What sets 'Archie' apart from the many, many times I've reworked and rebooted long-standing characters is that this time, it was really scary.
I broke into comics by working as a press reporter for the industry, for a trade press in comics, and reporting on events and reporting on books and so forth, and I got to know some of the editors at DC Comics in the mid-'80s.
Style and entertainment tastes change, but the core emotions of being a kid - which, not coincidentally, are the core foundations of any good story - are constant.
I think it's imperative of me to advance that theory that you can win your small victories against the dark.
Younger characters are just much more emotional.
Everyone knows what it's like to make the wrong decision for the right reasons. For me, wrong decisions are the heart of drama - a character who's always making the right decisions is boring.
I love print comics.
I think there's a moral imperative when you're writing fictional heroes to give characters who somehow give us something to aspire to as opposed to dragging them down to our level.
Find me anybody in comics who has a longer history of yanking defeat from the jaws of victory than Bruce Banner.
I knew I really wanted to work in comics in 1979.
I think of it this way: When you hear that people have downloaded your comic, appreciate that thousands are eager to hear what you have to say. The poetry club down the hall may not have the same problem. That's a good problem to have.
I think superheroes are about flying. They're not about moping.
The nice thing about working with BOOM! on 'Irredeemable' and 'Incorruptible,' man, was they let me have my head. No one said boo about anything.
Younger characters are just much more emotional.
I'd still love to work with John Romita Sr. at some point. That's the dream.
If you're ruling the world, you can't trust anybody. Because even those who profess to be working in your interest - those are also villains in and of their own right.
Certainly, your characters - whether they are superheroes are not - should have foibles. They should have problems; they should have things that their powers can't solve. That's what makes them nuanced, interesting characters. They can have intense motivations. They should have intense motivations to do what they do.
I don't know if you'd do a Marvel story on Ferguson, because it trivializes what the real flesh-and-blood people on the ground are doing there. But you can make an allegory and deal with the bigger questions.
What I've found over the years working on various projects is, you can have a clever book or clever tagline, but there has to be a story to go along with it that leads to something bigger. Something with a little more texture to it.
I like being able to have a conversation. I like being able to do a vocal interview.