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This being the first weekly series with Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman as the main characters, do you feel any pressure about its success? How So?
It's no more than the usual -- if I'm writing Superman solo, or writing the Avengers, or Conan, I want the book to be a success, and feel the urge to make it work. This being a weekly, so DC's committing ahead of time to a 52-issue series, and corralling terrific art talent like Mark Bagley on the lead chapters and Scott McDaniel, Tom Derenick and Mike Norton backing them up, putting the kind of promotion and fanfare they've put into this...yeah, there's a feeling of pressure, but at the same time, look what I get to work with.
Great characters, great artists, a big spotlight -- those are advantages, not drawbacks. So they're giving me the tools to work with as well as the responsibility to kick some storytelling ass.
In the end, though, the name of the game isn't "try to be a bestseller" -- doing that usually results in a flop. It's "try to tell a great story, and trust that if it's good, the audience will like it." Do that, and the rest takes care of itself.
Will new readers be able to easily transition into reading the core characters main titles?
Can't see why not -- though that's really a question about how welcoming the solo books are to new audiences. TRINITY will give readers a good look at the Trinity, and the DCU around them, so hopefully it'll make them want to check out those solo books.
After which point, it's up to Geoff and James and Gary and Renato and Grant and Tony and Paul and Dustin and Gail and Aaron. But they're all doing cool stuff, so I don't expect they'll have any problem.
How has the weekly schedule forced you to change your writing style?
Well, we have to be tighter, with me writing 12-page lead chapters, and Fabian Nicieza and me co-writing 10-page back-chapters. So each chapter has to be tighter -- it has to start faster, it has to keep moving, it has to build to its internal climax quickly. But as the same time, we've got the luxury that the next chapters are gonna show up in 7 days, so we can mix things up, too -- if one issue is more character drama than action, or vice-versa, well, next week things'll start to explode, or clues will unfold. So it's easier to juggle stuff knowing that we can pay things off in seven days rather than a month.
We're also able to shake up the cast, since we have those back-chapters to work with, and can jump around from character to character, telling an action-blowout story here, a mystery there, an outer-space adventure, a crime story, a comedy adventure starring the Riddler, a villain showcase....lots of different approaches, all of it serving the main story.
I think overall the writing's leaner, more hit-the-ground-running-and-go, than what I might do in a different series. And of course, we gotta do it faster, because we have 52 issues to do, and a year to get 'em all out there...
It seems that one of the last “big event” works you did was JLA/Avengers. How does Trinity compare to that project?
To start with, it's over 5 times as long.
JLA/AVENGERS was 192 pages. TRINITY's over 1,150 pages. So as big as JLA/AVENGERS was, this can be even bigger. Lots more scope, more room to explore more characters, and a conflict that can really develop over time, as the chapters pile up. And while JLA/AVENGERS had two full teams as the leads, TRINITY gets to focus on three main characters, with a number of other characters in showcased roles. So it's a tighter focus on character, and more room to play stuff out.
Half as many editors, too!
But really, they're different books, very different kinds of stories. I will say, though, that there is stuff that happened in JLA/AVENGERS that will crop up again in TRINITY, so they're not completely unconnected...
Will you still be able to do Astro City during your run on Trinity?
Sure. Dropping ASTRO CITY was never on the table.
And we're currently working on the third issue of the next four-issue arc, so things are still moving along on that front, too. ASTRO CITY: THE DARK AGE Book Three will be scheduled as soon as we're absolutely sure it'll all come out on time, and once we're done with that, we'll roll on to the next Character Special (Astra Furst!), and then on to DARK AGE Book Four...
Someone’s on the fence with buying a new weekly comic. What would you say to sway them?
I'd make it as simple as possible. Buy #1. If you like it, come back next week and pick up #2. If you like that, come back next week and get #3. And keep on that way -- although I think that if we get readers to read the first three issues, we'll have hooked them pretty well.
It’s one year later and Trinity is over. What next?
It is not! It's May, and TRINITY #1 hasn't come out yet! Don't scare me like that!
But seriously -- I'm not looking that far into the future. Between TRINITY, ASTRO CITY and a couple of other projects here and there, I've got plenty to fill my days. I've got lots of ideas about what I might do next, from new spins on existing characters to creator-owned projects I'd like to do, but I don't want to make any predictions or lock anything down until I'm at least on the downslope on TRINITY.
Thanks!
My pleasure. Hope you like the book!
