BENDIS:So the first one of these I did, I did with Stan [Lee].
WHEDON: Oh.
BENDIS: Your name came up like, four times. In a very positive way. He’s very in love with you.
WHEDON: I just did that tribute thing they’re doing to Stan. I did a story for that with Michael Gaydos.
BENDIS: I know. I’m right after you with [Mark] Bagley.
WHEDON: Oh cool! Oh my God! Gaydos’ pencils were so amazing.
BENDIS: Aren’t they so nice? He doesn’t get nearly enough credit.
WHEDON: [Gaydos’s art] is so textured and so rich and so on the edge of comic books and so human. I was loving life because, you know, the story is really silly, so that’ll sort of help cover it.
BENDIS: What’s your story?
WHEDON: My story? It involves a comic convention of alternate dimensions where people are comparing their comic in worlds where there was no Stan.
BENDIS: Oh, okay. Cool.
WHEDON: It’s very silly. A lot of talking. What’s yours?
BENDIS: My story is, the Impossible Man returns to the Marvel Universe and is disgusted by what House of M and Civil War and me and Mark [Millar] and you and [Jeph] Loeb have done to it. So he goes to try to find Stan to complain. But he can’t get near him because he’s all immersed in his Hollywood stuff.
WHEDON: Ah. [Laughs] I got a soft spot for the Impossible Man.
BENDIS: Me too! It’s hard to work him into a story though. I wanted him to be the villain in House of M, I just couldn’t make it work.
WHEDON: Yeah, it’s gotta be the right kind of version. The thing about the Fantastic Four is they can be fluffy. There could even be H.E.R.B.I.E.
BENDIS: Yeah, that’s true. When [Mark and I] did Ultimate Fantastic Four, we got H.E.R.B.I.E. right in there, immediately.
WHEDON: Yeah. [Laughs]
BENDIS: That was more important to us than the Human Torch. Alright, I want to talk to you about a few things. One of which, and this is one of the biggest things I’ve wanted to talk to you about, even when we met in person, and I’ve never brought it up just because there wasn’t an opportunity. I would like to talk to you about why and how you came about hiring Jack Green as your cinematographer, because I kind of worship the guy. I was amazed you hired him. It was a pretty amazing thing.
WHEDON: The first American cinematographer I ever bought was Jack Green doing “Tightrope” for Clint [Eastwood] back in college. So I’m kind of a nut for him too. And the way I hired him was this-he came in and said, “I can do this.” And besides the fact that he already had a rep for being fast and his stuff looked good, he’s the loveliest human being on the face of the planet.
BENDIS: That’s so good to hear.
WHEDON: Just five minutes in, you feel like you guys went to school together. This guy has been in it now for a long while. He’s worked with big names. The only baggage that Jack Green brings with him are three of his children, who were on the camera crew. All of whom are good at their jobs and really sweet. He had one first assistant, one second assistant and one b-camera operator; two sons and a daughter. He just came in, he totally got it and then he kept on getting it.
There was one time I was gonna tell him to do something really weird. It had practically come to me in a dream, and I was just like, I just don’t think... it had a spotlight and it seemed to.... I’m like, I’m not even gonna pitch it. But I needed something to distinguish this and Jack was like, ‘Well, I didn’t want to say anything, and you’ll probably make me take it down, but I’ve been putting up a spotlight.’ I mean, it was just creepy. He gets the material. He does so much and has so much art. And you’ll notice that the shot is never about Jack.
BENDIS: Yeah, you know, we were just talking about that with Gaydos and Bagley, where there’s certain artists and craftsmen where they don’t get the credit because all they care about is the story and servicing the story. They’re professional and don’t have tantrums and a lot of times those guys don’t get the credit they deserve.
WHEDON: Yeah, I mean Jack is the fastest cinematographer I know and there are others who say, “Well, if you don’t take six hours and make everybody wait and make the shot so beautiful that it takes you out of the story, then no, you’re not gonna be the big name and not get the credit you deserve.”
Sublimating yourself to a story is sort of the opposite of the Quentin Tarantino school. When I watched “Kill Bill,” it was like sitting next to Quentin Tarantino and having him go, “Alright, cool! Check out my music that I love!”
BENDIS: [Laughs] Yeah, Rob Richardson, his cinematographer, is a guy I worship too. And it’s kind of the polar opposite, style-wise, of Jack Green, but I just love that guy too. But it did make me want to talk to you, as someone who works in both comics and film, about the difference between your relationship with your cinematographer and your penciler. Can you talk about that?
