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Hey everyone, welcome back to another rare installment of Jason's Torture Chamber.
This time around, I asked a few questions of Will Pfeifer, writer of DC's Catwoman, and also recently finishing a miniseries introducing the brand new Spectre to the DC Universe.
Jason Bourgeois:
Starting with something simple, what first got you into comics?
Will Pfeifer:
I took the usual route. Mom bought me a copy of SPIDER-MAN to read on the trip to grandma's when I was a kid (the issue where the Green Goblin died, which was one of the grimmer adventures of our friendly neighborhood web-slinger - nice choice, mom!), and I suppose that sort of hooked me, though I didn't start buying in bulk until junior high, when I caught the early wave of the Claremont/Byrne X-MEN, the black-tar heroin of comic book addiction in those days. High school and college brought Miller and Moore, the Spirit reprints, AMERICAN FLAGG, LOVE AND ROCKETS and the rest of the usual suspects. Been buying ever since, and never looked back.
As far as creating my own goes, that reaches back just as far. I doodled on scrap paper as a kid - armies fighting each other, monsters, the usual - then graduated to FROG, my own long-running comic book. More than 60 issues over a few years, it began as a crude kid's comic and ended as a slightly less-crude teen's comic, with panels swiped from every comic book I was reading at the time (Look! OMAC! NICK FURY! X-MEN! BATMAN!) I've always toyed with writing one of those internet-published vanity press books about FROG, sort of a "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Cartoonist" thing. Maybe one day, in between writing comics and changing diapers, I'll get around to it.
In college, I stumbled onto an article by mini-comics guru Matt Feazell about how to create your own mini-comics, and quickly started cranking out issues of VIOLENT MAN, a satirical comic that lasted for several issues, though was extremely infrequently published. After that, I came up with the idea for FINALS (college insanity to the nth degree - simple, eh?) and Jill Thompson and I eventually got Vertigo to publish a four-issue mini-series in 1999, which let me jam my foot in the door. The rest, as they say, is history.
JB:
What made you want to be a writer?
WP:
I'm a huge reader - just take a look at all the damn books clogging my house sometime - so the urge to tell stories has been with me since I can remember. Writing - both fiction and non - was the logical step. My college degree is actually in journalism, and I've been writing a movie review column for my paper, The Rockford Register Star, for more than a decade. Writing comic books is obviously something very different, but I really enjoy using the distinct language of comics - panels, pacing, word balloons, captions, sound effects, page breakdowns, you name it - to tell a story. It's my favorite part of the gig.
JB:
What are some of your influences?
WP:
In comics, many of the usual suspects: Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Harvey Kurtzman, Will Eisner, Howard Chaykin, Frank Miller, Los Brothers Hernandez, Dan Clowes, Chris Ware …you know. I'm also a big fan of some of Keith Giffen's stuff, especially AMBUSH BUG and the woefully forgotten six-issue series THE HECKLER. I've been reminded lately - thanks to those nice little Dark Horse reprints - how much I'm a fan of Paul Chadwick's CONCRETE, and I love Evan Dorkin's stuff not just for the laughs, but for how he shows you can be a die-hard comics fan and still remain a total wise-ass.
Movies? Well, Stanley Kubrick's at the top of the list, especially DR. STRANGELOVE, THE SHINING and A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Billy Wilder's another fave - the man could write memorable characters and put them in imaginative, compelling plots. I love THE APARTMENT and SUNSET BLVD., but DOUBLE INDEMNITY and ONE, TWO, THREE are great, too. Other director's on my list include Martin Scorsese (GOODFELLAS and TAXI DRIVER), the Coens (HUDSUCKER PROXY, THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE and RAISING ARIZONA), Paul Thomas Anderson (BOOGIE NIGHTS and MAGNOLIA), the unrelated Wes Anderson (especially RUSHMORE and THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU) and David Fincher (if I could make any movie, I'd make FIGHT CLUB.) As for other movies I'm inspired by, I'd include THE FOUNTAINHEAD, BRAZIL, A FACE IN THE CROWD, THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, CAT PEOPLE (the original), THE SEVENTH VICTIM, NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, AMERICAN MOVIE and, of course, STAR WARS. Genres? I'm a big film noir fan, am eternally fascinated by exploitation movies of all eras and lately I've been on a big pre-code kick, watching as many pre-1934 studio films as I can, be they gangster, horror, musicals or comedies. They're fascinating, believe me.
