[music playing] - 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 Gregg Hurwitz.

Gregg, welcome to Comic Culture.

- Thank you for having me on.

- Now, Greggg, you are a writer of novels, you are writers screenplays, and you are a writer of comics.

So I was wondering, beyond the technical formats that go into the various types of writing, is there a big storytelling difference between a novel, a screenplay, or let's say a Batman comic?

- Well, they all require different muscles, but it helps to be in writing shape overall.

In a novel, there's this expansiveness that we have.

We play all the parts as a novelist.

We're the director.

We're hair and makeup.

We're the location scout.

And we can go interior with characters and depict what it is that they're thinking and feeling.

When it comes to screenplays, all of a sudden, everything has to be seen or heard.

Those are the two senses that we're engaging with and so everything's pushed more externally.

And so in a screenplay in a lot of ways, if you think of a novel as 400 pages of final product, screenplay is basically 110, 115 page invitation to collaborate.

It's a recipe.

There's a lot of white on the page.

We're relying on all these departments and other people to bring that vision of the narrative to fruition.

Now with comics, it's even different.

So now instead of looking at a lens, we're looking through an old fashioned camera and we can take about four to six snapshots a page.

And so I can't show Batman hitting somebody as a general motion.

I can show wind up, I can show the moment of impact, and I can show the aftermath.

And so what's very interesting in comic books is it pushes us to deal with this scarcity and efficiency in storytelling.

And sometimes it makes sense to just come in and show the aftermath of a scene.

And so I can borrow these elements because then that can also become interesting for a novel.

Maybe I'll come in at a novel and describe the aftermath of a fight and that might be just as compelling as walking the reader through it.

And so there's these different nuances and there's different things that are demanded of the forms.

They can all do things individually that only they can do.

And if one writes to the things that can only be realized in that form, I always find that that's the triumph.

- Now, you said a screenplay is an invitation to collaborate.

I find that to be a really interesting phrase and one that makes perfect sense.

I've written some screenplays and I work with students in television production, so it is true.

You need a group of people.

And in our studio, we have students who are working cameras, and switching the show, and working the audio and graphics.

Comics is also an invitation to collaborate.

And it's interesting, because as a writer, you rely heavily on the interpretation of your words by the artist.

And I'm wondering, in that collaborative form, are you speaking with the artist ahead of time, maybe getting a sense of what they like to draw, and then writing to their strengths; or are you sort of talking them through it and hoping that they can find the way it works with your words and their vision?

- Well, I've had the benefit-- coming out of Marvel and DC, I have the benefit of choosing artists who I think are most suited to what I'm trying to accomplish.

So for "Knighted," my new comic, Mark Texeira was our top choice.

He had an epic run on Ghost Rider.

He knows how to do big, expansive, knock-down superhero stuff.

He's wonderful with that.

He's an incredible visual storyteller and I wanted to set that as the baseline.

And so in the process of selection of artists, like one of the rules of thumb for me in collaborative ventures, is you choose your team very carefully.

And then you have to give them respect and elbow room, because artists are going to know how to tell a story visually within comics better than I am.

In fact, I just got the rough draft of the second issue yesterday to proofread and there's one place where Mark cut something that I'd put in one panel into three small panels.

He's going to know how to hold the reader's hand and carry them across this storytelling divide to not get lost.

So I do write to their strengths, but it's also is a feedback loop.

I'm learning the ways that they tell stories more efficiently, so that I can reflect that even better in the writing.

The writing in comics, in some ways, is almost the opposite of screenplays.

As you know, as a screen writer yourself, we don't give all kinds of directions-- zoom in on, closed pan-- because a director comes along, Francis Ford Coppola comes along and pats you on the head and says, well, thanks, Spanky, but this is actually what I do for a living.

And so we're constantly trying to direct without directing overtly.

Whereas in comics, we spell it out quite specifically, page four, panel five, close up on Batman's eye.

In his pupil we see the reflection of the Joker.

So we're really detailing the angles that we think and then, of course, leaving room for that to be improved upon.

Because if my artists find a better, more dynamic, more organic way through, that just makes me look like a more talented writer and so you always want to empower your collaborators.

- Now, you said you're working with Mark Texeira and he took an idea that you had and broke it into three small panels.

