Immoderate Quantities of Caffeine and Other Keys to Devin
Grayson�s Success By Tim O'Shea Print This Item
Devin Grayson is a writer who broke
into the industry in 1997 and quickly established a reputation in
the DC Bat-family of books. In addition, she has also scripted
Black Widow and Ghost Rider miniseries for Marvel, as
well as USER for Vertigo and Relative Heroes (a
creator-owned miniseries for DC). Currently writing Nightwing
for DC Comics, Grayson took some time (after wrapping up revisions
on an upcoming Smallville novel) to discuss a range of
topics.
Tim O�Shea: The use of Maxine Michaels, the
journalist character (in Nightwing) seems to have a dual
purpose�stir up trouble for Dick, but also you seem to be making a
commentary on the quality/sensationalism of journalism in general.
Am I correct in this latter observation?
Devin
Grayson: I love Maxine. The impetus for her was actually those
great Redgrave (Max)/Cruise (Ethan) scenes in Mission: Impossible
(M:I) where there's this incredibly competent, ridiculously
good-looking young guy who ends up in a sort of flirtatious
relationship with a very polished, accomplished, dangerous and
somewhat smitten older woman. As Dick and Maxine's story progressed,
though, there was so much going on in Dick's life that I never
really got in anything like that M:I car scene where they're in some
bizarre situation but sort of flirting their way through it - Dick's
just been having too hard a time of it lately to be in one of his
more playful moods.
So then yes, Maxine's proximity to him
did sort of become a threat, and this very particular threat of
invasive sensationalized reporting. I don't want to suggest that
Maxine isn't a good journalist, though - she's one of the best. Look
what her instincts are leading her towards here. Really, if I were
to make a comment about journalism today, I think the piece that
troubles me more than the sensationalism is the complacency. Our
media is being used much like a propaganda tool, and in the greater
story structure of Nightwing, Maxine is really a catalyst who ends
up being used in a similar way. She's the nexus point of information
- not in an active Oracle sense, but in a more passive, receiving
way, she's the one who ends up with all the personal stories that,
if tied together, could give one of the characters a startling
glimpse into a much larger picture.
TO: What
qualities do you appreciate most about new artist Patrick Zircher's
approach toward Nightwing?
DG: I have been
tremendously fortunate with artists during my career. Having Rick
Leonardi on Nightwing initially was just amazing; I really loved
what he was doing and respect his work tremendously. When we lost
him to Batgirl, we really had to think carefully about whom we
wanted to bring in next. Those were big shoes to fill.
I had
worked with Patrick before on a few fill-ins and he's basically got
everything you could ask for. His story telling is vivid and clean,
his characters are very expressive, which has always been important
to me, he loves working on detailed backgrounds, and he's got a very
exciting, lucid, cinematic style. That was why I was excited about
him coming on to the book.
But then it just got even better
because, on top of all that, Patrick began to express a tremendous
amount of passion for the characters. We talked a lot about who
everybody was, especially Dick, and discovered that we felt strongly
about a lot of the same qualities that we wanted to make sure to be
emphasizing. I've come to realize that that is maybe the most
powerful advantage a collaboration can have - when two or more
people are bringing their individual talents to the table to try to
achieve the same goals, an energy is created that begins to take
both people's work to a new level. Editor Michael Wright, Patrick,
and I, in listing our favorite things about Nightwing invariably hit
the same points. As an editor, Michael isn't at all afraid to deal
with long-term plans -- in fact he encourages them. So suddenly I've
got this editor saying, "hey, take as long as you need to make these
things happen, let's really do the story arcs right here," and an
artist who looks at every single story beat and says, "got it, I
know exactly what you're going for there, let's do it." That kind of
patience is actually quite rare in this industry, and with Patrick
the simpatico enthusiasm ranges from the very broad, conceptual
ideas we share about Dick's physicality and loyalty all the way down
to the smallest details on his new motorcycle.
Actually,
Patrick's design for that bike was when I really knew we had
something special starting. Michael was just laughing at us, we were
trading spec ideas on this fictional two-wheeler with the fervor of
Ducati engineers. We were INTO it, and it's not even like I've got
particularly huge plans for it, we just wanted him to have his own
bike. I felt like we were creating a special gift for the character,
and I sensed that Patrick felt the same way. There's something a
little crazy about that, but it's crazy in the same way that the
fans are crazy - we all just love this character and want his life
to be rich and involving.
