[dramatic music] ♪ [dramatic music continues] ♪ [dramatic music continues] ♪ [dramatic music continues] ♪ - Hello and welcome to "Comic Culture".

I'm Terence Dollard, a professor in the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

My guest today has written some of the most influential and acclaimed comics of the last 40 years, J. M. DeMatteis.

J, welcome back to "Comic Culture".

- Hey, happy to be here.

It's been a long time.

- Well, the last time we were talking, I guess it was some time around 2016 or 17.

And a lot has happened since then, especially with the comics industry embracing crowdsourcing.

And you've recently begun, I believe, four or five series as part of crowdsourcing, so I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about The DeMultiverse.

- Sure, I'd be happy to.

You know, I thought about Kickstarter for some years now, 'cause I love the idea that it removes this wall between the creator and audience.

You know, you're not going through some publisher.

And also, over the years, it's gotten harder and harder with creator owned work to really make any kind of money, even if you're going through a publisher.

So, the idea of just going straight to the readers with this was very appealing to me.

What wasn't appealing to me was all the work that had to go into it.

[laughs] Not the creative work, you know, the work of the Kickstarter itself, which is a massive undertaking, and you don't even, no matter how much I thought it was massive, was even more massive when we got into it.

But I have a friend named David Baldy who has worked in TV for 20 years, he's a writer and a producer, and he took one of my writing classes, we became friends, and we were just talking about this idea of doing a Kickstarter.

And he said, "Well, I'll help you with that, we'll work together, we'll be partners," and to have someone else on board, I was ready to do it.

And then we started talking about, "Well, what do you wanna do?"

Well, like everybody, I've got so many ideas stockpiled, there are always ideas I'm working on there.

You know, it's half finished here, it's a quarter finished there, it's just an idea there, whatever.

And so I started talking about four different projects.

And he went, "Oh, I have a great idea.

Let's do all four of them."

Instead of Kickstarting, say, one miniseries, let's do four number ones, four different genres, four different artists, four different styles.

And then when it's done, whoever supports the Kickstarter and supports all four books gets to vote on which will be the one to continue.

So that was great, so we literally, I mean, all of these books are vastly different, and you can't confuse them.

The artists, great artists, Shawn McManus, Matthew Dow Smith, David Baldeon, Tom Mandrake, fantastic, fantastic artists.

And then toward the end, I had another project that I was developing with an artist called "The Edward Gloom Mysteries", and we said, "Let's throw that in as a fifth bonus book at the end," you know, which was great, 'cause people really responded to that.

So, you know, the good news is it was hugely successful.

The bad news was after a month of it, I just wanted to crawl into a hole and just go to sleep for a while, you know, 'cause it was, you really have to be on top of it almost 24/7, because the reality is, if you're using social media to bring people in, well, you know, the truth of social media is if I tweet something, say, at one o'clock, at 1:15, there could be thousands of people on there that were not there at one o'clock that didn't see it.

So David and I, and then the artist joined in as well, you had to really keep beating the drum.

So it was exhausting, but it was exhilarating.

It turned into one of the, really, one of the most joyful, creative projects of my entire career, despite the fact that it was so exhausting.

And the books, books just arrived recently from the printer, everything looks great, and they should be going out next month to everybody that supported the Kickstarter.

And then we hope, we'll do the voting, and then we will hopefully sometime in the fall Kickstart the complete mini series for the one that gets the most votes.

But the plan is to get them all out there.

And you know, to get five ideas out at once, that was really something, that was really something.

- Well, what's really something is first off, that you have to sort of get into this management mindset to run the Kickstarter, and then I guess deal with a publisher, someone who's actually going to physically print the books out, and then engage with customers once they, you know, support the project.

So how do you sort of make sure that all of that business stuff gets done and you're still able to, you know, maybe sit down and find some time to be creative and do what you really wanna do, which is write comics?

- I do that by partnering up with someone like David Baldy who takes care of most of that stuff.