WHEDON: Well, my penciler is also my inker. It’s often [John] Cassaday that I work with. And in addition to my cinematographer, he’s also my actors. And it’s not so much like I’m the director; it’s more like television where I’m the executive producer, because he’s also the director. You know how many artists make their characters overact. You know, when you write something subtle and deadpan and they put in giant manga mouth and big lines coming out of their head. [Laughs] And you’re like, “Uh... wait a minute!” That’s the equivalent of having Halle Barry give that hilarious reading of the Toad line in “X-Men.”
I’ve had trouble with every aspect of that- working with a director who didn’t understand the material or a cinematographer who wanted to make it fancy at the expense of what was real and beautiful about it. And of course actors can bring their own baggage, although I’ve been pretty lucky. And your penciler is that whole package. He’s all of them. You’re definitely overseeing that. Usually, I get thumbnails and go back and forth with my artists; but Johnny, when he’s done with the pages, I get them. And it’s never more than, “Can you change an eyebrow? Can we have an eyebrow change?”
BENDIS: I know you’re obviously very happy with Cassaday. What was it like working with other artists like Karl [Moline] who you worked with on Fray, your first comic? Did you have a similar relationship?
WHEDON: With Karl, there was more back and forth because first of all, we were creating a brand new world and all brand new characters. And Karl and myself were both pretty fresh. He’d had more work than I had, since I hadn’t any at all. Karl would give me thumbnails and we would go over them because there were certain things I was looking for specifically. There was more back and forth, but I loved what he came up with.
BENDIS:Yeah, I loved that comic. It doesn’t get enough play out in the nerd world. So I’m using this opportunity to plug it.
WHEDON: Bless you.
BENDIS: I used to do thumbnails on every book I wrote. Like, fully draw the book and hand it to the artist and go, “Here, do this.” Some artists loved it and some artists really... they weren’t offended by it, but they’d be like, “Well, what am I gonna do then?” Some artists are like, “Great, I just wanna sit in front of the TV and draw.” But more and more as I went on, I saw I was kinda not trusting anybody and being very megalomaniacal. So I just started writing full script. And unless there’s a scene where, like you said, you had a dream with a shot and you had to get the shot out, I kinda just sit back and let people do it.
So sometimes it’s a learning curve. But I was just curious about the creative relationship of the cinematographer versus your artist.
WHEDON: Well, it’s always a question of who you got. I worked with one artist, who shall remain nameless, who could not get what I wanted at all. And I’ve definitely worked with one or two actors like that, and directors and cinematographers and production designers. I mean, the artist is doing all of that, costume design and everything, and I’ve had trouble on every front. I am also megalomaniacal. I don’t do the thumbnail art because, unlike you, I am not an artist and I don’t think even I would understand what was happening. [Laughs] But I try to describe very specifically when I’m being very specific about a visual, trying to use as many words as possible. Although with Cassaday, again, I do that less and less.
Ultimately, you have to have both, I think. You have to be a megalomaniacal fella who’s got a singular vision and then as you go on, and you find more and more competent people, who can not only service, but expand or challenge that vision, that’s when it starts getting really fun. When you go, “I’m not gonna dictate,” it’s fun because he’s gonna surprise you. He’s gonna bring something new to the table. It’s like, when you’re working with actors, they’ve got their rhythm. You’ve got yours and you’re always in danger of having all of your characters speak with your rhythm. It’s the same rhythm. And that’s a pitfall for any writer to fall into. When you’re working in movies or TV, you have actors and you know their strengths, or they’re gonna surprise you. Especially if they’re Christopher Walken. Then you never know what words they’re gonna land on. But with the writing, you have to create all that. You don’t have as many opportunities to be surprised.
BENDIS: I never asked you this-what’s your writing process for comics?
WHEDON: My writing process for comics is similar to my writing process for movies, although I tend to write comics chronologically, which I don’t with movies or TV. I’ll circle for a long time, for as long as I can without being late. Despite my reputation, I do care about that. [Laughs] And when it’s time and I feel it, I’ll start to free associate. I know the basic arc and I know where I’m heading, so I’ll free associate. I have a dry erase board I’ll write on a note pad, just to get ideas and then eventually, I’ll number out the pages and start trying to place all the ideas I have and when it starts to really take shape, only then do I start writing. I don’t write page one until I know exactly what page 15 is gonna be. And every now and then I’m wrong. Every now and then I go, ‘Aw, I’ve expanded this or contracted that.’ You know how that is. But it’s weird. There’s actually a very small amount of sitting down and typing because I’ve played out all the scenes so much and because I don’t describe as much with Johnny as I used to. So it really doesn’t take that long to physically write it at this point.
BENDIS: I’ve said this probably a couple times, but sometimes you know exactly where you’re going and then you get to page 18 and all of a sudden, you figure out you’re going somewhere else that’s so much better than you planned. And sometimes it sounds like you got your head up your ass a little bit, but you don’t! It’s just, the characters took over and it’s an awesome feeling where you go, “Oh my God! I’m on a roll!” But sometimes when you tell people that, it translates to, “What’s going on? Tell the story you were gonna tell!” They want the original story.
