Nearly twelve (!) years ago, while I was promoting my first-ever published comic book, Footprints, my hometown paper did a story about me and my work.
I was 26 and didn’t know shit about shit (as it stands at nearly 38, I only know a little bit of shit about shit), but it’s always nice when your hometown gives you some recognition. Anyway, in that story I’m quoted as saying “I don’t need to write Batman—I just love comics as a storytelling medium.”
Reading between the lines, of course I didn’t ~*need*~ to write Batman… but I wanted to. Desperately. Of course I did! Who wouldn’t?
Even though I was green and just starting to embark on a career in making comics, I knew enough to know that one key element to surviving in this industry, from a mental health perspective, is having your expectations in the right place.
Nobody is going to show up at your doorstep because you’ve decided to make a comic book and be like, “Hey kid! We heard you put together one book that ~100 people read! Wanna write Batman?!” So I was just being realistic, tempering expectations. But inside? Of course that was always one of the goal posts I wanted to reach.
Cut to this month, and my biggest DC Comics story to date is finally out in the world. It’s a four-part arc kicking off in Batman: Urban Legends #20 called “The Murder Club,” a story that will see the wonderful Urban Legends series through to its conclusion with issue #23.
Though I certainly hope there will be more DC work to come, I approached “The Murder Club” like this was going to be the one and only time I’d be able to tell a multi-part Batman story.
I wanted to hit the emotional beats that interest me the most about Batman and the Bat-fam. I wanted to dive into a little bit of obscure DC Universe lore and forgotten characters and dust them off.
Because if you don’t write every single story like it’s going to be your last, the one that’s mentioned in your obituary when you die, what is even the point?
I don’t mean that in an egotistical way, either. I don’t mean that it’s going to be the greatest thing anyone will ever read or even the greatest story I will ever write—certainly I hope that the next thing replaces “The Murder Club” in my obituary and so on.
I just mean that it’s the most interesting story I could muster, pushing the characters in a way I would enjoy as a reader, while working within the parameters of the assignment (four issues, 22 pages pages each, an evergreen Batman story). A piece of work I can look back on and know I did my best with the skills I have.
“The Murder Club” is a personal story for Bruce (read Part 1 to see why!) and I’ve been accused of being too sentimental in my writing many times, but what can I say? We take in stories because we want to feel something, so why would you even want to write superhero comics if not to be a shepherd of the characters you grew up loving and put them through some emotional shit?
I love Batman. The pride I feel in having contributed to his mythology in any small way, however in-or-out of continuity it might ultimately be, is immeasurable.
The same is true of other characters I’ve had the pleasure of encountering during my couple of writing gigs at DC—Catwoman, Robin, Aquaman, Mera, Plastic Man, Penguin, Two-Face.
The DC Universe has given me so much comfort and joy as a reader, a filter through which I was able to better understand the world and be a better person, that I don’t take the responsibility lightly.
What some see as disposable entertainment I see as gospel. These characters and stories are modern myth, full stop.
You can call them corporate characters or IP or a brand or whatever, and sure, that’s true. But that doesn’t change their permanence or influence in the fabric of pop culture. The same is true of anything, whether it’s Star Wars or Pride and Prejudice or Animorphs.
Stories are stories and they are good if they mean something to you, regardless of who legally owns them. Only you own their meaning to you. And for me, these characters mean the world.
So writing them, though my experience is very limited, has been the honor of my career. Not a single time that I sat down to work did I not get immense pleasure from typing “BATMAN:” followed by some words I was putting into his mouth. I hope this is true of every writer at any level, because if you’re not enjoying yourself, why bother?
It is a strange thing to make comic books and there’s nothing as satisfying—at least nothing that I’ve found—as reading the finished product you and your collaborators poured everything you had into.
Whether it’s Batman or Bigfoot solving crimes with the Jersey Devil, it takes so many personalities and talents coming together, finding a way for their vastly different languages sing in harmony in order to make a good comic book, that it’s hard not to revel in its glory when you’re finally holding it in your hand.
We’ve all heard Jack Kirby’s “comics will break your heart” quote, and we all know that the industry and its treatment of the people in it isn’t always great. It’s a hard road.
But nobody would be on this road if it wasn’t for the love of the medium. Tastes change and creators fall in and out of favor. Editors leave companies and freelancer networks go up in flames.
Thinking you’re immune to this is a fool’s errand. All we can do is appreciate the ride while we’re on it and do the best work we can before it’s over. If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll get asked to do more.
But if this is all she wrote, at least I can say I did the best work I could and hopefully, the people who read it could tell that I care deeply about the same characters they do.