From The Library: Mark Waid

Posted by ElizabethGenco on Thursday, March 22 2007 at 1:28 pm

Chances are good that if you know from comics at all, you know who Mark Waid is… and you don’t need no stinkin’ three-sentence introduction. If you don’t know who Mark is, here are the most salient points for the purpose of this interview:

• He has written every current major superhero, at one point or another
• He has written well over 500 comics
• He is a mad-crazy-good writer
• He is incredibly generous with his expertise

I first met Mark at a time when I didn’t know what the fudge I was doing, storytelling-wise. I mean, not at all. And then he got all up in my head and taught me a bunch of stuff. And then I pondered, and then I wrote, and now things are a little easier. And when I get stuck, I reach for the Waid comics.

The points on writing that Mark mentions below are exactly what I harp on, when I’m in a harpin’ kind of mood, and that’s no accident. But! I know that folks are (rightly!) more inclined to take this stuff from a guy who has written over 500 comics than little ‘ol me. So here we go.

Help me out, here, dude… once again, I’m losing track of all your projects. What’s currently on the plate? There’s 52, which is almost done, THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD, which I am incredibly psyched for (must get to Midtown), and then there’s the JOHN DOE thing for BOOM!, an idea you told me about ages ago and I’ve always loved… what am I missing?

52 is done, thank God, at least on the scripting end. Not that Grant, Geoff, Greg and I don’t have a collective sense of pride in having produced a 1000+ page graphic novel, but as I’ve said before, collaborating with another writer doesn’t halve your share of the work (nor quarter it, in this case). I’m exhausted. But there are things about 52 I really like a lot. I do regret that it’s largely inaccessible to new readers…a fight I lost with the company way early on, before the first issue was complete, so it’s not like I can hand the trades to, say, my uncle and expect him to get it…but I try to look at it philosophically: the money we made doing it (and we were reasonably well-paid) gives me a chance to do less work in ’07 and, hopefully, do it better and re-learn my craft.

THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD is also out there, and that’s fun, but on a plotting and structural level, it’s more ambitious than anything else I’ve ever tried, and as we get into the back half of the first arc, it’s creating a lot of sleepless nights.

Wow. You’re far and away one of the best plotters out there, so that’s really saying something.

That’s very kind. Thank you. Fortunately, there’s always Peyer to kibbitz with. Part of my ongoing problem, too, is that I get bored easily. The greater the gap between my coming up with a plot point and the time it’s actually written, the more likely I am to dismiss it just because it seems old to me.

One of the unique challenges of writing super-hero stories and adding heroes to the tale as you go is that once you write them into the plot, it’s virtually impossible to write them out again. In a fictional world of your own creation, you can create characters for specific tasks and move them a bit more like chess pieces if they’re so designed, or kill ‘em off, or put ‘em in the hospital, but super-heroes, by definition (unless they’re Captain America), don’t run away from a fight. All that’s to say that the nightmare of Brave and Bold is that once I’ve decided to throw in, say, Hawkman into the plot for an issue, I can’t kill him off or cripple him (not in a shared universe) and I can’t just sent him off on “another, more important case” (because that undercuts the importance of the story I’M writing)…so as I trundle towards the climax in issue six (originally issue five, but it just grew and grew), I’m having to juggle a billion characters, a half-billion villains, not one but two Maguffins… and I have no idea what my ending is. I did know starting out, but (a) things change, and (b) I originally plotted this thing eighteen months ago, and now I’m either eighteen months smarter or eighteen months more burnt out or both. Let’s hope for the former. I will say this, though; more than anything else I’ve done in comics in years, writing this series gives me the chance that I’ve wanted, since I was six, to simply play with my favorite toys and show you repeatedly why I think they’re cool.

JOHN DOE, the mini about the private investigator who is compelled to ascribe names to each and every one of the anonymous graves in Potter’s Field on Hart Island, will eventually end up with a slight title change to distance it from a foreign property of which I’ve since become aware, but it’s done and is, hopefully, this year’s EMPIRE for me — a dark, creepy noir thing far afield from traditional super-hero material. Its three issues were also an experiment in structure for me, and I’m really pleased with the way it worked out. I can’t say more about that without blowing the plot, but I’m happy that what seems to be two separate stories (issue one and issues two-three) are, in fact, not at all.

Outside of that, there’s some animation work and some screenplay stuff, but, really, I’m just ready for a long winter’s nap.

What’s on your pull list these days?

I’ve never understood how it is that a guy who drops, easily, a hundred bucks a week at his local shop never has an answer for this question. I’ll try. I finally read PERSEOPOLIS and was brutally affected by its emotion. I seize on anything by Chris Ware, Dan Clowes or Grant Morrison because they’re all actively expanding the vocabulary of the medium with storytelling flourishes that they’re inventing on the spot.

I kept meaning to tell you, and I kept forgetting, how much I freekin’ loved SUPERMAN RETURNS. What’d you think?

I loved it beyond all reason. Yes, it’s a flawed film, and yes, it was a little too reverential to the past for today’s audience, but I DON’T CARE. I was invited to the premiere here in Hollywood, and I gotta say, for a guy whose career for all intents and purposes began the day he saw SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE, being a guest to RETURNS brought with it a huge, HUGE sense of personal and professional validation that I can never properly describe.

