[dramatic music] ♪ [dramatic music continues] ♪ [dramatic music continues] ♪ [dramatic music continues] - Hello and welcome to "Comic Culture."

I'm Terence Dollard, a professor in the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

My guest today is writer Annie Nocenti.

Annie, welcome to "Comic Culture."

- Hi.

I am very happy to be here.

Hello out there.

- So, Annie, we were talking before we started that you have a lot of deadlines coming up.

And there's a big announcement that's just been made that you're going to be writing a Captain Marvel series over at Marvel.

So when you are kind of coming up with an idea, is it something where you're coming up with a story idea and Marvel's asking you for it?

Or are they saying, "Annie, we'd really love to have you write the character"?

- I think what happened there was the, I have a lot of respect for Kelly Sue DeConnick.

And to put that into context, when I started writing comics in the '80s, there weren't a lot of female writers.

There were a bunch of us.

There was Louise Simonson, Jo Duffy.

Of course, you know, some old timers like Marie Severin and of course Trina Robbins.

But I think it was sort of rare enough that women were writing superheroes.

There were a lot of women working in the underground, but for a woman to be writing a superhero, it's almost like we tried to write like, "The Boys" like I wrote "Punisher" and "Wolverine" and "Daredevil."

And when I took on a, if you wanna say, anything feminist about comics, it would be more that, you know, I created a character called Typhoid Mary that was, it was sort of a direct, confused answer to why are the females in comics?

Like, Sue Storm famously, as part of the Fantastic Four, was literally her power was to be invisible.

Which, you know, to me sounds like kind of a metaphor, a hindsight metaphor.

Like, why did they give the woman the power to be invisible, you know?

And then over the years you had the Bechdel test, and you had like, you know, basically, if you could replace this female character with a lamp shade, then what is she doing in the story?

And then Gail Simone famously used the word "refrigerator," like, refrigerating.

So when Kelly Sue DeConnick started writing Captain Marvel, and she really like, transformed the character into a superhero that young girls loved and women loved.

And that had been happening, of course, a bit during my time, most famously with Louise Simonson creating the Power Pack, which was sort of a way to say, you know, it's like, it isn't superheroes, it doesn't have to be all big guys bashing, and it can be little guys bashing.

[laughs] And she created this thing called the Carol Corps, which embraced all the female who wanted to be Captain Marvel.

And it was so inspirational to me to see what Kelly Sue DeConnick was doing.

You know, it's hard to recall 30 years ago.

I don't remember me and Louise ever sitting there going, "Gee, I wonder if we should, you know, create a female superhero, you know?"

And so then that would literally tell stories women wanted to read.

Because back then you'd go to a Comic-Con, and it would be a lot of guys.

A lot of guys were reading comics.

And sometimes you'd meet a few females that were reading comics, but it was mostly guys.

And so that was very impressive to me, what Kelly Sue had done.

And I remember I left comics for much of the '90s and the aughts to go do film and journalism and all kinds of other stuff.

And when I came back into the industry and went to, I think it was Seattle, Emerald City Con in 2012, I'm gonna guess, maybe a little early, and I remember this is half women.

This is like, since I left the business and came back, all these women came in.

And so for me that was like, inspirational.

So when Sarah, who is the editor, called me and said, do you wanna do what they call like a bridge comic, meaning Kelly Thompson is leaving the book, and there's a new writer coming.

Can you do five issues, you know, while we wait for the real new writer to get their stuff together?

You know, their stories together.

And I think it was because of Kelly Sue that I got very excited about that idea.

And then Sarah sent me a bunch of Kelly Thompson's stories, and I discovered that I did not know Carol Danvers.

I mean, she is so much fun to write because she's irreverent, and she's sassy, and she's not serious.

And so it was a blast to just leap in there.

Kelly Thompson's stories were hilarious.

And I just went, "Oh my God, yes.

I want to be part of that."

So from the view from a comic book writer is at first you're very intimidated.

You're like, "How can I step in these big, big, big shoes?"

And then you say, "Well, write whatever's on your mind that you feel like talking about."

And I wrote about exactly what was on my mind that I felt like talking about, and I wrote this sort of space epic.

But I found out that Carol Danvers' origin story, she lives in Maine.

And I spend a lot of time in Maine with fishermen and, you know, lobstermen and clam diggers.

And it is such a hard life.

And it's so cold up there most of the year that I thought, "Oh, now I really get Carol Danvers.