This being the first weekly series with Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman as the main characters, do you feel any pressure about its success? How So?
It's no more than the usual -- if I'm writing Superman solo, or writing the Avengers, or Conan, I want the book to be a success, and feel the urge to make it work. This being a weekly, so DC's committing ahead of time to a 52-issue series, and corralling terrific art talent like Mark Bagley on the lead chapters and Scott McDaniel, Tom Derenick and Mike Norton backing them up, putting the kind of promotion and fanfare they've put into this...yeah, there's a feeling of pressure, but at the same time, look what I get to work with.
Great characters, great artists, a big spotlight -- those are advantages, not drawbacks. So they're giving me the tools to work with as well as the responsibility to kick some storytelling ass.
In the end, though, the name of the game isn't "try to be a bestseller" -- doing that usually results in a flop. It's "try to tell a great story, and trust that if it's good, the audience will like it." Do that, and the rest takes care of itself.
Will new readers be able to easily transition into reading the core characters main titles?
Can't see why not -- though that's really a question about how welcoming the solo books are to new audiences. TRINITY will give readers a good look at the Trinity, and the DCU around them, so hopefully it'll make them want to check out those solo books.
After which point, it's up to Geoff and James and Gary and Renato and Grant and Tony and Paul and Dustin and Gail and Aaron. But they're all doing cool stuff, so I don't expect they'll have any problem.
How has the weekly schedule forced you to change your writing style?
Well, we have to be tighter, with me writing 12-page lead chapters, and Fabian Nicieza and me co-writing 10-page back-chapters. So each chapter has to be tighter -- it has to start faster, it has to keep moving, it has to build to its internal climax quickly. But as the same time, we've got the luxury that the next chapters are gonna show up in 7 days, so we can mix things up, too -- if one issue is more character drama than action, or vice-versa, well, next week things'll start to explode, or clues will unfold. So it's easier to juggle stuff knowing that we can pay things off in seven days rather than a month.
We're also able to shake up the cast, since we have those back-chapters to work with, and can jump around from character to character, telling an action-blowout story here, a mystery there, an outer-space adventure, a crime story, a comedy adventure starring the Riddler, a villain showcase....lots of different approaches, all of it serving the main story.
I think overall the writing's leaner, more hit-the-ground-running-and-go, than what I might do in a different series. And of course, we gotta do it faster, because we have 52 issues to do, and a year to get 'em all out there...
It seems that one of the last “big event” works you did was JLA/Avengers. How does Trinity compare to that project?
To start with, it's over 5 times as long.
JLA/AVENGERS was 192 pages. TRINITY's over 1,150 pages. So as big as JLA/AVENGERS was, this can be even bigger. Lots more scope, more room to explore more characters, and a conflict that can really develop over time, as the chapters pile up. And while JLA/AVENGERS had two full teams as the leads, TRINITY gets to focus on three main characters, with a number of other characters in showcased roles. So it's a tighter focus on character, and more room to play stuff out.
Half as many editors, too!
But really, they're different books, very different kinds of stories. I will say, though, that there is stuff that happened in JLA/AVENGERS that will crop up again in TRINITY, so they're not completely unconnected...
Will you still be able to do Astro City during your run on Trinity?
Sure. Dropping ASTRO CITY was never on the table.
And we're currently working on the third issue of the next four-issue arc, so things are still moving along on that front, too. ASTRO CITY: THE DARK AGE Book Three will be scheduled as soon as we're absolutely sure it'll all come out on time, and once we're done with that, we'll roll on to the next Character Special (Astra Furst!), and then on to DARK AGE Book Four...
Someone’s on the fence with buying a new weekly comic. What would you say to sway them?
I'd make it as simple as possible. Buy #1. If you like it, come back next week and pick up #2. If you like that, come back next week and get #3. And keep on that way -- although I think that if we get readers to read the first three issues, we'll have hooked them pretty well.
It’s one year later and Trinity is over. What next?
It is not! It's May, and TRINITY #1 hasn't come out yet! Don't scare me like that!
But seriously -- I'm not looking that far into the future. Between TRINITY, ASTRO CITY and a couple of other projects here and there, I've got plenty to fill my days. I've got lots of ideas about what I might do next, from new spins on existing characters to creator-owned projects I'd like to do, but I don't want to make any predictions or lock anything down until I'm at least on the downslope on TRINITY.
Thanks!
My pleasure. Hope you like the book!