And I'm imagining as a writer, you're giving the full script probably with an idea of what the dialogue would be.

But when the art comes in, how are you sort of adapting to it to make sense of maybe words that don't need to be there or maybe words that do need to be there because of that slight change in the visual?

- Well, it's a really good question.

I mean, I have that down pretty efficiently now.

When I look at it there's a couple of things where I'll be like, huh, this wasn't made as clear in the art as I anticipated.

Let me add in a line of dialogue to cover that base.

And he's doing the same in the storytelling.

Look, you describe this whole thing, I need to connect some more tissue.

And so it's a bit of a feedback loop.

We have it down pretty well.

I mean, I've been doing this a while and so I think I'm better at it.

But I'm always learning and seeing where we need to augment things.

Sometimes it's even in the level of the colorist.

We had something that's blending wrong and I need a detail the pop more.

And we can reach out and tap the colorist and say, hey, we need to amp this.

And so there's all sorts of ways of fine tuning.

But look you work with professional people, it runs pretty well.

It runs pretty well.

And so we don't have a ton of back and forth of figuring it.

It's mostly fine tuning around improvement and making everything better.

- And you said that you're now working with AWA, which is a new publisher in comics.

And I had the opportunity to speak to Axel Alonso not too long ago and he was saying that this is something where it's a combination of creator owned, but there's also the security of having a company behind you when you're working on your comics.

So what is it about a company like AWA that makes you want to go there for your own creator-owned stuff rather than maybe continue to work for Marvel or DC?

- A couple of things.

One of them is had a really great time working for both Marvel and DC and both of them treated me very well.

I worked with some of the world's greatest artists.

I wrote my favorite characters.

I wrote Punisher.

I wrote Wolverine.

I wrote Batman.

I had Spider-Man swinging into an issue of Moon Knight just because I always wanted to write Spider-Man.

And I reached a point, I had a two-year run on Batman, the Dark Knight.

And my last story was for Detective Comics.

It was a 75 year anniversary.

And I wrote a little short story that went in there and it was illustrated by Neal Adams.

And it was sort of this moment for me after doing that, I realized I played in-- you know that rich kid who lived up the street from you growing up who had all the best toys?

That's what it was like working for DC and for Marvel.

It's the best toys and I got to play with them all.

And I realized I'd sort of reached a limit that I didn't want to reinvent one of the X-Men now or do other stuff.

I'd kind of hit my favorites.

And I hadn't worked in comics in a lot of years.

Axel was my editor at Marvel, first editor who I worked with, the only editor who I worked with at Marvel.

And he called me and was talking about launching this new company.

And he asked me to be on the creative council.

And so part of me guiding through this process at the inception of this company was to make sure that it made sense as a company for what we were doing, that it was very creator friendly, and that the deal-making and the creative all made sense in a way that there was good give and take between management, and the company, and the creatives.

From a personal perspective, I trust Axel immensely.

I think he's an incredibly talented editor.

And he gave me the opportunity to basically do whatever I wanted in creator owned.

And so that was the thing for me after having a hiatus from comics for a number of years, the idea that I could come back and create my own character, that I can create the worlds that I want, and be involved with the company on that level both as a creator and on the creative council, and having some stakes in the company and its success, it was too good a creative opportunity to pass up.

- Well, first of all, I just want to go back for a moment and say it must be a thrill.

I mean, those of us who are a certain age, the impact of Neal Adams on comics cannot be understated.

And a lot of the comics that I was reading in the '80s, the artists were inspired by Neal Adams and Neal was still working here and there.

So having the opportunity to work with someone like Neal Adams, that's sort of like getting that magic ticket and being able to go to the Chocolate Factory.

- It was incredible, Terence.

The story that I did was, it was this funny short story that I did in the big anniversary edition of Detective Comics, which, of course, you know, but a lot of people don't is what DC is named after, Detective Comics.

And so for me, I started out with Batman in the Golden Age and Robin.

And then they get knocked-- it's a very meta story.

They get knocked into the Silver Age, then they go through the Bronze Age.

They careen through the dirty 1980s Frank Miller and wind up in the New 52.

And so the art had to reflect all that.

