieSchwartz, Denny helped to bring Batman back to hisessence as a “Dark Knight detective” and creature ofthe night. Denny was for many years Group Editor ofDC’s Batman comics line. He also wrote the noveliza-tions of the epic comics storyline Batman: Knightfalland of the first Christopher Nolan-helmed Batmanmovie, Batman Begins. He’s the author of the originalDC novel Green Lantern: Hero’s Quest.

I caught up with Denny to see what he had to sayabout adapting the Nolan, Nolan & Goyer screenplayto prose form.

—DF

DANNY FINGEROTH: Dennis, Can you speak aboutthe differences between a film script, a comics scriptand a novel manuscript in broad terms. What needs tobe emphasized in each, and what is lost (and/orgained) when you translate a story from one mediumto another?DENNIS O’NEIL: The first, and most obvious thing, isthat the essential visual information in the movie hasto be translated into verbal information. This entails aprocess of selection—do we really need to know whatthe third thug looks like? That’s going from moviescript to novel. Much the same process is involved ingoing from movie to comic, but in reverse: comics area very compressed storytelling form and, back in reallife, there’s usually about twice as much story in amovie as in a comic, which means the writer has to

choose, carefully, which movie scenes are essential tothe plot and even which lines within the scenes movethe story along. Going from movie to novel, the writerhas to add, rather than subtract material, because atwo-hour film doesn’t have enough pure plot to makea 75,000-word prose piece. But you can’t just addscenes at random. They’ve got to be an integral part ofthe story being told, somehow. For me, that oftenmeans adding backstory to characters.

DF: What would you say the differences betweenadapting Batman Begins and The Dark Knight toprose were? Was there any difference in yourapproach to this script from the previous one?DO: It seems that every time I do a book, I’m facedwith new problems. But the process in doing the twoadaptations was about the same: add the things thatnovels are good at, like background and interior mono-logues and, since film does action so much better thanprose, see if some action scenes might work as dia-logue scenes. And flesh out the character’s back-

DInterview conducted via e-mailSeptember 16, 2008by Danny Fingeroth

DENNIS O’NEIL TALKS ABOUT WRITING THE DARK KNIGHT NOVELIZATIONTHE DENSTER RETURNS:

PAGE TWELVE Panel One Hush hurries over to where the masked and gowned doctor is standing. 1 GOWNED DOCTOR: Someone inside... 2 HUSH: Good! Panel Two Hush runs in to see the door to the stairwell closed. The gowned doctor has quickly moved to the side. Even as Hush takes this in, he knows he has been set up. 3 HUSH: No… Panel Three The “gowned doctor” fires a familiar black boot into Hush’s midsection just as the villain instinctively spins and fires. Hush is enraged, less from the pain and more by the knowledge that he has been played by BATMAN, who is, of course, the “gowned doctor” in disguise. 4 GUN SFX: BAM! BAM! 5 HUSH: NO!

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Hush, the villain with a lifelong grudge against Bruce Wayne,was brought back for a new storyline by writer Paul Dini andpenciler Dustin Nguyen in Detective Comics. The pages seenhere are from issue #849. Inks are by Derek Fridolfs.

The solicits for the issue tell us that it’s “a ‘Batman:R.I.P.’ tie-in! In this penultimate chapter of the 5-partarc, ‘Heart of Hush,’ Batman tears his way throughGotham City's underworld to reach his dangerousadversary. But after the Dark Knight learns what hischildhood friend-turned-villain is really after, willBatman be able to survive what Hush plans next?”

Dini’s script for page 12 call for just three panels,giving Nguyen plenty of room to design the page formaximum drama, especially in tthe half-page con-frontation between Hush and a disguised Batman.

Nguyen’s coverpainting to the issue.

W H A T I T I S A N D H O W I T C A M E T O B E

atman’s adventures have been in ongoing publi-cation in countless comics for 70 years. Therehave been so many Batman stories, you’d need

an encyclopedia to keep track of the Dark Knight’scontinuity. By an amazing stroke of luck, such a bookexists, and Write Now!’s own managing editor, BobGreenberger, is the author of that book—the recentlypublished Essential Batman Encyclopedia. Here,Bob tells us how such a mammoth undertaking cameabout, and what it was like researching and writingsuch a tome, while keeping it entertaining as well asinformative.

—DF

Back in the 1970s, comics fans were entirely relianton fanzines and the occasional letter column for anysort of background information on characters not reg-ularly published. Heck, even information about olderstories was scant unless the particular tale had beenreprinted.

As a result, the arrival, in 1976, of Michael L.Fleisher’s Batman Encyclopedia was an amazingachievement. Suddenly, there was at least someinformation on every single Batman story fromBatman, Detective Comics, and World’s FinestComics between 1939 and roughly 1968. Yes, by thetime it saw print it was already many years out ofdate and it ignored the Dark Knight’s appearances inThe Brave and the Bold and Justice League ofAmerica, but it remained a significant achievement.Paul Levitz, when he was editing the Bat-titles, oncecommented to me that the book could help himcome up with story material for years and years.

Since then, we’ve had the various Who’s Whos thatexplicate the DC Universe and its characters, but atthe same time, we’ve also had an explosion of Bat-appearances throughout the DC Universe along withrevisionist and contradictory information about char-

by Robert Greenberger

Bob G’s The Essential Batman Encyclopedia. Cover art by JimLee and Scott Williams. [© 2008 DC Comics.]

THE ESSENTIAL BATMAN ENCYCLOPEDIA:

B

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acters and events. The coming and going of the mul-tiple universes and revisions to the timeline onlyserved to muddy the waters of the “official” Bat-canon. Online writers have tried to assemble it alland make it make sense, but (needless to say—it’sthe Internet!) they aren’t entirely in agreement.

With that background, it was inevitable that DCitself would one day want to set the record straight.So it’s not surprising that DC decided to—withRandom House’s DelReyimprint—publish entirely newencyclopedias on DC’s best-known heroes: Batman,Wonder Woman, andSuperman. In September 2006,I was invited to write theBatman book that would kickoff the three-year publishingevent, with the first volumetimed to come out in time forThe Dark Knight movie.Interestingly, a number of deci-sions about how to approachthe book were left up to me,largely thanks to my experi-ence not only a writer onWho’s Who, but also as havingbeen one of the writers onDK’s 2004 DC ComicsEncyclopedia.