[laughs] He's great, 'cause the great thing about David is, aside from being a creative, he also was a businessman, he has his own business that he's run for years, so he's got the creative brain and the business brain.

So all those things that I really did not wanna deal with, he's been dealing with.

You know, my focus was on the creative end and then just on the promotion end, I must have done 20 podcasts in the course of that month that we had the Kickstarter going.

And you know, 20 times, saying the same thing over and over again, and trying to say it with sincerity and enthusiasm, you know, 'cause you don't wanna be programming it and just spitting it out like a robot.

So like I said, by the end of that month, I was exhausted, but thank God for David Baldy, because he's the one that's kinda kept the trains running, and it all worked out great.

- And you mentioned the artists that you got to work with.

And I'm just wondering, you know, as you're coming up with these concepts, are you thinking, like, this artist would be perfect for it, or is it a conversation you have with an artist and then you suddenly come up with this idea to work together?

And when the, you know, books do start to get written, are you, you know, letting them kind of have a free reign in that Marvel style, or are you delivering the full script and maybe adjusting once you get the pages in?

- All right, that question requires about 20 answers now.

[laughs] Couple of the projects we're already in development with an artist.

There's a book called "Godsend", which is sort of Kirby gods meet "The Matrix" meets Philip K. Dick, you know?

And I was working, Matthew Dow Smith and I were working on that together.

I mentioned that the fifth bonus book, "The Edward Gloom Mysteries", I was working with this wonderful Greek artist, Vassilis Gogtzilas, we were working on that already.

The other is, although they were ideas that I had for years, some of them, we did not have anybody.

But for instance, one of them is a supernatural western.

It was very easy to make the leap to Tom Mandrake because Tom can do supernatural like nobody's business and he does westerns like nobody's business, so that was an easy one, that was a no-brainer.

And then "Anyman", which is probably the closest to a traditional superhero, although once you get into the story, you discover that it's really not as traditional as you think.

I had just finished the Ben Riley "Spider-Man" mini series at Marvel with David Baldeon, and I was not even aware of his art before then.

And I just, in the course of working on that series, fell in love with his work.

So, we recruited David for that.

So it all, you know, it comes different ways, and in terms of Marvel style versus full script, I'm gonna say two things about that.

One is, people have a very distorted view of what Marvel style is.

'Cause they hear those stories from the '60s of Stan Lee going to Jack Kirby, "Let's bring back Dr.

Doom!"

And then Jack goes home and draws a four issue epic and plots the whole thing.

That's not how it works When you're working Marvel style.

My plots when I work Marvel style are very, very detailed, page by page, panel by panel, camera angles, dialogue, themes, it's all in there.

The beauty of working Marvel style is that you still delay that final step, the dialogue, until you get the artwork.

So even though I'm laying it out very precisely in the plot, you get to react to the artwork, so maybe that sequence where you thought you'd need a lot of words, you look at the art and you go, "Wow, that artist delivered everything I wanted.

I don't have to say anything on this page."

Or the reverse, a sequence that you thought would be perfectly clear, you realize, no, I need to juice this with some narrative, I need to juice it with some dialogue.

So, two of the books were done plot first and two of the books were done full script, and I like working both ways.

And the truth of the matter is, even when you're working full script, where the whole script is there, page one, panel one, caption, dialogue, everything, you give that to five different artists, you're gonna get five different stories back in a lot of ways, even though they're all following the script very exactly, 'cause everybody's style is different.

Where they put the emphasis is different.

The way one panel leads into another may be different.

So it's always an interesting process.

And you know, for me, doing this for so many years, still the greatest thrill for me of doing comics is that moment, you know, it used to come in the mail, now it comes in the email, when you get the artwork back for the first time.

And this thing that's been living in your head, sometimes for years, suddenly it comes to life.

And that's the moment when I am 10 years old again on my living room floor, reading a comic book.

'Cause that thrill has never gone away.

