The DC3 decided to take on the Herculean task of covering DC’s weekly books! Our coverage will rotate between creator interviews, issue reviews and annotations, and long-form pieces on featured characters. This, friends, is the DC3kly!
We had planned on running this interview a few weeks ago, but various things delayed that, so we are doubling down on “Eternal” this week, and will be doing the same thing for “Futures End” next week. So, without further ado, enjoy this conversation with one of the writers of “Batman Eternal,” Ray Fawkes!
Ray – you’re a relative newcomer to superhero comics, after doing some incredible work on the independent scene.How does working on a character like Batman, steeped in so much history and fan baggage (both good and bad) differ from working in the creator owned realm?
Ray Fawkes: Honestly speaking, it’s the application of a similar basic skill set – the telling of stories – to a whole other world, using a whole other syntax. It’s a challenge, but a very exciting and enjoyable one. I can’t – and wouldn’t want to – deny that I was a superhero fan when I was a kid, and I’m happy to be working with these characters and their world.
You’ve made a number of graphic novels – set, limited pieces, which you can plot and draw on your own timetable. How has working on this book, as part of a gang of writers, differed from that very solitary, self-paced environment?
RF: It’s very, very busy. When I’m working on my own piece, I’m very directly focused in a sort of zone of silence – as enforced as I want it to be. The dynamic of a “writer’s room” is, compared to that, quite frantic – there are always conversations to be had, emails to read, scripts to read, scripts to edit, etc etc… quiet contemplation is something you have to remind yourself to remember.
Do you see any benefits to this style of working, aside from giving the fans a new book each week?
RF: Yes! I’d recommend every writer do it at least once – it forces you to attack your stories (and your process) from angles you’d never think of on your own. Also: the ultimate quality of a piece of entertainment never really makes itself known until an audience appears on the scene, and the Writer’s Room serves as a kind of hot-seat preview of that moment – an early audience that’s quite harsh, maybe harsher than the readers themselves will be – and nothing burns away a piece of script that isn’t working like that kind of scrutiny and pressure.
The writing team is juggling a lot of concepts over the course of this series. How do you make sure a project like “Batman Eternal” doesn’t fall off the track from week 1 to, say, week 50?
RF: Notepads filled with notes, our own vocal reminders to each other (“i.e. don’t forget Character X! I left her here…”), a giant and insanely complicated whiteboard, and dedicated editorial staff who I’m sure we’re driving into an early grave.
Who comes up with the wackiest concepts in the “writer’s room”?
RF: Er… I guess that depends on what you think is wacky. We’re all trying to make each other laugh or drop our notebooks, so I think that honour shifts around the table. Tim Seeley’s got a real talent for a turn of phrase that usually gets me, I know that. I think I managed to stop the room cold when I brought the Ten-Eyed Man and Doctor Double-X to the table. Sometimes Scott will say something about the Endgame that makes us all go saucer-eyed.
“Batman Eternal” feels like it’s got less of an artist “rotation” going on and more of a “Hey, who can we get to do an issue?” feel to it. Do you as writers have an input on grabbing artists to use? What has surprised you about the artistic collaborations? Any chance you’ll get some of your art on the page in this series?
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RF: We do get to weigh in when artists are selected, but as far as I know, not a single assignment was ever argued against by any of us in the Writer’s Room. We’re just nuts about every artist involved – and while I can’t speak for the rest of the team, I feel like I’ve personally lucked out every time I see one of my chapters illustrated. Working with guys like Dustin Nguyen and Andy Clarke is a pure pleasure.
I won’t be finding the time to illustrate an issue of this book, but I’d love to do something. You never know…
Batman has been written by some of the greatest scribes in comics history – who’s stories are the ones you find yourself going back to for inspiration?
RF: Aw man, speaking purely about writers, for me it’s all about the Doug Moench and Frank Miller Batman books I was reading when I was a kid. I could go back to those ones again and again.
Outside of some Batman work, most of your recent DC stuff has been centered in the “Dark” line of the New 52. It seems no coincidence then that “Batman Eternal” has a bit of a supernatural twist as well. How have you integrated your work on “Justice League Dark,” “Constantine,” or “Pandora” into “Eternal?”
RF: They’re of the same world, as far as I’m concerned. I was brought in to bring some of that “Darkness” to Eternal, to be honest, and that’s what I’m quite happily doing!
Detail oriented readers will note that Jim Corrigan’s made an appearance in “Constantine”, and The Spectre has shown up more than once… Batman’s been in the pages of “Justice League Dark” too. The feeling is that the supernatural is lurking throughout the world of DC’s books, and can briefly touch anyone. It’s no surprise that it would rear its ugly tendrils in Gotham City, and that it would attract the attention of some of those “dark” characters.
Speaking of the supernatural themes in “Eternal,” it’s been some time since we’ve seen a Batman story explore such territory. More recent Batman stories have focused on the kind of gritty, “realistic” street level heroics popularized by the Nolan films. How do you go about blending these two “worlds,” if you will, while maintaining a sense of cohesion and believability?
RF: Batman is a creature of the night, and he operates within the shadowy boundaries of fear and superstition, so, whether he likes it or not, rational as he might be, he must be a kind of beacon for supernatural creatures. I’m all for realism, when it works, but why stay strictly within the boundaries of the street-level stuff when there’s a whole world (or many worlds) of possibilities to explore?
One of the characters that I’m most excited about in “Eternal” is Jim Corrigan, a.k.a. The Spectre. The Spectre made his New 52 debut back in the early issues of “Phantom Stranger,” but it seems the character has yet to find a strong foothold in the current DC climate. What are your thoughts on this woefully underutilized character? How does the “Eternal” team plan to make him stick with readers?
RF: I have a deep and abiding love for The Spectre, and, even moreso, for Jim Corrigan as its hapless human host. He’ll have an enormous impact on Gotham City in Batman : Eternal, and… well… I’m very excited for you all to see what happens with him after that.
“Batman Eternal” seems to be pitting Batman against the Gotham Police, the various mob outfits, the supernatural, and select members of his rogue’s gallery. Are you as writers actively trying to fit as much of Batman into this as you logically can?
RF: Of course! This book is meant to tell one of the biggest Batman stories of all time – and to do that, we wanted to bring in every aspect of Batman and Gotham we could!