I tried to imagine how tomake this vital to readers whocould just as easily look up theinformation on a fan site orWikipedia. Of course, one keydifference would be that, hav-ing the data in a DC-produced publication, wouldmake it “official.” Beyond that, one of the first thingssettled in my mind was that it needed to put everyincarnation of Batman into context, fully addressingthe “multiple Earths” concept. For each character forwhom there were versions on more than one Earth, Iwould begin with their chronological incarnation,most often that of Earth-2, which chronicled the pub-lished exploits of the heroes from 1938 forward.Along the way I’d have to begin paragraphs with “Inthe world after the Crisis on Infinite Earths….” andthen included entries on the necessary cosmic events.

Second, it needed to identify the elements of theBatman mythos as they were added or modifiedthrough the years. This way, people could get a senseof the world-building that occurred, and of the manyhands who contributed to the initial work of BobKane and Bill Finger. After all, today we know Bruce

Wayne’s parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne, werekilled by Joe Chill on Gotham’s Park Row, known tomost as “Crime Alley.” A smaller handful knows thatoccurred on June 26 at 10:47 p.m. However, the two-page origin in 1939’s Detective Comics #33 identi-fied none of those elements. The wealthy, unnamedparents were gunned down by an anonymous crimi-nal at night, leaving young Bruce, age unknown, aninstant orphan. Other details of the origin story wereadded or modified over the decades.

Approaching the material thisway meant that future writers,editors, (and fans) could see forthemselves how and when ele-ments were introduced, so,should creators feel a need toretell or modify stories, theywould know the sources of theoriginal details. In too manyinstances, contradictions havecrept up in stories becausewriters and editors misseddetails by looking at an incom-plete run of a title or just oneretelling of events.

The writers on the otherbooks in the series—PhilJimenez on 2009’s WonderWoman and Martin Pasko on2010’s Superman—had differ-ent reactions to the editorialformat I provided. Phil wasenthusiastic, while Marty(although agreeing in principlewith my approach) was under-standably ready to hang me for

forcing him to try and put the Man of Steel’s even-more-convoluted-than-Batman’s mythos into a formata mass audience could comprehend and enjoy.Fortunately for me, DC agreed with my approach, andMarty has forgiven me (I think) for coming up with it.

Doing the research was fascinating, since I had theFleisher book for starters, but opening up the entireDC Universe so as to include any appearance ofBatman characters anywhere meant thousands morecomics needed to be researched. Now, my memoryfor the broad strokes of most DC material is prettydarn good, but an encyclopedia demands citing actu-al issues and facts. Enter: John Wells. John is an aceresearcher and has maintained meticulous characterlists. He has proven to be the go-to guy for more thana handful of creators, from Mark Waid to BradMeltzer. John and I have been online pals for years,and he graciously made his lists available to me. That

THE ESSENTIAL BATMAN ENCYCLOPEDIA | 15

Cover to Detective Comics #33. where Batman’sorigin first appeared—six issues after the character’sdebut! Art is by Bob Kane. [© 2008 DC Comics.]

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Page 15-

1- Ext. Street- same

Big panel. Over the shocked shoulders of the ESU students, Nick Fury and his young team actually took down the Skrulls.

The intersection is trashed but they did it. A couple of turned

over cars. People are stunned.

The Skrulls unconscious, or maybe dead, bodies on the ground at their feet.

The heroes are looking to the sky and taking each others back making sure there are no more coming. Nick, gun up, thumbs at the students.

PATRIOT Ok, so, we should get out of here.

STONEWALL

Took 'em down. Well alright!

THE DRUID Great, only eight thousand more to go.

STONEWALL A win is a win.

GAUNTLET

Except it takes ten of us to beat on one of them.

THE VISION Cassie, you should shrink back down, you're too big a target at

your larger size.

NICK FURY And you kids get back to the dorm. Or better yet get the hell

out'a the city.

2- The students are standing and shaking and stunned. Only Sara still has her angry wit's about her.

SARA POE Oh yeah, man... Why don't you leave the city?? You fascist.

PAUL

Oh man, are you, like, Nick Fury?

SARA POEThey're here to change the world. What are you here for??3- Over Cassie, Patriot, and Quake's head, looking up and in

between buildings. A huge white lightening bolt shoots up into the

sky. From this odd angle you can't see where its originating from.

Spx: BOOM

CASSIE LANGUh...

4- High looking down, Fury and the Commandoes and the Young

Avengers and The Initiative look up in awe.PATRIOTIs that lightning?

5- Tight on Fury. Steely eyed.NICK FURYLet's move.

Stay close and stay together.

Here is some of Brian Michael Bendis’s script and Leinil Francis Yu’s pencil artfrom issue #6 of Marvel’s big crossover event, Secret Invasion. (Cover art, at left,is by Gabriele Dell’Otto.)

The issue begins to bring events in the eight-issue mega-event to a climax. Wepick up on page 15, at the end of an action sequence.

Bendis calls for a big panel to let readers get a sense of the damage resultingfrom a major battle in the storyline. The next four panels are tightly packed at thebottom of the page, and serve to convey information to the reader. But Yu—inter-preting Bendis’s art directions—makes the scene visually exciting as well.

SECRET INVASION NUTS & BOLTS | 19

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Page 16-

1- Ext. New York city- Same

Tall panel. Wide of the city. From over the trees on Central park... Another huge lightening bolt crashes up to the sky. It doesn't hit anything. It just shoots up to the heavens.

Spx: boom

2- Ext. Camp Hammond- Same

High looking down, Jessica Drew, Hank Pym and other Skrulls step

out of the war room and look to the sky.

SPIDER-WOMAN What was that?

3- Ext. New York city/ central park- Same

Profile. The hammer of Thor hits the grassy ground. Hard. Thor's hand swinging it down. When the hammer hits a massive lightening

bolt shoots right out of it.

Spx: boom

4- Ext. Skrull ship- Same

At an angle. Agent Brand and the Avengers look out the front window. All mouths drop. The reflection of the lightening The heroes see him.

THE WASP Is that?

ARES

Aye! Its him.

5- Ext. New York city/ central park- Same

Big panel. Thor, on one knee, hits the ground with his hammer, and the insane lightening shoots up to the sky again. His hair blows

back.