And I thought, who better than the preeminent Bronze Age artist with that encyclopedic wisdom of all these eras to portray it in all these different formats visually, because the story was about Batman's very evolution as a celebration of his anniversary.

And there's one email I got from Neal that I was cc'd on to the colorist and he was describing the different color palettes of the different eras.

And I'm telling you, it was like attending a PhD in comics coloring.

It was just unbelievable.

The grasp and breadth of his knowledge of exactly what the colors are, the spacing, the density, the tones, it was just remarkable.

And there's so much that goes into this and that really was one of the highlights of my comics career was being cc'd on a color note by Neal Adams taking everyone to school about how to get this done the right way.

And he did a magnificent job.

- It's funny you say that was the moment where you took that hiatus.

It's kind of like George Costanza in "Seinfeld" when he has that one funny line at the meeting and he says, OK, I'm out and then he leaves.

It's a great spot to leave, but it's also a great time to come back.

And I was wondering if you could tell a little bit about the series Knighted at AWA.

- Well, so Knighted for me-- look, growing up my most intense comic immersion, like me buried up to my neck in comics, was seventh grade, eighth grade, freshman year, it was all through that era.

And the character, the person who I loved the most was Peter Parker.

He was relatable.

I'm talking the early Stan Lee stuff all the way back.

There was Web of Spider-Man when I was a kid that retread a lot of those early ones.

And he was so relatable.

Here is a kid who is worried about tearing his costume and how he fixes it.

He's getting bullied at school.

He's figuring out how to navigate social circumstances.

He feels and contends with the burden of parental figure expectations that are placed on him.

He's trying to measure up.

He's trying to become something more than he is.

What better metaphor for seventh, eighth, ninth graders?

But the character who I wanted to be was always Batman, the pinnacle of human excellence.

He doesn't have a magic ring.

He can't fly.

He's a Renaissance man.

He has spiritual development.

He has technological savvy.

He's a physical specimen.

He runs on discipline.

Everyone's dead.

His parents died.

Robin keeps dying every five minutes.

He's alone.

And in that aloneness, there's a sort of perfection that he can encapsulate.

And I thought for Knighted it would be so interesting if I could take a character, in my case the character's name is Bob Ryder who's kind of a human doormat.

He's struggling to get along.

He's a lovable guy.

He's very affectionate and he's very kind.

And he takes a lot of crap from people around him.

The opening scene is him on his knee in a restaurant presenting an engagement ring to the woman he wants to be his fiance and the first line was her saying no.

And then he stands up.

And he's a civilian crime analyst at a police station where the real cops kind of mock him.

And he accidentally kills the Knight who is New York City's one superhero.

So it's as if Peter Parker accidentally killed the Dark Knight and then has to fill his shoes, because the city will tear itself apart if he doesn't do it.

And that combination of the two, I mean, there's a reason why in Knighted he has a yin yang on his chest, the Knight does.

It's about the integration of those two pieces.

The younger-- I don't want to say weaker, but less evolved version of a man having to become something big enough to fill the boots and to don the cowl of another character, and what is that process of becoming going to be like for him.

And it gave a lot of opportunities for humor also.

So I wrote it with like a great love and affection for these types of characters having written Batman and Moon Knight, but I wanted it to also be really funny, that he's trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

The last thing he wants is to have to occupy this space, but events keep conspiring to shove him along to have to fill the shoes of this character who we learn is a bit of a bad guy, the Knight.

He's not a good guy.

And so can Knight fill those shoes?

Can Bob fill those shoes, and integrate those two parts, and actually do some good with it, and learn more about himself?

- It's interesting because you talk about humor and I think back to the days of the Justice League by Giffen and Dimatteis and their ability to blend character and humor with super heroics.

And I'm wondering, as you're working on Knighted, are you trying to find out how you can have the action that we expect in comics and still work in the, I mean, world building that you're doing in a new series, and developing the character, and adding that humor, and still making it all work.

Putting all those ingredients in the pot, and stirring them, and getting the right recipe.

- That's exactly right.

It's like turning these dials and this one humor plays a very big part in that.

I love writing humor in the Dark Knight and it's interesting the things that the fans gravitated the most.

Like, I had one conversation where Batman shows up in Commissioner Gordon's office.

It's late at night.

He's talking.

They're brooding, and then Gordon looks out the window.

