The interviews are beginning to start flowing with the newly announced creators of the new Bat-books. We saw some late last week, but the flood gates are now open. Newsarama talked with Judd Winick on one of his two Bat-books, Catwoman and how he ended up on this and not his recent character flavor Red Hood. Here are the highlights.
Newsarama: But Judd, DC has also announced titles for the Red Hood and the Justice League International, but you're not writing them! Were those just two concepts you felt like you had explored enough for now?
Judd Winick: Yeah, exactly. I've already played with those toys. With JLI, I wrote about two years worth of comics in one year. I wrote 24 issues of Justice League International and felt very, very satisfied. And starting over with the JLI wasn't as interesting to me as starting over with some of these other books. But don't take that to mean we're starting them all over, because as DC has said, it's not a reboot. But what I mean is the "fresh start," as we're calling it. I wasn't as interested in giving those concepts a fresh start as I was these other concepts. I've already done a "start" with the Red Hood and the JLI characters.
Everything was on the table, and everything was open to discussion. But doing Catwoman and doing Batwing were simply more compelling to me than doing what I'd done before. And I can't play with all the toys. I've got to let other people in the toy store. I'm really not that possessive about stories and characters.
Plus I've done really, really long runs on books in the past. But lately, I've been trying to do stronger, shorter runs on books.
So with all that in mind, these comics just seemed like the best fit for me right now and interested me the most.
Newsarama: Let's start with Catwoman. Do you feel like there's already a basic knowledge of the character out in the world, making this an ideal character to introduce to new readers?
Judd Winick: Yeah, that's part of what interested me. Our general marching orders are to try to appeal to new readers as well as existing readers.
With Catwoman, we're very lucky in that respect. All the books are trying to hit the ground running. There's not going to be a lot of origin stories floating around. We're not having #1's where, you know, Superman is crashing from Krypton. That's not what this is about.
And equally, we're not going to start out telling the story of how Selina became Catwoman. She's Catwoman, and we take off right from there.
I'm very lucky in the respect that she's very well known. I think if you grabbed 100 people on the street and asked them about Catwoman, they'd not only have heard of her, but they could probably tell you a lot about her. They'll get all the basics right. And these are things that I find to be advantageous in creating this title for both new readers and older readers.
Newsarama: So summarize that. How would you describe this in just a couple words?
Judd Winick: Dark fun.
Horrible things are going to happen, but also, her tone and tenor is very fun.
Newsarama: And it's all about her life as a thief? No trips to college or day jobs or extensive supporting cast?
Judd Winick: She'll have a supporting cast, but it's not going to be a cast of thousands. She's a thief. She lives a sort of migrant, nomadic existence throughout Gotham City. Sometimes she has to go where things take her. She's hand-to-mouth in the sense that she'll steal a bunch of stuff, the blow through the money and have to find more. It isn't about getting stuff and putting together a pile of money so she can retire to a tropical island. It's more about the thrill of the hunt.
For the entire interview including some talk about the sexiness of Catwoman, head over to Newsarama. Catwoman #1 written by Judd Winick and drawn by Guillem March hits stores this coming September.
Posted by Dustin Fritschel