Spx: boom

Reads: THOR, GOD OF THUNDER

6- Ext. Camp Hammond- Same

Small panel. Same as 2, but tighter, high looking down, Jessica Drew, Hank Pym and other Skrulls look to the sky.

SPIDER-WOMAN Gather the ground troops.

All of them. This- this too was written.

7- Ext. New York city/ central park- Same

Small panel. Thor still kneeling looks right at us. The wind whips from the weather energy around him.

THOR Who are thou supposed to be?

Page 16 is oddly constructed but effectively designed to get inthe large amount of visual information the script calls for. Notethat, for this page, Bendis goes to a modified screenplay formatas he switches from scene to scene (“Ext. New York City/ centralpark–Same,” etc.), probably to make sure Yu knows exactly whereeach panel takes place in the potentially confusing rapid cross-cutting between locales.

Again, as in any strong writer-artist collaboration, Yu takesliberties with the script instructions. The last panel, for instance,implies (“still kneeling”) that Thor’s entire body should be seen,but Yu opts for a dramatic tight close-up of his face.

ou can hardly pass a bookstore without seeingMax Allan Collins’ name on some detectivethriller or cross-media novelization. Longtime

comics fans also fondly recall his work with Terry Beattyon Ms. Tree, the trendsetting female private eye series.Since he’s written comic books (including Batman),movies, novels, novelizations and more, we figured itwas high time to find out how he does it all. BobGreenberger got the info.

—DF

ROBERT GREENBERGER: Hey, Al, so good of you to beavailable. Let’s go into the Way Back machine and seehow you sold that first novel in 1976. What got youinterested in writing?MAX ALLAN COLLINS: I was always interested in story-telling. My mom read to me at night, and my earliestmemories are her reading me the Tarzan books pub-lished by Whitman in the 1950s. I think a key thing isthat, at an early age, I got hip to movies and TV showscoming from novels and comics. Like a lot of kids, I sawGeorge Reeves as Superman on TV and went out andread the comics accordingly. But I also went anotherstep–I don’t think every kid who saw the Topper TVshow went out and found the original novel by ThorneSmith!

RG: What led you to publishing your first novel in1976?MAC: We have to go way-er back than that–I actuallysold the first book in 1971. It and a sequel were pub-lished together in January 1973 by Curtis Books, BaitMoney and Blood Money.

I was at the University of Iowa Writers Workshop, thatfamed citadel of creative writing (as opposed to un-creative writing, I guess), first as an undergrad from1968 through 1970, then as a grad from ’70 through’72.

RG: Wait a minute. Tell me about the Iowa program.MAC: I grew up in Muscatine, Iowa, just about 35 milesfrom Iowa City–still live in Muscatine, by the way–and I

knew Kurt Vonnegut was teaching up there, and otherbig-time writers. I was under the sway of crime fiction–Hammett, Chandler, James M. Cain, Mickey Spillane–but also the so-called “Black Comedy” writers likeVonnegut and Joseph Heller. So I got in, but Vonneguthad just left–he did come back and do a seminar, andread to us from his next as yet unpublished novel…little something called Slaughterhouse-Five.

But I ran into lots of resistance at the Workshop, sincethe teachers and students saw themselves as artistswhere I was obviously “just” a mystery writer, an enter-tainer. As it happened, a major literary writer, RichardYates, was teaching the one section of undergrad study

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Conducted via e-mailJune-August, 2008by Robert Greenberger

Y

MAN OF MYSTERY:

THE MAX ALLAN COLLINS INTERVIEW

MAX ALLAN COLLINS | 25

that the Workshop offered. Despite some initial mis-givings about my mystery writer’s bent, he saw meritin my work and took me under his wing.Interestingly, even weirdly, Yates’s most famousnovel, Revolutionary Road, is currently being madeinto a film by Sam Mendes, who directed the film ofmy graphic novel, Road to Perdition. I’m sureMendes has no idea he’s adapting a book by thementor of the guy who wrote Perdition.

Anyway, I worked closely with Yates, and hehelped me land my first agent, Knox Burger, a leg-endary, crusty character who had been the editor atGold Medal Books, where many of my heroes likeRichard Stark, John D. MacDonald, Richard S. Pratherand Donald Hamilton had been published. I remem-ber vividly that Yates wrote Burger saying that he’ddiscovered a new Hammett, and sent him my novel,Bait Money. Burger wrote back and said, “Well, notHammett, but a young W.R. Burnett maybe.” AndW.R. Burnett, who wrote The Asphalt Jungle andLittle Caesar of course, was good enough for me.Burger took me on.

Bait Money was one of three novels that com-prised my thesis for my Master of Fine Arts at theWriters Workshop. The premise was that a smalltown in Iowa, based on my hometown Muscatine,could serve as the setting for three different kinds ofcrime novels–that you didn’t have to write aboutNew York or L.A. The novels were Bait Money, NoCure for Death and Quarry (published initially asThe Broker). Book series grew out of each one–Nolan, Mallory and Quarry. Bait Money reflected mystrong comics interest, by the way–Nolan’s co-star,Jon, was an aspiring cartoonist and pop culturehound.

RG: That’s pretty impressive to turn college work intothe beginning of a career. Now, all of your originalworks tend to deal with rugged individuals–Mallory,Nolan, Heller–what’s your take on them?MAC: I’m like pretty much like all mystery writers–theprotagonists are idealized versions of myself, and I amhardly rugged though probably an individualist. Many ofthe characters appear in first-person narratives, and Ithink writing is similar to improvisational acting–Helleris me filtered through his background and times.Quarry, in some ways, is closest to me, and he’s a hiredkiller–but his nasty, cynical outlook is me at my darkest.Mallory, a small-town mystery writer, was blatantly me,and I lost interest in him quickly, not surprisingly.

Nolan, who appeared in Bait Money and seven sub-sequent novels, appears in third-person narratives, andthe secondary character, Jon, the aspiring cartoonist,was more my portal in the story. I set up Nolan as an“old” man, a tough guy at the end of his road–he was

fifty. Suddenly that doesn’t seem so old….

RG: You’ve written almost exclusively original crime fic-tion, what’s the appeal?MAC: Early on, I used to get what I call the MickeySpillane Question–why did you choose to write aboutsex and violence? The answer is a Mickey Spillane one,too–it was easy: sex is love and violence is death, andthose are the two big human topics. It’s really prettymuch what we all care about, with some greed tossedin, also a common element in crime fiction. And life.

