I love the honesty in this John Wagner response from the Dark Judges CBR interview:
I have to confess that part of the reason I brought Judges Fear, Fire and Mortis back is that I’m considering writing a new story to reunite the four, with the excellent Greg Staples on art. My problem with the Dark Judges, and the reason that I’ve left them so long, is that I find it difficult to write any story without adding large dollops of black humor. This, however, tends to diminish characters like Judge Death, to dilute their level of menace. If I couldn’t handle them in the way they deserved, then it was better to leave them alone. So I’ve been prevaricating on a new story ever since Greg suggested it — until last week when he sent me a Dark Judge illustration he’d done. It was out of this world, simply stunning, and it made me think more seriously about a comeback. I’ll be considering it over the coming weeks. If I can find a way to make it work (without the humor!), then the project is on.
Maybe I’m so used to a more American, more “on” interview where everything is relentlessly upbeat and confident – “This is the greatest thing I’ve ever done!” and so on – but there’s something charming to me about admitting that you tend to write against the characters you’ve created and need to get over that in order for a future project to happen. Let’s have more reflective creator interviews in comics!
May 3rd, 2012 at 9:14 am
That’s because we don’t really have interviews on most “comic news” sites, we get puff pieces with creators delivering on-message promotion. If the interviewers would ask some insightful questions and initiate something more might come out of it, but most seem content to proffer tripe along the lines of “Avengers Vs X-Men is so awesome. How did you make it so awesome? How do you like working with awesome artist Mr. Awesome? What awesome things do you have coming up for us next month?”
At least the publicity flack’s job is to spew pointless PR, but anyone who calls themselves a journalist should maybe try harder not to be a tool of the PR machine.