From Micki St. James comes this question…
How do you keep up with your peer writers? I'm curious, for example, of what you think of Marv Wolfman's Dick Grayson, Robin in the Robin 80th Anniversary Super Spectacular. Do you read or skim such contemporary works? Do you ever find yourself cribbing devices from their writing in your own?
You write a lot of funny stuff, does any of it derive from your current reading?
What I write has to do with everything I've seen, everything I've read, everything I've absorbed. Like most writers who would like to believe they have a little integrity, I don't look at someone else's work and think, "Hey, that's good! I'll copy that!" But it's disingenuous to think that my output is wholly unaffected by my input.
I don't keep up with other writers in comics, nor do I evaluate anyone to whom I am in even the vaguest sense a competitor. Marv Wolfman is one of my best friends and I've read a lot of comics he's written…though not lately. I don't connect all that well with most current comics. I'm not always sure who their target audience is but I know I'm not it, nor do I connect with many of the current depictions of once-favorite characters.
I'm not putting anyone or anything down; just saying too much of it is not for me. I liked much of what Marv wrote long ago and assume I'd like what he's doing now because I've always thought he was a talented guy…but I don't even know who Dick Grayson is anymore. I don't follow the current Batman mythos enough to not be totally lost in it, or even to know if Dick Grayson is still part of it. (Do not write me and try to explain it.)
I'd get up to speed on it if someone offered me what sounded like an interesting project but I've turned down most comic book jobs I've been offered lately. No one has offered me anything in the DC or Marvel universes that grabs me.
But even before I gave up on most current comics, I gave up on having opinions of other writers. I respect doing work that pleases many even when I am not among the many and I applaud anyone who can do it but I have no opinion of the work itself. If I haven't read it, I of course have no opinion but even if I have, I also have no opinion…or if I do, I keep it to myself. There is the question of professional courtesy but there's also this…
In the half-century I've been writing comics and attending conventions, I've heard many of my peers voicing negative opinions of other writers' work and those almost always sound like emotional responses tinged with jealousy or resentment or the kind of personal insecurity where you have to put down your competitors to feel better about yourself. They may not always be that but they always sound like that. I don't want to sound like that.
Understand this: I'm not saying a writer doesn't have the right to criticize or belittle the work of someone who in some sense competes with them. Freedom of speech and all that. I'm just saying that I think that most people who do it look real, real bad doing it. And I'm also saying that I don't really have many opinions of current writers.