- And you know what, what is really fascinating, because first off, as comic fans, we love to get those books and we love to read them, and it's always gratifying to know that the creators share that passion and that joy for reading comics.

But one of the things that I find really fascinating about your career is that you are able to slip between genres.

You're able to do super heroics, you're able to do supernatural, you're able to do a slice of life, and you're able to do, you know, maybe something that's more of an all ages book, and you do them all quite well.

So, as a writer, how do you kind of shift those gears and make sure that the stories hit the points that they need to for the various audiences, but also, you know, satisfy you as the author?

- Well, what satisfies me is just what you're saying, being able to jump through different genres and styles.

And after that, it's just about the story, letting the story lead you where it will.

You know, if you're working on an all ages fantasy, that's not the same as working on some creator owned metaphysical, psychological thing that I'm working on, or is not the same as working on "Spider-Man" or doing a project with Keith Giffen, where we're doing comedy or whatever it may be.

So it's all about the story and the characters, and once you make that connection to the story and the characters, I'm not thinking, "I am working in a different genre now" or anything like that, I'm just following the story.

You know, a couple years ago, I hadn't even realized it, I look back, and I was doing "Kraven's Last Hunt", which was as dark a "Spider-Man" story as has ever been written, and "Justice League International", which was a comedy superhero book, at the same time, you know?

And at the time I was doing it, I wasn't thinking about it.

Years later I looked back, well, wasn't that interesting?

You know, I got to work all these different parts of my brain and my creative muscles by jumping back and forth between these two things, you know?

And that's what keeps it interesting.

And that's why I've also, you know, I've worked in television for more than 20 years, I work in prose, because I just, I could never just do the one thing.

I think there are some people out there, and God bless 'em, that really love superheroes so much, that's just what they wanna do.

And I can't, I'm always looking for something different to excite me or else I might have quit doing it years ago.

- I'm always surprised when I look back at cover dates and I see that certain books came out at certain times, you know, along with other books.

I didn't realize that you were working on "Justice League" at the same time you were working on "Kraven's Last Hunt".

And I guess, you know, back in those days, jumping between publishers wasn't done as often as it is now, so was that some sort of, you know, special minefield that you had to negotiate?

- I'm trying to think, I have to look back, it was a long time ago.

You know, I started at DC.

Then I had a number of years where I was exclusive at Marvel.

And then what happened was I left Marvel, went back to DC, but here's the thing, I learned my lesson, you know, after a few years in the business, that the essence of being a freelancer is the word free.

Because you never know.

You know, on Monday, if you're working for company A and everybody loves you, they think you're the greatest thing since sliced bread, and Tuesday, oh, we got a new editor-in-chief, and he thinks you're awful, and the work dries up, you know?

You always have to keep the door open, you always have to be working on something else.

After a certain point, I always made it my business to go back and forth.

And I think I went to DC, I got involved with "Justice League", but right around the same time, Marvel asked me to come back to "Spider-Man", and that's where Kraven developed, and it just happened that way.

And you know, even later on, there was a period again where I was exclusive to Marvel, but I made sure that I was only exclusive for superheroes so I could go work on my creator owned stuff at Vertigo.

- And speaking of creator owned stuff, you are, I guess, one of the pioneers of creator owned work.

I'm thinking of "Moonshadow" with, you were working under the Epic imprint at Marvel, and then you were able to take that book to DC's Vertigo, and then, I guess I forget where you took it finally, to get the- - Dark Horse, Dark Horse did a beautiful, beautiful edition a couple years ago, and we have some new editions that hopefully will be out from Dark Horse next year, even better than the last one.

- So, when you are coming up with this creator owned property back then compared to a creator owned property in 2023 or 2022, what are the big differences between, you know, in the '80s and the current times?

- Well, one of the differences was, when you worked for Epic, or later, Vertigo, you got paid a good rate going in, you know?

And yet you still had creator rights on those things.

And that's, you know, to go do creator, you know, original work and still be well compensated upfront, it's a great thing, it's a really great thing.

