[bright music] [bright music continues] [bright music continues] [bright 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 author Bob Miller.

Bob, welcome to "Comic Culture."

- Terence, thank you so much.

It's an honor to be on your show.

- Now, Bob, we are here because you are the author of a new book series called "The Unofficial Batman: The Animated Interviews."

So what inspired you to write, I mean, this is Volume 5, what inspired you to write, I guess, at least five volumes of sort of a compendium of information about "Batman: The Animated Series" and the related universe that DC created?

- Well, it all started out when I was writing for "Starlog" and "Comics Scene Magazine" and my editor David McDonnell assigned me interviews with people like Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, Eric Radomski, Kevin Altieri, and Kevin Conroy, Kevin being the definitive voice of Batman in many people's opinions.

And so I was able to talk to them about the shows while they were in production.

And then years later I thought, well, you know, this is enough material to be the nucleus of talking about the entire series and its impact, you know, all the spinoffs like "Batman Beyond" and "Justice League."

And I thought, you know, why don't I start interviewing the rest of the key creatives and executives to get their point of view?

And this is all done in Q&A format so you're getting their opinions right from their mouths.

Not edited per se, but, you know, this is their point of view.

- And what's, I think, really interesting about this volume, or what I've seen out of Volume 5, is that you go a little bit sometimes by the episode, sometimes by the series.

So when you were putting this together, were you having to sit through every single episode of every show to sort of find a touchstone for a conversation?

- It wasn't necessary 'cause I was already familiar with the series.

I was a big fan of it.

As any viewer can see, it's high quality.

It was a breakthrough series because it didn't talk down to viewers.

It didn't condescend.

The stories were intelligent and witty.

And there was an, there's quality in the budget that allowed for an orchestra, for instance, in "Batman: The Animated Series."

They could afford a 35-piece orchestra and they could actually score to picture, which was kind of rare at the time.

And so they're pulling, Warners was playing out all the stops to make a good quality show, keeping in mind its longevity in terms of popularity.

And here it is over 30 years later and it's still, you know, attracting people to watch.

It's made an impact.

In compiling these books, you're getting both the perspective of the people as they were making the show at the time, but also their hindsight years later where they can now talk about things that they couldn't talk about then.

So it's all, like, these are all candid conversations revealed to the reader.

And I did it in such a way that, well, what made the show a success?

You know, and so I want the reader to come away with, well, what made it a success, the principles involved with making the show a success could be applied to their own lives, you know what I mean?

It's like perseverance and hard work and integrity, that kind of thing, that actually translated on the screen.

Well, the readers can get an idea, oh, this is how I can apply it to my own life.

- That's interesting because we tend to think of series, especially animated series, as pure entertainment, not necessarily thinking that there is an underlying theme that we could apply to the regular world.

So as you are talking to the creatives from this show, and you said you're going back to the times when they're making the show and then to modern times when they can go back and reflect, are they a little bit more candid now than they were back then simply because, you know what, it's been successful, they don't have to worry about losing their job, and maybe there's something new that, you know, they didn't think of then, but they think of now?

- Well, yes, that's entirely the case.

And as I was interviewing certain people, they say, "Oh, why don't you talk to so-and-so?

Why don't you talk to so-and-so and so-and-so," and just word of mouth spread.

And so I was able to do that and that's why it became five volumes [chuckles].

You know, I wanted to get everybody who impacted the show recognized.

This is a tribute to them.

So I talked to the composers, the Dynamic Music Partners.

I talked to the background designers, the storyboard artists, or at least one of them, two of the directors.

I talked to the executives involved.

I spoke with Margaret Loesch, who was head of Fox.

How did she decide to make an impact with "Batman: The Animated Series?"

Why did she choose it?

I talked to Jean MacCurdy, president of Warner Brothers Animation for 10 years.

You know, what did she go through in making the show?

Eric Radomski and Bruce Timm, the showrunners.

How did they do it?

And I kept uncovering facts that I thought were fascinating because they were both inspired by the Fleischer "Superman" cartoons.

I discovered that Jean MacCurdy was also influenced by the Max Fleischer cartoons of "Superman."

So I cover all these interesting facts [chuckles] that I've got sprinkled throughout the book.

- Now, in looking at this particular volume, I've got Volume 5 here, and the reason why I have this volume is because you make a reference to one of the interviews we did with Paul Levitz, who was of course the publisher of DC Comics for a good long time.

But I've noticed that this is, gosh, this is 700-plus pages and you have another, what, four volumes of this.

So in terms of new material versus old material, how long is this taking you to compile?

I mean, it doesn't seem like this was done over a weekend.

- No, sir.

It was about 30 years in the making, 30 years of interviews.