TO: By taking Dick off the
cop beat, how will this free you to use the character and his "free
time" differently?
DG: Losing the cop job is actually
a real blow to him. He's very unhappy about it. It was Chuck's idea
to put Dick in that uniform and I think it was a brilliant idea -
that really meant something to the character and let us learn some
new things about him. He's sort of an adrenaline junkie, and having
the ability to do "heroing" 24/7 was both very rewarding and very
dangerous for him. So now in the stories we're at the point where
he's mourning the loss of that. That job was an unexpected gift, and
now that it's gone, he has to look at the fact that there's a hole
in his life he needs to fill. As long as he had that job, he didn't
have to think about anything, he didn't have the time. But now he's
alone with his own head all day, and he's realizing that he's on a
kind of auto-pilot with Bl�dhaven - will he be content to just keep
doing that work and protecting that city, or will he want to find a
way to reach out for more and continue growing?
TO:
Given that the new Tarantula is on the wrong side of the law, any
chance we'll get to see John Law's (the original Tarantula) reaction
to events unfolding in Nightwing?
DG: John Law does a
play a part, yes, but it actually kind of works the other way
around. Catalina doesn't think of herself as a bad guy and it's not
until John Law ends up in the crossfire of something else she's
doing that she's forced to take a look at her allegiances and what
she's creating with this Tarantula legacy she pretty much stole from
him.
TO: Where do things stand with Matador,
your Wildstorm/Homage project with Brian
Stelfreeze?
DG: Stelfreeze called me last week and, as
I understand it, he's starting the first (of six) books right now.
I'm not sure what kind of production schedule he's set up for
himself in terms of a time-line, but I know he's into this project
and I can't wait to finally start seeing his pages. This is a story
that he initially came to me with and I fleshed out with him, so
it's always been something he genuinely wants to do, the delay was
just a matter of clearing time in his schedule to do it. Sounds like
the time is now, which is such a relief. I'm burning to see these
pages from him. I love working with this man and again, similarly to
what I was saying about Zircher, Stelfreeze and I are obsessed with
a lot of the same kind of thematic material.
We were talking
about the characters in Matador the other day and both
acknowledged that they'd absolutely taken on a life of their own.
They stopped by in Brian's head first, he told me what he knew about
them, I sat with them for a few weeks and laid out a trajectory for
them to move across, and then that was the last bit of control
either of us felt like we had over them, they were just off and
running. I'm just happy that they're haunting him now instead of me.
The scripts are in; the rest is in his more than capable
hands.
TO: You're wrapping up work
on a Smallville novel (which will be out in March 2004,
called City.
You've written one Batman novel, as well as a scholastic
book. How much fun is it to be able to expand on characterization
and plot in novels? On the other hand, are there times you write a
scene for a novel and wish the reader could see the action
visualized in the sequential art platform?
DG: I went
into these prose-writing assignments a little cocky, actually, and
man have I been humbled. All my background and academic training is
in prose, and in general, it's a medium I'm much more comfortable
with than comics, which continue to be a learning experience for me.
The first cold bucket of reality dumped over my head was the
deadlines - literally ONE MONTH for the 300 pages Batman novel
(though in that scenario I did have a co-writer who had already
written the plot, which is based off a video game he did), and two
for City, the Smallville book.
Scott Peterson wrote
to me in the middle of my work on Smallville and asked
whether I thought comics or prose were easier to write, and I said
prose, with the caveat that, thanks to the artist, a medium to bad
comic script can still come out looking better than a medium to bad
novel. But in terms of structure and pairing things down and
thinking visually and creating an illusion of change in a serialized
but static medium - I just honestly think that when done well, a
comic script is really frickin' hard work, whereas with a novel you
just, you know, start writing and keep writing. One idea gets you
through three hundred pages (unlike in comics, where you're
constantly worrying about what's next), and you have as much space
as you need to set things up and resolve them.