Now, a lot of the deals are really, you know, you're going in with the company, the creators are working for free, or they're working for a low page rate, and then all your money's on the back end.

Whereas then, it was a great thing to do, all these projects that I did for...

I did, you know, Epic, I did "Moonshadow" and "Blood", and then I did a bunch of things for Vertigo and Paradox Press.

And to get paid while you're following this creative vision, that was a great thing, and you know, but those days are long gone.

- [laughs] Well, I guess you have to remain nimble in this industry, especially as, you know, the trends have certainly changed.

And I was reading recently that, you know, the superhero comics that I grew up reading and that you grew up writing, I guess not growing up writing, but that you were writing while I was reading them, they are, you know, those numbers are going down, and we see other genres that are sort of stepping in and taking that.

And again, going back to your ability to shift between those genres, you do have some themes that come up in your work, and it always seems to be around that age, that sweet spot for the comic reader.

And I'm wondering if that was something that's conscious or if it's just something that you always found interesting and your work tends to maybe aim in that direction.

- Now, which themes are we talking about?

- Let's say a coming of age or a coming, you know, sort of figuring out what it's like to be an adult, even though, you know, you might not want to grow up, like a Guy Gardner.

- There's that, but I think it's more figuring out what it is to be a human on this planet as opposed to specifically the adolescent thing, you know?

'Cause you know, a lot of those questions that we start asking ourselves when we're 16, 17, 18, don't go away.

A lot of people start asking them and then put them away and kind of go on sometimes robotically with their lives, but those questions will always come back.

And I think the older we get, the more they do come back.

You know, what is my purpose?

Why am I here?

Is there meaning?

Is there God?

All these things, you know, I think all my stories, when you get down to it, whether it's from a psychological vantage point, emotional, spiritual, metaphysical, it's all asking kind of the big why.

Why is this happening?

And you know, it's fun 'cause you can put the camera on a psychological lens or a spiritual lens, you know, all these different lenses, but the fundamental questions are the same.

Who am I?

You know, I also love stories about the gap between who we think we are and who maybe we really are, you know?

And there's always room for great stories in there.

So I don't think about those as themes that are specifically for a certain age or a certain audience, 'cause there's still the things that I think about and deal with and wrestle with in my own life now.

- Again, it's interesting because, you know, you clearly are a philosopher as well as a writer.

You know, you're thinking of things and putting 'em to words, and like you said, a lot of folks do sort of close the door on that sort of thought because they have to, you know, get on the train at a certain time or work down at the quarry.

Although I don't know if anyone works at quarries anymore.

- I was just at the quarry this morning, it was really fun.

- [Terence] I was talking to Fred and Barney.

- That's right.

[laughs] - So, you've made great partnerships over the years.

I'm thinking of Kevin Maguire, Sal Buscema, and Mike Zeck.

So when you are coming up with a project, do you sometimes just think to yourself, you know, this would be perfect for Kevin, or, gosh, it's great that, you know, Sal's gonna be working with me on "Spider-Man", 'cause I know what they can deliver.

Or is there a joy in finding the unexpected with a new artist that you may never have worked with?

- It's both.

You know, when you're working on a creator owned book, that's when you're really actively seeking out the creative partner that is right for the project and kind of right for you psychologically and emotionally, 'cause you want someone that you can really get along with, because you're creating this thing together that you hope will have life going forward.

Now, when you're working on monthly books from Marvel and DC, you often don't have any choice.

You know, it's a machine.

You turn in the script, they get an artist, they get a warm body, and you hope that the warm body turns out to be Mike Zeck or Sal Buscema.

I remember when back when I was working with Sal on "Spectacular Spider-Man", I had a choice.

They said, "Well, we could either have Sal or artist B over here," and I said, "Sal, please."

I'd worked with Sal before, you know, and he had done some fill-ins on some books I was writing, but this was the first time we had an active collaboration, and it was one of those magical moments where the first page, first panel, something happened, you know?

