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J.H. WILLIAMS III INTERVIEW
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BATMAN CRIME JAZZ
A lot of you might have guessed by now by reading some of my posts relating to Detective Comics and listening to the podcasts, that I'm very excited about the relaunch of 'Tec that will be featuring Batwoman as the lead title character. We'll next week's Podcast will feature an interview with artist JH Williams III, but if like me you can't get enough of the hype of the title then head on over to IGN Comics, who have posted an interview with writer of the series Greg Rucka to talk about Batwoman's return...
IGN Comics: It seems like fans have been hearing about a Batwoman series from you and JH Williams for a long, long time now. Can you describe the journey this project has gone through from conception to print?
Greg Rucka: Well they had planned to do a Batwoman book – or at least a mini – prior to 52. It was in development as early as that, which was how many years ago now? And then there was the much talked about New York Times piece, and then all of a sudden everyone in the world knew she was a lesbian! And she had red hair! And she wore lipstick, apparently!
As a result, we were told we needed to use her in 52, so when Grant, Geoff, Mark and I were working on 52, we sort of had to take hold of this character and try to figure out a way to use her in some way over the course of the year. We did the best we could, but we were set back on our heels because that had not been part of the initial plan. By the time 52 ended, DC had made it pretty clear that this character was going to be showing up in her own book at some point. I ended up being the guy catching that ball, and I'm actually still not sure to this day exactly how that happened. It was just sort of assumed that since I had written most of her stuff in 52 that I would carry it forward. So I did.
And then you had the One Year Later projects, which we started developing when Pete Tomasi was the group editor for the Bat books. It was Pete who first said that JH Williams and I would be great on the book. He talked to Jim, Jim and I started talking, and then Pete left editorial to continue his career as a writer. Michael Siglain ended up as the editor of the book. Mike ended up being the editor on the back half of 52 after Steve Wacker left, so he was an editor that I had an exceptionally good working relationship with. He and I sort of rolled up our sleeves and dove into it. I had been doing a whole lot of pre-work on it, writing up a concept bible and things like that. Jim sat down and looked at the designs that had already been done in her prior appearances, brought up some of his design and aesthetic concerns, and then went on to do redesigns. At which point I was writing scripts.
But really the thing wasn't announced until last February. When we talk about people know it was coming, yeah, it was like the worst kept secret in comics for about two years. But it wasn't' official until February. And I think that was really because Dan DiDio in particular was adamant about giving the book it's strongest chance. He has positively backed this thing from the start, and the number of hits he's taken on this, we've lost count. But when the Battle for the Cowl stuff came out, we figured this was the most logical place to do it. With Bruce gone, this was the time, and the suggestion was to put it in Detective. And there was precedent for it, so we figured that's great – we'll do that.
But yeah, it's been a long, strange journey. I think as soon as December of last year we still weren't sure where the book was going to be coming out. We were just moving forward writing and drawing this thing in hopes that one day we'd figure out where it would go.
For the entire interview click here...
(Source - IGN Comics)
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