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And we are back! (read that in John's voice) With part two of Jeff's conversation with Dan Mishkin! Sit back, relax and enjoy the smooth stylings of Dan and Jeff!
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Dan Mishkin Interview - Interview Part Two
[00:00:00] Jeff: well, once again, and I do think it's important, how good your characters were. amethyst is, it was a fantastic character. And world-building that you created with Jim world? And it kinda reminded me. I was looking up once again, looking up some research on you and your amethyst.
And I found interview that you did have five questions that you did with Gail Simone. Okay.
Dan Mishkin: Okay.
Jeff: And in the interview or before the interview, Gail Simone said. I have to say I don't ever, I don't think I ever read a DC or Marvel comic that's so spoke to my own experience as a girl. And I thought that was a, an amazing, quote and comment from not only a, a female fan, but Gail, someone who is one of the.
Best-known women writers and too, so really identify with your character. I was wondering, how does that feel for you knowing that your character was that well, not only accepted, but made that kind of a Mark?
Dan Mishkin: Well, that's just so nice to hear. Cause I don't remember it now until you bring it up and it's like, that's great.
I mean, that's the whole point, you know, [00:01:00] that's the whole point of creating these characters. Is so that they speak to the experiences of the people who are going to be reading, you know, that they're not alien to them. That they're something that they can embrace. that's. And that I've written female characters that in the case of amethyst.
And I think that it's wonder woman that have. Not that I created wonder woman, some people who don't really follow comics say to me, did you create it? You wonder why.
but, but the, the fact that I've worked on women characters, girl characters that. That's speak to women and girls. I mean, I was at a terrific con in Connecticut a couple of years ago, and this woman must be around 40. you know, came up to me and she was looking at our, [00:02:00] the very early stuff of our Amazon Academy colic and, Yeah, she was attracted to it because for the same reason, as it turns out she was attracted to habitats because it's, you know, it captures that kind of fantasy in that, that desire to be something more, that is, you know, as part of, you know, early adolescent experience.
and. When she somewhere along the way grants. Okay. This sounds funny to say it. Sound vain today when she grasped who I was, you know, which is the co-creator of habitus and she almost melted on the spot. and it was like, wow. Yeah, I sort of, I scooped her up and put her back in the day. Yeah.
Like, you know, I, yeah. I just said, I'm so glad that the character meant so much to you. because that's what we were doing it for. Amethyst elegance was, it was a joy. I mean, [00:03:00] devil was, it was a joy to Alan. This is, I don't know why I have, I'm part of it may be that I was for, I was first draft on amethyst and Gary was first draft on blue devil for the most part.
so, So I had to, and when we plotted together, right. but then we do a paper page plot, and then CDR, and then write the dialogue. and I was the first pass on having to send him blue devil. So there is, there's a little more intimacy. I think that I had. More personally intimacy with Ernie cologne and Jerry Moore with Paris Collins.
Although we're both, very fond. We're very fun in earnest case, of both of them, it's. Yeah, I'm just sort of. Is deeper in me for whatever reason.
Jeff: and it's, it is, a fantastic [00:04:00] concept. One thing I do like that, what you did with the character of Amy Winston, a amethyst is that she's a, not only do you make our princess of gem world, which gives her no, that sense of royalty and fantasy, but because you had the, which is a, so Trina.
Dan Mishkin: Yeah, the
Jeff: wish to Trina have a raised on earth. It does two fantastic things first, and at least in my opinion, first, it makes her immediately identifiable for the audience who, you know, and have her be as she entered gym world. Again, the, the eyes of her audience in the end allows the audience to live through her.
But also because she was grown, you have a raise on earth. It gives a sense, an extra little dynamic to our character though. She's not just a princess. She's someone who has experienced what it is to be a regular. Perfect earth as well.
Dan Mishkin: Yeah, she's she's a little bit skiddish about this whole loyalty thing.
Cause she's a good old American girl and we don't have Kings and Queens and princesses here, you know? so it's not like it comes to her naturally, although it's not like, it's also not [00:05:00] like she's gonna toss it away, but, it's yeah, that dynamic is, was pretty interesting. And it's really sort of, I mean, it's actually right there, I think in the opening caption of the first issue, where we talk about how.
you have this dream that, you know, your parents are not your parents. You're really from another place here that there's some specialness that nobody has told you about. it's in some ways, it's the Harry Potter story too. although I hasten to add that we were first, although we were not the first to tell that story, you know, he, for, we had the name NFS.
the concept was we were referring to as the change lit now, despite deep space nine and all sorts, I left the place. It's a great show. Yeah. Despite the finish line and all that sort of other pop culture change, Lynn does not mean shapeshifter, in folklore. A changeling is a nonhuman [00:06:00] child. That baby that's that is exchanged for a human baby.