And he says something and he goes, oh, this is the part where I turn around and you're not here anymore.

And then the word bubble behind him goes, nope.

And he turns around and he and Batman stare at each other awkwardly.

And then they go, all right then, and then they both exit the panel.

And so I liked playing with and spinning some of those tropes.

And with Knighted, I have a the to introduce that into the very DNA of the narrative itself.

It's all about deconstructing and playing with these notions, but not in a snarky cynical way.

I still have a lot of love and enthusiasm for those characters.

And so it's trying to get a different angle in on it while not just merely mocking and satirizing it.

I still take the action and the suspense quite seriously.

- It's interesting because what I've noticed, at least in my reading habits and folks that I've talked to during the pandemic, a lot of us rediscovered comics or at least rediscovered why we enjoyed reading them.

And I'm wondering, as you are working on this in the middle of the pandemic, I guess not quite as the early days were upon us, is that something where you're looking back because you've had the opportunity, your home a little bit more?

Maybe you're going to crack open that old issue of Spider-Man that's just going to give you that little spark or maybe help you find that creative drive because it reminds you, I guess, of why you loved comics in the first place?

- Yeah, there is some of that.

This pandemic, in a weird way, it's like the pandemic that novelists have been reading our whole lives for and that we were-- for a long time, my schedule wasn't very much disrupted.

My schedule is about getting up, and getting my ass in the chair, and making sure that I'm typing, and writing, and finding creative space and that continues.

I mean, what's interesting is I'm not sure if it's the pandemic.

Well, what's interesting is that has happened with me.

I went back.

I started a quarantine-y book club on Facebook for fans.

Because I felt like in Italy in the pandemic, there was all these tenors singing off their balconies, and I thought, well, what can I do that might be different?

And so I did a very close reading of the "Great Gatsby" and "Crime and Punishment".

I went back to them.

And I've been tacking back and drawing back to stuff.

And I don't know if that's because of where I am in my life, or because of the pandemic, or probably some combination of both, but I have found that wanting to go back and revisit the things that fed the original creative engine back in the day and rediscovering them.

I used to read "Great Gatsby" every couple of years.

And going back and reading it now a year ago, it had completely different meaning for me.

- That is interesting, too.

I mean, we kind of look at things through the lens of our time, so I can read-- like you're saying, you can read a book that you've read before and find something new.

And I guess that's why a lot of folks like to binge the same shows on streaming services because they can find comfort in it, but they can also maybe find something new.

I know that when I watch old episodes of "Star Trek," I can always find a new theme or approach that the actor took that I find fascinating.

Now, you mentioned that you have to find time to sit down in the chair and do your work.

And I'm wondering if you're working from home, how do you separate all the stuff that is regular at home life with all the stuff that would normally be getting in the car, go to the office, and give the guy at the office 9, 10 hours of your time in exchange for that paycheck at the end of the week?

- Well, it's funny.

I mean, being older, but not yet quite decrepit, because I started young, I've been doing this for a long time.

I've been writing professionally-- I was quite fortunate.

I sold my first book, I think I was 22, 23 years old.

And so I've been doing this for coming up decades now and that sort of discipline is really ingrained in me at this point.

I mean, what I have a harder time doing in some ways is pulling myself out.

There's a certain phase that I'm in of a project that it's harder to be out of a book than in a book.

And so, particularly with my thriller series that's out now, it's called Orphan X.

And it's about a boy who was taken out of a foster home and trained to be an assassin and then leaves the program and becomes something of like a pro bono assassin for people who are in desperate need.

And there's times when I'm buried in that or when I'm really deep into an issue of Knighted, it's harder to get pulled out, like, I have to remind myself to take breaks and to integrate.

So look, I think everybody struggles with different aspects of a work-life balance.

If I'm going well, I have trouble with it the other way, like, I forget to come out, and eat, and walk, and visit humans, and see the dogs, and whatnot.

- Now, you mentioned Orphan X and I'm wondering, we see-- I mean, I guess writers like Agatha Christie would have recurring characters who would come up like Poirot or Miss Marple who would have different novels that would be a new mystery, but maybe there wasn't that continuing storyline like we see now with, I guess, the Twilight novels or even the Hunger Games where the characters grow throughout the arc of these three novels.

