Green-Ghost
01-23-2003, 03:51 PM
Here are the news:
http://www.newsarama.com/DC/BMPICSCv1.jpg
It’s one of those odd bits of synchronicity – Typhoid Mary and her creator, Ann Nocenti both resurfacing in comics around the same time. While Mary will be showing up in the pages of Daredevil, Nocenti will be making Gotham City her home for a little while, with a short Batman story in February, and Batman/Poison Ivy later this year.
A fixture at Marvel in the late ‘80s, Nocenti is probably best remembered for both the original Longshot miniseries and her Daredevil run which lasted over four years and stood its own ground, despite following some guy named Miller on the title. Her work became a little more sporadic over the course of the ‘90s, with her swan song at Marvel, the four issue Typhoid miniseries in 1995 with John Van Fleet.
Leaving comics wasn’t something she planned, Nocenti said. “When the comic biz, what, collapsed? shrunk? downsized? Whatever happened in the mid-90s when suddenly there was not as much being published, and so not much work around, I just didn't get called for any jobs,” Nocenti said. “At first that was upsetting, but it kind of forced me to ‘re-invent’ myself, so it ended up being a great thing for me. The last stories I did were Typhoid Mary for Marvel and Kid Eternity for DC, and after that turned to film work. I started getting hired to write screenplays, and also wrote essays and stories for newspapers and magazines, and I wrote some TV and theater. So, it wasn't that I ‘left’ comics; it was that there was less work around.
“But luckily the film biz was good to me for a while. I also was an editor on a magazine Prison Life, so I wrote about prison issues. Then, in ‘97 or so, I took this gig as the editor of Scenario magazine, and starting interviewing screenwriters and directors, which led to work as a film journalist. About a year or two ago I started getting calls again for comics. So, these past five or so years were a fun segue out of comics, but I'm glad to be back, and since I still have film work, I can kind of juggle both, I hope.”
One of those calls for comics a year or so ago came from one of Nocenti’s old friends, Joey Cavaleri, who offered her a project starring Poison Ivy.
“I started with the Poison Ivy/Batman series for Joey, but it got put on hold due to 9/11,” Nocenti said. “It's strange, but a few of my writing projects from before 9/11 had to be re-written. I had a screenplay that was optioned and ready to begin financing, but a big part of the story was a guy circling the White House in an airplane, thinking about crashing it into the building. That script had to be rewritten after 9/11.
My Poison Ivy story has a guy who is building the tallest building in Gotham, and the shadow from the building hits the ledge in Arkham where Poison Ivy keeps her plants.... she's pissed, naturally, and **** happens... Anyway there are a couple other elements that made Joey and I pause, things that echoed 9/11, but some time went by and we both realized it would be okay, that the resonances were subtle enough, and even added something kind of lyrical to the story. Some people might read the story as a very abstract reaction to 9/11, but it was actually written before.”
And yeah, considering the other female character Nocenti is well known for, the writer does cop to being attached to a theme. “I like obsession,” Nocenti said. “Ivy isn't ‘evil,’ she's just obsessive. She doesn't want to hurt people or dominate or control the world, she just wants to play with her plants, and if people get in the way of that, well...”
Nocenti’s pitting of Ivy against Batman may raise an eyebrow or two, however, especially among those who always thought Batman and Catwoman…well... “Even though the tension between Batman and Ivy in the story is high, and the mistrust level is high, and the battles between them are vicious... it is essentially a love story between them, but that's all under the surface,” Nocenti said. “As for Ivy, it explores how everything she does has to do with the finite, fixated, fetishistic nature of her obsessions.”
While the character’s motivations were up her alley, the addition of John Van Fleet as the artist on the story was the icing on the cake. “I've always wanted to work with John again after the Typhoid series, and the pages he's turned in are stunning, just so atmospheric, a gorgeous sense of light and shadow, and best of all, a wonderful sense of humor,” Nocenti said. “The story will be beautiful, and fun, thanks to John.”
While Batman/Poison Ivy isn’t due to be released until later this year as a 64-page one-shot, Nocenti’s return to DC, more specifically, the Bat-office will be seen this month in an eight page black and white back-up story in Batman: Gotham Knights #38, illustrated by John Bolton. Given the nature of comic book production, the Gotham Knights story was written after Poison Ivy, but will come out first.
As for the story itself, “It's a comedic story, about a new villain that manages to get Batman and Catwoman tied up and hid in his basement...and what he does to them,” Nocenti said.
And there’s more where that came from, Nocenti said, her…obsession with obsession finding a natural home with Batman and the Gotham City Irregulars. “I'm also doing a two part comic with Ethan Van Sciver, a Catwoman/Batman story about guns... I just got the first pencils from Ethan and they are fantastic.”