That's taken away. Could live in the demon world or whatever. so, so, and that's why carnelian is from earth. I mean, he was, he is not the baby that urban Marion Winston lost. but it was important to have a counterpart, you know? so it was, so the idea of the change leader is very old and we were playing on that.
But one day I was standing in my kitchen and the word amethyst appeared in my head. Just like that. Yeah. I was not looking for it. I'm not trying to think of, well, what do we really need this to be? I called Gary. And we sometimes we're like just two halves of the same brain. and I told them the name and we were, [00:07:00] and the gym world and the 12 houses and all of that.
You know, it was there, you know, right away. And of course, Ernie made it beautiful. made it so fantastic. but, Oh, and there's actually, we were talking about Jewish stuff before, too Jewish things about avid this. Okay. One is that. you know, dark open, so is, wants to get fragments of all the 12th house stones so that he can have them put on this breast plate that he'll wear.
And he'll give him commanding power that no one else on the gym world. Can we, so that's the breast plate of Erin Moses's brother, which was also 12 different, 12 different gems. you know, it's not, I'm not saying it is literally, but it's like, that's where the idea of know writing seeped into probably my mind that Gary's cause I'm Julia.
Yeah. [00:08:00] so the other Jewish thing about Alibas, you were talking about Amy Winston and we were talking about how about Jewish writers kind of wanting to assimilate and stay below the surface? So in my personal, you know, head cannon in what I believe is true about the character, but. Well, I never wrote down is that the family name was Weinstein and like her grandfather changed it to Winston.
and so in my world, Amy Winston should have been having a bar mitzvah instead of going to the gym world. But I was too chicken shit,
Jeff: but that's interesting that isn't true that you did like a 12 tribes of Israel.
Dan Mishkin: yeah. Well, I, you know, I think that was partly there partly but 12 is all over.
You know, all over the culture. I mean, there's the astrological signs. There's, you know, [00:09:00] it's, 12, 12 is one of those, those numbers that has, as a kind of many cultures seem to find mystical significance in, you know, you, you find a lot of. you know, three, seven, 10, and 12. If I find a lot of that in the Torah.
if I and 40 is, well, the 40 days and 40 nights, 40, I think was probably just used as a, as. As a number that meant, you know, a whole lot, but 10, because you know where we've got our 10 fingers and, three and seven have this. They seem to have this visible quality and the 12 does too. And whether it's it's, you know, the 12 may come from the, slow steel though, the solar year and the lunar year don't quite match up.
But the 12 new moons, you know, any year the seven from the, In the seven times four to [00:10:00] get roughly the lunar month, you know? so those are kind of deeply imprinted on us from way primitive times. I think so. so I don't think it was the 12 tribes. I think that I think the 12 tribes. War.
okay. Let me reveal that. I don't believe in the little literal truth of the Bible. Okay. Okay. Fair enough. So, so, you know, because I'm, cause I'm what I'm going to say is I think that the source of the 12 tribes, Was, and this may be through even if it was literally, so they may have divided themselves up this way, but for whether it's writers or whether it's actual literal people who divided up into 12 tribes.
the, I think rather than the saying that we drew on that for the 12 houses of the gym world, I would say that. Well, we drew on the same primitive source as the writers or the early Israelites. Gotcha. You know? [00:11:00] so, and just by the way, huh, Gary and I are the only ones who do this, but we persist in referring it to referring to the place as the gym world.
It's not gem world. It's the general. You can say gen world, everybody else's Jeremy it's because, so, you know, when we did the series, where'd you just call on amethyst. People will say, nobody knows what they mean. people that you see just didn't, you know, Okay. So Megan amethyst, princess of the German world, right in the title and in the logo just was a sticking point.
And so they made the title of the book, amethyst princess and Jeremy world for. Very good reasons. And my God did Todd Klein do a terrific log, for that. But, but in the, in, if you read Jerry's in my stories, it's always the gym world, but for everybody else, it's just gym old. And now of course, Amy's [00:12:00] Amy reader's mini series is just called amethyst.