And I'm wondering, as you're putting together this series of books, is it similar to what you would do when you're plotting Knighted where you maybe have an idea of where these books are going to go, but you have to make sure each one has its own satisfying conclusion, but then leaves enough of that open threading so that you can stitch something new to the next version?

- That's exactly right.

Yeah, I need people to be able to pick up any book that I've written, any Orphan X book.

And look, I mean, fortunately, the series has been growing, which means there's new readers every time out.

And I need to have enough in there that it's contained, but there's also Easter eggs, and changes, and evolution for people who have been with this character from the beginning.

So that's always one of the things to-- that's one of the challenges.

There are some people who very well write books that each one is an installment that stands completely alone.

For me, I'm always interested in how characters grow, and change, and evolve, and I like challenging myself.

Every time I write a book, there has to be a moment when I'm scared that I can't pull it off, that I feel like I bit off more than I can chew.

And so the creative process for me is sort of like biting off more than I can chew and then figuring out how to chew it.

I want to be challenged.

I don't want to just write iterations of the same thing.

- And I guess when you're working on Knighted as well, it's got to be rewarding because you can make those changes to the character that you couldn't do if it's Batman.

Because at the end of the day, that's owned by WarnerMedia and they're going to want you to return it back with that new Batman smell for the next writer and artist to take over.

So I guess it's liberating for you to be able to do something that, who knows, you could have some serious consequence for your lead character that will last forever.

- That's right.

That's exactly right.

Look, these characters, when I'm writing the Punisher, when I'm writing Batman, they've been around-- Batman's been around before I was born.

He'll be around after I'm dead.

It's almost like a public trust that's placed with me.

And the challenge is how do I write an arc or write and engage with the character in a way that they hired me for a reason.

I want to bring something new to the character, but I also have to be very respectful to a tradition that stretches back to when my dad was a kid to young fans to people our age.

And so it's a bit of a tightrope act.

We know we're not going to have him kill a busload filled with nuns.

There are certain parameters that you're just aware of, but there's other stuff that's very interesting of, like, levels of violence, how far things can stretch.

And it's like this really weird thing of trying to stay out of the way of the character and yet contribute to it in some way that's unique.

And with Knighted, I got to do all of that from scratch, as you say.

I got to just take it on, and set, and build this world out however I wanted and there is something that's liberating in that.

I can set up the terms of the character, the psychology of the character how I want.

I built his family.

I built his relationship, his house.

And then I've Mark Texeira there filling it all in as a co-creator.

There's a reason artists or co-creators on books.

He's visualizing that.

He's figuring out the design of the Knight Mobile.

- And it's interesting because a lot of times, especially when we see, I guess, collections of trades and whatnot, it's always the writer's name that goes on there.

But it's just as important for the writer to acknowledge the immense writing that an artist does.

Even if they're sharing the idea, it's a whole new concept to put a face behind the idea.

- That's right.

That's right.

And that's why they're co-creators I mean, that's why their names are on the cover in equal size.

I learned so much-- I mean, look, I worked with David Finch, Ethan Van Sciver, Alex Maleev, Jerome Opeña, Lan Medina.

You get on the list of artists who I've worked with-- Szymon Kudranski did my Penguin run-- it's amazing what they bring.

It's like I could write the same book and rendered with mediocre art, it's just not good.

It won't run.

It's like a car with two tires.

- Well, Gregg, they're telling me we have about three minutes left in our conversation.

I was wondering if the folks watching wanted to find out more about you and wanted to find out more about AWA, where can they find you on the web?

- I'm at gregghurwitz.net not dot-com.

And AWA has its own website, it's own feedback.

I'm also on Twitter and I post announcements there at @GreggHurwitz.

I have Facebook and Instagram accounts as well.

And so that's the best way.

I have a newsletter through my website that goes out that gives updates.

So there's a whole bunch of ways that I'm in the mix announcing new projects, new issues, all kinds of stuff.

- Well, Gregg, I see that we have run out of time now and I wanted to thank you so much.

I know you've got a lot going on today, so thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to talk with me today.

- My pleasure, thank you.

- I'd like to thank everyone at home for watching Comic Culture.

We will see you again soon.

[music playing] Comic Culture is a production of the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

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