She's from Maine, you know?"

[laughs] Maine women are tough.

So I think what you do is you start folding things from your life into, because it's like, it's like anything.

If you're gonna do a standup comedy routine, the more honest you are, the better the routine.

Like, if you just start telling jokes and trying to make people laugh, people are gonna laugh, but they're all just gonna go, "What's under here?"

You know, so I think with comics you try to take whatever is real to you.

Like, "The Seeds," which is behind me, David Aja and I, we were both kind of obsessed with how we're killing the planet, like the world is.

But I also really didn't wanna do a dystopia.

I didn't wanna say, "Yes, there's not much time left, and we're killing the planet, and we're all gonna die."

I wanted it to be more like, well, if patches of the globe start dying, there's a chance we're gonna get together, and we're gonna like, become more nomadic.

We're gonna start moving.

You know we're gonna start becoming a nomadic herding culture, whatever.

So I wanted it to be a future that's bad, but not like, we'll all get together and get along like a Hallmark card.

But like, you know, maybe this lady that's a beekeeper meets up with this person that, you know, has like a bead on what the animals on the planet are thinking.

And you kind of get together, and you start like, sheep dogging and herding humanity someplace better.

And then the artist, of course, David Aja is a master.

I don't know if anyone of your viewers have read "The Seeds."

But I learned a lot working with David just in terms of how he does the nine-panel grid, and how he knows exactly where your eye is gonna go, and how the center panel is the power panel, and everything evolves from there.

So your language of comics keeps going up with each artist you're working with.

Paolo Villaneli, I hope I said his name right, is the artist for Captain Marvel.

It's like there's a tenderness that he brings, even to sort of like the fight scenes.

And it's like that tenderness and violence wrapped together and the speed at which he...

I don't know.

It's just, I learn from every artist.

And I think a lot of times when you interview writers, we often, because we're like, you know, out of it or in our heads, we forget to talk about how much it's a conversation.

And you're having a conversation with an artist.

And every panel the artist sends you gives you a piece of information about what that artist is obsessed with and what they wanna draw.

And then you, your very next scene adapts to that so that there's this constant evolution of how the story is being told and built.

- It's interesting because this conversation you talk about is something that I've heard from both writers and artists, how they sort of forge that relationship in collaboration.

And I know you've had the opportunity to work with some absolute legends, like Arthur Adams or John Romita Junior.

So when you are looking back at maybe some of the older projects that you were working on and some of the projects you're working on in contemporary times, do you see that, you know, the art helps you, the changes in the art style help you maybe scratch a new itch?

Or is it something where you just kind of evolve along with the industry, and as the artists that you may have worked with in the past aren't available, you're working with these newer folks, that you just kind of find a an easy way to connect?

- Things have changed mostly through technology.

So John Romita and I were, you know, we were right in the office and banging out an issue together.

That doesn't happen as often anymore because now, instead of a Marvel bullpen where we're all like, together and coming in and out of the city, and Johnny Romita Junior and I can literally walk out into New York and be where "Hell's Kitchen" is while we're writing "Daredevil" and come up with stories and look around us.

Now you might be working with an artist that lives, you know, in Brazil or in Spain or in, you know, wherever.

And sometimes there's a language barrier.

And so you're working through agents and translators.

And so something is lost in terms of just being able to bang out ideas with an artist.

So you have to make sure your scripts are very, very precise and full scripted, like, no room for, because there's gonna be stuff lost in translation.

It's like when you were a kid, and you played that game Telephone.

And, you know, whatever you say to your editor then goes to the agent, then goes to the artist, and then by the time it comes back in a drawing there's a few things that have been lost.

So that's not happening right now with Captain Marvel because Paolo Villaneli, is, you know, bilingual, and I think he lives in Italy.

But like, through email, we're just like, banging through everything.

But you still miss that, let's sit down for a beer and figure out whether we should turn the universe inside out and whether or not a wormhole can be stretched into my teacup.

You know, like, things that are like, "Space Odysseys" plus Godard, you know, concepts that are like, pretty impossible to do without a verbal conversation, you have to like kind of hold back from that kind of stuff.

- Now, without the bullpen, with the technology, you were saying that Johnny Romita had an idea about what if, you know, Matt Murdock has a beer with the devil, and you turned it into this story.

And are you able to do that sort of collaboration, you know, in this new environment, or are you really having to deliver everything complete?

