Speaking to Jason Serafino (@serafinoj1) of Complex Magazine, Winnick had the following thoughts to share:
On DC’s "New 52" initiative-
Judd Winick: If you’ve ever read comics, or had an interest in comics, then this would be the time to pick up DC comics. I think a good example is that I was on an airplane about six months ago and I was sitting next to a dude that was kind of looking over my shoulder as I was writing. He said, “I see you're writing and the word ‘Batman’ keeps coming up. Do you work on the movies?” Then I told him, “No, I actually work on the comics,” which had him way more excited.
He said that he grew up reading comics, and I had a couple of years on him, but not too many, so we grew up reading roughly the same stuff. He was in his mid/late 30's and he said he stopped reading about 10 years ago. I asked him why and he said, “Well, one, I grew up, no offense. But you know what, that’s not the reason. The real reason is that I stopped reading for a few years and I felt like ‘Forget it, I’m lost. It will take me 100 comics or five years worth of comics to catch up or figure out what’s going on.'"
So I’m saying to him, and anyone else that has an interest in comics, you can pick up any one of the 52 comics, or all of the 52 new comics, and it’s like a fresh start. It’s just like coming into a television show or a movie, you can come in clean and start over. As we’ve said many times, this isn’t a reboot, it’s a fresh start. With that, we’re keeping a very strong eye for new readers. You wouldn’t have to read comics over the past two years, forget twenty years; it’s a good time to jump in.
On whether there's any trepidation about taking over such an iconic character that, a year from now,will be featured in The Dark Knight Rises-
No, I’m up for it. Of all the characters in the DCU I’ve done, and I’ve done tons of them, Catwoman is one of the only characters that I had not written at all. Not even a little bit, not even a little drive-by; a little moment. But she is someone that I have always been a fan of, someone I have always found very compelling.
I think she’s fun—that’s what this book is more than anything else. It’s kind of dark fun because she’s not a good guy, because she’s not interested in saving people. She’s got kind of a moral code, but she’s a thief. When the wrong people get in her way, the wrong people get hurt.
The fact she’s going to be out there in [The Dark Knight Rises], which will be nothing short of epic, it’s going to be a monster, that just excites me. I’m thrilled that the book I’m working on will be part of the zeitgeist in another way.
On Batwing-
We were kicking around, doing a monthly based on one of the guys from Batman Incorporated, which is Grant Morrison’s series from last year, where Bruce Wayne admitted that he’s funding Batman. Batman has then gone around the world and anointed established superheroes and gave them funding and the ability to be heroes, with the idea that they would have to listen to Batman and be part of the Bat-army.
One that really appealed to us was Batwing, for a lot of reasons, everything from having him set in Africa, which was a landscape largely untouched by the DCU. Giving him his own story, own origin, and taking the very unreal storytelling of superhero comics and putting it in the very real setting of Africa. Africa is this beautiful, horrendous, historical, politicized continent. It’s a continent, not a country, which has been a bit of an education for people here and there.
He’s the Batman of Africa, but he won’t be able to cover the whole place the entire time. But there’s so much rich story to do, and characters to invent, and whatnot. The truth about Africa is that it’s almost as bizarre as anything we could come up with. Everything from, you know, warlords.... They have these actual men going around Afirca that call themselves "warlords," who kidnap children and put guns in their hands and make them into soldiers. Then they hop them up on Meth so they would kill people. That actually happens. It’s not something we could cook up in fiction, but there it is.
So, that said, it’s still a superhero book. Batwing’s going to be out there in his over-the-top Batman armor with wings, he flies, and he finds other crazy dudes in costumes. His arch-villain is a guy he suddenly named Massacre. He’s a big, giant dude in body armor who sports two machetes.
It’s a superhero book, but in the setting of Africa, so we’re trying to embrace it as much as possible. We’re tying to keep it real and trying to get it right. It just hasn’t been done before in such an expansive way in the DCU, so we want to make it right.
On if Batman Inc. still exist in the new DC Universe-
Yes, it does. And Batwing is very much a soldier in Batman Incorporated.
On whether the DC initiative will work-
Yeah, I think it’s going to work. I totally think it’s going to work. I really believe numbers will go up and not drop. I think as word spreads, people who have not read comics in a really long time will be coming back. That’s what I’ve been telling people, that you can pick up 15 comics that you haven’t read in years and you’ll be fine. Cruise the racks and see what you like.
And to be totally honest with you, every single month I get a box of everything that DC publishes; it’s just part of the gig. It’s both for fun, as a reward for being a DC writer, and there’s also the flipside that I have to keep up on everything. There is no way humanly possible that I can get through it every month. All of the trades, all of the hardcovers, all the individual comics; it’s just too much. But I’m telling you, the month of September I’m reading every goddamn thing that’s coming down there.
Some of them I've read, because I’ve had to just for our internal continuity reasons, and also because I just want to see what everyone else is doing. I want to see what [Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E.] is about as well as what we’re going to be doing with Nightwing as well as the big boys. What’s going to happen with the Justice League of America? It’s really, really going to be compelling stuff. Fifty-two little television shows are going to be coming out, so it’s going to be cool.
Be sure to head over to
Complex and check out the full article as there's a lot more from Winnick to read!
Catwoman is a fictional character associated with DC Comics' Batman franchise. Historically a supervillain, the character was created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane, partially inspired by Kane's cousin, Ruth Steel. Kane, a frequent movie goer, also mentioned that Jean Harlow was a model for the design.
The original and most widely known Catwoman, Selina Kyle, first appears in Batman #1 (Spring 1940) in which she is known as The Cat. She is a sometimes-adversary of Batman, known for having a complex love-hate (often romantic) relationship with him. In her first appearance, she was a whip-carrying burglar with a taste for high-stake thefts. For many years Catwoman thrived, but from September 1954 to November 1966 she took an extended hiatus due to the newly developing Comics Code Authority in 1954. These issues involved the rules regarding the development and portrayal of female characters that were in violation with the Comic Code.
Since the 1990s, Catwoman has been featured in an eponymous series that cast her as an antihero rather than a supervillain. The character has been one of Batman's most enduring love interests. Many modern writers have also interpreted her activities and costumed identity as a response to a history of abuse.
A popular figure, Catwoman has been featured in most media adaptations related to Batman. Actresses Julie Newmar, Lee Meriwether, and Eartha Kitt introduced her to a large audience on the 1960s Batman television series and the 1966 Batman motion picture. Michelle Pfeiffer portrayed the character in 1992's Batman Returns. Halle Berry starred in a stand-alone Catwoman film in 2004, which was a box-office flop, only loosely based on the Batman character. Anne Hathaway will portray Selina Kyle in Christopher Nolan's upcoming Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises.
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