I wasn't terribly aware of Catwoman. She was a DC comics character and as a kid, I wasn't terribly fond of the DC comics characters. I was a Marvel boy.
There is a very diverse range of superheroes, especially with the Firestorm character. In the comics, there is a black Firestorm. But we still don't see that many black superheroes. So what The CW is doing and what DC Comics is doing with this whole universe with diversity is absolutely amazing.
At DC Comics, it has been a top priority that DC forges a meaningful, forward-looking digital strategy.
If I were black, I could say I'm proud. If I were Asian, I could say I'm proud. If I were any other ethnicity, I could say I'm proud, because that's how our culture is, but if I'm white and I say I'm proud, the media will go nuts.
I broke into comics by working as a press reporter for the industry, for a trade press in comics, and reporting on events and reporting on books and so forth, and I got to know some of the editors at DC Comics in the mid-'80s.
The deal is that you can do it, you don't really owe me anything, but at the end of it, I own the film. Then I can actually go out and reprint or not reprint if it I want.
All our songs are about real people, true events. We do write about DC Comics and things like The Replacements. It's pretty much good conversations that happen at Art Brut shows. It's like making friends - like a Wanted ad: "Man that likes the Replacements and DC Comics wants friends to drink with at venue tonight. Who's coming?" It's like that.
When I was a kid, I read many more Marvel comics than I did DC. As I got older, in high school and then in college, I started reading more DC.
Part of running DC Comics is that it's much larger than Image Comics is, or was. There's a challenge to being one of the industry leaders in that everything you do is scrutinized and watched.
Because several 'Titans' characters have been used in video games, I've got royalty checks for six figures. And I had no knowledge of this until I opened the mailbox, because I don't follow the video game world!
I didn't send back any of the royalty checks.
I started off doing indie comics that I wrote and drew myself. I was doing those for ten years before I started to work for DC. The first book that I wrote for DC was for another artist. I did some backups in 'Adventure Comics' years ago starring The Atom. That's the first time that I ever wrote for another artist.
I will venture to say that sending a probe to the center of the earth will be more difficult than putting a man on the moon or sending a spaceship to Mars.
The good part of what comics trains you to do is it trains you - especially if you've worked in mainstream comics like Marvel and DC, or if you're just doing your own independent comics - to compartmentalize things and work on multiple things at the same time. And that's a skill that is incredibly handy in Hollywood, because within the first year that you get here, you realize there's a reason why every successful person in Hollywood has like seven or eight projects up in the air at any point.
I couldn't say no when I received that offer [to re-invent the DC characters]... How can any writer say no to the opportunity of redoing every one of DC's top superheroes?
Well, a lot of our concerts do okay, and I know we still get royalty checks which still isn't that important, but again, I have to just say that we're making our records.