WHEDON: But again, it’s the thing that makes you, and I mean you in particular and also “one,” good at your job-the combination of absolute maniacal focus and absolute submission. The story is more important than what you intend to do with it. And when it starts talking back to you, you listen! And I know people who don’t and their stuff is not as tight. Their worlds are not as rich. Because they’re so adhering to their first idea that they lose the beauty of something that gets bigger than that.
BENDIS: Sometimes you start cramming. You’re literally shoving stuff into a box it doesn’t fit into. And I’ve seen friends do this. They’ll even tell me they’re shoving this into a box and I’m like, “Why are you doing that?” In the history of literature, it’s never worked. Shove it in a box and it’s sh**. You don’t get the response you wanted and you’re shocked. But that makes me think of something else I wanted to ask you. Do you do rewrites after it’s drawn?
WHEDON: Just lately, I looked at the lettering on the last Astonishing X-Men and went, “You know what, I can rearrange that slightly.” And I added a couple phrases and rearranged a couple things. Not tremendously. I’m going for very specific cinematic hits, boom, boom, boom! But yeah, just recently, I looked at one issue and went, “Euh! I could have used a phrase there!” And then one where I did it in time instead of after it was published.
BENDIS: The reason I wanted to ask you this is I was watching the commentary to “Serenity” with my nerd wife last week, who has questions for you that she’s written down and handed to me which I’ll get to in a minute, but you talked about a couple scenes that you wrote literally on set that you realized you needed. And I think about that and how we do that in comics. We always have the next issue to do that if we have to, but I was wondering how you rewrite if you realize you need a scene or do you rewrite after you’ve seen the art, especially with John Cassaday’s cinematic style and with few panels to play with?
WHEDON: Again, in movies or TV, there’s so much flow because everything is happening at once. You’re watching the thing being made. You’re not handing it to an artist who is then off in his cubbyhole. You’re there. You’re watching it. You’re seeing it evolve and you’re going, “Oh sh**! I gotta change this. I gotta pull this back. I gotta do more here.” Or whatever it is. Or if it’s TV, they’re coming in and telling you, “It’s too short. We need a new scene and you gotta shoot it after lunch.” And that’s not gonna happen as much in comics. Except that I often misnumber my pages.
BENDIS: [Laughs] I do that too! It’s the most embarrassing thing in the world. Because I do a rewrite specifically just to count the pages to make sure I’m handing in 22 pages in numerical order, and I still hand in a script with three page 19s.
WHEDON: Yeah, and I’ve done it enough times now, I realize it’s part of who I am.
BENDIS: Sometimes I’ll try to add pages to the script without getting in trouble, but it’s completely subconscious. I’m just bad with numbers.
WHEDON: I like 22 pages. It’s actually 23 I write because we start on page two now with the recaps. And then I have to end with a last page. It’s not always a splash. In fact, it’s not even often a splash, but it’s still gotta be the last page. The ending on two pages thing, I mean, it works sometimes, but it’s hard for me. Turning that last page has always been a big moment. With Cassaday one time, I also pulled the dialogue from a couple of panels because the art was so pretty and I was like, “It’s being said.” It’s like that shot that Alex Maleev did of Bullseye.
BENDIS: Yeah, absolutely. It happens to me a lot with Maleev and Bagley where I yank whole bits of dialogue. Bagley draws those big doe eyes and you don’t need to say anything. It’s right there. There’s no dialogue that’s gonna make it any better. And that’s my biggest compliment to an artist, when they go, “What happened to the script?” and I go, “Didn’t need it.”
WHEDON: Yeah, that really is. And it’s that way with actors too. When I’m watching what’s going on and I go, “You know what? It’s really flowery what I wrote and full of pretty alliteration, but what if you just looked that way?”
BENDIS: The other writing thing I wanted to ask you, and this is something that has been my journey as a comic book writer; going from a single lead book or a double lead to a team-dynamic book; you have nine leads in the “Firefly” universe. You have nine characters and the ship, which is the tenth. And you have the X-Men, which and “Buffy” has a group dynamic too, but with more of a single lead. Do you have any gigantic thoughts about the group dynamic, because I’ll tell you the one problem I’ve had in my journey was there was always one character, like when I was doing Ultimate X-Men, I never had anything for Colossus to say.
WHEDON: [Laughs]
BENDIS:And I’d always try to give him something. I’d literally sometimes say to David Finch, “Listen, have Colossus doing busy work in the background, just so he’ll look like he’s doing something.” But really, there was nothing for him to say to add to the plot or even add to the conversation in any way. And it was always one guy that I couldn’t give anything to. And every time I did it, boy I’d get sh** online for it, man. They’d always be like, “Don’t put Colossus on the team if you’re not doing anything with him!” They’d always see right through it.
