Phil Jimenez is a
professional comic book artist and writer who has been
working in the industry since 1991. He has
worked on New Titans, Team Titans, Robin, Guy
Gardner: Warrior, Swamp Thing, Lobo, Invisibles, Girl
Frenzy: Donna Troy, Tempest, Planetary/Authority,
various DCU Secret Files projects, and JLA/Titans
among others.
Phil and I sat down at the
Cedar Tavern in Greenwich Village, NYC, a place that
has been the hangout for members of a group of
abstract expressionists known as the Club (c. 1950),
whose membership included the likes of de Kooning,
Reinhardt, Rothko, and Pollock. An appropriate
spot if ever there was one to pick. We discussed
his current plans for Wonder Woman during her
60th anniversary year.
Phil says, “Saratoga Since
1872.” Don’t ask what that means. I
promised it would be included somewhere in this
interview, however.
Wacky hi-jinks ensue.
20 Questions with: Phil
Jimenez A conversation with Phil Jimenez.
NOTE: This interview was conducted in
Sept. of 2000.
1) Phil, John Byrne
suggested you as his successor back when he left the
book. Eric Luke and Yanick Paquette (and later
Matthew Clark) had the unenviable task of following
him. Interpret that as you will. In other
interviews, you have stated that it has been a
lifelong dream to write and draw Wonder Woman.
Why did we have to wait this long? Was it bad
timing? Were you offered the gig before this
current yearlong stint?
Let me go backwards in time.
The only other time I was ever offered a chance to
draw Wonder Woman was when John Byrne was leaving the
book. John called me and asked me if I was interested
in the job, and I thought about it. But then I
realized that they weren’t interested in having me
write or plot it in any way and quite frankly, I was a
little insulted by that. After a discussion with
Eric Luke, the new writer, about his plans for the
book, I realized that his vision for the character was
different from my own and so I declined.
I am on the book now because
I finally made a pitch for it after just so many years
of what seemed like a directionless book and a group
of writers who liked to write around the character of
Wonder Woman instead of writing her. It was a
lifelong dream to write and draw this book, obviously,
but more than anything, I was just desperate to see
her done in a way that it could become a comic I’d
want to read. If the previous creators
were doing a book that I wanted to read I would be
happy and fine and just continue collecting Wonder
Woman. But I finally felt like I had strong stories to
tell and I also realized that writers were missing
some substantial points about the character and her
world, and so I wanted to write a group of issues that
got her back to that.
2) Ok, Phil, you mentioned
that you’re going to be co-plotting, meaning with
another plotter… You'll have co-plotters throughout
your first year? Can you let the cat out of the bag
and let us know who they are? The first one I
know is JM DeMatteis with Joe Kelly following, yes?
Yup.
Who is the third? Is
it top secret? Like Alan Moore or Warren Ellis top
secret?
The third is going to stay
secret until it’s publicized because I want
confirmation. Until the work is on paper, I
don’t want to announce anything because it could
fall through at any minute, but I just spoke to Joe
Kelly today and he’s still psyched about joining me
for an issue. And Marc DeMatteis is actually
dialoging my first story arc. So, I’m just
going to keep the third person a big secret.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah.
I can’t ask?
You can ask…
I can ask. George Pérez?
(Phil gives me a vague look)
Not Alan Moore? Could be Alan Moore…
(Phil shrugs) Fine… we’ll move on…
3) In pre-Crisis, the
Clark Kent/Superman/Lois Lane situation was one that
never allowed for Clark to become a romantic interest
for Lois since Lois was in love with Superman, but not
Clark. Wonder Woman had her Steve Trevor, who
eventually did fall for Diana Prince.
Fast-forward to current canon. Wonder Woman no
longer has Steve Trevor as a love interest thanks to
George Pérez. It is as if the sexual tension
has been removed from the book. Is this a flaw?
Is Diana allowed to have a love interest now, and if
so, who should it be?
For a long time I was in the
camp that Diana didn’t need a love interest per se
for the sole reason that I thought she was a fine and
whole character without one. Wonder Woman had a
mission. She had a goal, she was self-sufficient, she
wasn’t someone that was defined by her other half
and therefore didn’t need one. But rethinking
that, I do realize it has been 14 or 15 years since
the reboot, 14 I think, and all of Diana’s love
interests have been married or unavailable. So I
got to rethinking the topic and I just had a
conversation with Jeanette Kahn and I ran an idea
about a love interest to her and she really liked it,
so about halfway through my run, expect to see a new
potential love interest for Wonder Woman.
4) The Boston cast during
the Pérez days has been given little if any focus as
of late. How much will we be seeing of them
during your run? Also, many writers tend to
avoid writing Wonder Woman in Wonder Woman's own comic
book. (which we have gone over, but…) Any assurances
that this will be Diana's story? That this year
is Diana’s story…
Well, 2 things. The
Boston cast will return. We’ll be seeing Steve
and Etta and Julia and Vanessa. I’ll be dealing with
Vanessa very specifically in a story about how she has
become a little bitter and resentful that Wonder Woman
just sort of tossed her aside and made this new girl
Wonder Girl. I actually want to play a story
about how Wonder Woman has affected the lives of these
two young women, one in a very positive way and one in
a not-so positive way and the effects of that we’ll
be seeing later. All of my issues, despite the
fairly large supporting cast, every issue I have,
every story I have is about Diana. Each of the
finales depends on her, each story is hers… each
story links thematically to some aspect of her, so I
firmly believe this will be Diana’s book. I
like writing Diana. I find her an amazingly
fascinating character and I’m not frightened of her
so I don’t feel the need to write around her.
5) If this year is
successful in restoring Wonder Woman to high
sales (cross your fingers), will you consider staying
on the book with Greg Rucka when his writing on Wonder
Woman starts?
Well… I’m going to say,
“we’ll see.” I know what Greg has planned
for the book. It’s probably not what I would
plan for Wonder Woman, but he’s very passionate
about the character, so in the months to come, we’ll
see what happens and if we could find some sort of
happy middle ground to work in.
What if they made you
co-plotter?
I just know that his vision
of the character is markedly different from mine,
so… I’ve talked to a couple of people about that
and we were sort of joking about how it might actually
be an amazing combination, but I do suspect sparks
would fly… (Ed giggles) (Phil says “Hi, Greg.”)
So, we’ll see about that. I mean, I have a year’s
worth of stories to tell and a year’s worth of
stories to draw and if I can cover those bases, then
I’ll be fine with that. I have the good
fortune to be able to write and draw her during her 60th
Anniversary, so I sort of feel if I can come sort of
set her up for Greg, then I did a good job.
6) Phil, you've worked with
some of the best in the industry, from Devin Grayson
on JLA/Titans: Technis Imperative to Grant
Morrison on Invisibles Vol. 2 to Warren
Ellis on Planetary/Authority. Does anyone
stick out in your mind as someone who would be a
natural writing partner? What do you look for in
a creative team?
I loved working with the
three people that you cited immensely and for various
reasons. God, I don’t even know where to
begin. I mean each one of them had very particular
strengths and each one of them was very open to what I
had to say in my work and each one of them had ideas
that were very exciting for me to draw. I mean,
I love Devin because she’s a good friend of mine and
we can sit back and we talk about these characters and
their lives and we laugh and we joke and we put up
with things and that’s great.
My relationship with Grant is
a little more distant. His plots for THE
INVISIBLES would come in and I’d find them to be
utterly brilliant and it was just unfortunate that
scheduling problems prevented us from working together
longer because he was a genius. And Warren Ellis
was amazing if for no other reason than the sort of
scripts he writes are page-turners… like every
script that I get, I have to know what happens on the
next page! He’s just brilliant about that.
And so each one of them has very specific strengths. I
learned a lot working from with each of them; how to
think about characters, how to think about scale, how
to think about scope, how to twist things on their
ear… I mean each one really brought something to me
and my work.
My ideal working
partner/writing partner would just be someone, any of
them, who I could bounce ideas off. If there was
a group of characters or a character that we had a
similar vision on that we could just develop and grow
with, and which they could play and they could let
them play, that would be a perfect working union.
I’ve had very few complaints with the people I’ve
worked with in the past few years because they have
been really good to me and have been very good for me.
7) Phil, <Phil is
smiling> I can see you smiling because you glanced
over at my questions…
No, I’m just sort of
thinking… I’m in a nebulous thinking zone…
Phil, Who is Donna Troy?
How do you want me to answer
this?
Well, how would you like
to answer this?