And some of the people who were deceased, like director Boyd Kirkland and Shirley Walker, the supervising composer, they're no longer around.

So I had to get permission to publish interviews, you know, while they were alive, of course, and I got permission to publish what they had to say.

- When you are talking to someone like Paul Levitz, who is a brand new interview just for this book, how are you sort of getting in touch with everyone that you need to get in touch with?

And how much of the logistics is that and how long of a period of time is that taking up for you before you can even start to write?

- Well, I've been writing the interviews as I go, you know, and one person liked it enough to say, "Well, why don't you talk to so-and-so?"

In terms of Paul Levitz, the value of your show came in when I was researching him, and I thought, "I wanna get the perspectives of everybody involved in the creative process."

Paul was instrumental in helping out with "Batman: The Animated Series" by making sure it conformed to DC policy and standards that the heroes were true to themselves and he suggested some things that were significant.

Well, in the Justice League, I was told that he was the one that decided that, well, there should be a traitor in the Justice League and it was determined that Hawkgirl would be that traitor.

His value was, I saw that in your interview with him, and it's a very valuable interview, and I'm grateful that you granted permission to quote from it, but I had to include him.

And so to get a formal interview with him, I spoke with Robert Greenberger, who wrote the forward to the first two volumes, and he knows Paul because Robert was an editor at DC Comics.

They knew each other.

They were friends.

So thanks to him, I was able to speak with Paul and get his further perspective in his involvement of the show.

- We're sort of in an affiliated field.

I do interviews with comic creators, publishers, artists, and it is interesting because there's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes to set up an interview.

Some folks it will be, you know, you send them an email and they're really happy to do it.

Other times, you're spending months setting something up and then there's a false start, and then finally you get to do that interview maybe a year later.

So as you are going through your interviews, obviously you've got a large publication behind you 30 years ago, but as you're doing this work now, is it something where you're going to social media, are you going to websites?

Is it simply because you have this network and this connection of people that can put you in touch with somebody?

Or are you kind of struggling a little bit sometimes saying, "I really would like to talk to person X, but I don't know how to get in touch with them?"

- Again, it was with word of mouth as I'd interviewed these folks.

I've been involved in animation for over 30 years.

I've won two Emmys for working on the storyboards on "The Simpsons," for instance.

You can see my credits on IMDb.

So, you know, I've got relationships with a lot of people in the animation industry, and they knew me.

They knew I was straightforward and that I had their best interests in mind when writing this book, these books.

It's a tribute to their talents.

And I have to point out that one of the more horrifying things I learned during the research was there was an audio interview with Bruce Timm on the DVDs for "Batman Beyond," and they were crewing up for that and a lot of the new talent that was coming in had never heard of Jack Kirby, the king of comics.

That was stunning.

That was 20 years ago, 1998, 1999, and people had never heard of him, these artists.

And Bruce, as you probably know, is a huge Jack Kirby fan and Kirby and Alex Toth were influences in his own artwork.

And so they had to, you know, give the new talent all these comics to get them up to speed to try to get to the style of the show.

And so I would keep uncovering stuff like that.

Oh, and another thing, when I was talking to Jean McCurdy, the president of Warner Brothers, she mentioned that Randy Rogel, whose songs you've heard on "Animaniacs," but Randy won an Emmy for "Robin's Reckoning" on the first season of "Batman: The Animated Series".

He's an incredibly talented songwriter, as well as writer and producer and actor.

And he actually graduated from West Point, by the way.

He had written a Batman musical, and Jean told me this and I thought, "Oh, well, that's interesting."

And I wondered about that because Kevin Conroy could have been involved because he was a graduate of Julliard in New York, the acting school.

And so I had to talk to him about it.

And so I connected with him and he actually performed his Batman stage musical for me.

It was just a real special moment.

And those lyrics are in the book, by the way.

He doesn't mind, you know?

But, you know, I've got it all documented.

And the sad thing was, was that Warners decided to pass on it, you know, and the reasons why are explored in that volume.

- Now, I do wanna go back to one thing because you sort of just slipped it in there.

You storyboarded for "The Simpsons," which I would think most people would agree is the most successful animated series in the history of television.

It's been on for, what, 30 years plus now at this point.

So, you know, when you're working on "The Simpsons" as a storyboard artist, are you getting the scripts and sort of, you know, figuring out what it's going to look like before it sends off, obviously before it sends off to animation, but are you also getting involved in things like character design or maybe figuring out, you know, how Homer slides down that tube and gets stuck?

- We're talking about animation, television animation production, and the procedures of each studio are different.

On "The Simpsons," what we would do is we would get the script, basically, and we would be given character model sheets or prop model sheets to show, oh, this is how you draw so-and-so or so-and-so and so-and-so, and, of course the main cast, Homer, Bart, Lisa, Marge, and Lisa, or Maggie.