- Well, I guess that was the, Johnny said what about, 'cause we were talking about Daredevil wears a devil suit.

Daredevil has three main contradictions.

I'm a lawyer.

You know, I'll try and do this through the courts.

If I don't do it through the courts, here's my fists.

I'm a lapsed Catholic.

My mother, I forget the new history, but I guess my mother was a nun, maybe.

[laughs] But I wear a devil suit.

And so we were talking, me and Johnny were talking, and I think Johnny said, "What if the devil had a conversation with God?"

and that became "A Beer With The Devil," which took place in a bar in New York City.

The bar that was right downstairs where I lived, so I could go down there and eavesdrop.

And Johnny gave me ideas.

I guess you'd say it had a documentarian feel to it because you were right in New York, you were with the artist, you could go to a bar, you could come up with a story idea right in the place.

And so like I was saying, the beauty of of technology is that you can bring an artist from all around the world.

They all work, or a lot of them work digitally now.

So you can make universal changes.

Like, well, instead of having the costume be this color, let's make it this color.

And it's much easier for an artist to do corrections.

Back in those days, you know, you had to actually redraw it, which involved Wite-Out and, you know, a lot of like, hell for the artist to have to do.

Now, if you're working digitally, you just fix it, you know?

So I think it's good and bad.

There are good and bad things about it all, but I definitely miss the in-real-life, collaborative nature of comics, which I guess I could fix by just making a comic with someone in New York.

[laughs] - It's getting harder and harder to find folks in New York.

I understand John Romita actually left the Fair State and went elsewhere.

So when you are coming up with a concept, I know that you worked for a number of years as an editor at Marvel.

And I'm wondering, working with a writer like, let's say, Chris Claremont, how that helps inform you as a writer, not necessarily for ideas, but maybe just in terms of how to communicate with the artist, or how to maybe have that peak moment that, you know, the audience will really react to.

- Well, I think Jim Shooter, who was the editor-in-chief back then, used to call us the in-betweeners.

You know, he used to say, "You're in between every phase."

And artists will sometimes, I mean, a writer will sometimes come in your office with like, a vague idea.

Like, I mean, Chris was so easy to work with because Chris is a fountain of ideas.

It's just like, Chris would come in.

I mean, sometimes a writer would come in and say, "I'm lost.

I don't know what to do with this character next."

And then you'd have one of those like, you sort of like, ground conversations, where you'd be like, "Well, who is this character?

Where could they go next?

What should we do with them?"

You know, and then you get seminal storylines out of that.

Like, you know, at some point, like, when Denny O'Neil decided to have Ironman deal with his alcoholism, you know, because Denny O'Neill drank.

You know, so like, you always wanna look to the character and say, "What gets to the root of this character?"

And for Tony Stark, I think it was not just being, you know, half man, you know, having metal and flesh mixed, but I think it was also that he was this cavalier, snappy guy, you know, and his drinking was tied into who he was.

And so Denny tied it into himself and then tied it into an amazing storyline.

As an editor, like Jim Shooter used to say, the in-betweeners, you look at every stage.

The writer's idea.

Then, you know, developing the script.

With Chris, it would literally be, he has a billion ideas.

Which one is the best one?

Like, he was just really easy to work with because he's endlessly creative.

Thinking of those times 'cause Mark Basso, another great Marvel editor, asked me if I would do a Storm series set during her punk years.

And I think Louise Simonson was the editor of the book, and I was like her assistant.

And then at that point, I forget like, when I took over the books as editor and when I was the assistant.

But, you know, and I was like, "Wow."

So they sent me some of Chris's early stories that I think I was maybe the editor on.

But that was 30 years ago, so I didn't really remember them.

And I was yet against sort of like, so impressed with Chris's ability for powerful, dramatic moments.

Like, there is a moment when Storm comes back with her mohawk and her leathers, and Kitty Pryde just is like, "How could you do this to me?"

Because she's 13 years old, and her best friend and mother figure has just radically altered her look.

Gone from regal, calm, serene Storm to like punk rocker, biker chick with a mohawk.

So like, the whole, I'm doing a five-issue Storm series for Mark Basso's office, and he's another great editor to work with, and, you know, I was like, "Why don't we we fold that into the new series?"

Like, we're doing that moment in time, but let's like, really get into that betrayal, Storm's betrayal.

And then at the same time you had Rogue switching from the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants to the X-Men.

Let's really play that.

