Robert Venditti is a comic book writer, who is best known for his work on the Top Shelf Productions title “The Surrogates.” He now is working for DC Comics and is taking over the Green Lantern series. He is looking to take the main character Hal Jordan on adventures that fans of the series has never seen before.
Robert took time out of his busy schedule to chat about taking over the Green Lantern series from legendary writer Geoff Johns. He also touched upon how he got into writing and what his children think of his job.
It was a real pleasure for me who is a big fan of comic books to talk with someone so immersed in the comic book industry. I learned a lot about how comics were made and what it takes to become a comic book writer.
Art Eddy: You took over for Geoff Johns to write for the Green Lantern series. Did you feel any pressure to fill Geoff’s shoes?
Robert Venditti: Oh yea. I don’t really know if I would refer to it as past tense. It is a pressure that is still ongoing. Geoff wrote Green Lantern exclusively for nine years. Over 100 issues I think it was. He just expanded the mythology of the character. Brought so much imagination and wonder and action to the series.
He is one of the most successful writers in comics both creatively and commercially. So those are obviously some really big shoes to fill and to some extent they are shoes that can never be filled. So I do feel pressure along those lines.
For a lot of people they will say to me, ‘Oh you are writing Green Lantern. Congratulations. Now is the time to spike the football.’ To me it feels like I just caught the football 10 yards deep in my own end zone and I got to run up the field with 11 guys trying to kill me. I am at the beginning of a very long time before I feel like I can spike a football.
AE: You are a few books into Green Lantern. I am a fan of your work. Have you received any feedback so far?
RV: Yes and no. I am pretty active on the convention circuits. I am also on Twitter. People are vocal. They are going to let you know to some extent. I don’t think that you can hide from it. I try to make myself available to fans. I don’t go trolling for information about myself. I guess my mother will do that for me. To some extent you see it all anyways.
AE: When writing for a popular character like Green Lantern how do you straddle the line between keeping the character to what keeps him popular and what you envision for the character?
RV: You want to maintain the voice of the character. Hal Jordan is the Green Lantern that I am working with. I still want to keep Hal Jordan, Hal Jordan and have him act as I think he would. It is just putting him in different scenarios that he hadn’t had to react to before.
So what we are doing with our first major arc, which is going to go on I guess through October, we are going to be introducing conflicts to Hal. Whether it be taking leadership over the corps, the villains he faces, or those kinds of things. Those are going to be conflicts that he never had to face before. So it allows me to bounce him off situations and settings and explore him in ways that hasn’t been covered in the past.
AE: How far have you written out the storyline for Green Lantern?
RV: I already have scripts turned in all the way through October. Beyond that I have issues plotted out through a year after that. I like to be really far in advance. I am sort of the meticulous guy by nature. I like to plan things far ahead. That doesn’t mean things are not going to develop organically or change along the way. It helps me know that I got a game plan going forward.
AE: You have written some great stories like “The Surrogates” and “X-O Manowar.” What got you into writing comic books?
RV: When I was very, very little, grade school age, I wanted to be an artist. The highest ambition in life for me was to draw Bugs Bunny cartoons. I realized at a very young age that I was no good at drawing. I was even self-aware that I knew I would never be good at drawing. So I started writing stories in grade school I think as a way to describe with words that I could never draw with my hands.
I took creative writing classes in high school. Got my Masters in Creative Writing. All that time I was geared to writing fiction. I wanted to write short stories. I didn’t read my first comic book until I was almost out of grad school. That was the moment that I decided I wanted to write comic books.
AE: What do your kids think of your job? Do they think it is cool?
RV: They do. They kind of understand it a bit. It is a bit better for my oldest. The kids are at the point where they are starting to read them. “The Surrogates” and “X-O Manowar” are made for teenagers and older readers. They do understand the idea that I am writing comics. They are happy to tell their friends about it.
AE: What superhero movie do you and your kids like watch again and again?
RV: The last movie in the theaters that we saw was “The Avengers.” They liked that a lot. They didn’t like “Iron Man” too much. It was a bit too scary for them. We are all excited about the new Superman movie. “Superman II” when I was a kid was sort of a seminal moment in my life as a young person consuming entertainment. It hit me just at that right age.
To listen to the entire interview click here.