I do like the tough hero, the avenger. It’s funny that Igrew up on Ayn Rand and right-wing vigilantes andemerged, if not leftist, certainly left-leaning. But until Igot a growth spurt going into high school, I was abookworm kid with glasses who got picked on, and theidea of getting even, through a tough hero or anti-hero,

Collins’ Road to Perdition went from three-part Paradox Press mini-series to a big budget feature film from DreamWorks. [RTP script copyright© 1998 by Max Allan Collins, art copyright © 1998 by Richard Piers Rayner. Movieposter: Pulse Advertising/David Sameth TM & © 2002 DreamWorks L.L.C. andTwentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.]

appeals. Related to this is the central notion of mysteryfiction, pretty much all mystery fiction: the protagonistsolves a problem and brings some order at least to achaotic world.

RG: Your Nathan Heller novels, all wonderful, haverequired massive research. How much do you do andhow much do you rely on researcher GeorgeHageneur?MAC: For the uninitiated, I shouldsay that Nathan Heller is aChicago PI in the 1930s (andlater ’40s and ’50s) who becomesinvolved in some of the greatunsolved or disputedmysteries/crimes of the 20th cen-tury–the assassination of MayorCermak, the Lindbergh kidnap-ping, the disappearance of AmeliaEarhart, the Roswell incident, andso on. They are big novels, someof the longest private eye novelsever written, and the first onewon the Best Novel “Shamus”award from the Private EyeWriters of America and reallychanged my career. They’ve beenvery well received–a year or soago the PWA gave me their LifeAchievement award, the Eye,mostly for Heller (and somewhatfor Ms. Tree). And I’ve just signeda contract with Tor Books that willtake Heller into the 1960s andthe JFK assassination.

George Hagenauer, who I metthrough comics fandom, is reallya collaborator on those books.We haven’t done one in a while,and I’ve done a few historicals with him participating ina lesser fashion–the new book, Red Sky in Morningunder the “Patrick Culhane” byline, was researched bymy other right hand, Matthew V. Clemens. And I did theresearch on Strip for Murder, the recent mystery aboutAl Capp and Ham Fisher, myself. Red Sky, incidentally,is based on my late father’s experiences during WWIIas a young lieutenant in charge of a huge contingent ofblack sailors loading ammo and explosives in thePacific.

But the Heller and Eliot Ness novels were heavilyimpacted by George’s research and also by his creativi-ty–we have spent many hours on the phone kickingaround ideas. The Heller novels are odd, because youhave the constraints of history, and the plotting has toweave in and around, and not contradict, reality. Early

on Mike Gold, who was my Ms. Tree editor at DC, wasalso a big help on research and just getting the Chicagofeel right. In the first novel, True Detective, one exam-ple of just how much George did is the background ofHeller’s father and grandfather–he pretty much devisedthat. I wrote the chapter from his notes.

RG: When you wrote True Detective, did you have anyidea this was going to the best received of your series

or that it would last a dozen nov-els?MAC: I knew I was stepping upto the plate and doing some-thing special, something biggerand more ambitious than the50,000 word replicas of GoldMedal novels I’d been doing.Heller had been devised someyears earlier, initially as a comicstrip idea, and I had the basicidea of setting a private eye inthe context history in the early‘70s, pre-Chinatown, but knew Iwasn’t writer enough yet to tack-le it. I did not know, at first, thatHeller would be a series.Obviously, with a PI as the maincharacter, you know that’s a pos-sibility, which is partly why Imade him young, mid-twenties,in the first novel, knowing that ifthere were more I’d want to agehim as the years passed. Andthe first book was originally plot-ted to include the Dillingermaterial that eventually becamethe second novel, True Crime.Once I realized I couldn’t covereverything in True Detective, I

knew a second novel was a strong possibility.I had no idea I was dooming myself to a lifetime of

homework and research. Thank God for GeorgeHagenauer, to share the research load and help mecarve my way through the various jungles.

For the record, I consider Heller my life’s work, mymost important and potentially lasting achievement.The Perdition books grew out of Heller, were a sidebarof sorts.

RG: When writing a series such as Heller, how much ofthe timeline do you map out? What sort of continuitynotes do you create for yourself?MAC: At first it was haphazard. After the first three, theso-called Nitti Trilogy, I began to take extensive notes,and fashioned a timeline–tried to make sure I didn’t

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Collin’s Road to Purgatory, his 2004 prosesequel to the Road to Perdition graphic novel.[Copyright © 2004 by Max Allan Collins. All rightsreserved.]

Fantastic Four #560Death of the Invisible WomanPart Three of Four

Script By Mark Millar Art By Bryan Hitch and Andrew Currie Final Draft: 14th August 2008 23 script pages

Page One 1/ Cut to 500 years in the future and a nightmarish vision of society where ecological and environmental problems have created an eternal, freezing, barren night and things are pretty fucking horrible. Mankind has been decimated, but there’s still billions of us out there. This should be a big, wide shot with a well-known landmark in the background (anything except the Statue of Liberty). CAPTION : “Well, let’s start with the good news. The good news is that the Earth DIDN’T die in the early part of the twenty-first century. CAPTION : “It actually survived another five hundred years, thanks to the efforts of Doctor Reed Richards.

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The team of writer Mark Millar and penciler BryanHitch gained notoriety with their work on The Authorityand then The Ultimates. About halfway through theircommitment to Marvel’s Fantastic Four, this sequencekicks off issue #560 (the third chapter in a four-part storyarc) and begins with a panoramic establishing shot. Notehow this is marked as the final draft with a date to avoidany confusion to both editor and artist over which ver-sion of the script is to be used.

Note also how Hitch put the “well known landmark” (the Empire State Building) inthe foreground, not, as described in the script, the background. He moves the details ofthe “nightmarish vision of society” to the next pages, figuring the dramatic shot of theESB—with supports that seem to be needed to keep it upright—combined withintriguing dialogue captions would make any reader want to turn the page.

FANTASTIC FOUR #560 NUTS & BOLTS | 37

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RON PERAZZA

DANNY FINGEROTH: What would you say Zuda’s“mission” is, Ron?RON PERAZZA: That’s easy–find and make goodwebcomics.

