By Alexander Añé
Today I spoke with Scott Snyder by the DC Booth at San Diego Comic-Con. I got to talk with him about his work with Batman and how he’s going to bring us the another big event with Greg Capullo and Death of the Family.
Alexander Añé [AA]: You’ve been the master of the “horror comic,” even putting out things like American Vampire left and right. I am kind of curious to know you’re going to doing Death of the Family very soon, how are you going to be bringing that horror element, that extra soul-grinding bit, to the arc?
Scott Snyder [SS]: Oh, that’s easy with Joker. I got bitten by the bug when I wrote him for Detective for 879 and 880. He’s such a blast to write because he’s so evil, and so interestingly evil. It’s effortless to bring out the wickness. I promise it’s going to be gruelsome and not for the faint of heart what so ever. He’s going to wreak havoc like you’ve never seen Joker wreak havoc. It’s the biggest, craziest Joker story ever. I was thinking about it, “I would really like to use Joker but he’s in so much stuff. How am I going to do it?” But then I looked at it and I was like, “you know what? Joker’s not in that much stuff, he’s ubiquitous in pop culture, movies, and in the animated stuff but there hasn’t been been a batman comic to feature joker as the central villain. He’s been great in Grant [Morrison]’s stuff as the peripheral villain for Batman & Robin but as the villain, as coming after batman, there hasn’t been a story like that in a really long time, since the earthquake. So for me this is giving joker his due and doing a love letter to him about all the crazy wonderful and terrifying things he’s about so I can’t wait. I promise there will be a lot of blood on the floor, admittedly, but there will be exploration of his psychology and who he is without going back to his origin.
AA: You have yourself a wonderful reputation about making this batman mythos your own, I mean with making characters like Mr. Freeze in a whole new light. What sort of mindset did you go in with when you actually started with the Batman title back in Detective Comics and especially in the New 52?
SS: I was going to start detective, and I was going to use James, Jr., and I met with grant morrision for the first time at San Diego at this con. I guess it was 2 years ago and I told him my idea for Detective with using James, Jr. and he was so encouraging about basically explaining you have to blaze your trail, as though you are writing for yourself and imagining no one is reading it and you’re just a total lunatic writing fan fiction and it’s not comics whatsoever. and for me that’s what it’s about, it’s about trying to do it in such a way writing your own favorite batman book at that moment, it might not be the best, it might not be the smartest, the darkest or the most action packed but it’s the one you would enjoy the