They need the princess of gender now. Now everybody understands it.
Jeff: Well, one thing I was wondering when you were conceiving of the character of Amy and her as like, as a character, without trouble with the characterization, at least with our character, when you
Dan Mishkin: have her cause
Jeff: from conception, you know, she could have been, she could have been always a princess on gem world potentially, obviously.
Cause if she had never been brought to earth, which is brought to earth and raise as a human. girl, how did you factor that in, into her personality? did you look at it from the point of view of this is what she could have been? She always stayed on earth. I mean, it always stayed on the gym world, but because of earth, we were going to make her character change in this type of way and avoid, you know,
Dan Mishkin: so, so two things.
One is because we started out wanting to do a change leg story. It was always going to be the case. That she had been left on earth. It could have been a hero at that point. We didn't even know what's going [00:13:00] to be male or female. When we first started talking about it. The character, the main character were always one that came from another world that was left on earth as an infant.
that was from the get go, whether it was a princess or a Prince or a or whatever. so, so there's that, the other thing is that to me, that I think the Gary I'm pretty sure it was, Gary would say this too. She is always, she, you know, she answers to amethyst. She take on the responsibility of being amethyst, the leader of the loss leader of the house of amethyst.
Right. And all of that. But she is always Amy. people say to me, well, you never really. You never really did anything with the romance between amethyst and Princeton. And my answer is [00:14:00] because she's 13 years old, you know, she could be attracted to him. She put the kissed a little, I think, you know, and she felt a womanly, you know, in the 20 year old body of mammoth is right.
But nothing was ever going to happen. There because she's Amy, she's a 13 year old and you know, she's a middle schooler she's that's and I think that was really important that she was, and, you know, sort of a Harry Potter before. It's true about him too. One of the most crucial thing about Harry Potter is that.
Of all the people who can do that magical Wizarding stuff. He doesn't know who he is. everybody in the world that he's going to find at Hogwarts knows who Harry Potter is. The [00:15:00] boy who lived. the one who, who defeated Voldemort somehow, he is famous beyond our imagination, any of our imaginings of fame.
And he doesn't know it. In fact, He's treated like shit.
Jeff: Yep.
Dan Mishkin: Right? Yeah. so that character doesn't work. I mean, he's Draco Malfoy. if he's raised in the Wizarding world, knowing how famous he is, he's a, he's a. He's a pompous of important ass, but he's not because he was raised by the Dursleys and he had no idea that he is the most famous person in the Wizarding world.
and that. I'm gonna, I'm gonna make us the minor, [00:16:00] the Cove, a little brother in this one. in that he and amethyst are similar. She knows nothing of her. Her true self to the point that it's not even really correct to say, it's her true self, right? Just like Harry would be the pompous Draco Malfoy.
If he'd known all along who he was and he's not that. And won't be that because of the circumstances in which he was raised amethyst. We'll always be, you know, Amy Winston in her case raised by loving parents. which I thought by the way was really important every once in a while.
It's nice to have, a hero. Who's a hero because they were [00:17:00] given love and support as they grow. By people who listened to them and understood them. We don't see nearly enough of that.
Jeff: and just to make a point to that I'd really do like it better when Clark can, has both parents alive.
Dan Mishkin: Well, yeah, I mean, I was going to bring up Clark Kent next. I mean, he's he's the other great example. It's He's he's raised by these two loving parents. And, you know, so when I was, I don't know, let's say in my teens and early twenties, so we're talking about. Late sixties into the seventies?
well I turned, yeah. Okay. I'm just trying to remember how old I am. got the hello, no party line that the common wisdom was, in the case of. A Batman. Bruce Wayne is real and Batman is a disguise. [00:18:00] And in the case of Superman, Superman is really far chant as a disguise and somewhere along the way, we all figure it out.
that's exactly backwards. that Bruce Wayne stopped being Bruce Wayne. The night his parents were killed. he went into some kind of Chrysalis and came out as Batman and he wears, it was Bruce Wayne as a disguise for Batman's purposes. I'm Superman. He's the son of Jonathan and Marta, raised with their values.
And I mean, it was certainly by the time of the first Superman movie. There's no question that this was understood because in that okay, ridiculous. Turn time backward [00:19:00] ending, but who cares? I love the movie anyway. he hears two voices, right? He hears George Brown from there 12 years. I'm good.