“All told, I adore writing comics, so I would be happy to call this full fledged return to comics for me.”
http://www.newsarama.com/DC/BMPICSCv1.jpg
It’s one of those odd bits of synchronicity – Typhoid Mary and her creator, Ann Nocenti both resurfacing in comics around the same time. While Mary will be showing up in the pages of Daredevil, Nocenti will be making Gotham City her home for a little while, with a short Batman story in February, and Batman/Poison Ivy later this year.
A fixture at Marvel in the late ‘80s, Nocenti is probably best remembered for both the original Longshot miniseries and her Daredevil run which lasted over four years and stood its own ground, despite following some guy named Miller on the title. Her work became a little more sporadic over the course of the ‘90s, with her swan song at Marvel, the four issue Typhoid miniseries in 1995 with John Van Fleet.
Leaving comics wasn’t something she planned, Nocenti said. “When the comic biz, what, collapsed? shrunk? downsized? Whatever happened in the mid-90s when suddenly there was not as much being published, and so not much work around, I just didn't get called for any jobs,” Nocenti said. “At first that was upsetting, but it kind of forced me to ‘re-invent’ myself, so it ended up being a great thing for me. The last stories I did were Typhoid Mary for Marvel and Kid Eternity for DC, and after that turned to film work. I started getting hired to write screenplays, and also wrote essays and stories for newspapers and magazines, and I wrote some TV and theater. So, it wasn't that I ‘left’ comics; it was that there was less work around.
“But luckily the film biz was good to me for a while. I also was an editor on a magazine Prison Life, so I wrote about prison issues. Then, in ‘97 or so, I took this gig as the editor of Scenario magazine, and starting interviewing screenwriters and directors, which led to work as a film journalist. About a year or two ago I started getting calls again for comics. So, these past five or so years were a fun segue out of comics, but I'm glad to be back, and since I still have film work, I can kind of juggle both, I hope.”
One of those calls for comics a year or so ago came from one of Nocenti’s old friends, Joey Cavaleri, who offered her a project starring Poison Ivy.
“I started with the Poison Ivy/Batman series for Joey, but it got put on hold due to 9/11,” Nocenti said. “It's strange, but a few of my writing projects from before 9/11 had to be re-written. I had a screenplay that was optioned and ready to begin financing, but a big part of the story was a guy circling the White House in an airplane, thinking about crashing it into the building. That script had to be rewritten after 9/11.
My Poison Ivy story has a guy who is building the tallest building in Gotham, and the shadow from the building hits the ledge in Arkham where Poison Ivy keeps her plants.... she's pissed, naturally, and **** happens... Anyway there are a couple other elements that made Joey and I pause, things that echoed 9/11, but some time went by and we both realized it would be okay, that the resonances were subtle enough, and even added something kind of lyrical to the story. Some people might read the story as a very abstract reaction to 9/11, but it was actually written before.”
And yeah, considering the other female character Nocenti is well known for, the writer does cop to being attached to a theme. “I like obsession,” Nocenti said. “Ivy isn't ‘evil,’ she's just obsessive. She doesn't want to hurt people or dominate or control the world, she just wants to play with her plants, and if people get in the way of that, well...”
Nocenti’s pitting of Ivy against Batman may raise an eyebrow or two, however, especially among those who always thought Batman and Catwoman…well... “Even though the tension between Batman and Ivy in the story is high, and the mistrust level is high, and the battles between them are vicious... it is essentially a love story between them, but that's all under the surface,” Nocenti said. “As for Ivy, it explores how everything she does has to do with the finite, fixated, fetishistic nature of her obsessions.”
While the character’s motivations were up her alley, the addition of John Van Fleet as the artist on the story was the icing on the cake. “I've always wanted to work with John again after the Typhoid series, and the pages he's turned in are stunning, just so atmospheric, a gorgeous sense of light and shadow, and best of all, a wonderful sense of humor,” Nocenti said. “The story will be beautiful, and fun, thanks to John.”
While Batman/Poison Ivy isn’t due to be released until later this year as a 64-page one-shot, Nocenti’s return to DC, more specifically, the Bat-office will be seen this month in an eight page black and white back-up story in Batman: Gotham Knights #38, illustrated by John Bolton. Given the nature of comic book production, the Gotham Knights story was written after Poison Ivy, but will come out first.
As for the story itself, “It's a comedic story, about a new villain that manages to get Batman and Catwoman tied up and hid in his basement...and what he does to them,” Nocenti said.
And there’s more where that came from, Nocenti said, her…obsession with obsession finding a natural home with Batman and the Gotham City Irregulars. “I'm also doing a two part comic with Ethan Van Sciver, a Catwoman/Batman story about guns... I just got the first pencils from Ethan and they are fantastic.”
“All told, I adore writing comics, so I would be happy to call this full fledged return to comics for me.”