Donna Troy is the… in my
run on Wonder Woman, will be the best-dressed heroine
in comics. She is going to have the best hair.
She’s going to be the woman who I would be if I was
a woman.
<Loud laughter
disturbing the next booth> Oh, God!
I don’t know how to answer
that question otherwise. I mean, Donna is going to be
smart and funny and she’s going to be the Donna Troy
I remember with the added aspect that she was at one
time Wonder Woman’s twin sister.
Phil, how did you write
her for that Grrl Frenzy one-shot without knowing who
she was going to be? What is the essence of
Donna Troy?
The essence of Donna Troy: In
my head, Donna Troy is a woman who is incredibly good,
who is incredibly nice, who is extremely nurturing,
and is good at just about everything she does. She’s
well liked by everyone and wants to live in a world
where people are nice to each other, where people
treat each other with dignity and respect, and she’s
willing to fight for that world. That’s Donna
Troy in my head.
8) Phil, you designed some
characters for Eric Luke during his run, namely the
Children of Chronus. Will we be seeing the
Children of Chronus during your run?
No. <emphatically
stated>
Oh… <giggle> that
was quick… Do you have any stories to tell about the
Children of Chronus, anything?
I designed them sitting on a
bus (where was I headed?)… out of Port Authority, I
think it was going to Montclair, New Jersey. The
editor asked me to design these characters, and so I
said “Ok.” and I did. And that’s my official
Children of Chronus story.
<we are both
laughing> So, basically the Children of Chronus
were on the bus to New Jersey…
They were designed while I
was sitting on the bus to New Jersey. <laughs>
He’s laughing because he
knows I live in New Jersey. That’s ok…
it’s all good…
I’m laughing because
that’s literally what happened. I remember
very specifically designing Arch because I was in this
zone where I was just drawing without really thinking
of the characters, so their designs are probably a
little more subconscious than other ones because I had
no reference. So I was just… sitting there drawing.
9) Other writers and artists
have noted that certain characters "speak"
to them, or rather they speak through the voice of the
characters. Of the characters that you have
redone (Tempest, Donna Troy, etc.) which one speaks
most in your voice and why?
Speaks in my voice? I think
I’m probably a little smarmier than Donna Troy, but
if there is a character that I hear very easily in my
head, it’s her. Same with Diana, same with
Wonder Woman: I didn’t redesign her, but when I see
her in a situation, her voice comes very naturally to
me. If not in terms of actual dialogue, certainly the
way she would react to something, the way she would
perceive something, the way she thinks about
something, at least my interpretation of the
character, obviously. So the Wonder Women, Diana
and Donna… I haven’t worked with Tempest in a long
time and I know he’s gone through a lot of stuff so
his voice is not as clear to me as it once was.
The idea that he has this wife and baby, you know,
I’m not sure that the Tempest I know would have a
wife and baby, so it’s sort of… it doesn’t
resonate right with me so Tempest’s voice is more
vague in my head than it once was.
Would he have ever gotten
over Tula (Aquagirl died during the Crisis and
was featured in the Tempest mini-series)?
Would he have?
I think he would have gotten
over Tula. I think he did get over Tula, as we saw in
the Tempest miniseries. I don’t know if he
would have married this woman (Dolphin) who was
sleeping with the man who’s essentially his father [Aquaman
–ed.] at the same time to the point where, I don’t
know if this was in print, but originally there was a
paternity question, like “whose baby is it?”…
Ew… ew, yuck! I’m
sorry…
So, yeah, that I have big
issues with… like him marrying a woman who wasn’t
sure whose baby it was…
<stunned look> …
sorry… Ok, I’m back…
10) I read somewhere that
you wished that you could have been raised as the only
boy on Paradise Island. (Ok, that’s not fair…
Anton and Kevin pulled it out of you on the
gayleague.com website...) How would you write raising
one boy on Paradise Island and what would be your
design for this "Wonder Boy"? (And I will
ask for this later… I want a sketch…)
We actually, Eddie Berganza the
Superman Editor and I were joking one time about… we
had a “what if?” story, like what if Superman’s,
Kal-El’s rocket landed on Paradise Island? And it
was very, very funny, because out comes this little
naked baby boy and all these Amazons looking down on
him and sort of shaking their heads thinking “well,
what do we do with him now?” And it was all played
for comedy, and it was all played for laughs…
Clark would bring an Amazon a
pot that he had just forged, she would look at it and
knock it out of his hands spitefully. Anyway, he
ended up being just this horribly tormented boy
because the Amazons treated him so poorly. And it was
just really, funny… again, it was all played for
laughs. Superman eventually ended up in some sort of
Toga-ed uniform, because that’s what they wore.
Like I said, it was not serious. It was all
sight gags. So my Wonder Boy would look like a
sad, lonely, beat-up boy in a toga…
11) What happened with the
never seen Hellblazer issue you did for Warren
Ellis? Will it ever see the light of day? What
was the problem?
The fact that Kyle Baker’s
story is getting reprinted after being pulled and won
an Eisner, no less, makes me believe that perhaps one
day that story can be printed. It’s easily my
favorite piece of work to date. I think the art
is the most beautiful that Andy [Lanning] and I have
ever done together. It was an amazing story.
The problem was the point of
view of the story, which I can’t really reveal
without ruining the end. But Warren had a very
specific, very harsh point of view about, not
necessarily why kids shoot each other, but about the
kids who get shot. And… it’s not that they
deserve to get shot, don’t get me wrong, but
basically the point of view is presented where John
Constantine finishes saying… he’s telling this
American woman that kids use guns because we live in a
society that lets them and encourages them and
encourages violence among children and it’s a
terrible world we’ve given them and their reaction
is a completely sane one. I mean, that’s basically
what it was.
I’ve had people read it
from in this country and from other countries and the
people from other countries are far more receptive to
it than the people in this country. I think it’s
because it is an outsider’s view of America about
children and gun violence and I think Paul Levitz
just, he just so vehemently disagreed with the point
of view of the story.
This was going to be
published around the same time that Columbine
happened…?
I saw my first set of inks
the day of the Columbine shootings… I totally forgot
about that. The day of the Columbine shootings,
I had got home to turn on the TV to watch All My
Children and here was all this live footage, and I
had just come home with copies of the first five or
six pages of inks on that story. So, yeah, I think its
timing was unfortunate as well, and sort of eerie at
the same time. But there might be copies of it
floating around the Internet. I know I’ve
given copies to different people and I know that
it’s been sort of asked so it’s out there. But I
don’t want to give away any more specifics in the
hopes that someday it will be printed.
12) Are there any
contemporary artists that have caught your eye in some
of your comp piles? Who gets the Phil Jimenez seal of
approval?
You mean comic artists?
Comic artists, or if you
want, other artists… but first, comic artists. After
all we are in the pub where Pollock lost his brain
cells in, so…
Greg Land on Birds of Prey
and Nightwing is genius. I just got done
reading the “Hunt for Oracle” in Birds of Prey
and Nightwing and the art on that just blew me
away. Both Jackson Guice and Gred Land I thought
did sort of amazing work. This Justiano guy who
has been doing a lot of work for Titans and the
Beast Boy mini-series… there’s something I
think that’s sort of very fetching about his
artwork. I’m still a sucker for classics like
Brian Bolland, Adam Hughes… who else is out there?
Oh! Leinil Yu from X-men who’s work I adore.
I think it is beautiful. I’m not really keen
on those costumes; I don’t know who, nothing
personal, I hope he didn’t make those costumes.
They’re kind of terrible.
The artwork I think is
actually very beautiful. I really dig Bryan
Hitch, I think he’s amazing. He’s grown so
far from being the Alan Davis clone that he once was;
his work is just stunning. I really like the
work on Planetary with John Cassaday who has
gotten so much better since he began. I’m
always a sucker for Tony Harris on anything… J.G.
Jones, his stuff on Black Widow… he is just
so good. Doug Mahnke on Superman [Man of
Steel]…
Really?
I really like his work a lot.
Wow.
I think that’s it for now.
Fair enough.
13) I know something other
people don't know...
Yes?
You're a self-professed
big fan of the X-Men. What did you think of the
movie?
I saw it twice. I thought the
movie was flawed, but considering the disaster it
could have been I thought it was really amazing.
My criticisms of it come from my long history of
criticizing. It needs to be said that I came out
of that film so happy, I was cheering, I was
laughing… and all my friends really liked it, and
the criticisms come just because that’s what I do.