Two weeks
into the Smallville revisions, I wrote him back and said I
must have been on crack when I wrote that first email. The thing
about novel writing is that you're all alone out there. For a comic,
you visualize what you want to have happen and you write it down
well enough that, you know, some insanely talented artist somewhere
will understand what you're going for. You can even write, "What I'm
going for is...." and he can even call you if he still doesn't
understand. And sure, there's tricky stuff like how to express the
themes visually and how to keep the dialog genuine and yet succinct,
but EFFIN' HELL! You don't have to stop after every sentence
wondering whether you explained it clearly or beautifully or
meaningfully enough. You don't have to worry about grammar (unless
you're using third person captions, the only part of your writing
that will actually show up in the comic verbatim is dialog, which
can always be colloquial). You can explain something four times if
that's what it takes to get the point of across, and even refer to
work other people have done if it helps (it's fine to tell an artist
that Lex gives that cool, enigmatic smirk that Michael Rosenbaum has
endearingly trademarked on the show, for example, but you can't
exactly write that in a book! "Lex looks Clark up and down and
smiles that way he did in the red kryptonite episode," doesn't wash
in a novel).
There is just NOTHING to hide behind in prose.
It's the difference between having your buddy ask the girl you like
if she's seeing anyone (comics) and being all alone with her in a
room for over four hours, during which time she will speak not word
one (novels).
But I love it, I absolutely love it. Having
just completed those two books back to back, I'm kind of a nervous
wreck and I'll admit that significant deterioration in health,
tears, and dangerously immoderate quantities of caffeine were
involved. But being immersed in something like that is the ultimate
rush; you're really living in that world until the book is done. I
never, ever want to do that again and I absolutely can't wait for my
next novel assignment!
TO: Can you provide any details
on the Joker graphic novel you're doing with John
Bolton?
DG: I think that one's coming out in November
as well, right? Switch is a strange little tale about�well,
about the Joker, and in that sense it's difficult to say with any
precision exactly what it's about it, since it has to move sort of
fluidly with him. But I'll go out on a limb and say it's about
identity.
As with Matador and Stelfreeze,
Switch was born in Bolton's head and was an idea he brought
to me, asking if I could noodle around with it and coax it into a
full grown story. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I felt tremendously
honored to be able to do that for him, partly because I respect and
love his work so much, and partly because along with Sean Phillips,
he'd done the same thing for me with USER, which was deeply
personal to me and just amazing to see it brought to life so
magnificently.
The idea was not to reinvent the Joker - I
don't think there's anything wrong with the Joker and I have no
interest in "putting my stamp on him" or doing anything other than
crafting a story that takes us a little further into his
oh-so-intriguingly-dangerous head. Structurally the story is
actually pretty simple - you don't want to start getting tricky on
the Joker, he's going to do that for you. I worked hard to let him
express himself in terms of words and actions, and John created
these fantastic, disturbing, captivating images of him and Batman.
The artwork in Switch is absolutely amazing. I haven't seen it in
color yet, but both John and editor Michael Wright assure me that
it's even more incredible. Honestly, I think that's all you need to
know.
TO: Given that you describe yourself as "botany-obsessed",
are you partial to a character like Poison Ivy?
DG:
Yeah, definitely. I love the idea of having a character that can
think like a plant. Flora conducts itself very differently than we
do, and when I was as young as six I told my dad that I thought
plants were actually a lot smarter and further evolved than we were.
The next day he showed me a picture of deforestation in progress and
I cried (I didn't say "stronger" or "more obnoxious," after all),
but I'm still very intrigued with the plant kingdom and what that
might mean in terms of an anthropomorphic archetype, which is
something Poison Ivy could definitely be.
The tricky thing
for me about Poison Ivy, though, is that to take her in that
direction right now would mean stripping her of a lot of traits
other writers have set up. She's usually portrayed as more of a
femme fatale who just happens to be able to use botany as a
defensive (or occasionally offensive) tool, but she doesn't often
behave like or exhibit the motivations of a plant. It's sort of like
the main story problem they were confronting in the movie Adaptation
- plants are fascinating, but they're not terribly active. They
don't tend to propel a plot forward in terms of human drama. They're
actually quite aggressive with one another, but rarely aggressive
with humans unless you're taking the weeds in your yard very
personally. And as far as Ivy goes, that's totally fine, I love it
when characters are fleshed out and made to be very human, but it is
different than where I'd want to take her, which would be more into
the territory of something like Michael Pollan's wonderful book, The
Botany of Desire. Which actually gives me a good idea - hold
on, I'm calling my editor now. ;-)
TO: Do you think a
bisexual brings a unique area of experience and knowledge when
writing romantic scenes? Or does a person's sexual orientation have
no bearing on one's writing ability/area of knowledge?
