Hey everyone! In case you missed Scott Snyder’s Panel on Friday here is your chance to get the run down. After some fun comment’s made by John Cunningham he went on to give Scott Snyder some praise by saying,
[Snyder] is important given the fact he sells the most books for DC every month, that he writes with a certain “literary” quality to it, and because comics doesn’t always do a great job of supporting this sort of literary thinking…
Cunningham brought up one of Snyder’s comics that landed him the amazing job at DC through Vertigo and Mark Doyle with the comic Voodoo Hearts, which is a collection of shorts that comprises a full series. Think of the comic book series Fables. Branching off of this Cunningham spoke of another comic book called Happy Fish + Coin that takes on a super-hero like feel with how an average guy that seems to have super-hero like powers deals with it and his struggle with accepting family and the struggles that come with trying to handle them.
After this brief talk about Snyder from Cunningham, Snyder started talking about how he had struggled starting out in writing comics, and encouraged everyone to head to the Artist’s Alley and try out a new comic book because he was once there. He happened to be starting out when things for the comic book industry started to recess on itself, and through the encouragement of his wife he took out a loan and put out his own comic that way since he knew that his publisher wasn’t going to take a chance on him.
For me, I’ve had an incredibly supportive family. One thing that runs through a lot of my work, though, is the fear of losing people. You can have a great day and then things can just blow up.
He continues on about his family for a little bit and then changes gears and talks about how he loves how Batman has to face his own mortality and the trials that come from other sources like the Court of Owls or the Joker. And after some time he starts talking about some of the more known horror classics such as vampires and werewolves. And his first encounter with American Vampire and the clans of vampires.
So what’s scary about a Confederate vampire? What if I made these old American icons and added this horrific element to it…Is there something deeply, primal scary or is it just something cool?
Cunningham jumped in after a while and started talking about Snyder’s first run in with the big bad Bat and his works in Detective Comics and The Black Mirror. Cunningham asked Scott Snyder, “Was this just for you or was this meant to speak to how the world works?”
Snyder retorted with “It’s the best villain in all of literature. So why would you continue to live in Gotham?!? You can only imagine how awful it must be … but as a New Yorker, you go to a place like Gotham to become the hero you know you are deep down.” In which Scott then went on to talk about the Black Mirror and said,
The city was going to create a new villain devoid of compassion – not someone Bruce would fear because he’d just punch James – but the apathy to family would be awful to Dick. If you get a chance to write any of these characters? Write them like it’s your only chance. Break them down and completely build them back up. If you can’t do this, then don’t do the character because there are a thousand people waiting to do it.
Scott followed this up with the feeling that he needs to basically always push the envelope and take risks even if it means having people hate him for it. Which is what really pushes his talents this far and makes it so we can all relate to the protagonist and antagonists so well. Cunningham followed up with talking about Snyder’s work on the New52 Batman noting the familiar elements even within the Court of Owls. Snyder made mention on Bruce’s own personality as very closed off and usually leaving Alfred to talk about Batman’s feelings back to Bruce. Of course Snyder followed up this comment with,
One of the [more] important things to do, for me, is that every time you start an arc with us is that it’s about you. It’s your version of Gotham, Batman, Joker, the Riddler, and so on. It’s how you swing for the fence.
With that Scott Snyder closed up the panel and wrapped it up. Comment and let us know what you think the Batman: The Black Mirror will entail for the future of Bruce and Batman.