It was a little humorless, which was sort of
unfortunate. Going into it, I knew the characters were
going to be different, so I didn’t really care. I
love what they did with Rogue, I love what they did
with Wolverine, I love that whole relationship, I
thought it was great. Obviously, and it has been said
a million times, Storm and Cyclops got the short end
of the stick…
Oh, no kidding!
…in character development.
And I walked out of there thinking, “Who is Storm?
Why is she there? What’s her purpose? What’s her
function?” And, I got, for the first time, why Halle
Berry might not have been so excited about that role,
because good or bad for the film, she didn’t really
have that much to do. I mean, I know scenes got
edited…
Sorry, Phil, I have to
interject… I totally, totally, totally felt that
[SPOILERS] when she was talking to Sen. Kelly as he
was dying that that was the perfect time to do her
origin.
Yes, absolutely.
That’s so funny that you say that, because I was
telling a friend of mine that. I was arguing
with him that that was her moment. That’s when
we learn who she is, why she was there…
whatever X-men movie version of her origin, that’s
it, and they didn’t do it. And I find myself
wondering if it was Halle Berry’s weaknesses or if
it was writing… I’m not sure but I would love to
know…
...”I fear people”...
uh, hello, cut to Cairo…
Exactly, or even not, but we
could have had it in a 30 second dialog! Cutting to
Cairo costs money and I understand that, but he could
have said “so what’s your story?” and she could
have said “well, people hunted me in Cairo” or
Kenya or whatever X-men movie version of her history
was there…
…Halle Berry’s
soliloquy cut... ugh
I had quibbles with that and
a few other things, but for the most part I loved the
casting, I loved the look, I thought it was an
amazingly good set-up for a really, really good movie.
I hope they follow through. I thought the Sen. Kelly
speech at the beginning with Jean Grey was a little
embarrassing; I would have liked it to be a little
more subtle, and the obvious racist, anti-gay
overtones were there, but I wanted more of that.
I wanted it to really get nailed home. I
didn’t get the sense in this movie, that mutants are
born that way, they can’t help it, that’s just
what they are, that’s just what they do. And I
really wanted more of that. Mutants can’t help who
they are and for the most part, most of them try to
live normal decent lives and don’t try to get in
your way.
Of course there are going to
be people who are obnoxious and evil a la the
Brotherhood, but I didn’t feel that the
anti-gay/mutant chord was played enough. In my
head, the perfect X-men movie would have been that
adaptation of the Chris Claremont “God Loves, Man
Kills” graphic novel from 1983. I loved that story
to death, and I think it says more about the X-Men
then the past five years of in continuity X-Men
comics. But, I really loved the X-men movie.
I’m very happy that its done as well as it did.
I hope it follows up…
I do, too. Plus, I got to go
to the NY press junket, and what was really cool about
that is that a friend of mine in the entertainment
press let me in with him. I got to talk to Bryan
Singer for a few minutes, and what was cool was that
they [the actors] were all so into it. You could
tell that their time in the movie was difficult and
that while making the movie they had no idea what they
were creating, but afterwards they learned and started
to get excited by it and I was excited by their
enthusiasm.
14) You’re going to hit me,
or do the verbal equivalent… If you could pull a Zero
Hour and eliminate one story that you've drawn or
written from your history so that everyone would have
to forget it was ever done, what would it be?
You mean my most embarrassing
moment? Oooh… this is a toss-up between X-Men:
Liberators and Team Titans…
<Hysterical
laughter> Sorry… go on…
It’s interesting though…
each one were huge failures for very specific reasons.
X-Men: Liberators I agreed to do verbally with
an editor as a 3-issue series starring the several
X-men characters. It was dropped for months and then
suddenly I was called up and told “We need the first
issue soon because it’s been solicited, and it’s
now a 4-issue series instead of 3.” So, I was in the
middle of JLA/Titans and I’m like “are you
serious?” I know I made this verbal commitment
to it, but there was no warning, no build up, and I
agreed to a 3-issue story and not a 4, so I ended up
doing layouts for the book and I had 3 inkers. And the
story just wasn’t very good. Here I am, I’m
working on JLA/Titans and it got to the point
where I had to crank the X-Men stuff out as fast as I
could. I was reduced to doing layouts on a story
that was being constantly edited all the way through,
so it was not the glorious thing that I wanted. So
much for my first X-Men gig.
And my Team Titans
story I’ve told a million times. Everyone knows it.
I was hired to be co-writer of Team Titans and
the story we pitched was very Grant Morrison, Doom
Patrol influenced. We were taking these
characters and making them this bizarre little group.
We did not want to do classic mainstream stuff at all.
There’s enough of that out there.
Let’s do something kind of
fun and kooky and self-referential, we thought, and
what we didn’t know was that the editor-in-chief
wanted a DC Comics version of X-Force. So from
beginning to end we were fighting constantly because
had they told us... The problem is that no one told us
what they wanted until it was too late. Halfway
though our run, which we had planned as this 5 year
multi-arc thing, my cowriter and I were told to wrap
it all up in 4 issues. Zero Hour was
coming and they figured out what they were going to do
with the Team Titans in Zero Hour, so we
were left, basically, with a story that was going to
take us 2 or 3 years to write that we were told to
wrap up in less than half a year. It was
terrible. I wasn’t speaking with my editor, I
just was so angry. I quit the art chores after 2
issues because it got so bad. And if they’d
have told us this we could have revamped everything,
but they let us proceed, let us get halfway through
and then said, “no, we want you to do a 180.”
Wow. So basically
bad communication channels…
No. Lies! It
wasn’t even bad communication because they weren’t
telling us because they wanted me on the book. I
was told this. They wanted me on the book and
they knew that I wanted to do the book a certain way
so the hope was to kind of…
Finagle?
…get me to get as much of
what I wanted in, try to get what they wanted…
hopefully transform it… it was so frustrating.
And, this is actually funny: my co-writer at the time
said “oh, we can do this. It’ll be great.
We’ll just give them what they want.” And I
kept saying I don’t think we should; it’s a bad
idea because we’re being compromised in such an
enormous way. And he told me recently that we should
not have done it because we were so compromised and to
this day we read bad reviews about it. What happened
was that we were compromised from the beginning.
And we were writing fill-ins at the end and our last
issue was significantly different because of Zero
Hour. It was all so ridiculous.
Had they just told us at the
beginning what they had wanted then we could have
given it to them, but they let us proceed without
being honest with us, so both of them are like blots
on my career. I would probably have to say that X-Men:
Liberators is a slightly larger one because it was
just egregious. At least in Team Titans there
are 2 or 3 issues that I can look back on and go
“the art was good on that,” and Bryan Hitch drew
one and everyone really liked the art on that issue,
there are a couple of really funny jokes in it… I
mean, X-Men: Liberators, there was just nothing
funny about it.
Oh, my. Would you play
with the characters that survived Zero Hour?
Would you bring back Mirage, for instance?
Geoff Johns is bringing back
Mirage.
Really?
Yeah, I think... well, I know
we talked about it. I really don’t have much
to say about Mirage. I want to work with characters I
think I still have something to say about, or on ones
writers can convince me there is something left to be
said about. If Mirage lived with her baby in
Rio, I think that would be fine. I’m not one
of these people who can’t let go, and I’m not one
of those people who feels that they need to have a
character around just because. If they don’t have a
function, if they don’t serve a story function, if
they don’t have a purpose, then they are just there
because we like them and they are familiar to us.
I find that problematic.
So, I’m not someone who
likes to bring characters back from the dead, or if I
do, I don’t leave them around. I usually bring
them back for a story function and then get rid of
them.
But in JLA/Titans
she showed up… well, everybody showed up!
Everyone showed up.
Honestly, that’s the only reason I did that book.
I said, if I can draw every Titan, then I’ll do it.
And…
…every Titan?
Yeah, every Titan. The
original story was much smaller and I said I really
wasn’t interested in doing a small-scale story.
George Pérez’ first Avengers issues had just
came out and all the Avengers had just been
assembled and so… I don’t remember if we were
plotting before that happened. I don’t think it was
an influence but more of a concern. I just
remember that if we were going to do this, let’s try
and make it a big story and let me draw everybody.
When am I going to get to draw Rose Wilson again?
14) You’re going to hit me,
or do the verbal equivalent… If you could pull a Zero
Hour and eliminate one story that you've drawn or
written from your history so that everyone would have
to forget it was ever done, what would it be?
You mean my most embarrassing
moment? Oooh… this is a toss-up between X-Men:
Liberators and Team Titans…
<Hysterical
laughter> Sorry… go on…
It’s interesting though…
each one were huge failures for very specific reasons.