I could nitpick the film as thoroughly as anyone else, but why bother? If the internet has taught us anything, it’s that there’s always plenty enough hate to go around even without us joining in. No, I loved it. Routh was perfect, the stunts were astounding, I loved the stuff with the kid (wearing Aquaman pajamas…heh). I could watch him save that plane every single day for the rest of my life. In fact, I had a giant fistful of free passes to the movie from various DVD purchases and Warner pals, so at least a dozen times over the summer, whenever I’d find myself walking past a theater on some other errand, I’d pop in just to see him save the plane, then leave and go about my business. It took me a while to put my finger on exactly why that specific scene moved me so greatly, moreso than anything I’ve seen on screen in 25 years, and in retrospect it’s obvious. I explode with emotion not when Superman shows up, not when he catches the plane, not when he sees Lois again…but when he steps back out onto the ballfield and the ENTIRE WORLD ERUPTS IN JOY. THAT’s the part that brings me to tears. THAT’S the moment when the child in me finally, finally feels heard when he tells people, “I want you to love Superman as much as I do.”

I’m cheating a little because I put this one to Gail [Simone] already. What’s the one thing you would change about the comics industry if you could?

Really? Six chambers and you’re giving me only one bullet? Where’s the sport in that?

God, where to start? I’d improve the level of craft. I’d take every writer and artist who thinks he or she can communicate with the audience BUT IS DELUDED and I’d lock them in a library full of TERRY AND THE PIRATES and PEANUTS and Lee/Kirby FANTASTIC FOUR and WATCHMEN and Garth Ennis scripts and Carmine Infantino and Dick Sprang and Mike Wieringo art and not let them out until they learned something about how to craft a fuckin’ page. Which segues us nicely into the next question…

Indeed. Call me self-indulgent, but I’m opening the floodgates. :)

What are the key elements of good comics writing, in your opinion?

As you are well aware, I can do eight hours on this without pausing for breath, so since I presume you’ll want these interview answers sometime in our lifetime, I’ll limit myself to the key elements that first come to mind. I’m sure there are others, but at this exact second, this is what’s on my brain:

1. Clarity. Which often gets bad-repped as “simplicity,” and that’s not at ALL what I mean. Comics don’t have to be for kids, they don’t have to be for boobs, and some can be written for a very sophisticated audience, if that’s the writer’s intent. I’m not saying every comic has to be MARMADUKE. There’s no reason a comic can’t be as profound and as layered as any great novel, and we’re getting closer every day to seeing a perfect exemplar. But too many authors throw obstacles in the readers’ way just to show their peers that they’re kewl and edgy writers. I’ll go to my grave insisting that audiences love to be intrigued but they hate to be confused, and the great writers are the ones who know exactly where that dividing line is. For Christ’s sake, introduce your characters as if we’ve never met them before–that’s what you’d do in any other medium. Define their goals and their obstacles (which don’t have to be obvious, but they do have to be on some level understandable to readers if you want them to invest). Baffle me, but first establish that I can trust you not to simply leave me hanging.

2. Brevity. This is specific to comics regardless of genre. Tarantino can afford to open a hundred-minute movie with five minutes of gangsters arguing about something that has nothing to do with plot or theme. That’s because five minutes is one-twentieth of a hundred. You do that in a comic, you’ll have eaten up about a fourth of your page count. Five pages of a comic-opening wasted on cool, punchy dialogue about Everclear or YouTube that doesn’t MOVE THE FUCKIN’ PLOT ALONG is indulgent crap, period, end of tough-love lesson.

3. Movement. This is specific to super-hero comics. Never forget that these are stories about CHARACTERS IN MOTION. Even non-costumed characters should be MOVING. Their scenes should be full of interesting, character-revelatory stage business. Standing around doing nothing, having a conversation that’s not even framed in a novel way by your artist, is death. Four pages of medium shots of two guys in business suits having a conversation in a generic office? I can get that on TV for free. Take every opportunity to make every scene visually interesting. Go overboard if you have to err; trust me, your artist will just turn it into a six-panel grid, anyway.

You hit on everything I knew you’d say, but one: investment of self.

D’oh. Well, yeah, of course. Let’s assume I left that one off the list out of forgetfulness, not because I’ve abandoned it as a technique — which I haven’t. Investment of self is HUGE, and I’d rather read a flawed piece of work where the writer is speaking to me, however obliquely, than a technically spectacular story that is, ultimately, without insight. There was a time when I’d drop anything I was doing to read whatever Alan Moore story I could get ahold of, but (while he’s still the best writer this medium’s ever seen) these days, I’m not as manic about them. I no longer perceive any new truth to his recent work–just gobs and gobs of style. And his storytelling tricks and gimmicks are always fresh and clever and worth studying… but I really get the sense, not so much with Lost Girls but certainly with his ABC stuff, that he’s bored. Or, more charitably, that his cynicism accompanying how badly he feels he’s been treated by American comics has affected his work. So, these days, give me some Greg Rucka or Brian Vaughan instead; there’s more voltage.

But, yeah, investment of self. Make me feel something when you write. Connect me with the emotions surrounding the character. Don’t be afraid of sentimentality or rage or joy or darkness. Just bleed it out onto the page. Think the characters through and be prepared to live in their skin. They’re your story’s real source of conflict, not the meteor that just fell into Times Square or the coming alien invasion or the Mind-Swapping Ray . Share your feelings, not the ones you copied from last night’s episode of Gray’s Anatomy. Hone your craft, but be an artist.

Bought anything cool on eBay lately? :)

Even now, I have one ear cocked listening for the UPS truck that will bring me my life-sized fan-made Hawkman helmet. Which I promise not to actually wear around the house. Well, maybe once.

What would you like to do in comics that you haven’t yet done?

Within the medium? Dunno. Bad time to ask. I’m so very, very tired.

Within the industry? Find a way to teach.

Category: From the Library

• Add this post to
• Del.icio.us -
• Digg

Post a comment

Name (required)

E-mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

XHTML: You may use the following tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>