Especially in the digital age, people want everything now, now, now.
Mark Waid
We want the reading experience of digital comics to be as simple as tapping a tablet or an arrow key or mouse button to move forward or back.
All of us who grew up reading comics love the memory of sitting under an apple tree with a comic book in one hand and a peanut butter sandwich in the other; the tactile sensation of the paper on the skin and so forth is part of the experience.
When I was a kid, what captivated me about detective fiction were the puzzles more than the detectives or their enemies. And as I've gotten older, I see a lot of merit in setting your investigative sights higher than figuring out how someone stole Encyclopedia Brown's bicycle.
The problem with most digital comics is that you're simply taking print material and adapting it. It's like reading through a cardboard tube.
We're brought up to believe in a fairytale-romance sort of way that true love is out there and true loves don't care about what you look like and stuff, just what's down inside. And that's probably true, but what's also true, sadly, is that true loves are very rare and very hard to find.
Heroism is heroism, regardless of the timeframe or the backdrop.
I genuinely enjoy the puzzle put before me with a crossover - how do I use this bigger piece of the Marvel Universe to tell a character-based tale I wouldn't normally think to tell?
I think there are things that digital can't do as well as print thus far. Even an iPad is only 80% the size of a standard comics page, so the images are going to be smaller. You don't get your big, whopping two-page spreads.
When you're a kid, regardless of the age you grew up, everything is high opera. With hormones raging, you have to fight external and internal battles that you've never had to deal with before. Unlike Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, who have seen it all and been through it all, everything heightens the drama.
If you're ruling the world, you can't trust anybody. Because even those who profess to be working in your interest - those are also villains in and of their own right.
I broke into comics by working as a press reporter for the industry, for a trade press in comics, and reporting on events and reporting on books and so forth, and I got to know some of the editors at DC Comics in the mid-'80s.
I do believe that any sort of electromagnetic energy that can be measured beyond the moment of death is, by the definition of energy, eternal. But I cop to the fact that calling it a 'soul' and presuming it sustains our consciousness in any form is, to put it kindly, a leap.
What I've found over the years working on various projects is, you can have a clever book or clever tagline, but there has to be a story to go along with it that leads to something bigger. Something with a little more texture to it.
I think comics are really - superhero comics are at their best and most primal when they're about joy and flying, and about escaping the gravity of the world. But, at the same time, that's not to say all stories should be happy.
The fun of writing established characters is that there's a rich mythology to draw from - you get to play with toys you loved as a kid.
The nice thing about working with BOOM! on 'Irredeemable' and 'Incorruptible,' man, was they let me have my head. No one said boo about anything.
Jan. 26, 1979, was the most important day of my life. Because that's the day that I saw 'Superman: The Movie.' I came out of it knowing that no matter what the rest of my life was going to be like, it had to involve Superman somehow.
I do like Hank Pym.
Know what your characters want, know what they need most, know what they fear most, and don't be fearful of facing it, no matter how unpleasant it may be.
Captain America is an interesting character because it makes you ask those questions in yourself as a writer. What do we want as a nation, what do we mean as a nation, what is our role in the world as a nation? What are our strengths and weaknesses as a country?
I'm a big fan of when you model a character as someone with a biological origin, doing deep dives and a lot of research.
Flash is about freedom; Flash is about expression. Flash is about just the joy of exuberant running and of freedom, and the moment you weight him down with too much Batman-like baggage... that's not the Flash anymore.
I'm a great salesman when I believe in a product that somebody else is producing, but I always feel very awkward and clumsy asking for money for my work.
Dialogue is one of the easiest ways to get character conflict across immediately in comics.
You don't want to hit readers over the head like they're completely incapable of picking up on subtlety.
Find me anybody in comics who has a longer history of yanking defeat from the jaws of victory than Bruce Banner.
There's a reason Archie didn't go the way of Betty Boop or Davy Crockett or Woody Woodpecker, forgotten relics of a bygone era, and it's because when 'Archie' stories are at their best, anyone of any age can see a little bit of themselves in them.
There is a reductive nature to the Internet, and it's not limited to comic book news sites and stuff: it's everybody. There is a reductive nature of it, by which anything that's said very quickly gets reduced down to the next. Reduced, reduced, reduced to the point where rumors with some sense of nuance to them just become fact.
The beauty of Captain America is that you didn't have to come from a distant planet, like Superman, or he didn't have to be born into a family of billionaires like Bruce Wayne. He happened to be in the right place at the right time, and someone gave him a magic potion, and he grew muscles and became a superhero.
I just love rolling up my sleeves and doing research, and I especially love doing research on the origins of folklore and the origins of mythology.
Indestructible does not mean utterly invincible.
Years ago, I was asked to come up to do a store signing in Vermont. The short version is the two younger guys who own the store pick me up at the airport and start driving me around Vermont, showing me the sights and the textile mills and the restaurants, and the punchline is there's no store. There is no store!
I like being able to have a conversation. I like being able to do a vocal interview.
Anyone can write a detective story about a detective who fails, for Pete's sake. That's pretty unambitious.
I love what Max Landis is doing with 'Superman: American Alien.' That's a really good book.
A superhero is someone who, at some point or in some way, inspires hope or is the enemy of cynicism.
I was the last guy I imagined anyone would ever associate with 'Daredevil,' but once I gave the character some thought, much like with the 'Fantastic Four,' I found my hooks and, I think, some angles on the series that have never been explored.
The first rule of new media is nobody gets rich, but everybody gets paid, in a perfect world. Maybe you don't get fabulously wealthy doing your webcomic, but as long as you can make a decent living.
What's interesting is that younger characters just have a more vibrant, exciting point of view on the world. They are more emotional, they are more dramatic, and they are just electric.
I love the challenge of taking established, iconic comics characters and showing readers why they remain contemporary.
Juggling a huge cast is a bear.
I got taught a lot of great lessons by superhero comics as a kid about virtue and self-sacrifice and responsibility. And those were an important part of imprinting my DNA with ethical and moral values.
I'm a big veteran of being able to, in one comic, explain to you everything that you need to know to get forward in the story without you having to refer back to years of continuity and a universe in these superhero comics.
If you go back and look at the first issue of 'Indestructible Hulk,' if you have a sharp eye, you'll catch something that I totally forgot to put in there. In my horror, I only realized after the fact that I took totally for granted that everyone in the world knows what triggers the transformation.
Serial fiction is a conceit of comic books and soap operas. As one goes, so goes the other in terms of public consciousness.
I'm a big believer that if you buy a comic, you ought to own it.
I'm not a big fan of the George Lucas school of meddling and tinkering. That's a slippery slope.
When I first did 'Empire,' it was a severe break from everything I'd written up to that point, which is all very continuity-driven, super-heroic, and ethics and morals-infused. 'Empire' was a chance to break away from that.
I respect people of faith, but I'm not one.