It came to a point where we could draw the characters so well, we don't need the model sheets, but what we do is we visualize the script, the storyboards.

In fact, my books have sample storyboards in Volumes 1, 2, and 5 of storyboards with Batman in action.

So if you wanna see what a storyboard looks like, that's it.

It's like three different rows.

Top row is a panel that shows the action.

What does the character look like?

How do they emote?

What is their expression?

How do they animate?

And so below that is the description of the action.

And then below that is the dialogue that they speak underneath that panel.

And below that is what we call the slug area, where the timers work out how long it takes to execute the action that you see underneath that panel.

It's a complex process, but I mean, for me, it's fun.

And the idea is that the storyboard for me is the best of both worlds.

I as a writer, I as an artist, it all blends together in the storyboard.

And my job was to interpret what it stated in the script and make sure it met with the approval of my director, the supervising director, and the writers at Gracie Films, which is a separate division away from where I was at Film Roman.

Film Roman had the crew, the artists, whereas Gracie Films had the writers.

And so it was our duty to do the storyboards according to the wishes of the writers.

- I'm imagining that because "The Simpsons" is a sitcom essentially, that you are sort of using the same visuals, the same visual style, rather, that you might see on a traditional live action sitcom, but you also have the ability to put the camera just about anywhere because it is animation.

So were there any sort of restrictions on how to tell that story other than, you know, the way the writer might have written it?

Or did you have a little bit of a free hand and say, "Oh, you know, if we put the camera this way or had the characters act that way, it would sort of add to the joke or the suspense of a scene?"

- Well, the first pass would be from me.

I would write everything down.

Sometimes the script would be very specific on how the action is to be done.

You know, if not, it's left up to me or any of the storyboard guys to interpret visually what the script says.

And then it has to pass the approval of the director and the director may have his own ideas.

You know, he may want something drawn differently or a character added or subtracted or staged differently to get the point of the drama or the comedy across.

And there were certain rules on that particular show where the timing had to be really fast paced.

In other words, the character will rise out of his chair to go across the room, but we don't show him crossing the room.

We just have him, we cut and then we reach the door on the other side of the room and he opens the door and out he goes.

So we try to condense time.

Actually, I should mention this related to Batman.

Paul Dini was one of the top writers on the show.

He was a story editor and producer, and he wrote this outstanding episode from "The New Batman Adventures" called, oh, what was it?

It had Batgirl in it and she supposedly dropped, well, she fell from a building and was killed.

And I forgot the name of that episode.

I should remember it.

It's a classic episode.

It was one of the first digitally colored episodes that the crew went through.

It was done mostly in Japan.

But he said in the commentary, he was watching "The Simpsons," and he used "The Simpsons" as an inspiration on how to condense action.

So if you watch that particular episode, you will see how tight the action is.

So, you know, for Paul Dini, "The Simpsons" is a definite influence.

- That is a strange connection that I don't think I would've made had you not just told me that.

It's funny how inspiration comes from just about any direction and you never know exactly what you're gonna pick and find a use for.

So as somebody who is a skilled, high-quality, professional storyboard artist on an Emmy Award-winning series, how do you also end up at "Starlog" magazine writing, you know, actual articles that are going to be, you know, either interviews with other animators or, you know, other pop culture?

- I was writing on a freelance basis, moonlighting, while I worked at other studios.

I was careful to not, I would basically actually be writing for the competition 'cause I couldn't talk about the show I was writing for, you know?

It's very strange because that's what happened at the beginning.

I was writing for "Starlog," or "Comics Scene," and my very first interview was with Paul Dini, who at the time was story editor of "Ewoks" and "Droids."

And he and I became friends.

And then John Kricfalusi was notorious for writing, or, rather, for directing on "Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures."

He hired me to work on "Beany and Cecil," a revival "Beany and Cecil."

And lo and behold, David McDonnell at "Starlog" wanted me to talk about "Beany and Cecil."

So I interviewed John and Sody Clampett, and it's just a sheer coincidence.

And John had seen an article I'd written for "Animato!"

Magazine that I had also illustrated.

It was the anniversary of Hanna-Barbera and I illustrated the article and I drew the characters, the Hanna-Barbera characters, the way John likes to see 'em drawn, the way they were drawn by Dick Bickenbach and Ed Benedict at, I mean, the early Hanna-Barbera shows like "Yogi Bear," "Huckleberry Hound," "Quick Draw McGraw."

And I could replicate that style.

John liked that, and so he wanted to take a chance on me out of Texas and he hired me out of there and trained me as a layout artist on "Beany and Cecil."

And while I was working on the show, that issue of "Comics Scene" just happened to come out about "Beany and Cecil."