I'm to digress for a minute. 12, his 12 years of studying with Jarell conveniently had him. Miss most of Vietnam and Watergate, and it was a clever move on the movie makers part. but, he hears two voices. Gerelle says it is forbidden. And he said, early on, he said, it's forbidden to tamper with time.
It is forbidden. Right. And Jonathan can. Jonathan Ken's voice in his head says you're here for a reason. And whose voice does he listen to? He listens to podcasts and that's all [00:20:00] you need to know when you ask the question, which one is real and which is the disguise, you know, and describes might not be the right word for Superman.
but it's definitely Clark's hand operating in a different mode. You know, it's not, it's Clark Kent is not, is that Superman trying to be mousy and hide away. Right. Superman is pork head in just a different, you know, played into different key. and, that's yeah, that's entirely, you know, that also became a lot clearer.
by the time of the reboot after crisis on intruder, there was, that, you know, Clark Kent is, he said, he's a reporter. He could be attractive to, to Lois lane, you know, and all of that. Matt turned into a wonderful relationship as opposed to the Superman Lois relationship that I grew up on.
Oh my God. I'm going to, I'm going [00:21:00] to try to, you know, Takes scissors to a Clark's hairs, just, and by the way, Lois, you would have to use a lot of force. It's one thing to say the scissors won't cut. It's another thing to say that decisions will break, you know, cause the person operating them, sisters scissors has to be.
Really torquing that pretty hard too.
Jeff: Right. Right.
Dan Mishkin: But that, you know, Physics was not the strong suit of Superman after the Supreme court. Exactly. Yeah. so yeah. yeah, so, so Amy Winston is always Amy Winston, and this is Amy where instead she is, She is, she like put on airs either because it feels like fun or because she thinks it's expected of her when she was on the German world.
But, you know, she's Amy. [00:22:00] She doesn't really get Kings and Queens princesses as a, as an actual form of government. We, Oh, I was thinking something about the 12 houses it's it was true that we created the diamond house as being different from the others. and they, that might've been, it might've been a nod to the Kohanim of the.
The trout 12 tribes, the priestly tribe in the Torah and the Bible. I'm not really sure. I can't remember for sure, but that's the fact that they're this distinct group. I think they may have come out of some of my seven by Jewish stuff. Brunettes now.
Jeff: Did you, when you in creating, amethyst, did you know you had something that, you know, 30, over 30 years from, later, people would still be riffing on the characters and using, and making their [00:23:00] own series on it?
Or like, can you tell when you have something that just works?
Dan Mishkin: So, you know, it's really, it's funny that's not my definition of what works, you know, at the time, my definition of what works was fave, given us 12 issues. Because what the hell was DC comics doing? Putting out a tween girl comic book in 1982.
Right. I mean, I'm glad they did, but they at least have the sense to say, look, you've got a Mexican series, like Camelot 3000. you got 12 issues and that's it. so making it work was. We're going gonna, we're going to do the best 12 issues we could do. making it last. Whether it would be returned to, I don't know if I gave it that much thought.
I mean, I did think in terms of that, I told you about [00:24:00] the creator deal with a 20% licensing money going. Right. So I didn't think about that. we did have discussions with a toy company. And that actually made Gary and Ernie and me some good bit of money on an option. And I felt sorry for Paul and the others at DC, that it wasn't like publicly known because they were really hoping that, that if.
If we had a big licensing success and they saw us making a bunch of money from it, they'd be more willing to give up the rights to their characters for the, to the DC universe. But, but that was never seen, but yeah, I did hope to make more money. I still do. I'd like to see more. I like to see an amethyst movie still, you know, amethyst animation or yeah.
You know, Well, what there's been so far has not made me a lot of lives, a lot of royalties, a level licensing money. Cause it hasn't [00:25:00] been that hasn't been that much for DC, but you know, it could, it can still happen, but you know, I'm not so interested when I talk about it being long lasting. I'm not so interested in it being long lasting.
If other people are writing, you know, it's like,
Be honest, it's a little bit insulted, that they keep using my characters. And not saying to me in Gary, you guys should do this. and as if we would have no feel for the character, no wonder if they had any really sense of any sense of really how that character would work? Yeah. Well, well, yeah, you know, I think so.
but they, that's not the way it was not the way it operates. And again, I said before, I probably stepped on other people's characters. Faultlessly it's just the way [00:26:00] that businesses run and that I do accept, it does hurt sometimes when I see it done badly, The money from the end of this movie, if that should ever happen would go a long way to making me feel better.