Actual prose writers? James Ellroy would top any list I'd make - can't wait for his new novel, due in the spring, I think. I'm also a fan of Hunter Thompson (RIP), Chuck Palanniuk, Martin Amis, Jim Thompson and Mickey Spillane (wild stuff, if you've never read it). I also read a lot of nonfiction - pop culture stuff, mostly, with a heavy emphasis on weird books about weird movies.
JB:
I see you're quite the film buff. Has this helped prepare you in any way for your work in comics?
WP:
Well, in the sense that it both film and comics rely on strong stories and a combination of words and pictures, sure. I find myself inspired by movies, and try to recapture some of that excitement in the comic books I write. That being said, though, I don't think comic books are movies or should try to be like movies. Comic books have a language of their own that no other artform - including cinema - can duplicate.
JB:
Over in Catwoman, you've recently been running a mystery about the title character having a child, and who the father was, as well as replacing Selina Kyle as Catwoman. Was this part of your plan when you started work on the title, or did someone come to you with it to work into the series?
WP:
This was something we came up with to kick off the whole "one year later" storyline. It had to be something dramatic, obviously, and something that, from the moment you saw it, would let you know that things had changed - and changed drastically for Selina. The actual idea of having a baby came from Dan Didio as a potential plot, and I couldn't think of anything that would top that, so we went with it. Plus, a baby fit perfectly with a year passing - opening the first post One Year Later issue with Helena's birth meant that, given your standard nine-month pregnancy, that left three months for Selina to actually get pregnant - which gave us time, storywise, to develop a love interest. The fans, god bless 'em, have had a variety of opinions on Sam Bradley being the father. I guess many people expected (hoped?) it would be Batman, but that was never going to be the case - especially in another character's book. Besides, Batman doesn't let anything unexpected happen to him - do you really think he's not going to take precautions against a bouncing baby arriving in his life?
Having Helena arrived coincidentally worked well with my own life, as my wife and I adopted a nine-month-old girl from China in April. I took some time off work to spend time with Allison over the summer, and taking care of her gave me some insight into how much work having a baby is. That child is changing Selina's life more than any super-villain ever could --- which is just the way it works in the real world. Now if I can just convince DC to pay for all of Allison's expenses under the guise of "research."
JB:
You recently helped redefine the Spectre, merging him with a new human host. The miniseries you wrote combined some of the more cosmic elements, with a bit more down to Earth crime story feel to it. Did you enjoy blending the different genres?
WP:
It was fun. I'm one of those guys who can never quite make the necessary emotional connection with a story that's all cosmic. I need a human element to bring me into the tale. That's what I was trying to do with THE SPECTRE - show the human consequences of agreeing to be the embodiment of divine justice. Crispus Allen was a character I've enjoyed for years in GOTHAM CENTRAL, and one of the things I liked the most about him was how down-to-earth and skeptical he was, despite the fact that he lived smack-dab in the middle of the DCU. That aspect of his character provided a nice emotional conflict in THE SPECTRE mini-series.
JB:
HERO was the short-lived series that first got me interested in your work. Was it challenging to come up with essentially a new cast every few months, with very few recurring characters, until the final stories?
WP:
It was a little tricky, but that was also part of the fun. The great thing about HERO was it left me free to tell any sort of story I wanted - I could go from a story about a downtrodden guy who discovered he had superpowers to a guy who became addicted to those powers to a girl who had fun with the powers and, thanks to the storytelling device of the HERO device, it all flowed naturally. The caveman issue was one of the most offbeat, but it seems to be one people remember fondly. When I was writing it, I kept thinking it was a little too strange for a mainstream comic, but that was the wonderful thing about HERO - virtually any story could fit right in with the others. I had a great time on that book and was pretty bummed when it ended, though grateful we had enough advance warning to finish the story the way we wanted to.
JB:
Lastly, what can we expect from you in the future?
WP:
CATWOMAN will continue to be my main focus. We're getting Selina out of Gotham for a couple a three issues, and getting her back to what she does best - namely, steal stuff. Lil' Helena will still continue to be a big part of the story, and Holly's going to slip back into the catsuit and get into some trouble of her own. Our first post-One Year Later arc, "The Replacements," is being collected in February by the way, so if you've been "waiting for the trade," as they say, you won't have to wait much longer.
I do have one other big project coming out early next year, but as is usually the case with these sort of things, I can't talk about it yet. All I'll say is that it's a character (or characters) I've never written before and it re-teams me with an artist I have worked with before - and that's it going to be big. Seriously.
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