Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc,rec.arts.comics.info From: [h k lee] at [magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu] (Hector K Lee) Subject: Denny O'Neil Usenet Interview Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1993 15:07:28 GMT Mr. O'Neil got back to me this weekend. He apologizes for being late. I did try to talk to him at the Chicago Comicon, but hey, he had better things to do than talk to me. I transcribed this from a tape he sent me, and I hope I got all the nuances across properly. Anything that is editorial or I thought might be interpretive on my part I put in brackets [like this]. From Jim Ottaviani Q: You've has the opportunity to work with a number of artists over the years. Who have been some of your favorites, and why? A: That's kind of a loaded question, if I omit somebody....I will pick some at random. Frank Miller and John Byrne because their art work always serves the story. The same would be true of Jim Aparo. Norm Breyfogle because he puts so much thought and intensity into the work. Steve Ditko because he does the writer's work for him. He is a master at pacing, his work is always really clear, it is important that the story get told with the visuals as well as the words. Neal Adams because his pictures always exceeded whatever was in my head when I wrote the story. It was always better than I thought it would be. There have been a lot of artists that I have been [happy with, and] very few that I have been dissatisfied with. Q: What character that you've had a large hand in creating do you feel has remained the most vital for you and your intended audience? A: If I say Batman, it'll sound like I am pandering, but the way the question is raised, the most vital would have to be Batman. The one I was most involved with, the one that was most expressive of my own concern was The Question. I have always had a fondness for Green Arrow and a fondness for a little western character that Jim Aparo and I did in the Charlton days [called] Wander. 6, 7, maybe 8 page Wander stories I have great fondness for, though I don't think I have copies of the magazine anymore. Q: Are there any artists you would like to work with that you haven't yet? A: Some of the Japanese guys, I can't pronounce their names, but I would give a great deal to work with that guy that does Crying Freeman. [Ryoichi Ikegame, translated and published in North America by Viz Preimeire Comics] Q: The two previous Usenet interviews involved self-published/small press b&w creators (Dave Sim and Evan Dorkin). Your point of view on that group of comic creator's is probably different than theirs. What do you see as the relative importance of the larger publishers to the creative growth of the comics medium? A: Well I am not sure I completely understand the question. I am delighted that people like Evan and David are doing what they do. They are pushing the envelope, they are exploring, finding new things to do with the medium. That can only be good for all of us in the long run. Although I work for a larger publisher, I don't feel qualified to speak for larger publishers [in general]. I know of no one at DC, and no one I speak to at Marvel, who does not look at the small press stuff, and enjoy it, and feel that it [small press work] certainly has it's place. Were glad it's there. [note, there was a problem printing out this question, and so Mr. O'neil probably didn't understand it properly. This is a very good question, and I am very sorry I allowed it to be mangled] Q: Have you done any self-published small press work, and if not would you like to? A: Well, never say never, but, I've never had the occasion to, and [I am] not to long on self-confidence, and the idea of publishing my own work would be pretty scary to me. Q: Are there stories that you haven't been able to fit into a DC or Marvel-like line of books that you would consider doing under another (or your own) imprint? A: Well, I've thought about working sometime for Vertigo, and occasionally I have written short stories, that's my answer to the problem of things that won't fit into a DC or Marvel or any strictly commercial venue. I've managed to publish most of them [my short stories] in magazines like Ellery Queen or Fantasy and Science Fiction. As I said I would consider working for either Piranha or Vertigo at some time. But I've been pretty lucky, particularly with The Question, I've not had, in recent years, a lot of artificial restrictions. With The Question, I was given as much freedom as I wanted. From: [c--e] at [gandalf.rutgers.edu] (Cthulhu's Jersey Epopt) 1) Is there an actual timeline, however sketchy, for Batman's history? That is, if someone proposes a story of Batman's past for LOTDK, do you or someone check to see if Batman was doing anything at that time in his life, or if it contradicts a published story? A: Yes there is a very rough timeline. With a LOT of blank spaces in it, but we know approximately how long Bats has been in Gotham City, we can fit each of the three Robins into that timeline. I encourage people when writing stories about that kind of vaguely defined earlier period to keep the exact chronology fuzzy, so we can say this fits in SOMEWHERE in the first five years, [i.e.] after he started being Batman, before he adopted the yellow oval around [the chest emblem]. We don't usually check it per se, tho Archie Goodwin, who edits that book, will come to me with any continuity questions, anything he's not sure about, anything he feels MIGHT contradict something established. And if I can't answer him Scott Petersen, who is the other Batman editor, or Jordan Gorfinkel, my assistant, or any one of a number of other people. DC has several people who are walking encyclopedias of comic knowledge, particularly Bobby Greenberger. SOMEBODY is going to be able to answer the question. Maybe someday we will have it all on a computer database. 