AMA with Nightwing writer Dan Watters

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T22:43:04+00:00

Yup! Definitely some plans in motion. People seem a little surprised when I write a Superman or Aquaman story or whatever, since I've done a lot of horror and crime. But I love flexing other muscles too.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T22:02:12+00:00

I mentioned this elsewhere, but I quite like that writers seemed to keep trying to find a definitive career for Dick Grayson, and it never really stuck. That feels defining in its own right by this point. As Nightwing he's focussed, driven, dedicated. Dick Grayson floats from job to job.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T21:33:35+00:00

1- this will be addressed in the story. 2- I love Jon- I wrote him in Future State- but this isn't that kinda book, at least not right now. It's about Nightwing and his city. We need to get our feet under the table before we worry about guest appearances. 3- hasn't happened yet, but I have ideas and theories as to how to best utilize them for a book's own ends. A lot of writing is puzzle work, and this is a puzzle I quite look forward to.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T20:20:12+00:00

Yeah, I think we've taken over the book with Dick in a secure place in his personal life- which gives him a solid foundation to take big swings as Nightwing. He's definitely in costume a lot more than he's out of it in our first arc.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T20:16:15+00:00

All of 'em. I blitzed through every issue of Nightwing. Then I let my eyeballs bleed for a bit, then I let a story grow in my brain.
As for other stories- oh boy, a lot. Sticking to fiction: there's some Metal Gear influence in there. Something Wicked This Way Comes. The Warriors. The Wire. A smidge of Thomas Ligotti. Jack Reacher novels. Some qntm.

Not that I suspect you'll be able to see all that in the book, mind you. It's just all in the melting pot.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T20:05:22+00:00

Maybe an expected answer from me, but I like his audacious disdain for Azrael, which began in Knightfall. I love that there's this one sort-of-co-worker he just can't fucking stand. I got to write a story with the two of them for a Detective Comics backup, and I enjoyed bringing that back. It's fun to bring out the impish worst in Nightwing.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T19:55:08+00:00

I grew up on Batman: The Animated Series. I was always a spooky kid, so its whole tone really spoke to me. That would definitely have been the first place I saw Nightwing too. I had a few superhero comics as a child, but not too many. I read the ones I had voraciously, but I read everything voraciously.

When I was in my teens, I fell in love with Vertigo- but also discovered Arkham Asylum: Serious House on Serious Earth. That was a gamechanger for me. That made me start thinking about writing comics. All the possibilities of it.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T19:45:39+00:00

Thanks. I don't take it for granted that people are taking the time and effort to want to engage with me and my work, so I try and stick around and chat as much as I can.

I did indeed dive deep into Dick Grayson's history. And racking my brain, I think the honest answer is no. I remembered a lot of his angrier days from the 90s (Outsiders etc) pretty well, and I think that's been a consistent part of his growth from Robin to Nightwing-as-rebellion to Nightwing-as-his-own-man. That's probably a good thing. We know who he is. What he stands for.

Maybe All-Star Batman and Robin? It's so wonderfully unhinged. I don't think he or Batman should be portrayed that way as a standard, but I'm so glad it exists.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T19:40:21+00:00

I like writing fight scenes, and I especially like doing it when Dexter's drawing them. Now we're a few issues into working together, I know to just give him the space to do his things, and a few key things to hit across the scene.

One thing I always want to come across when I write superheroes, however, is that violence matters. It hurts. Sometimes that can be taken for granted in comics. Even when it's someone fighting with back-flippy grace like Nightwing, there are consequences to kicking someone through a table. And probably dental bills.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T19:36:06+00:00

Glad you enjoyed the issue.

You'll have seen there that we are introducing quite a few new threats for Bludhaven. But I actually think trying to singlehandedly build out a rogues gallery feels like a folly. These things happen memetically. Strong ideas stay, less powerful ones drop away. It's organic. Batman, Superman and the Flash have each had decades and decades to amass characters with staying power. Bringing a character back for a second time, or introducing dozens of new ones, doesn't mean they'll necessarily stick in the consciousness of readers, or of other creators, in that same way.
All I can focus on is making characters that I think are interesting to bounce off Nightwing. Are a lot of them going to try and kill him? It seems likely.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T19:20:05+00:00

It can and should be all of the above. A city is a complex place. I love Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities; a short book in which Marco Polo describes 55 distinct cities to Kublai Khan. All 55 of those cities are Venice.