X-Men: Liberators I agreed to do verbally with
an editor as a 3-issue series starring the several
X-men characters. It was dropped for months and then
suddenly I was called up and told “We need the first
issue soon because it’s been solicited, and it’s
now a 4-issue series instead of 3.” So, I was in the
middle of JLA/Titans and I’m like “are you
serious?” I know I made this verbal commitment
to it, but there was no warning, no build up, and I
agreed to a 3-issue story and not a 4, so I ended up
doing layouts for the book and I had 3 inkers. And the
story just wasn’t very good. Here I am, I’m
working on JLA/Titans and it got to the point
where I had to crank the X-Men stuff out as fast as I
could. I was reduced to doing layouts on a story
that was being constantly edited all the way through,
so it was not the glorious thing that I wanted. So
much for my first X-Men gig.
And my Team Titans
story I’ve told a million times. Everyone knows it.
I was hired to be co-writer of Team Titans and
the story we pitched was very Grant Morrison, Doom
Patrol influenced. We were taking these
characters and making them this bizarre little group.
We did not want to do classic mainstream stuff at all.
There’s enough of that out there.
Let’s do something kind of
fun and kooky and self-referential, we thought, and
what we didn’t know was that the editor-in-chief
wanted a DC Comics version of X-Force. So from
beginning to end we were fighting constantly because
had they told us... The problem is that no one told us
what they wanted until it was too late. Halfway
though our run, which we had planned as this 5 year
multi-arc thing, my cowriter and I were told to wrap
it all up in 4 issues. Zero Hour was
coming and they figured out what they were going to do
with the Team Titans in Zero Hour, so we
were left, basically, with a story that was going to
take us 2 or 3 years to write that we were told to
wrap up in less than half a year. It was
terrible. I wasn’t speaking with my editor, I
just was so angry. I quit the art chores after 2
issues because it got so bad. And if they’d
have told us this we could have revamped everything,
but they let us proceed, let us get halfway through
and then said, “no, we want you to do a 180.”
Wow. So basically
bad communication channels…
No. Lies! It
wasn’t even bad communication because they weren’t
telling us because they wanted me on the book. I
was told this. They wanted me on the book and
they knew that I wanted to do the book a certain way
so the hope was to kind of…
Finagle?
…get me to get as much of
what I wanted in, try to get what they wanted…
hopefully transform it… it was so frustrating.
And, this is actually funny: my co-writer at the time
said “oh, we can do this. It’ll be great.
We’ll just give them what they want.” And I
kept saying I don’t think we should; it’s a bad
idea because we’re being compromised in such an
enormous way. And he told me recently that we should
not have done it because we were so compromised and to
this day we read bad reviews about it. What happened
was that we were compromised from the beginning.
And we were writing fill-ins at the end and our last
issue was significantly different because of Zero
Hour. It was all so ridiculous.
Had they just told us at the
beginning what they had wanted then we could have
given it to them, but they let us proceed without
being honest with us, so both of them are like blots
on my career. I would probably have to say that X-Men:
Liberators is a slightly larger one because it was
just egregious. At least in Team Titans there
are 2 or 3 issues that I can look back on and go
“the art was good on that,” and Bryan Hitch drew
one and everyone really liked the art on that issue,
there are a couple of really funny jokes in it… I
mean, X-Men: Liberators, there was just nothing
funny about it.
Oh, my. Would you play
with the characters that survived Zero Hour?
Would you bring back Mirage, for instance?
Geoff Johns is bringing back
Mirage.
Really?
Yeah, I think... well, I know
we talked about it. I really don’t have much
to say about Mirage. I want to work with characters I
think I still have something to say about, or on ones
writers can convince me there is something left to be
said about. If Mirage lived with her baby in
Rio, I think that would be fine. I’m not one
of these people who can’t let go, and I’m not one
of those people who feels that they need to have a
character around just because. If they don’t have a
function, if they don’t serve a story function, if
they don’t have a purpose, then they are just there
because we like them and they are familiar to us.
I find that problematic.
So, I’m not someone who
likes to bring characters back from the dead, or if I
do, I don’t leave them around. I usually bring
them back for a story function and then get rid of
them.
But in JLA/Titans
she showed up… well, everybody showed up!
Everyone showed up.
Honestly, that’s the only reason I did that book.
I said, if I can draw every Titan, then I’ll do it.
And…
…every Titan?
Yeah, every Titan. The
original story was much smaller and I said I really
wasn’t interested in doing a small-scale story.
George Pérez’ first Avengers issues had just
came out and all the Avengers had just been
assembled and so… I don’t remember if we were
plotting before that happened. I don’t think it was
an influence but more of a concern. I just
remember that if we were going to do this, let’s try
and make it a big story and let me draw everybody.
When am I going to get to draw Rose Wilson again?
15) As recent as this last
story-arc in Wonder Woman… I have to
ask this question because this drives me up the wall.
What story arc?
Let me just ask the
question, because you’ll know what story… Ok, what
is everyone else's obsession with Diana as Golem?
What is your take on the magical clay and will this be
canon?
I have no idea. I have
no idea what is people’s obsession with it. It
makes no sense. A lot of people have really
enjoyed that story, which I find really frustrating.
I think people have enjoyed it because it’s sort of
fun and simple and not like the past 2 years of Wonder
Woman which have been so depressing. Diana’s
been so whiney, and so unlikable that this Clayface
story is just sort of fun, a throwback to a day and an
age when comics weren’t all about epic stories of
life and death.
It’s just a fun story
focusing on Wonder Woman. But, I think it
inherently flawed because (a) I don’t think it works
(Sorry, Brian) because Wonder Woman is not made of
clay and I don’t know why nobody understands that.
She’s been flesh and blood since she was a little
baby. So, she was clay for about 2 seconds when she
was a kid, mom sculpted her out of clay, she was
infused with a soul, and she suddenly came to life as
a living, breathing person with a heart, veins, blood,
a brain, and… I really, really have no idea why
people are obsessed with this idea. It’s amazing in
this particular mythology what people latch on to. The
“made from clay” thing… a lot of people are
really in to that. I don’t know why. I
can’t give you a good answer. I’m less
fascinated by it. It’s like the same thing
that Clark Kent was this protoplasm before that thing
opened and suddenly, there’s little baby Kal-El.
I actually heard somebody
argue that “Well, I haven’t picked up a Wonder
Woman comic in years” and we’re talking about
years prior to Pérez…
Right.
…”and that’s the
Wonder Woman I remember. She was clay! She is a
golem.” Are you just saying that Pérez is the
starting point, like 1986, everything else I may play
with, but that’s not canon?
Well, with the Pérez
version… that was a two-fold question. Yes, so
the Pérez stuff is canon because that was the reboot.
If it wasn’t rebooted, I’d be playing with
everything, but it was, and in the same way that much
of Superman’s history was revised, that Batman’s
history was revised in 1986, so was Wonder Woman, so
that’s the history that I play with. It’s
frustrated me in recent years that people have this
insane desire -- I think out of nostalgia and a
desperate need for familiarity -- to bring back stuff
from 20, 30, 50 years ago. Somehow, there’s a
void. Obviously a Golden Age Wonder Woman,
obviously Hippolyta fills a need. A lot of
people think there should have been one and were
angered when she was removed from continuity. I
never really cared. But what I find interesting
is when I started reading DC comics in like the…
mid 80’s?…
Early 80’s, soon before Crisis,
like right around the Great Darkness Saga
[Legion of Super-Heroes –ed.] and the New Teen
Titans #12. I started reading comics around
then. I didn’t have a huge love affair with DC
Comics or its continuity before that. I
understood it, I got the Earth-1 / Earth-2 thing
really well; I thought that was really great.
When Crisis came and the world was
restructured, and histories were rebooted, I thought,
for me that was really exciting because it was a
chance to reinvigorate these characters and renew
them. And for me, a continuity hound, Wonder Woman’s
departure and Black Canary’s replacement in the JLA,
was fun, because, well, how does this story now work
with Black Canary in it?
I never cared that it
wasn’t Wonder Woman. I was more interested in
the making sense of a new history because that was
exciting to me. Because with that new history came all
of these wonderful new stories. But a lot of
people just couldn’t handle that. They felt
that there were certain things that just needed to be
there, things they’d invested in financially and
emotionally.
So anyway… when I got the
chance to write and draw Wonder Woman, I sat down, got
the entire collection, read it, re-read it, and made a
huge 74-page bible, all post-Crisis stuff, and
that’s what I’ve been using as my source book.