DG: I think the coolest
thing about writing is that everything you are and everything you
know is brought to bear. Even your mood when you sit down to write
is relevant. I feel very strongly that any writer of any sexual
orientation should be able to write about any character of any
sexual orientation (the same thing being true for race, gender,
creed, economic status, etc - if you can't put yourself in other
people's shoes you aren't going to be able to write believably,
that's pretty much the name of the game), but I also believe that
who a writer is in his or her day-to-day life and how he or she
moves through the world will flavor and influence his or her work.
There's just no way around that, and indeed, that's as it should be.
On the one hand, you could say that I'm at an advantage,
because I have first-hand personal knowledge of what it feels like
to be in love with both men and women. But on the other hand, I've
only been in love with a few specific men and women, and only as
myself (um�for the sake of argument), so I really don't know any
more or any less than anyone else. The most important thing is to be
open to and aware of other realities. It's fun when a writer
populates a world with a cast full of interchangeable alter-egos who
all talk pretty much the same way and believe the same things and
move around their environment in some distinctive, evocative way -
we may like hanging out there, listening to the fast-talk and the
swearing and the insults and being part of that unique world for a
little while - but it's even more exciting when every single
character is unique and full in their own right, and half of them
say things we can totally relate to while the other half constantly
surprise and challenge us. As a bisexual, I've been forced to
acknowledge that there's more than one way to do things, more than
one viewpoint out there. I have always been a nonconformist
surrounded by other nonconformists in a nonconformist environment. I
can't help but get it that people want and need and believe and
strive for different things. But unfortunately, I think that's
something that a lot of people in general, let alone writers
specifically, aren't in touch with. And that's the problem. It's got
nothing to do with who you do or don't tend to fall in love with,
and everything to do with your capacity to hold that other people
may do things differently.
We've been in a place in
mainstream superhero comics for a while now where we've moved away
from the broadly defined good versus evil prototypes and are
interested in creating and exploring more individuality and
diversity, but unfortunately there's still a tendency on the part of
the big publishers to filter everything through one or a couple
people (which of course will homogenize everything and everybody)
and a more understandable tendency on the part of the creators,
myself included, not to venture too far afield with previously
established characters, who usually make up the majority of our
casts.
A final comment on the sexuality issue: I find it
interesting that some of the best homoerotic material came from men
who I don't think any of us believe were intentionally framing
things that way. If anything, it was their very unconsciousness
about sexual diversity that led them to set up some situations that
we look back on later with chuckles and slow shakes of our head. As
often as not, the answer to "What were you thinking!?" is "Oh, uh, I
wasn't�" I am actively trying to incorporate a broader range of
sexual choices, behavior, and inclinations into my work, but
honestly, I don't see how I could do better than some of what's
already, albeit completely accidentally, there. ;-)
TO: Are there other Grayson projects on the horizon
that folks should seek out in 2003 or 2004?
DG: I'm
hoping to do more work for licensed publishing (the department in
charge of novelizations) and there are definitely a few projects on
the burners, but of course nothing I can talk about yet. I'm just
pleased that 2004 will finally vindicate me - al lot of what's
coming out then is work I completed a while ago, so I'll finally be
able to prove that I wasn't just blowing my friends off to play SIMS
for the last few months.
From now to the end of 2004 should
see the release of those novels we've been talking about, the
Scholastic children's story, Switch, Matador, and a
nice pile of new Nightwings. I think there are mumblings
about a Bat-event next year, which I would certainly want to
participate in, and my DC exclusive expires before the close of this
year, which may bring up some new opportunities. I do have some
shorter projects I'm working on now as well that may make it out
before the close of 2004, but it's always hard to say. If you want
good artists, sometimes you have to wait.
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