WHEDON: Well, if I’m doing it in movies or TV, TV particularly, there is someone who’s going to notice and it’s going to be the actor.
BOTH: [Laughs]
WHEDON: They’re going to be like, “Why am I even in this scene? Why do I have to show up for filming today if I don’t have lines?” So you really can’t cheat your way through that one. But there is always somebody who’s more difficult than the rest. I think ultimately, the appeal of the single character book is huge to me. But at the end of the day, everybody who opens their mouth fascinates me. Even Fray was a one-character book, but I was fascinated by Urkonn. I was fascinated by Loo, I was fascinated by Icarus and Harth and Erin and everybody else, so ultimately, if that book had gone on, it would have ended up becoming a team book probably. Maybe in the sense that Ben Urich is part of Daredevil’s team, but still, you can’t help but give those people play. And some of the big hero moments in Fray belong to her sister.
BENDIS: But a lot of times when you have a single character, it’s a lot of fun to get the single person’s point of view of the world. It’s very easy to follow that person down the road. But when you have a group dynamic, you have to find the person whose point of view is the most interesting for that story or that scene. Or using the omniscient view, seeing the whole team go through something. It’s something that I’m thinking about all the time now.
WHEDON: In a way, I’m only interested in one person. One person always emerges as the “me” figure, for want of a better phrase. But I am fascinated by the internal conflict of the team. And internal conflict is definitely the phrase, because my favorite stuff in my X-Men run has been, and will continue to be, when they beat the sh** out of each other.
BOTH: [Laughs]
BENDIS: It’s always fun to have one person annoying the sh** out of everybody else in the group.
WHEDON: Yes, that’s important. I call that “Cordelia.”
BENDIS: [Laughs] Oh, speaking of, I saw on the board tonight they announced the new Buffy comic. You’re gonna write a new Buffy comic?
WHEDON: I am, in fact. This was originally a concept that was designed to tie in to some Buffy movies that are probably not going to happen. So now the comic is out there twisting in the wind by itself. But I have this arc; this concept of what I refer to as “Season 8” of “Buffy,” which is the “What happens next?” Although it’s very much more comic book in scale and style and time frame. Everyone’s like, “What week will it pick up during?” And I’m like, “It’s not quite like that.”
What I’m doing is working with Georges Jeanty. He’s gonna be drawing the first four, which I’m writing. And Jo Chen’s gonna do the covers. I’m a huge fan of hers. I have this arc laid out which I’m sort of writing up as where I want the series to go and then I’m gonna be bringing in anybody from the camp or any of our friends who have the time to do arcs within that. Just sort of servicing certain beats and then going off on their own. Because at this point, it’s sort of fair game. There are certain characters I’ve been saving because I thought I might make movies about them, but that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.
BENDIS: Why isn’t that going to happen?
WHEDON: I think money is standing in the way. What is ever in the way? What ever makes anything happen or not happen?
BENDIS: I don’t know. You have more insight on that than I do. [Laughs] Hey, remember the animated Buffy? That’s the first time we ever talked, was about the possibility of an animated Buffy. Whatever happened with that?
WHEDON: You know, uh, money. [Laughs] We just couldn’t get anybody willing to pony up for it. I couldn’t do cheesy animation. I needed it to be of the quality of “Batman: The Animated Series” or “Animaniacs.” Really tight. That’s the reason why there’s animation. We had a lot of low-budget people coming in. But if the quality’s not good enough, I have other things to do with my time. So more than likely, we were asking for the moon, but there was no network that was interested in going there. Between Fox and the networks, they could never come up with enough that would make a decent show. And interest wasn’t that high. You feel like you’re holding bags of money up to homeless men who are refusing them. You’re like, “But this is a no-brainer. This works!”
I had scripts by writers from the show that were hilarious because they were the scripts containing what we used to call our ‘Simpson moments.’ We’d pitch things for the regular show that were just too silly or ridiculous or offensive or whatever. Every one of those was in a script and they were hilarious.
BENDIS: And Loeb was involved in this too, right?
WHEDON: Yeah, that’s how I got involved with Loeb in the first place. He was funny because he knew that world.
BENDIS: I’m a huge animation snob. I just can’t handle cheapy animation. It just drives me insane.
WHEDON: Yeah, it makes me crazy. It makes my eyes hurt. And what can be done is so incredibly beautiful. And not especially expensive. But people will only go a certain distance. They will go no further. It kept almost coming back. A new network would show interest and piles of us would line up and ride out somewhere in the valley and go to a meeting and nothing would happen.
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