I have no interest in bringing back characters from
the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, unless they serve a story
function. I do have a surprise in an issue that should
make a lot of people happy, but it won’t be until
the end of my run. It’s sort of a throwback to
the old days, it’s kind of like a “wink, wink,
nudge, nudge.” But I think there is a lot of
richness in these 5 years of the Pérez books. But it
got really damaged along the way. In [William
Messner-]Loebs’ run, in the letter columns,
there’s this horrible, horrible stigma attached by
the editors who address the Pérez run… when you go
back and read, you can see that the editors were sick
and tired of being told, “well, Pérez wouldn’t
have done this. Pérez wouldn’t have done that.”
And they started doing things, you could tell, that Pérez
would never have done, i.e. Taco Whiz…
<hysterical
laughter> I wanted to ask what’s up with
Taco Whiz [Diana took a job at a fast food restaurant
called Taco Whiz. –ed.], but… you got it.
That’s it. It was basically
a slap in Wonder Woman’s face and I wish I could
understand the disdain for that Pérez stuff by
certain folks. I like the character, and that version
is one of the most focused runs of any material I’ve
read in years. Her character had a purpose and a
goal where story builds on story builds which builds
on story. And I don’t love every story, but I am
amazed at like the through-line from Pérez’ first
issue to War of the Gods. I can totally
see the transformation of the character and I don’t
think a lot of people give George credit for that.
Also, some bad artwork after George left the
pencilling chores in the middle of that couldn’t
have helped. The George Pérez stuff to me is
canon, but I am also not excluding the Loeb stuff, the
Byrne stuff, the Luke stuff. Whatever I find is
applicable that makes some sort of sense, I use.
Byrne introduced the idea that Paradise Island can
travel wherever it needs to, so I used that idea.
I mean it’s there, it’s been said. Artemis was the
second Wonder Woman, there’s all sorts of stuff
there to play with. Circe had a baby.
We’ll be seeing what happened to that baby.
Wonder Girl?
Which Wonder Girl?
Cassie?
Cassie… of Young
Justice. I think that Cassie has developed
into an interesting character…
Well, I think Peter David did
some amazing things with her in Young Justice,
so I take more of my cues from that than what actually
happened in Wonder Woman. I didn’t like
Wonder Girl until I started working with her and then
I kind of got into her head a little bit. I
started talking to other girls about her and I’ve
figured out a way of working with Cassie.
She’ll be fairly prominent in 3 of my 5 story arcs.
One of them is the Wonder Girl/Vanessa, Cassie/Vanessa
story where we’re also going to get a new villain in
that story. Peter David has basically written
her well: she’s smart, she’s going to become the
leader of Young Justice, she’s spoken on the White
House lawn to people.
I mean, she’s this 15
year-old girl who, as a superhero, she’s kick-butt;
as a teenage girl, she still gets shy around boys.
And once that was sort of explained to me, that was
kind of cool. I kind of want to tweak the
costume just a little bit to refine it for the
millennium. I like that she’s in street
clothes. I think that young girls that read the
book probably like that costume. I want to give
her a pierced eyebrow, but Eddie Berganza doesn’t
want me to. I want her to be like a skateboard girl.
Oh, totally…
I think she would be. The
other thing that Eddie and I talked about was how if
Artemis trained her, Artemis’ tribe of Amazons were
different from the Greek Amazons and they have
different methods of fighting, she probably taught her
weapons making. Cassie’s probably really good with a
gun, and is probably a sneaky, dirty fighter. So we
want to have a scene with Wonder Girl and Robin (I
hope this sees print, because we talked about this)
where she and Robin are sparring and Robin is playing
off of his Batman tricks and she’s playing off of
her Artemis tricks and they both find out that they
can be dirty fighters.
Interesting. Who
wins?
Oh, she does. I mean,
he can out think her. I think Robin is smarter
than she is, but he’s not faster than she is, and I
also think that in a small space she would smash him
to bits. I just think she would. I’m not
playing favorites, as I actually like Robin more than
I like Wonder Girl, but objectively, she has the power
of Zeus! I mean there goes poor little Robin and
I think she goes “Smash” and he’d be dead.
She has to meet up with
Mary Marvel at least once…
There’s a lot of demands to
see Mary Marvel. There’s only been one place
where I plan on using Mary…
A plan that nobody else
knew, so now I pulled that out of you. Let’s talk
about Mary Marvel…
Well, Mary is actually
(hopefully) going to be part of one of my story arcs,
I can only talk about this a little bit, but it
involves using the women of the DCU.
Ooooo…
It’s my final story arc,
actually, so I want to gather as many female
characters as I can, and I probably won’t go into to
much more than that except for to say that the story
is inspired by a story in the early 80’s run of
Wonder Woman. Gene Colon drew, Paul Levitz
plotted, and I think Roy Thomas dialoged it or
something like that…
So in other words, I know
which one it is, though…
It’s like 293 – 295?
Oh, God…
It’s the one with the
Adjudicator and I wanted to do a story like that where
Wonder Woman basically led a group of super heroines
in adventure and I figured out a way to do it that’s
not particularly hokey. At least I don’t think
it’s hokey.
Well, we’ll see…
Yeah, we’ll see.
Absolutely. So, Mary should be in there… the
thing is I don’t want to use any character where I
have to say to whoever is working with Mary “Oh, I
want Mary for this story. Give her to me.”
I want anyone to contribute who wants to contribute to
contribute. I want their ideas. I want their
feedback. All I want to do is make sure these
women come off as being strong, capable women.
16) Speaking of strong,
capable, powerful women… Hippolyta is now a fixture
in the JSA, or at least a reserve member.
She’s a fixture.
Yes, she is. Will we be
seeing any Golden Age tale of "Polly" (whoa,
you should have seen his face when I said “Polly”)
during your run? What do you think of Byrne
putting her in World War II?
We will not be seeing any
Golden Age adventures in Wonder Woman. I just don’t
have room, not that I’m not interested. I
don’t have space in my 12 issues to do a Golden Age
adventure…
What about a 13th?
Well, we have been talking
about doing a Hippolyta special or something like
that, so we’ll see. As I said, I never thought
that there needed to be a Golden Age Wonder Woman, but
now that there is it’s great as it gives Hippolyta
several new dimensions. When I actually sat down
and wrote that bible and I did her history and
incorporated as much of the Golden Age Wonder
Woman’s history, as I could. I adjusted it
appropriately. Her history took up like 5 pages of
text! It’s huge! And so it completely changed
her character in my head because I suddenly realized
she had all this history to draw from. And the
thing is, in my head I think she really likes being
Wonder Woman. I think she’s good at it.
I think she likes being in the JSA. I think
she’s ruled Themyscira for 3,000 years, got this
taste of what it was like to be a hero, to do
something other than nurturing her little nation of
3,000 Amazons.
And so I think that
transformed her. I actually kind of like her. It
took me a long time to admit that. It took me
about a year to adjust to her because I hadn’t done
that chronology and I didn’t understand her as
Wonder Woman. It was played so cavalierly, like “Oh,
I just went back in time for 8 years, and now I’m
back and things are great.” And I hated that.
(ding)
Yeah… But what I wanted to
know is what happened during those 8 years… how did
she change, and who became her friends… how did she
change the world. What I find fascinating is
that Hippolyta’s back in the 1940’s for 8 years.
What did she do that Diana has or has not to make the
world a better place? Were their missions the
same? Like, when she went back in time did she
just fight Nazis or was she promoting peace and
women’s rights as well? I mean, what did she do in
her down time? So, that’s why I think I had such a
hard time because her time there was so ill defined.
She barely knows English. Apparently she’s now
speaking it flawlessly, so she obviously learned some
languages while there. And I know fans really
like it. I’ve actually really grown to like
her a lot.
There are two things I keep
in mind with Hippolyta that will reflect in my run so
I have a big Hippolyta story. One is that
she’s Wonder Woman not because she won a contest,
but she’s paying penance for letting two women die
and I think a lot of people forget that. I kind
of want to play with that notion that, Artemis, who
was totally set up…
Oh, yeah, from the get
go…
…by this woman.
Artemis is probably not as fond of Hippolyta…
…oh, no
doubt…<laughter>
…and so there will be a
moment where Artemis really sort of has it out, not
necessarily literally, with Hippolyta. And in my first
issue, we actually see a touch of that in a scene
where Artemis stumbles into this huge trophy room that
Hippolyta’s Amazons have designed. And it has
all this stuff about Wonder Woman and her time, and
even a little alcove for Artemis, but only a little
alcove, and Artemis is just sort of standing there.