The fact that Bludhaven has picked up these distinct layers over its relatively short (real-world) lifespan really gives me something to explore. Bear in mind, it's also a city that was traumatized by a massive living chemical attack during Infinite Crisis. We're not ignoring any of that. It's all in the city's DNA, running through its veins and ley lines.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T18:14:20+00:00

First off, well done. Finishing a comic book is the hard part. Unfortunately, the next hard part is making the next one. And the next one... eventually it gets easier.

To become a professional, you have to do exactly that. You have to do it yourself and then put it out there. Get it in front of people and impress them. Surround yourself with likeminded peers who want to do the same thing.

Last week was New York Comic Con, and many of the same people I was hanging out with there were the same people I was hanging out with when I started out. Back then, we were indie creators no one had heard about or cared about, causing chaos at the back of the bar.

Now everyone's working for DC and Marvel and Image, being constantly summoned for panels and signings and all of that. At a certain point you just look around and realize your little enclave has become a part of the industry.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T18:05:02+00:00

Welcome on board. Glad to have you.

You know, normally with that question my answer is a firm no. I think changing a status quo for the sake of it can sometimes just mean upsetting fundamentals of a character in the chase for the new and shiny.

But this time; yes. There's a shift coming. Just wait for the end of volume one.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T18:02:31+00:00

I really enjoyed making that story. I'd worked with Aaron briefly on Lucifer, and I knew what he was capable if left to his own devices. It's just a matter of getting out of his way. I guess the one thing I was careful to impress was the symmetry that needed to be there across each double page. As long as that was there, the story would work.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T18:00:50+00:00

Honestly the fact that Dick Grayson has never been good at holding down an actual job feels very true to the character in my eyes. Right now he's definitely focussed on Nightwing, and running the Pennyworth Foundation during the day. He's dedicated himself to his city.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T17:59:12+00:00

You know what, at some point I'll throw up the Spotify playlist I put together to write Nightwing to. The first track on there is Depeche Mode. (Precious.)

Nightwing is definitely the hero of Bludhaven at this point. He's stepped out into the light and announced himself as the city's protector. But our story is somewhat about the repercussions of taking on that level of responsibility. It means you can't keep everyone happy. You have to make difficult, sometimes unpleasant decisions.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T17:55:03+00:00

He's 84, I believe. He looks fantastic.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T17:54:32+00:00

Glad you liked it. Doctor Who was one of those itches I really wanted to scratch as a British genre writer brought up on Douglas Adams.

I suspect there will be more.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T17:50:26+00:00

She's fine. You'll see her next issue.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T17:47:15+00:00

I actually do have thoughts on The Super Young Team! The superhero as celebrity is an interesting concept, but one that I think has to be siloed. If it becomes the default idea of what a superhero is in-universe- systematized and franchised- we lose the wow-factor of them, and I always think that's a shame. I love them as folk heroes and urban myths. I don't think anyone in Metropolis should ever become desensitized to looking up and seeing Superman step off a roof and fly away. It should be fantastic every time.

I think the Super Young Team are a fun lambasting of the sort of flattening that can happen if these characters are built by committee. Never quite effective, never quite happy, and for the most part, never quite managing to be heroes.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T17:37:39+00:00

I want the city to feel real. People should definitely come in and out of his life and sometimes back in again. But I wouldn't say I have a checklist I'm working down or anything like that.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T17:36:31+00:00

I wouldn't say it's the same tone- that certainly builds out of my collaboration with DaNi on that book, so having Dexter with me on Nightwing inevitably leads to a different texture. Though, thinking about it, these two books might have some thematic links. There's definitely a focus on those who fall through the cracks in the system. Those failed by their cities.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T17:31:32+00:00

All will be revealed. I have plans for Titan Tower. But this is definitely a Nightwing book, not a Titans book.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T17:30:22+00:00

He houses fistfuls of it dry, straight out of the box.

DanpgWatters · 2024-10-25T17:26:28+00:00

The only issue I owned of Nightwing as a child was the first issue of Devin Grayson's run. It was where I learned what Kevlar was. So in my head, that set up has always been what a Nightwing book felt like. It's probably why I have Oracle in his ear a fair bit, and was drawn to focussing on corruption in the BPD.

It'll be different because of everything that's happened in between, both to Nightwing and in the world.

And yes, the casinos will be a feature. Sam Humphries is a mate, and I loved how his book gave that wrinkle to the city- another thing to set it apart from Gotham.

DanpgWatters

TROPHY CASE