Let's bring Mystique in, as she tries to lure Rogue back to the brotherhood.

I'm assuming all of your viewers know this dynamic, but the thing called a mutant, where you have special powers, Xavier's thing has always been, we can all get along.

And Magneto's thing and the brotherhood's thing is like, no, the humans are eventually gonna rise up and kill us.

So we're talking when those ideas of Chris's were just sort of coming to a head.

And I was able to do a whole five-issue series with, of course, a new villain, a new storyline, a whole new drama.

Storm falls in love.

There's, you know, a whole new story, but in there is Chris's original story.

So I'm not sure if I answered your question, but I think that probably the other thing is that being both a writer and an editor, you know both that the editor is busy, always late, doing 50 things at once.

The freelancer is home pondering like, what did they mean by that?

Knowing both sides of the fence, you know that if your editor isn't calling you back, wait a few days, wait a week, wait a month, they're busy.

And then knowing their side, and then knowing the freelancer side, which is like the artist going, "Did they hate the pages?

Why haven't I heard from them?"

I used to practice instant response because I had the experience of being a freelancer.

You wanna shoot praise out right away.

You wanna say, "This is awesome."

You know, hold on, I gotta a couple notes, and I'll get to them.

And then the other in-betweener thing that I think is what Jim was talking about was each stage, then the script, then you edit it, then the lettering.

Then you go over the lettering, and then you color.

You know, so you're in between each phase, and as an editor, if you're doing your job right, you're just picking good people that know what they're doing so that you can kind of get out of their way.

Just let them create and don't interfere too much, but step in when you can see something's sort of going wrong.

- You were an editor at Marvel at a time when you were in your 20s, I'm assuming.

And, you know, for you to step into a role where you're dealing with artists who may have been in the industry for decades, with writers who have been writing characters and books for, you know, 5, 10 years, how do you sort of make sure that you're able to get the work done, but at the same time make sure that they understand you are in charge?

- Well, I think I had really good mentors.

Like, I mean, everybody there was kind of the mentor to me.

And Denny O'Neil was the one who said, "You wanna be a journalist.

I get it."

You know, 'cause he knew I wanted to be a journalist.

And he was like, "Put your journalistic ideas right in your comics.

This is how I did it."

And he would tell me his Batman, what was it?

No Hope in something.

No Hope in something else.

- Crime Alley.

- Crime Alley.

Yeah.

And, you know, he would tell me how he did it and encourage me to do it.

You had Archie Goodwin.

There's no better at plot mechanics than Archie Goodwin.

You know, it's sort of like if you were backed in, sometimes you can get backed into a corner by your own plot.

You know, you throw all this stuff about, and then you're like, "Ah, man, those pieces I threw up in the air, one of them is about to hit me in the head."

You know, how do I like, finesse this?

And Louise Simonson especially, I just watched her, how she got great stories out of Chris.

And then I tried to become a clone of her and continue the tradition of working with Chris, which was literally, like I said, a guy with a billion ideas.

And all you had to do was pick the good ones.

It wasn't very hard.

And then, you know, I had other writers like Larry Hama, Jo Duffy on Star Wars.

I mean, these are pros.

They know what they're doing.

Just get out of their way.

I had the team of Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema working together.

Like, get out their way.

They know what they're doing, you know?

[laughs] So it's a lot of get out of their way, hire good people and get out of their way.

So that's my answer.

- Well, Annie, I want to thank you so much.

It's been a very fast, if not chaotic, half hour.

I wanna thank you for taking time out to talk with me today.

- Bye.

- And I want to thank everyone at home for watching "Comic Culture."

We will see you again soon.

[dramatic music] ♪ [dramatic music continues] ♪ [dramatic music continues] [upbeat music] A "Comic Culture" bonus interview.

From HeroesCon 2022, writer-artist Andy Belanger talks about his goals at a convention as a professional.

- My goals at a convention are meeting the fans and introducing them to whatever projects I'm working on at the time, especially for this show.

'Cause in the pandemic, I started a boutique publishing studio called Lethal Comics, and we started crowdfunding everything.

And the success we had was unreal.

Like, it just exploded for the three of us in the company.

And it was very exciting.

So we look to expand that.

But going to cons now, that's what it's about: showing people our new stuff, because it's not in stores.

So it's only through Kickstarter.

So this is an opportunity that they get to actually come buy it without doing it on the web.

[dramatic music] - [Terence] "Comic Culture" is a production of the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

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