And she’s thinking “this is amazing, what
they’ve done is amazing, but everyone seems to
forget that Hippolyta was Wonder Woman because she set
me up to die.” And why is that? And it sort of
sets that question up to be explored later.
The other things with
Hippolyta… we’ll be talking about her leadership
and who has been leading the island while she’s been
off traipsing away with the JSA. When it comes right
down to it, Hippolyta does just about everything she
does because she loves her daughter more than life
itself and she will act even irresponsibly to protect
her. She’s a mother, and she loves her daughter, and
as much as she loves the adventure and the glory and
the new friends she’s made, she’s also doing all
she’s doing as a tribute to all her daughter did.
She could not have been Wonder Woman if not for her
daughter.
That’s an interesting
time travel play… she knows what Diana did and then
she’s going back into the past…
To make sure that Diana does
it. I actually love that loop because basically, Diana
had to be Wonder Woman for there to be a Hippolyta…
And I also have Diana Rockwell Carver in there,
basically because Hippolyta as Wonder Woman, she had
that invisible plane, she inspired Diana Rockwell’s
group, and Diana Rockwell landed on Paradise Island
and therefore sacrificed herself and became Diana’s
namesake, so there’s this sort of time loop.
Oh, that’s an
interesting way to tie that in!
Yeah, so you don’t lose
that element… you gain one, so Wonder Women all
basically inspire each other.
Wow… Ok…
17) I know that you've done
some work outside of comics, such as box art for
videogames and posters for some RPGs. What other
media do you plan on working in? Are multi-media
comics either on game systems or online the wave of
the future, and what is your take on it?
I don’t know if they are
the wave of the future, however… I’ve been
contacted; I have a contract I haven’t signed
yet…we’re negotiating it with an online group, an
online company that wants a series of webisodes, who
wants to take a property of mine and do, not
necessarily online comics, but an online serial.
I think it is foolish to ignore the power and the
inherent draw of seeing animated figures on a
computer. Like watching Wonder Woman move on screen in
a serialized adventure.
I somehow doubt that we will
see the end of comics within the next couple of years.
I think they are going to be around for at least
another half-decade or so. I think that the
readership that we have now is small, but vigorous.
I don’t think they are willing to let comics die
quite yet. I’m not saying that they are going
to be around forever. I think that the industry
is in trouble, obviously, but I also don’t think
that it is going to be gone tomorrow. And I do
believe that we are going to see a lot more online
comics, a lot more webisodes, a lot more interactive
adventures.
I think people just really
like interactive media, seeing characters move and
hearing them speak. They like choosing their
adventures.I know there’s Superman webisodes you can
like choose one or two paths depending on which part
of the adventure… like does Superman chase Lex
Luthor or the Parasite… I think people like that.
At the same time, I also think people like stories
just to be told to them and don’t want to have to
make those decisions. I think that people find,
much in the same way that people find in a movie, a
good movie, the process of having a good story told to
them, of being taken away by that story.
So, I think comics will
change. I think we’re going to see a lot more
trade paperbacks, I think we’re going to see a lot
more quarterly books… I don’t think that they are
going to be gone forever. I’ve gone to a
couple of conventions in the past couple of years
where numbers are up and younger people are there and
women are there. Believe it or not, I saw more women
at the San Diego convention than I have ever seen…
Excellent!
Yeah, it’s kind of amazing.
And these women are smart, they have great things to
say, who liked adventure comics, who liked serialized
action stories, but who also liked strong, sympathetic
characters. I can think of several women who I
spoke to who have nothing but interesting insight…
so, I think comics will be around for a couple more
years, but I think to deny the power and the draw of
the internet is foolish and shortsighted.
18)…we’ll get back to
some of this later, but let me ask you a very
important question… you weren’t always on this
coast…
Right.
You were on the other
coast for a little bit… the left coast… them
guys… What was it like working for WildStorm?
And will you consider doing more work for them after
your exclusive contract is up?
Well, technically because DC
owns WildStorm, I can do work for WildStorm.
Oh, interesting…
Yeah, I loved working for
WildStorm. John Layman, my editor on Planetary/Authority,
he was great, he was wonderful to work with, he always
provided me with work… he was fabulous. I
would love to have done that Apollo/Midnighter
one-shot.
Really?
I would have loved to have
done that… I mean, I’m actually sort of
bothered that they didn’t ask me, but…
Is this a pitch?
What? I think this is a
done deal. I don’t think I have any…
It was rescheduled…
Yeah, I know it was
rescheduled, but…
Oh, ok…
I couldn’t do it now anyway
if they wanted it… I couldn’t do it because I’m
just too busy, but…
I’d say shelve it and
wait until you’re done, but that’s me…
I mean I could ask, or do it
in little bits and pieces, but I think they’d want
something… but anyway, WildStorm is great. You
know actually, what I would like to have done is the
next League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
That was my big dream.
Oh my goodness…
Just to have done the second
one…
…with Alan Moore…
Would have loved it. I
would have given my left arm for that series.
Loved it.
Wasn’t it great?
Loved League of
Extraordinary Gentlemen. Loved it, loved it,
loved it.
Got that? He loved League
of Extraordinary Gentlemen in case you missed
that.
I’d totally work for
WildStorm again.
Ok, Alan Moore approaches
you tomorrow and says “I’ve got an ABC title…
want to work with me?”
I’m committed to Wonder
Woman for the year. It’ll all depend on…
…if he did that three
issue story arc at the end of your run?
What? (laughs) What do
you mean?
That last story arc…
“Alan, you do mine, I’ll do yours…”
Nononono…
No, that’s not it? ;)
I mean, I want to be able to
draw on schedule and I’m on schedule right now.
So I’d have to tell Alan, could you wait until next
Spring.
Oh, no, I meant after your
current commitments…
Oh, absolutely. I would
do it in a heartbeat.
Ok! Just checking, I mean,
whoa, hello…
Definitely. I just
can’t commit to anything huge right now because I
want to finish Wonder Woman.
19) Are there any lesbians on
Paradise Island? Some previous stories have
suggested this, including a Justice League tale
during the oh, so memorable Jones run.
Ah, well, I’m actually not
going to be referring to the Jones years, but I will
be referring to a couple of other things. In the
Pérez run it was established, very clearly during the
summit where man first came to Paradise Island, that
some women on the island do indeed sleep with each
other. I actually just got the go ahead to do a
story with Wonder Woman and Troia. It’s about a
civil war on Paradise Island and it’s a war between
the Greek and the Egyptian Amazons.
The story is framed by these
two lovers, one Themysciran (Greek) and one
Bana-Migdhall (Egyptian), who were established in a Wonder
Woman: Secret Files story that I did with Devin
Grayson, and they fall in love with each other and
they can’t be together because their two nations are
at war. So of course, Diana and Donna and Hippolyta
have to settle things, obviously so that… partially
that these two women can be together.
What’s kind of thrilling
about the story is that, believe it or not, this
sounds so clichéd and terrible, but it didn’t dawn
on me while I was writing it that I was writing a
specifically lesbian love affair…? I was far
more interested in the fact that there were these two
people from opposite sides of the tracks. And when it
really dawned on me... I mean, obviously I knew it,
but the point of it wasn’t simply that they were two
women. The point of the story was that we have
two warring cultures and how does this affect their
love affair. So that was kind of exciting. It just
kind of grew organically. I had no real agenda. And so
that the lesbian thing came in later, I was like,
“oh, that’s so cool!” Just one more layer to the
story. So, we’re going to be seeing some
lesbians on Paradise Island. And some straight
women, too. And some women that just don’t
even want to touch anyone.
No gay men?
There will be gay men… not
on Paradise Island.
Because they can’t be.
Well, I remember at least in pre-Crisis continuity…
Men have always been allowed
on Paradise Island.
Really?
That has been canon for like
14 years.
Yeah, you’re right.
My bad.
It’s really funny because
an editor just brought that up. He’s like
“well, man can’t go on the island.” And I was
like “they’ve been going on the island for like 15
years.” This is kind of a divergent thought,
but obviously, that memory is so entrenched in their
heads that 15 years later they still think things are
the same way they were in the 1970’s, 80’s… and
it’s not 2 years ago now, it’s 15 years ago and
I’m curious as to when that…
Well, you know, recently
in JLA: Created Equal when …
That was an Elseworlds.
...right, that was an
Elseworlds, fine, but they wrote it such that Superman
couldn’t touch Paradise Island and he floated above
it.
Who wrote that, I forgot.