2) In many ways, the grim-n-gritty Batman is an outgrowth not so much of THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS but of your stories from the '70s. How do you feel about Grim-N-Gritty? Have you created a monster? A: No, I don't think [I've created a monster]. I agreei, think probably the Dark Knight Returns may have been influenced by what we were doing in the the early 70's. It's a permutation of that. I have no problem with grim-n-gritty provided that certain values are maintained. Grim-n-gritty for it's own sake I don't like a lot. Grim-n-gritty at the service of the story are [or] in a context of a story I think is fine. When you are dealing with somebody like a costumed character you should remember that he IS a hero, he can be a flawed hero as Hamlet is, but he's got to be a hero. So ultimately he's got to do the things a hero does, which is mostly to provide the resolution of the problem, whether his problem or someone else's, through his actions. And maybe embody some of the virtues that the culture embraces [i.e.] courage, intelligence, persistence, whatever. So for all his grim and grittiness, Batman has never ceased for one second being a hero, in pretty much the classic sense of the word. 3) While many good things were done in your IRON MAN run, the central progression of Tony Stark's alcoholism always seemed rushed to me, as if the events were compressed from a few years into a number of months for the short attention span of the comics audience. Is this a fair assessment? How do you look back on your IRON MAN run? A: Well, I don't think [that is a fair assessment]. That story ran two years, that's pretty long for any comic book story, and VERY long for anything I've done. If anything, I think we may have let it run on too long. These are stories after all, it's not real life. Stories should have a beginning, middle and end. Even the longest novels, War and Peace for example, compress the events that they are writing about. I think, looking back on that run, eighteen months might have been a better choice than two years. There were reasons why I let it run the extra six months, problems that needed to be solved. If I were doing it today, I would look harder for different solutions to those problems. [I look back] on my Ironman run with almost unalloyed fondness, I was working with a really good editor and good guy and some good artists. [I] was allowed to do something that I don't think had MUCH been done in comics before...to do a story about alchoholism...it's a subject I know a lot bout...within the context of the melodrama that is all superheroe stories...to do a fairly honest portrait of a guy sinking into that particular disease. And of course there would have been no point at all in doing the story if we weren't going to show that redemption is possible, to do the climb back up after we show the fall down. [Mr O'Neil adds at the end of the tape] I wasn't the first writer to make Tony Stark an alchoholic, that was Dave Mickalaney [sp?]. I was allowed to expand and explore that theme. That was what Mark Gruenwald let me do, and I was very grateful for that chance. 4) What's your favorite Batman story that you've written? Favorite non-Batman? What Batman story do you wish you'd written? Non-Batman? A: At this point I've written over a hundred Batman stories. I think technically, in terms of writing technique, maybe the best I ever did was 'Vow from the Grave'. It was a detective story that played fair with the r4eader. The clues were right there in front of you. And I think it did have enough misdirection so that not too many people did guess the identity of the murderer before the end of the story. It was also pretty good in several other ways. It had a really good Neal Adams art job. I also think 'Venom' [?] is pretty good if we are talking about longer stories. I think only about eleven people in the country bought copies. I'm fond of Birth of the Demon, a Hardcover graphic novel that Norm Breyfogle and I did. What Batman story do I wish I'd written? Batman Year One is very good. I would be proud to have my name on that. Non-Batman? ANYTHING by Will Eisner [I'm pretty sure he smiles at this point] 5) What character, from anywhere, would you most like to write right now? A: Can't think of any. I have, at one time or another, in the past twenty odd years worked most of the characters that I liked as a kid. There's a number of series characters that I think are very good, but on the other hand, it would very presumptuous of me to want to write a Spencer novel when Robert Parker does them so well, and it would be ultra-presuptuous of me to want to write a Travis McGeenovel because John D. MacDonald did them briliantly. I'm quite content to be an audience when it concerns characters I am not professionally involved with immediately. From: [k--l--l] at [attmail.att.com] How do I sign up for your class on writing for comics? I live in Freehold New Jersey and could get into the city if that will help. I've been writing for a while, but I write short stories. If I knew the format, similar to movies?, I'd do a few things in that format to present for consideration. I'm fourty-two and love