Yesterday CBR post part one of an exclusive inside DC Comics talk with Executive Editor of the DCU Dan DiDio. Part 2 is up today, with a focus on Dan and Philip Tan taking over the Outsiders. Really insightful, which is making me more and more excited about this title coming up.

Jonah Weiland: Two questions on that. When you first read those "Outsiders" issues and loved them, what was it about them? What was happening right then that made this series something that had such an impact on you?

DiDio: What was most interesting about that book was that it came along at a time when most team books weren't as explosive as they are now. So when a team came together, it felt like it mattered. And it was something that came from Batman leaving the Justice League. I followed him. "Brave & The Bold" had an artist that I really enjoyed, and this had a bunch of new characters that grabbed my attention. When you had a mix of new characters and more established characters, you were able to get a more interesting dynamic. And the truth be told, what made that book more special to me was that it was the only place you could find those characters. So many times now, you get books where there's a character who's appearing in five or six books across the line, and that's the way things work. But as we were talking about with Aquaman earlier, there are characters who can really only support one series. With characters like Metamorpho who can't support his own book, that makes this great. It makes it fun. That's important to me.

And [the original "Outsiders"] was quirky. It had a different voice. This was a time when there weren't as many team books, and the team books could have their own point of view unique to that book. As we fill the stands with more material, some of those unique points of view become much slimmer, but in those days there was a much clearer direction. That's one of the things I'm hoping to bring to "Outsiders" - a real clear focus on why they are the Outsiders.

Weiland: For a lot of writers, when they write, they're in a specific place, be it a physical place or something else. Can you write in the office here?

DiDio: Oh, it's at home. Always at home. Actually, a lot of it is done on planes because I'm flying around a lot. And then the rest is at home. I just finished up our "Weird Western Tales" #71, and that was interesting because it's good to put yourself back into a trench to figure out what everyone else is going through. It makes you a little more aware of certain situations and how things are unfolding, and more importantly, aware of the concerns people are having so things can be constructive. When I was working with Jimmy Palmiotti on "Superboy," we had a story that was literally interrupted by an event, and we had to destroy a script and take half of it into one book and another half into a second book. It was frustrating, and one of the first things I did coming in to DC was not do any crossover events that would be disruptive to the books. The first time we did a crossover was with "Infinite Crisis," because you have to let the books stand on their own. You have to be aware of that, and you have to understand that everybody's working very hard to produce the best product possible. They're very focused and very proprietary, with a sense of ownership over the book. But when you try to build cohesiveness, you've got to find ways to work it out. "Blackest Night" is the perfect example. We had enough leeway where people didn't feel the event was disruptive or that it affected the flow of the material. That's why we waited to the point that we [tied books in.]

For the entire interview click here...

(Source - CBR)