DF: What makes Zuda different from other web-comics sites? How is it similar to any?RP: That’s a tricky question–there are so many siteswith such variety. I’d like to think that we add some-thing to that larger pool and because of that bringvalue to the whole thing.

DF: What’s the appeal of webcomics in general? Hastheir time finally come, in terms of being a major partof the comics landscape, after all these years of peo-ple trying?RP: I don’t think there is a “time” for webcomics in away that means that time has passed for other comicsor anything like that. I think artists’ options haveexpanded and comic storytelling has grown because ofthe technology. It’s been a slow build for the last tenyears or so, but its kind of growing geometrically–thebigger it gets, the bigger it can get. The trick then ismaintaining quality. I like to think that Zuda offers apretty unique combination of user submissions, com-munity involvement and editorial input that workstoward that goal.

DF: Since DC is so high profile, any ballpark idea ofhow many site visitors are new to webcomics and justcame to the site because it is part of DC, and howmany are regular readers of other comics sites?RP: There’s really no way for us to know that–we don’t

collect that kind of “Where did you hear about us?”information with any sort of scientific accuracy or any-thing. In some ways it doesn’t matter–if you’re a long-time comic fan or a comparatively new reader it’s allgood. We’re trying to have enough diversity to appealto a lot of different types of readers.

DF: Zuda is a free site. At this point in time, is it seenas an R&D site for new properties, or an exploratorysite to test the online comics waters? Or somethingelse altogether?RP: In a lot of ways this all an experiment–but that’snot to say there’s not a plan. DC Comics has a historyof leading the way with new formats–like taking aleadership role with Collected Editions and the book-stores for example–so this is a continuation of thatgeneral philosophy. We’re interested in new styles,new genres and some of the unique storytelling andreader collaboration that comes from being online. It’sa long game and fortunately we’re in a position to playthat long game and see where it takes us.

THE WORLD OF ZUDA | 41

Comics launched its major web initiative, Zuda Comics, in 2007. Run by Director of Creative Serviceand Online DC Comics, Ron Perazza, it’s been a much talked about and visited web destinationfor a year now. Along with editor Kwanza Johnson and DC SVP-Creative Director Richard Bruning.

Ron is boldly taking DC where no mainstream comics company has gone before.Ron is deeply involved in every facet of Zuda’s development. In the online world, he’s something of a veteran,

having served as Project Manager: Online at Marvel before coming to DC.On September 18th, Ron kindly gave me e-mail responses to some questions about this brave new virtual

world.—DF

THE WORLD OF ZUDAO N L I N E C R E A T O R S O N M A K I N G W E B C O M I C S

Richard Bruning, left, Kwanza Johnson and Ron Perazza, of DCComics and Zuda.com. [Richard Perry/The New York Times]

DC

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DF: Do you have a model for revenue from ads? If not,is there a revenue model in place, or one you’re think-ing of for the future?RP: It’s interesting to me how everyone is interested inhow we’re looking to make money from this. My chiefconcern is how to make quality comics. We have adson site, we’ve played around with the idea of sponsor-ships, we’re definitely interesting in collecting the web-comics for print volumes–so I guess you can say we’retaking an organic, multi-tiered approach to generatingrevenue.

DF: If not revenue, how would you define “success” forZuda?RP: There’s a lot of ways we can define succes–firstand foremost is making good comics. Creative successis my main concern. I don’t know how you measurethat quantitatively but I think if you’re on the righttrack then people take notice. We have a lot of serieson site that I really believe in–like Bayou, Street Code,High Moon and SuperTron. I could go on but I thinkthat will be the mark of Zuda’s success–the quality ofour books.

DF: Does Zuda/DC own the material it puts up on thesite, or just certain rights?RP: Zuda’s contracts are very consistent with thecreator-owned contracts for DC Comics’ other imprints–like Vertigo or WildStorm. It would be lengthy (andlikely boring) for me to even try to get into that allhere, but we offer all of our contracts on the site foranyone to read, take to their family, friends, lawyers orwhat have you. We strongly encourage people who arethinking about sending us a comic for the site to do

this well in advance of sending us anything just so theyare informed if nothing else. You can find them here:

http://www.zudacomics.com/submission_agreementhttp://www.zudacomics.com/rights_agreementhttp://www.zudacomics.com/services_agreement

DF: Being on the web, do you find yourself concernedover language, sex, violence or moral issues in thestrips? Is there any material you wouldn’t put on Zuda?RP: Yeah, obviously being available to the general pub-lic and not requiring any kind of registration to simplyread the comics we have to be more mindful aboutwhat we publish.

DF: Is there any style of material you wouldn’t run,even if the content was acceptable?RP: I can’t imagine what that might be–we’re activelyencouraging style and genre diversity.

DF: Would you ever take a submission from a writerand then pair him or her up with an artist, or doteams have to submit complete packages?RP: What we’re interested in is actively including thereaders in the selection process and not creating thosematches internally then presenting them to the reader.We offer message boards in order to help artists andwriters seek each other out if they don’t already have acreative team, but our primary interest is to see whatstories creators are interested in telling and givingthem a way to get those stories to us.

DF: At this point, do you need to go searching fortalent or are you flooded with submissions?

RP: We’ve got a steady stream of submis-sions.

DF: How many staff people are dedicatedin whole or part to Zuda? How wouldsomeone apply for a staff job there?RP: We’ve got a full-time editor in KwanzaJohnson. Nika Denoyelle is our assistant.Dave McCullough oversees the onlinegroup, which does a tremendous amountof work with Zuda, as you might expect,and then there’s me. We all report into theSenior Vice President/Creative Director ofDC Comics, Richard Bruning. He reportsright into the President and Publisher, PaulLevitz.

DF: How does one edit a webcomicversus a print comic?RP: That’s a very complex question,

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A screen from Zuda’s science fiction comedy series, SuperTron. Story and art isby Sheldon. [© 2008 Sheldon Vella.]

especially given the nature of how submissions comein. Generally speaking, for our ongoing series, it’s nottoo much different from a print comic. We’re interestedin creator-driven storytelling and we’re not interestedin getting in the way of that or trying to bend the cre-ators to our will or anything like that. So very broadlyspeaking, it’s like being there to bounce ideas backand forth or get an impartial opinion. There’s somenuts and bolts things like proofreading and schedulingas well. It’s very collaborative.