Something magical happened.

And Zeck and I, you know, same thing, it's like with Zeck, we worked on "Captain America" together for three years, we developed a chemistry together, so that when we jumped a couple years later to "Kraven's Last Hunt", it's like we'd been in the gym and we'd worked all those muscles so we could just hit the ground running.

And you hope for that, but the same thing as I mentioned with David Baldeon for this Kickstarter project, I didn't know who he was.

You know, they showed me some art and I said, "Oh, yeah, I guess that'd be good."

And then you work with somebody and something clicks and it's magical, you know, it's really magical.

And I've often said it's like the chemistry between people.

You walk into a party, you start talking to somebody, and the conversation's just dying, you know?

it's like you're shooting arrows over each other's heads, you know?

You're just not connecting.

You turn around, you accidentally bump into somebody, you start talking, and there is just chemistry from the minute you open your mouth.

It's the same thing with writers and artists.

The chemistry is either there or it's not.

And I've said this before, but I've had it happen where I think I wrote a really good script, I think that artist did a really good job, and you put us together and the story just kind of, like, gasps and falls on its back.

I don't know why it happens or why it doesn't, and that's the part I like.

I like the magic and the mystery of the creative process.

I like the place where the story seems to be coming from another dimension and being beamed through my head and I'm surprised by it.

I like that this chemistry happens between two people and you can't explain it.

That's the fun part of the creative process, is the stuff that we can't really explain.

And it's the same thing with the stories and the audience.

I say all these stories out into the world, I might go, "This is the greatest damn story I've ever written," and you sail it out and nobody pays any attention.

Then you do another story that you thought was, oh, that was okay, and it becomes the classic that keeps getting reprinted that everybody keeps talking about.

But that's between the audience and the story, it almost has nothing to do with me, you know?

And then there's the weird thing where work comes out and it seems to just go nowhere, and like 15 years later, all of a sudden, everybody seems to have discovered it.

And that's always delightful.

I go to a convention and they come up with this run on a book that I know when it came out, everybody kind of went, "Eh," and now they love it.

So I can't explain that.

I can't control it.

It's another interesting mystery of the creative process.

- When we talk about the creative process, and I know that you work a lot to help other writers get better, it is work.

So, you know, waiting for the muse to hit is one thing, but being able to deliver a script every month, or multiple scripts every month, is discipline and work.

So, how do you kind of balance between the inspiration and the discipline to make sure that everything gets done and delivered?

- You need both things.

You really need both things.

What I see that happens is that if I have the time to allow the muse to visit, sometimes it's not even allowing, sometimes I just wake up in the morning and there's a movie playing in my head and I go, "Ooh, what's that?"

And I watch the movie.

"Oh, that's really interesting."

And I run into my office and I go to my computer and I write it down.

I don't know where it came from, I don't know what it is.

Another time though, it's like, they call you up and they say, "Hey, you know, we want you to do this 'Spider-Man' series, and here's the idea they want you to do."

And sometimes your first reaction is, "Ah, I didn't really wanna do that, but you know."

And then all of a sudden, you go off, and the same thing happens.

Something starts going, it's all the magic of the unconscious.

And it may telescope down, that process that might take six months, if you have all the time in the world, could take six minutes when you have a deadline.

But the movie will start playing, you know?

And I'll have a conversation with an editor and they'll say, "Hey, what about something like this?"

And I'll hang up the phone.

And the next thing I know, I'm talking to my wife and I'm going, "You know, we could do this and that and that," and all the ideas just start bursting out of your head.

Now, if you don't get that, then you have to rely solely on your craft.

And you hope that as you're building the story through craft alone, I always, and I don't mean it in a demeaning way, I look at it like a plumber.

Gimme the pipe.

I'll put the pipe together and I'll make that sink work.

And you hope that at some point, when you're putting the pipe together, and forgive this horrible metaphor, the water of inspiration will flow through those pipes, and at some point, it will click and off you'll go.

