As a comic book writer, have you ever found it difficult to write an already defined character with a set personality while still keeping that personality intact? I don't know if that's a clear question. Sometimes I think about how great Steph was and how

Well, all writers have different skill-sets, some magnificent television and film and prose writers fail disastrously at comics writing, they simply can’t adjust to the format. Happens ALL the time…you’d be amazed how many of those guys require extensive rewrites because they just couldn’t master the form. Same in reverse, I’m sure.

With shared universe stuff, being able to write characters in their established voices is an absolute must. The readers KNOW what Batman’s voice is, and can spot a fraud in a second. 

I always say these characters are pliable. But they are breakable, too. You can screw up pretty easily. Batman can be written lots of ways, you can pull him like taffy. But you go too far and the illusion shatters and the story fails.

So we all have to be able to walk that line. I am pretty fortunate that I have a good rep for being able to find a character’s voice, so it’s not a huge concern.

However, I will say, sometimes a writer is SO distinctive on a character that it is much harder for others to emulate. I’m thinking of, say, Giffen’s Ambush Bug, or Rucka’s Batwoman, something of that nature. In those cases, you have to do your homework, and you have to do a lot of thinking time, and you have to measure your words carefully. It’s just part of this particular career…you want to do right. Steph would fit in that category, sure.

My favorite story about that is that I am a HUGE fan of Keith Giffen. I think he’s an absolute genius, I love his art, his writing, I love his character creation, his dialogue, everything.

It turns out, amazingly, that he loves my work as well. And one day he called me and said, “That’s it, we’re doing a Secret Six/Doom Patrol crossover and it’s going to be NUTS.” 

I was so excited…I couldn’t stand it. But I started thinking, holy crap, that means I would be writing Ambush Bug.

I LOVE Ambush Bug, I find him hysterical. But the problem is, NO ONE writes him well except for his creators, Keith and Robert Loren Fleming. He always sucks when ANYONE else writes him.

So I thought, uh, oh, what have I gotten myself into?

And I really worried about it. It was my number one fear throughout the whole thing. I did my best, I wrote him as an oddball, but with a focus. I was sure Keith would hate it. The two teams had to meet, that’s the whole point of the crossover.

And so I wrote one of my favorite character’s dialogue, the guy NO ONE gets right, and it was in a story for that character’s creator, also a huge hero of mine.

No pressure, right?

So I write the script, sure he’s going to hate it. I hear back, he loves the script, and I am relieved.

After the issues come out, I relax, the story’s a lot of fun (maybe more for us than for anyone else, we just wanted to put DC’s weirdest teams together). And finally I wrote Keith and said, “You know, the story’s great, but I was absolutely TERRIFIED that I was going to do the world’s crappiest Ambush Bug.”

There’s silence on the end of the phone. And Keith, my hero, says, “You’re kidding, right? I was completely in TERROR of getting Ragdoll wrong!”

I’m telling this story because it makes me laugh, but it also illustrates a point, that good writers really do care about this stuff deeply, and that they don’t get over it, ever. Even when you have accomplished as much as someone like Keith has, you still want to get the characters just right, and you never stop fretting over it and being anxious about it.

So, you have THAT to look forward to forever.  :)