[Fabian Nicieza –ed.]
Kevin Maguire did the art.
It was actually not bad, but it was kind of a little
smarmy there…
I though it was actually kind
of gross.
I mean, let’s be honest
(*cough* Super-sperm)…
Like the big canister at the
end I thought was a little nasty. And Phillipus
was white! Which was like horrifying.
Ahhh!
Like one of the only black
characters in the Wonder Woman universe and there she
is… white as snow.
I was just a little
freaked out that Superman and Power Girl had a kid.
Well, they’re not
cousins…
…I know they’re not
cousins anymore, but I don’t care what you say, but
they’re cousins. That’s a [insert state
here]…
Can I just say that Power
Girl is the one character, even if she’s 47, should
always call herself a girl?
Oh, no! <laughter>
There’s just something I
love about that. I hate the name Power Woman.
I don’t think it rings off the tongue as well as
Power Girl. But there’s also something I find kind
of great about this really assertive, obnoxious, and
bitchy woman who calls herself girl… who has no
problems with it.
I think it’s funny, too,
but unfortunately, some people who are trying to be
faux-hip might would like try and change it to Grrrl…Kill
it.
No, she’s Power Girl.
She’ll be Power Girl when she’s 57.
Ok, that’s the hook.
(To waitron: Hey, how about that water?) Yeah, Phil
Jimenez here, parched…
Yes.
We’re here at the Cedar
Tavern, which is an excellent place. Jackson
Pollock got drunk here, but Phil’s drinking water,
and apparently they don’t bring water unless you
have something else in it… here we go…
20) This would be the 20th
question in theory. We’re just going to call
this “A conversation with Phil Jimenez” because
that’s just how it is. But I’m still going
to ask this, because I want to, because I really was
touched when I heard this… You’re the stuff of
convention legends. First, the "hijo"
story from George Pérez, and more recently, this tale
that just blew me away... I have been told that you
asked a father of a young girl at the San Diego con if
he felt that the content of your Wonder Woman would be
appropriate for his little girl and, rumor has it, you
gave her the issue.
Yeah.
First, is this true,
(obviously it is) and are you concerned with
broadening the fan base of your book for the next
generation reader? How do you think this can be
achieved?
Ahhh… that’s a good
question. I gave that man… actually, let me
backtrack. When I was on a subway, I happened to look
down at a group of little girls and at that moment I
realized that my Wonder Woman might be a little too
intense for them. I don’t mean violent or…
it’s just that the themes I’m dealing with are
really intense and I just thought, “would a little 8
year old girl be into this? Would she want to be
into this? Is this a Wonder Woman that I would
want to give her?” And then I started
thinking, “is the Wonder Woman that I want to give
an 8 year old girl the same Wonder Woman I want to
give a 17 year old girl?” Then I thought
“mmm, probably not.”
So, at this convention, I
talked to a father and his young daughter. I
asked the dad if he would go though my first issue and
see if there was anything objectionable and he looked
through it and a couple of things I thought he might
find problematic he didn’t. And he said “No, I
actually think that this is ok.” And then he asked
his daughter to look at it, and she did… and we were
both fascinated because she didn’t care about any of
the scary stuff. She just liked looking at the
pictures of Wonder Woman. She was very excited
about her. She didn’t care much about anything
else going on around her. So that sort of informed my
decision. And I thought I can’t write a comic
that’s going to be for everyone necessarily and
I’m not sure I want to in terms of… I don’t want
to write a book for 8 year olds, but I want to write a
book that an 8 year old can look through and go
“look at the pretty pictures.”
So, I was a teenager when I
started reading comics. The kinds of comics I
tend to write are for me back when I was 15, 16, 17…
and those are the people that are my target audience,
because I think that if you write comics with certain
sort of stories at a great time in their life then
they’ll be open to them, and can serve various
functions. They can be the friends that they don’t
have in the real world; they can provide a fantasy
world; they stimulate imagination; they give artists
something to look at and sort of be inspired by.
So, my hope is that in doing Wonder Woman we can
promote it in certain venues. I’ve done
certain magazines, magazine articles; I’m doing
online interviews like for web sites like Slush
Factory. My hope is that a broad variety of people
will read that and maybe pick the book up and slowly
but surely get new people in.
I’m not sure I could have
ever expanded the fan base enormously. I think
comics are sort of hard to find and I think even
people that are interested in them, if they have to
look too hard, they’re not going to struggle.
But my hope is to promote this stuff the next few
months and say that, you know, it’s successful to a
lot of people. I’ve talked to a lot of women
about what they’d like to see in the book so I’m
hoping to make a book that’s reader-friendly towards
young girls and young women. I guess the bottom
line is that you have to make good books with pretty
art and good solid stories and one way or another
they’ll find themselves into hands of people that
want to read them. With of course, a little
help.
Right.
Does that answer the
question?
I think that does, but by
the same token, I’m curious… would you consider,
or … is the third person a woman? The third
writer… I mean it seems like a woman would naturally
be someone who would be able to plot a woman’s book.
I may be wrong…
Whoa! You mean my third
person… I thought you meant in the third person…
No, not in the third
person… no no no no… I mean the third person in
your run… not necessarily in your run, but what do
you think of the possibility of having a woman writing
Wonder Woman? Is that not a natural
marriage?
I don’t know, actually…
it really all depends. Some women that I’ve
asked to help me sort of don’t want to do it because
it’s sort of Wonder Woman being the iconic female
character, they don’t want to feel that they were
chosen simply because they were women…
Oh, yeah…
And which I find fascinating.
I’m shocked by that.
Well, I would hope that
you wanted Midnighter and Apollo because you have an
interesting story to tell. Not because…
No, I wanted them because
they were gay.
Oh, ok, you wanted them…
I wanted to, because
they’re like the first two sort of major out gay
characters and I wanted to do a book with gorgeous gay
men, basically. I don’t like either of those
characters particularly much. I would like to
have drawn that because I also think that a book like
that which focuses on two gay characters, I just have
a sensibility that, necessarily, a straight person
wouldn’t. And it’s a pretty balanced one and
to some degree, ego, but I’m not “hyper-gay”…
No, you’re not.
My whole life is not about
being gay, and yet at the same time, I’m very gay
and I think I could kind of bring a happy marriage of
that sensibility to that book. And do like all
the hardcore action stuff, but I’d bring a certain
“knowing” to those characters that a straight
person might not be able to. Like I’ve said,
the couple of women that I’ve asked to help don’t
want to do it for the very reason that they are women
and didn’t want to be associated with that book
simply because they were women. So, I thought that was
sort of fascinating. And then the one other woman that
I could think of I just don’t think that I would ask
because our sensibilities are so askew that…
Creative differences…
…yeah. I chose
people… I had to judge it going into this. I
already had the stories. What I needed was
someone who could dialog with me and co-plot with me.
Why is that? Why
can’t it be a Phil Jimenez written/drawn/whole
shebang?
Well, part of it was
commercial. With the Batman crossover, Denny
O’Neil pretty much insisted that I needed
“help”… it was basically an edict. Ok, fine…
and quite frankly, J.M. DeMatteis has a sort of voice
that will lend itself perfectly to the project.
For the other projects, I wanted people that were
either familiar with the characters or were commercial
names because Wonder Woman sales are so low right now
that anything to resuscitate that I think is good.
So, a Batman crossover, which I wanted to do anyway…
Right.
But a Batman crossover is
smart because you get some Batman fans into it…
That was originally
supposed to be the No Man’s Land thing,
right?
Yeah, it had to be revised.
And it revised actually pretty well. It would
have worked better in No Man’s Land, but
it’s still works fine. Joe Kelly and Marc
DeMatteis are also Superman writers, and Wonder Woman
and Superman do a lot of crossover in the year. And
it’s great to have an extra writer there, it’s
great to have an extra voice, an extra person to say
this doesn’t make sense, the extra person to say
“well, what about this?” And for that first
half-year it’s just a nice, commercial way to bring
in potentially a few thousand more readers who might
not have read it if it was just me, but if it’s
“oh! Joe Kelly!”
"Oh, well, I like Joe
Kelly…"
Yeah, so let’s see what he
has to say, or Marc DeMatteis “oh, he’s great!
Let’s see what he has to say…” and I tried to
pick crossovers the first year that would interest
people; the Batman/Wonder Woman one would interest
Batman fans, the Wonder Woman/Troia one Titans fans
would read, the Wonder Woman/Superman/Lois Lane one
Superman fans would read. Hopefully, the Wonder
Woman/Wondergirl story Young Justice fans will read.