DF: Do your writers submit outlines or scripts inadvance to check for questionable matter?RP: For ongoing series, yes. Like I mentioned in theprevious answer there’s a lot of back-and-forthbetween editorial and the creative team during theseries–a lot of it pretty casual with e-mail and instantmessaging–to help craft the best series possible.

DF: Given the web is fluid, why limit the artwork to afixed set of dimensions?RP: It’s like with a print comic, anything can happenon that page. It could be a splash; it could be a hun-dred little panels. It might be part of the story to breakevery page into a standard nine-panel grid. But thepaper dimensions don’t change. It’s sort of like that. Inpart we want to offer creators a known “page size”and give them infinite freedom within that page. Wealso want to offer our readers a consistent readingexperience that doesn’t require any scrolling or specificmonitor, computer, or plug-in requirements that canvary from comic to comic.

DF: What’s in the future for Zuda?RP: More good comics.

DF: Oh, yeah—maybe I missed this—what does “Zuda”mean, anyway?RP: Everything–from Z to A. :)

DEAN HASPIELInterview conducted via phone Sept. 25, 2008.Transcribed by Steven TiceCopyedited by Danny Fingeroth and Dean Haspiel

Native New Yorker Dean Haspiel is the creator ofthe Eisner Award-nominated Billy Dogma and thewebcomix collective Act-i-Vate. Dean is also a found-ing member of Brooklyn’s Deep6 Studios, and the edi-tor of “Next-Door Neighbor” at Smith Magazine. Deanhas drawn superheroes for Marvel and DC Comics, aswell as Michael Chabon’s The Escapist for Dark Horse,and is best known for his collaborations with Harvey

Pekar on TheQuitter andVertigo’s relaunchof AmericanSplendor. Thissummer, Deanlaunched StreetCode, a semi-autobiographicalwebcomic forZuda. This Fall,Vertigo publishedThe Alcoholic, anoriginal graphicnovel collabora-tion with authorJonathan Ames,and FrancoiseMouly’s ToonBooks publishedMo & Jo: FightingTogether Forever,Haspiel’s collabo-ration withunderground comix legend Jay Lynch. For updates,please visit http://man-size.livejournal.com/

Dean took some time to tell me about how he’scome to be writing and drawing Street Code for Zuda.

—DF

DANNY FINGEROTH: What made you decide to dowebcomics, Dean?DEAN HASPIEL: I was working on several projects thatwouldn’t see the light of day for at least a year andthat can be a struggle for an artist, especially one withan ego that wants people to see their stuff immediate-ly. I had a bunch of friends that moved to Californiaand they started blogging, which is how I discoveredthe blog culture. But they really were blogging abouttheir lives. They weren’t promoting. So I would blogthe same thing, and then after a while they would ask,“Show us what you’re working on.” So I would showlittle sneak peeks online and I realized that would getmore responses when I would actually show artwork.So, after a couple of years of doing that, I saw othercartoonists showing their stuff off online and I wrote aprivate e-mail to a bunch of friends and a couple otherpeople I hadn’t met that were showing off their stuffon a regular basis, and I said, let’s try to do webcomicsonline, that we control and own, on a weekly basis.Not only would we then be working on a side graphicnovel online while working on our regular projects forprint, but we would also be engendering response,

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THE WORLD OF ZUDA | 43

Dean’s cover to his and Jonathan Ames’graphic novel The Alcoholic [© 2008 ??.]

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STREET CODE: "Awful George" SCREEN 5 5,1 Jack’s horrified expression centers the page while panels of each caption as described below surround his terrified head.

CAP1 Bloody towels and bowls of water with archaic metal instruments of varying degrees of horror were strewn about the space.

CAP2 Crowding the space were metal cages housing two-to-three cats in each one. The cats were either halfway to heaven or halfway to hell.

CAP3 Some cats were missing an eyeball or a tail. Others were missing a limb and/or teeth. All of them were in pain and suffering greatly.

CAP4 Bikes and boxes of valuables were sitting safely in the back of the basement. Nothing had been stolen from the premises, only added to.

Dean Haspiel writes and draws Street Code for DC’s Zudacomics website. Dean works in a variety of ways, depending onthe project. For Street Code, he prefers to work in full-scriptmode, describing each panel and then doing a thumbnailsketch to see how the text and art will work together.

Dean then pencils the strip and, in a nod to a nearly losttradition, actually pencils in the dialogue and captions. Aswriter and artist, he is able to make sure each copy unit goesin exactly the spot he wants it. The inks are also by Dean.

Zuda’s stories are presented screen-by-screen. The screenseach have the height to width proportions of half of a stan-dard comic book page. These proportions are more or lessthose of an average computer screen.

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AMAZING TRUE STORIES:

If you believe that, I can skip the research steps onmy future books, since you apparently don’t needsomething to look like a duck (much less walk, quack,paddle, fly, and eat stale breadcrumbs) to believe it isin fact a duck. To torture the metaphor, most readers,regardless of whether they know it, do in fact requirean incredibly lifelike simulation of a duck, though. Sohere’s what the process, or at least my process, reallylooks like when broken down into its componentparts, beginning at the beginning:

im Ottaviani has been writing comics abouttrue facts and real people for a long time. Hehas the gift of making history and science—andthe history of science—come vividly alive for his

readers. Some of his many works include Suspendedin Language, Fallout, and BoneSharps, Cowboys,and ThunderLizards. Here, Jim tells us how he doesit—and how you can, too!

—DF

[Not that it matters, but most of what follows istrue.—Jim Ottaviani]

Write Now! EIC Danny Fingeroth has asked me towrite about telling true stories (history or non-fictionif you’re a civilian, historical fiction if you’re a real lifehistorian) in comics form, but because we’re talkingabout a visual medium, and because in my previouslife I was an engineer, I should show rather than tell.So here’s a flowchart that shows how it’s done:

by Jim Ottaviani

J

Jim Ottaviani self-portrait.[© 2008 Jim Ottaviani.]

WRITING NON-FICTION COMICS

WRITING NON-FICTION COMICS | 57

You may think I’m kidding, but after that initial ideayou do have to decide to be a writer. If you don’t, youlikely won’t get much further into the process, muchless to the end, and the process is where the fun is.Like you, I had ideas galore before making this deci-sion. Many came from that background I mentionedabove, and that’s why I write about science. In theprocess of getting a bachelor’s and master’s degree innuclear engineering and then working as a researcherand consultant to the electric power industry, I learnedplenty of science in class and on the job. Outside ofclass and work, I enjoyed reading biographies of scien-tists. I also read a lot of comics. I’m pretty good atmath, but pretty slow on the uptake sometimes, so ittook me another ten years to put one and one togeth-er and merge these two interests.