[chuckles] But after that, I made sure not to cross the line and I would talk about, I mean, I never worked on "Batman," but I talked about it while I was working at Sullivan Bluth, Don Bluth's company in Burbank.

So, I mean, he was in feature animation.

"Batman" was TV.

So no, you know, crossing the line there.

And I used that opportunity to learn through these interviews about animation.

I would talk to people within the industry, interview them, and apply that knowledge to myself as I advanced my career in animation.

So they kind of dovetailed with each other.

- Growing up, I'm sure your experience was similar.

Animation was generally seen as something for younger viewers, and even a show like, let's say, "The Flintstones," which was sort of a sitcom that adults might enjoy, it would be syndicated in the afternoon for those of us coming home from school to watch.

So as you see "The Simpsons" kind of pushing the envelope and forcing Americans to view animation as more of a grownup form of entertainment, you know, do you see that progression to the point now where animation has no sort of restrictions?

- Well, I do with streaming 'cause there are no restrictions on streaming.

It's up to Netflix or Amazon Prime or Max to determine how graphic a story can be, you know, to what subject matter is.

It's like the genie's out of the bottle, so to speak, or Pandora's box has been opened, however you wanna look at it.

The field is wide open now.

- I mean, it's funny, you say graphic and I think a lot of people might think that means something adult, as they would say on the old British show, "The Young Ones."

But, you know, it's something where you might have animation that is dealing with depression, or you might have animation that's dealing with, you know, grocery shopping.

There's something out there for everyone.

So, again, as you sort of the expert, somebody who has worked in animation and has observed animation, do you see this trend sort of just continuing?

Or do you see that maybe we're going to hit a saturation point or what?

- Well, it's hard to say because the pendulum does swing back and forth if it's a network controlled show, if it's a regular TV show, cable, because "Batman: The Animated Series" was groundbreaking in that it broke a lot of taboos at the time.

It showed angst.

It showed people with guns shooting.

Batman can now throw a punch, you know?

The Joker could abuse Harley Quinn, you know, which you couldn't do on Saturday morning.

But "Batman: The Animated Series" was made for a more adult audience, and "X-Men" was as well, by the way, to that effect.

So it broke ground.

But as time progressed, the standards became looser and looser.

Batman went to Warner Brothers, the WB Network, Kids' WB, and the restrictions were looser then, as you can see from those shows, from "The New Batman Adventures" and "Superman," you know, that came out at the same time, and then with "Batman Beyond."

And then in the middle of "Batman Beyond," the Columbine accident, accident, event happened, there's a shooting on campus, and so all of a sudden the networks said, "Oh, no, we can't have all this violence on TV.

That's what influences these shooters," in their opinion, "And so we better scale back on the amount of violence," or action as the creators would prefer to call it, in the shows.

And it became ridiculous.

And so you'll read about these restrictions in Volume 5 there.

It affected whether or not you could have actual villains in the spinoff shows like "Static Shock" and "The Zeta Project."

You'll read Stan Berkowitz's account on that.

And he mentioned that, "Oh, Zeta can't fight any villains, so we'll have him fight the weather."

Static Shock deals with sunspot activity and he can't control his powers or whatever and his like, Stan's response was like, "Get me out of here!"

[Terence chuckles] You know?

And so I'm exaggerating, but, you know.

But fortunately, he knew Rich Fogle.

They worked together on "Superman."

Rich had become a producer on the "Justice League" series for Cartoon Network and Cartoon Network had looser strictures, you know, because they were a cable network.

You know, standards weren't as strict, and they wanted "Justice League" and "Justice League Unlimited" to appeal to a more adult audience.

And so the subject matter was more mature.

I mean, how dare they suggest that the Justice League was a threat to mankind?

The Cadmus story arc, you know?

They dared to suggest that the government's saying, "Oh my goodness, all these superheroes, what if we can't control them?"

And so Rich got ahold of Stan and said, "Okay, come over over here," and Stan was so relieved to work on "Justice League," and that's what happened.

So, again, looser standards.

So it fluctuates, you know, the amount of strictures that the venue will allow.

It fluctuates with network, streaming service, regular commercial network.

- Bob, they're telling us that we are out of time.

If the folks at home wanted to find out more about "The Unofficial Batman: The Animated Interviews," where can they find you on the web?

- WRMillerOnline.com/Batman.

That's the page I devote to the entire series.

It lists the accolades that have been given to it and what the content is.

And so anyway, thank you very much for having me on your show.

- Well, thank you, Bob, for taking time out of your schedule.

And thank you everyone at home for watching "Comic Culture."

We will see you again soon.

[bright music] [bright music continues] [bright music continues] [bright music] "Comic Culture" is a production of the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, giving broadcasting majors professional experience and onscreen credit before they graduate.

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