The idea was to pick, and actually it wasn’t as
deliberate as it sounds because these are stories that
I wanted to tell. It sort of worked out. And then,
with the women in the DCU, hopefully we can get
readers of all sorts who are interested in seeing
their supporting characters in the story who might now
go “oh, look Power Girl is in the story. Oh!
Dr. Light!” oh, Vixen even. Whoever is
available…
But not Crimson Fox.
Crimson Fox is dead.
All of her…
Every one of her.
Every one with or without
a French accent is a dead Fox. I want you to
know that Phil is actually putting his hand over his
face. He cannot believe that I mentioned Crimson Fox.
I can’t believe that I know
that both of them are dead.
That’s a great thing,
actually. However, he brought up Dr. Light and
he brought up the memory.
Well, I’m thinking of the
Dr. Light…
Kimi…
Yeah, but not the horrible
character that was assassinated in Justice League,
but like the…
Oh, the bitchy, just come
out of Pérez like…
Yeah… like she was amazing.
I loved her. Then she got the yellow suit and she was
terrible.
I’m sorry, but not only
did I love that one, but I loved her during the first
year of the Giffen/DeMatteis run…
In the Justice League.
She was like “What am I
doing here?”
“I don’t want to be in
the League!”
“Screw you.”
She was fabulous. That
will be kind of great.
So anyway, hopefully, we can
do a bunch of series that will get new readers and
enough promotion in other media to get a few new
people to stay.
Is there any way you can
get DC to do an MTV ad or anything? I’m sorry,
but most ads seem to be in-house. How can you
expand the reader base if you’re only advertising
within comics?
I… I don’t know. It’s a
question I have… the problem is that even if you
advertise you have to make the material available.
I can’t answer that because I’m not in marketing
and I’m not in distribution. I have my
feelings about it, but ultimately it’s their choice
to make. They will either be smart enough to
cross-promote in other media, or they won’t.
And if they don’t, then I have to figure out ways to
get the word out myself… interviews like this and
other venues, and hopefully, like the name brand alone
will be enough to get a few new people. The
X-men movie has kind of helped, too, because it has
put the idea of comic books back in people’s heads.
Hopefully, and I don’t think they are, but hopefully
comic book companies will be smart enough in the next
few months to take advantage of that interest before
it dwindles and do something about it. One other
thing, and I don’t know if you know this, but you
might, but one area where DC is doing really well is
in trade paperback sales. They are like
skyrocketing. You put this stuff in bookstores
and eat it up.
It’s amazing; because
here is the outlet where you really should be having
your comic books… it’s not that there aren’t
people who are hungry for it… sorry, rant…
(It’s called a conversation now, not just 20
Questions…) but when I walked into a Waldenbooks, my
first comic book was an Atari Force…
Yeah.
It was José Luis García-López,
because my dad had an Atari computer, we played
videogames, there it was, pretty art… then, “oh,
what’s that? Looks kind of similar…”
It’s got the Flash on it. The final fate of…
Crisis? I didn’t know José Luis García-López
from George Pérez anyway, but I knew that they look
kind of similar and that they both had pretty art…
Right.
And with all the
editor’s notes, they wound up getting me to buy
every comic in town! I’m not surprised that people
are buying things up in Waldenbooks and B. Dalton or
Barnes and Nobles because that’s the natural outlet.
The other thing to consider
are trade paperbacks. I had a friend in marketing who
we were discussing this with, and trade paperbacks are
easier for people to read than comics because it is a
self-contained story and it’s all there. There
aren’t like 5 or 6 books that you have to find out
there, sort out, put them in order and read them, keep
track of, but a single volume.
My friend in marketing was
saying how reading habits have changed and how that
should be taken into account while producing comic
nooks because people have more outlets to buy a
complete work because its just easier. They can
read it on the subway. When I talked with a guy
in my gym, he had a Batman trade paperback and I asked
him if he read comics and he said yeah, but he
doesn’t buy the comic books, he waits for them to be
collected. So, it’s just an interesting insight and
its why we're told to make stories that can be turned
into trade paperbacks because they can be reprinted
later. They can be printed cheaply over the
course of a couple months and then collected…
…nicely…
…nicely and
inexpensively… they have the material that they can
reprint in the store… basically, they don’t have
to commit to like a 96-page graphic novel. They
can see how it sells and then put it together.
So it’s sort of like the
serialized fiction is the test market.
Yes, exactly.
That really hurts because
some of the best pieces of work are comic books that
weren’t successful on their initial run, but then
become mega-popular after they are dead… we’ll
have to reference a previous interview with JH
Williams III…
When they did Chase…
Chase.
It’s going nuts. It’s going gangbusters.
People are trying to find it at conventions.
Yeah.
I asked him about a trade
paperback and he said he’s going to push for one.
We can hope.
Well you know, it’s
interesting, they try to do trade paperbacks that they
can sell with something, that they can market in some
way, although I have this feeling that they are going
to get around to reprinting everything at some point
just because. They have this enormous wealth of
material that they can repackage, so it wouldn’t
surprise me to see if they start putting out these
huge volumes… I mean they already have a backlist of
like hundreds of titles, so… I suspect actually that
should be thousands, which is another reason I don’t
think comics will die, but just transform.
That’s the trick.
Did you read my article on
the gayleague website?
I haven’t been to that
website in a while.
Ok, well, I wrote about
how what comics really need is exposure…
Sure…
And why not take the 4
Superman titles that connect and make one story and
turn it into a magazine. Take that magazine and
throw in ads from everywhere else and get it on the
newsstands. Now, I mean in magazine format…
…because… well, I have my
opinions and theories about this, but it has to do
with a marketing plan, it has to do with Warner Bros.
and how they affect us, and it’s a lot of
political/economics stuff that I’m sort of aware of
it, for instance, just because I have friends who deal
with it. But a lot of these questions have been
asked and I know their answers may not make any of us
happy, but it’s not as if they haven’t been
considered. It’s that the conclusions that
these people come to are for whatever reasons are
different.
You should remind them
that I work for the NYU Economics department… but go
ahead. ;)
I’m just saying… I’m
not saying necessarily that they’re right, either.
I’m not saying that their plans are sound, but they
have them. I’m not in any position to make any sort
of drastic changes. I just have to sit back and
watch and kind of plot quietly with friends and high
ups in the company and see what we can do to get the
word out there.
Are we any further along
in the possibility of a Wonder Woman movie?
I don’t know. I have
no idea. I think Joel Silver still has the
rights to it. I suspect with the X-men movie doing
relatively well, that various superhero movies will be
green lighted. But I know that the script is being
written by the guy that wrote “Minority Report.”
Jon Cohen… he wrote “Minority Report” for Steve
Spielberg and Tom Cruise. So I know the type of
script and I’ve talked to a couple of Hollywood
insiders, and Jon’s fine.
Ok, this sounds ok so far,
but I always fear the butchery of Diana…
…in the biggest, hugest
way, yeah.
Ok, fun question… why
not? The 70’s TV series… what’s your
favorite Diana change? Like when she does her
(imitating sound made when Diana Prince changes into
Wonder Woman on the TV show)…
Favorite change? You mean
like which suit she changes into?
Oh, absolutely.
Well, the diving suit is
always fabulous. When you see her in her
motorcycle and her skate gear, that’s always great,
too. My favorite, though, is in the early
“40’s” episodes when she would spin and change
and then check to make sure that the tiara and belt
were in place. Is it all there…? Like
somehow in the transition something might not have
shown up? So that was always my favorite.
Anything where she had to wear a variation on the
diving suit was always great.
Phil, thank you very much.
You’re welcomed.
I would like to take more
of your time on this but…
…you and I have to go home.
We both have to go home,
and to be quite honest, if I don’t let you go home,
we don’t get another issue of Wonder Woman.
Ah, there you go.
And I will not be the man
responsible for that, so thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for letting us
turn your brain to Slush. Yes, unfortunately…
Phil just let out a laugh... we absolutely have to
say this at the end of every interview.
Really?
Well, Brian says so.
That’s very funny. That’s
actually very, very funny.
We were going to actually
get you a “slushie”, but they don’t make any
here. They don’t make frozen drinks.
I can’t have one right now
anyway, so it’s ok.
Thank you, Phil.
You’re welcome!
Shazam.
Thank you Phil Jimenez for allowing us this amazing
interview. Slush and our readers appreciate it
greatly. And thank you Ed Mathews for conducting the
interview and transcribing it. That took effort.
Kudos to everyone.
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