Our first cliché: I’ve just described the classic “writewhat you know” scenario, and I recommend it. Theonly caution I would add to that is that if all you knowis video games or comics from the big two superheroindustrial complex manufacturers, you have a lot ofcompetition in between you and your goal. Lucky forme, I wanted biographical stories about scientists incomics form by the time I decided to start writingthem. If you can find your own, wide-open field likethis one, you’ll also find yourself with many moreoptions for getting published.

From there on out the process gets messy, but fun,because if you do true stories, you get to do research.And because if you’ve decided to go down this path itmeans you have many loves: you love reading, lovevisiting unusual places, love writing letters to peopleyou admire, and love doing this repeatedly. You likeWikipedia, but don’t love it. (See sidebar: “What’sWrong With Wikipedia?”) You love your library andbooks and reference lists/bibliographies at the backsof books, and love following trails and paths that leadyou far away from your original idea. And you lovereturning to that original idea you had, but unless

you’re a genius multitasker (I’m not) only after writingdown the new ones you encountered along the way.

All of that sounds like another, though more extend-ed, cliché, but I’ve found that for non-fiction workthere is no substitute for reading stuff, digging up origi-nal sources, and whenever possible talking to the peo-ple who were there. The project I’m working on now, abook about the space race, is a case in point. Whenthe publisher accepted the proposal, my wife immedi-ately suggested that we watch the acclaimed HBOseries From the Earth to the Moon. Tempting, butexactly the wrong thing. For one, I don’t want tounconsciously swipe imagery from someone else. Foranother, as good as I know this series is, acceptingsomeone else’s condensation of such a sprawling storyby passively absorbing it through TV can’t substitute foractively engaging the original material that wouldexcite my visual and storytelling imagination. So it’s offto the library, out to Building 12 at NASA’s GarberFacility in Suitland, Maryland, and plenty of time work-ing with primary sources. Going straight to the sourcewill provide you with the best possible original ideas

Jim’s book about Niels Bohr and his work, Suspended inLanguage, features art by award-winning artist Leland Purvis,and illustrated short pieces by Jay Hosler, Roger Langridge,Steve Leialoha, Linda Medley, and Jeff Parker. [Suspended inLanguage © 2004 Jim Ottaviani and Leland Purvis. Cover © 2004 LelandPurvis Courtesy G.T. Labs.]

and imagery for your script—you’ll be amazed at whatother writers chose to leave out. And you’ll be amazedat who will be willing to help you out—next time yousee me at a convention I can tell you about seeing“Aldrin, Buzz” on my voicemail…

As you accumulate more and more information, at acertain point you also have to know when to stop.Many of us collect things—comics, books, action fig-ures, art—and the quest for more in these realms neverends. The hunt is fun! But when it comes to script-writ-ing you can indeed get enough. As Fred (ActionPhilosophers) Van Lente put it so aptly in Write Now!#14, you can’t include everything you found out. Anyperson’s life, or any topic, will prove too rich for you toinclude all of it. Storytelling means picking yourmoments, and even though comics are as flexible amedium as any out there, economics—even if it’s sim-ply the economics of reader attention—will place limitson the length of your story. So you have to make deci-sions, and they’ll be hard ones. Sorry.

I didn’t arrive at this step right away, but it’s becomeone that I can’t live without. It’s about writing dialoguesnippets, some panel descriptions, and some scenes.And most importantly, it’s writing the biography ofeach of your characters, fictional or otherwise. Youdon’t want them to all sound the same, or sound likeyou, so writing a one-page life story for each (whatreligion do they practice, their favorite food, wherethey went to school, etc.) will help you determine howthey will act, and react to each other. It will also givethem the individual voices they need to stand out fromeach other in your mind, and for your artist, and even-tually for your readers.

Remember hard decisions? Well, here’s another one:you know a lot of stuff now, but at this point you’ll no

doubt find that you don’t know certain things youneed to. You can fudge a little—I did that with BoneSharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards—and I’m nottelling you where—but too much messing around withthe facts, or chronologies, and you’ve crossed over intothe realm of fiction. Nothing wrong with that, ofcourse, and I wouldn’t try to stop my sister from datinga novelist. But that’s not the kind of writing you’redoing—so back to the research.

Here’s the biggest diagram of them all, and it has themost white space staring back at you. There’s a wholelot of blank… whatever… in front of you now, and youhave to fill it, starting with Page 1, Panel 1. (Or wher-ever you start. But start!) You’ve read enough issues ofWrite Now! to know that there’s no One True Formatfor your script, and you can see some examples ofmine on the pages that follow. However you do it,though, plant yourself in a chair, face down that blankpage or that blinking cursor, and start writing.

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Cowboys and Dinosaurs ©2003, Jim Ottaviani

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Page 7(Splash, with two insets in the lower right)

Panel 1Big panel, with Barnum now in the baggage car and standing over the box holding the Cardiff Giant. It’s packed in with straw all around it, and looks sorta dumb. And obviously fake. But, if you please, don’t make it so ludicrously bad and caricatured that we can’t visually refer to it in some way all the way at the end of the story (P136)…

Anyway, in one hand Barnum’s waving around his cigar, whose smoke is filling the car from the ceiling on down. In the other he holds the crowbar he used to pry open the box.

CAPTION (upper left):And so…

BARNUM (launching into full Barnum-esque font, a la Walt Kelly):

Behold, the !!Cardiff Giant!!, miracle of the age, exhumed

directly from the hunting grounds of the !fierce tribe" of the Onondaga!

BARNUM (still huckstering):concrete proof and demonstration of the physiognomy of early man, from an era when !!giants!! walked the earth.

BARNUM:

He is the !one and only reminder" of a race that history has left in its wake!

MARSH (off):Ahem. Sir, I must tell you…

Panel 2Close in on a smug Marsh, waving away the cigar smoke.

MARSH:What you have there is most decidedly a fake.

MARSH:Even worse, it is a lackluster copy of a fake.

Panel 3Marsh, still smug.

