"Friendship" & Batman

Plus, Bazinga! Skottie! Q&A! Wow!

This week “Friend” of the ‘Stack Ryan Stegman dictated a nice newsletter to his assistant over on his Substack about his friendship with cartoonist extraordinaire Skottie Young. I, of course, sent him a message of congratulations.

But for real, it’s a nice post that you should check out if you value friendship and Ryan being “vulnerable” for clicks.

Also, I’ve decided that people who have been conditioned to fall all over Skottie like he’s SO GODDAMN GREAT are to be referred to as “Skottie Trained.”

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This week BATMAN #129 is out and it’s as pretty as the previous issues.

It’s still very funny to me that I write Batman. I’ve been visiting Toronto and had forgotten that there are readers out there who will recognize me in the street. I was on the bus one night, masked, wearing my ratty hoodie with fresh and old sauce stains adorning it, and I spotted a guy in a Batman baseball hat reading a comic. He locked eyes with me and was like “holy shit are you Chip Zdarsky?” I said yes, and I could tell that his initial joyous surprise gave way to the sad realization that I was an absolute schlub just getting by and that writing Batman doesn’t make you cool or good at life.

He got off at the next stop and I almost got off too so I could follow him and explain that I am, indeed, cool. And that the argument he overheard where I was telling the bus driver that my transfer was, in fact, still good, doesn’t accurately represent my amazing life.

Anyway, when I’m writing a superhero comic I always try and make sure there’s a moment or a line in each one that gives me that kind of “fist pump” moment. Something that I’m proud of that makes each issue feel special. Well, BATMAN #129 has, like, five of them for me. I really, really enjoyed working on this and seeing the art come in was so exciting!

Comics! Sometimes I like ‘em!

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That’s it for today! So I’ll answer one of my long-gestating subscriber questions!

So what would u say is the biggest change from writing a creator own being published via comixology, vs writing for a major ip like Batman or DD?

-RChatham92

With previously established characters, their history works for you and against you. It’s easy to wring emotion out of, like, Joker murdering Jason Todd (again), because previous creators have put in the work of making you love that bad boy Jason. But the history works against you with that parenthetical “again” above, because you need to figure out new things, or new twists, in a storyline that’s gone on for over eighty years, PLUS deal with the fact that readers all have their own specific ideas about the characters.

So with something like NEWBURN or PUBLIC DOMAIN, there’s a lot more freedom to build from the ground up, but you also have to really put in the work to make people care about the characters and story. Which is easier said than done! Pass me the crowbar, Joker!!

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Okay! That’s enough from me today! I’m going to leave you with this t-shirt idea that I never got around to making, but now that I work for WARNER BROTHERS / DISCOVERY and they own the rights to all of this, maybe I can make it happen???

And go ahead and leave me more questions in the comments! I’ll answer them! I swear!

ok bye