comics, I have since picking up an issue of Wonder Woman back in 1957. This class sounds great and I'd appreciate any input on this you can garner. In any event, thanks again to going to all this effort for all of us here on the net. I hereby declare you a net person of superior stuff! Later! A: You call the School of Visual Arts on East 23rd St. in NYC, and tell them you want to sign up for it. I believe this next semester I will be teaching it on Mon. evenings from 6:30-9:15. John Ostrander and I will be teaching a daytime version of the class that is a required course for cartooning students which probably wouldn't interest you. The evening class is open to anyone. There is no correspondence course. From: Tom Galloway <[t--g] at [eecs.umich.edu]> >-DC does keep an eye on the "MTV Comics" because of their sales, but really > doesn't like or understand it [quoting my original post regarding his comments at MARCON26] Q: How does this statement jibe with the reports that JSA was cancelled almost before the first issue was out due to it not fitting DC's newly desired image? A: Well that's true [the canceling decision], but it didn't have have anything to do with MTV comics, by which I presume you mean Image Comics. We're not particularly in the business of competeing with Image. As for the JSA cancellation, we felt, basically, that it was too much of a step backwards, that it was a long look at the bygone days of the company, and that's not what we want to do for the 90's, we want to look forward. We have to look forward, DC's been in business 55, 60 years, it would be death to continue to harken back to our long and honorable, and sometimes glorious history. We felt that, whether we were right or wrong, JSA didn't have very much to say to a comtemporary audience. These things are always judgement calls, and if you like the book, you are going to be upset with this decision. Although by the time we ceased publication publication, the sales were sinking pretty rapidly, we may have had to cancel it within a year because we just can't publish things that lose money. I don't know how it would have gone in any case, but that was the thinking behind it. Q: What are your feelings about the current direction of Green Arrow, who seems rather a different character than the one from your GL/GA days? A: I'll say he's a different character! He's a different character. That sums up my feeling about him. Q: Any chance of more stories about the Question and the Hub City crew? A: Yes, the first opening in my schedule I get, we're going to do another Question story to be edited by Archie Goodwin. He's got the cover, and I am, in odd moments, mulling what may have happened to Rick since we last saw him, since I LOVE doing those stories and [would be] very happy to do another one. Q: Now that Question has been on hiatus for a while, would you be willing to reveal the city other than East St. Louis that Hub City was based on? A: No, I wouldn't be willing to do that. It was not Gary, Indiana. Both cities, and one of them barely qualifies as a city, maybe it doesn't qualify as a city anymore. They are both cities I have been to. I'm not going to make anybody else mad at me, I'm not even going to cop to East St. Louis. Maybe it was based on that place, maybe it was based on Boston, or Shangri-La, or East Orange. From Hector Lee (pretending to be a peon) [I swear] Q: What does an editor do? A: Everything. It's a very existential job. I've worked for maybe 8 or ten top notch editors in my life, and they've all done it a different way. I conceive of my job (when I am wearing my editor hat) as making my creative people look good. And that primarily consists of looking over their shoulders a little bit. Looking for mistakes they may have made. One of my editorial secrets is that I hire good people. I don't make many mistakes. Apart from that we [editors] have a lot of administrative duties, we work with the artists on the cover, we write incidental copy, and increasingly we set the direction for the book. In the current Batman scenario, I have moderated 6 or 7 meetings we have had at various places when we talked over the general direction the books should go. I am also availible as a sounding board, if anybody gets in trouble, or gets stopped on anything, they are encouraged to call on me to see if there is any help I can give them. Occasionally I have to be policeman with things like deadlines, but I usually chicken out on that and pass that duty on to somebody else (Rank has it's priviledges). We also, at my level of editorial, work with the people whom I report to, to work on the general direction of the entire line of books. And we go to conventions, and we do various kinds of PR work, and we write ads. As I said, very existential job. I worked for at least two top-notch editor; I might as well reveal their names, Dick Giordano and Louise Simonson. Whose methods I don't understand. All I know is that they got what I think is good work out of me, and I don't exactly know how. A sort of Zen editing, and i wish I had the knack. Q: What titles are you involved with other than Batman? What other mediums (i.e. Batman the Animated Series)? In what Capacity? A: [As editor] Black Canary, Catwoman, Robin, and the occasional graphic novel. As writer: JL Task Force, sometimes LOTDK. In other media, I wrote one script for BTAS, and might do another. I served as consultant, and flew out to California several times as kibitzer. I also recently worked together with the people putting together the Batman/Superman magazine.