MARSH:I myself am an expert on antiquities and I have examined the original, if you want to call it that.

MARSH:This… this “Cardiff Giant” upon which your crude reproduction is based, is a humbug.

Art to the cover of Bone Sharps, Cowboys and ThunderLizards is by Mark Schultz and Big Time Attic. [Script © 2005 JimOttaviani. Interior art © 2005 Big Time Attic. Cover is © 2005 Mark Schultzand Big Time Attic. Courtesy G.T. Labs.]

Here we see some of Jim’s script and thumbnailsketch, as well as the artists’ rough and finished art for apage of one of his stories. Here’s what Mr. O. has to sayabout the process:

“Bone Sharps, Cowboys and Thunder Lizards: A Taleof Edward Drinker Cope, Othniel Charles Marsh, andthe Gilded Age of Paleontology is a tale, by which Imean by the time I finished researching the story I decid-ed to put some fictional frosting on the cake of fact.

“So looking back on this book, it’s interestingto see how much the pages changed as well,even when I thought they were done.

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WRITING NON-FICTION COMICS | 65

vander Lomke was the editor on my non-fictionbooks Superman on the Couch and Disguised asClark Kent. A seasoned publishing professional,

Evander has edited—from inception to finished book—an extremely wide variety of nonfiction manuscripts.While writing about comics is perhaps not as glam-orous as writing comics, there’s what seems to be end-less curiosity about the making and understanding ofcomics—and of all pop culture. And why not? Wespend so much of our time devouring the popular cul-ture of our (and earlier) eras, it makes sense we’d becurious to hear what “experts” of various types have tosay about it. As editor of those experts, Evander is hisown kind of expert—and here he shares some of hisinside info with us.

—DF

You walk into your favorite comics shop or book-store, and you can’t help but see the plethora of booksabout popular culture, including comics and graphicnovels. These books aren’t comics or GNs (with a fewexceptions such as Scott McCloud’s UnderstandingComics and Reinventing Comics), but are aboutthem. If you’re a writer, the thought may occur to you:“Wow! Someone’s taken their obsession and made itinto a book that someone else was willing to pay themfor and to publish. Writing books like that seems like itmight be an enjoyable way to spend some of my time.After all, I have a lot of opinions about the comics Iread.”

But after that realization, there come the inevitablequestions:

• How do I find a publisher—and how do I know ifthat is the best publisher for my book?

• Should I write a book and submit it, or workwith an editor to develop an idea into a book?

• What kind of advance and royalties can I expectfrom doing that kind of writing? Must it be alabor of love, or is it a career path of any kind?

• What kind of audience is there for such books? Isit only college professors and other academictypes, or is there a chance my book could beseen and read (and bought!) by a significantnumber of people?

You want and need to be armed with importantinformation before embarking on writing one or moreof such books—or, for that matter, articles with similarcontent. Once you have that information, you candecide if writing non-fiction, critical works is for you.

I’ve spent a long career as an editor of academic andtrade books for more-or-less well defined sets of audi-ences. My office desk, shelves, and floor are amazinglycluttered. There are manuscripts and proposals of all

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WRITING ABOUT COMICS:by Evander LomkeA N I N T R O D U C T I O N T O T H E W O R L D O F T H E P O P C U LT U R E W R I T E R

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shapes and sizes. The days of legendary editors likeMax Perkins wading through a crate and discoveringThomas Wolfe’s latest work, a manuscript that cries outfor editing to find the hidden masterpiece within, areprobably gone forever. But a book editor’s job has notchanged much. It is one that calls for keen judgmentwith no time to spare for error.

Which of these manuscripts and proposals in mylarge pile or today’s mail has what it takes to get bycommittees of marketers, publicists, salespeople, andeven other editors and into the hands of readers? Whatdistinguishes the successful project from the one thatis returned to the author? What do editors and publish-ers look for?

Mainstream book publishers may have been slow topick up on the world of scholarly writing about the his-tory and impact of comics and graphic novels. But asthe graphic-novel universe has expanded into the booktrade (trade publishing means the dissemination ofbooks found in chain bookstores, on the New YorkTimes Bestseller lists, and are probably those in thelargest number in your home), so have academic andtrade publishers jumped in, finding there is a large andexpanding audience for books about these books—about their authors, their subjects, and what these sub-jects tell us about our cultural psychology. In addition,think about what a large industry media about othermedia is. Just about any TwoMorrows book or maga-zine—including Write Now!—is media about media.There’s even an NPR show called “On the Media.”

For many years, there have been a handful of press-es that specialized in popular culture. One is BowlingGreen University Press. Bowling Green has publishedon pulp-fiction writers as well as the history and signif-icance of the pulps themselves—which is interesting,considering how few people these days read pulps!Many publishers, both university presses and for-profitenterprises, publish about the serious side of pop cul-ture. These presses include Syracuse University, WayneState, Columbia, California, and others. Book publish-ers of all sorts are keen to promote these interests fur-ther. The publishers attend annual conventions fromthe annual Modern Language Convention (MLA), tradi-tionally held between Christmas and New Year, toComic-Con International in San Diego each summer,and the New York Comic-con, a new entry that meetseach year in late winter or early spring. You can meetrepresentatives of such publishers at these and othervenues.

The authors of these publishers’ accessible yet schol-

arly books on pop culture come from several walks oflife. Not surprisingly, some are from the “publish orperish” world of academia. Others, more interestingly(I might argue), came out of the comics professionitself. These authors have hands-on experience incomics and/or write regular columns in newspapersand magazines dealing in popular culture. The subjectsare as diverse as the writers themselves: superheroes,manga, comic strips, “literary” graphic novels—and theusually submerged sociologic, psychological, even reli-gious impact of comics on our lives.

As far as, “Can I make a living—or even a decent sup-plementary income—writing these kinds of books?”, theanswers are all over the map. I would say that, withrare exceptions, such as well known movie critics whoalso write books, the income derived from writing abook about popular culture varies but is usually notbeyond several thousand dollars in the first year of

Evander edited WriteNow! EIC DannyFingeroth’s non-fictionbooks Superman on theCouch and Disguised asClark Kent. Cover art onCouch is by Mark Bagleyand Scott Hanna. Drawnfigure on Disguised is byBagley. [Couch © 2004 andDisguised © 2007 by DannyFingeroth. Photo © 2006 VardaSteinhardt.]