Plus, you want, you know...

The conscious mind is a great editor, I don't care how amazing my inspiration is, and I may fill 50 pages with notes, but when you sit down to craft that story, you need your conscious mind in there to clean it up, to get those pipes just right, you know?

To make sure they all connect up the right way.

So, you need both.

You really need both.

But it's in the inspiration that I find the most magic.

- It's funny, I teach a screenwriting class and I tell my students all the time about writer's block, and no one ever talks about plumber's block, how they just don't feel like putting pipes down.

It's nice to know that somebody who knows what they're talking about is using the same type of metaphor.

- And I don't believe in writer's block.

That's what I learned over the years.

It's about allowing your unconscious the time and room that it needs.

It's not that you're blocked.

Your unconscious is always working on this stuff, always working on this stuff.

And sometimes your conscious mind hasn't gotten hip to what's going on back there yet, you know?

And you gotta take a breath, take a walk around the block, if you're a musician, go play the piano or the guitar or something, go do something else, and just give it the time and the room.

And again, we're talking about deadlines, I find that somehow if there's a deadline, that whole process, even if you feel blocked, it's telescoped down.

It's like the unconsciousness knows, oh, you need to speed it up right now, because he's only got two days to do this.

I'm always amazed when I go through a process, and I shouldn't admit this publicly, sometimes it's like I'm working on the thing, an animated movie, say, you've got six weeks to get the first draft done.

And a lot of my process, I liken it to, you know when you watch a dog before it's gonna lay down on the carpet and it walks in circles and circles and then finally it goes, "Ah"?

I could spend five of those six weeks walking in circles, just walking in circles.

Now, while I'm walking in circles, my unconscious mind is churning and churning and working on this and working on it.

My conscious mind might feel kind of frustrated.

Ah, I'm not ready to sit down, I don't know.

But I've learned over the years to just let it go.

And then that last week, it opens up, and off you go and there's the whole draft.

It's an interesting process.

Like I said, it's endlessly fascinating to me, and after doing it for like 40 years, I still don't understand it.

And the fact that I don't understand it is what I love most about it.

- One of the reasons why I have this show is because I find the creative process endlessly fascinating, and hearing how people sort of work their problems through, there is that commonality, which is, your mind knows what it's doing even if you don't know that it's doing it.

- Yes, exactly.

And then it goes beyond the unconscious, 'cause I really think the unconscious mind is like a doorway to something bigger.

And I only say this half jokingly 'cause I kind of believe it.

It's like there's a universe of story out there.

And I sometimes imagine a particular story forming out there in the universe, and it's looking for the right person to funnel itself through.

And it goes to writer A, and no, it's not the right one.

You know, it's almost like the three bears, and it goes to the other bed and it's a little too hard, you know?

And then it finds me and it comes in and it enters through the doorway of my unconscious.

And then the trick is, it picks me because of the filter of my personal experience, because each writer could take the same idea, and because of the filter of our personal experience and what we've been through in our lives, we're gonna interpret that story differently.

So it's almost like the story exists separately, and yet it needs us to bring a very personal touch to it.

It's a fascinating thing.

- It is.

And I see we have about a minute left in our conversation.

I was wondering, the folks at home, if they're watching, if they wanted to find out more about The DeMultiverse or about your writing workshops, how can they find you on the web?

- The easiest way is you can follow me on Twitter, which is just jmdematteis on Twitter.

My website is jmdematteis.com.

I'm on Instagram, jm.dematteis.

Accept no substitutes, 'cause there have been a few.

And I'm on Facebook too.

So, I actually enjoy social media tremendously.

It's a wonderful give and take with the fans, and it's a great way to communicate with them.

- Well, J. M., I wanna thank you so much for taking time out to communicate with me, it's been a great conversation, and I look forward to seeing the books when they do come out.

I'd like to thank everyone at home for watching "Comic Culture".

We will see you again soon.

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