Yes, indeed. Or the blue devil movie, either one would be fine. I'm in blue devil would be a great CW TV show. but, who knows? What's good.
Jeff: I will say I'm surprised that after. It's the success of some of the more fancy based movies, like Lord of the rings that something like amethyst didn't then come up as the next idea for a story like that, because it does have that
Dan Mishkin: scope I do now, you know, DC, hasn't always been great at pushing their properties out to, to Hollywood.
There. I'm not sure why. but they, you know, they have one, dang that might be good. You might be in our favor. [00:27:00] I mean, you were early, we were talking about the, how dark the DC movies were, but one of the things that's happened. Is that they seem to have abandoned the let's have this interrelated cinematic universe thing.
It worked great for Marvel, but you want to know something, it also worked better for Marvel comics than it ever worked for DC comics. DC was separate shops, different editors who did things their own way. You know, into the seventies, maybe even a little bit into the eighties, you could have you get out the brave.
And the bold was a world's finest, probably the world's finest, featuring stories about the super sons, the sons of super Bailey, teenage sons of Superman and Batman. See, cause you know, The bot Haney wanted to write them in the editor for that was fine. It didn't fit where at all with what else was going on.
[00:28:00] But, you know, actually I was a little too much of a continuity freak then, but now it's like, Oh, those are charming. Those are nice. Yeah. they all had the, I think they all like great Nick Cardi covers. and, and it's like, And look at how many versions of Batman, you know, and, the different even the different animated series are different from each other.
Right. And there's Gotham, which is different everyday. And it's like, you know, and the idea that you can just keep doing it differently and not have to have this cinematic universe is, is helpful. So wonder woman, despite the area's battle, Is it totally very different from the other movies. Aquaman is completely different.
she's there, you know, it's like, nobody says, Oh, Shizam I think actually I read somewhere that there was, I wanted to have Superman show off initials and movie, but who really cares that [00:29:00] would have been a cameo, you know, let, And I always feel funny quoting chairman Mao since he was a, you know, a murderous dictator.
Right, right, right. but you know, not a hundred flowers bloom, you know, it's, it goes back to what I was saying about how I, I was bothered by people. Giving, you know, sort of sending off the vibe that I should be writing more like I should be writing more like Frank Miller when you know, there, it should have been a UVU kind of thing going on.
there's so, so I'm getting really jury here, but I'm going to just going to keep doing it cause why the hell not? So there's the, there's a story. The story about, rabbis this year. and rabbis OCO is on his death bed. And is. His students come to him and they say all these [00:30:00] wonderful things about him and how much they love him and how much they've learned from him.
And he, but he's kind of quaking, trembling almost in fear. And they, you know, rabbi, you know, you're. you are a Sage. You're a great man. surely you will be accepted with joyous saw Psalms and praise at the throne of heaven. It says you're a great teacher like, like Moses.
And this, you says when I come before the throne of judgment, I'm not afraid that I will be asked. Why are, why weren't you more like Moses, I'm afraid I will be asked. Why weren't you more like sincere? so, you know, The goal is to be yourself and to find yourself and do yourself, you [00:31:00] know, and comics, don't like that.
Except the other comments. Are you talking about the comments that. Most of your listeners, don't see the bookstores, right? Those are all, those are very personal, but like I said, lots of memoir, lots of getting deeply into something that matters, you know, to the cartoonist or writers or artists who are putting together.
That's, I'm not saying there aren't terrific monthly comics being put out now. but. That's, it's not only not where the real money is, except for a few people in, but people who have worked, but do okay. In comments and monthly balance. but it's where the real spirit, you know, there's the, there's, I dunno the B one more.
Okay. I'm going to be, I'm going to be as Jewish as I can be tonight. so the, the new 52 comics, whenever, whatever year it was, they came out. they, it was right around [00:32:00] the high holidays. So it's like Russia and the, you know, it's time when you're examining your life. You're thinking about what you've done in the last year, how you want to move forward.
And I read like the first is use of a bunch of them. and I thought about what my life was going to be for the next year. And I said, you know what? I don't meet these. I'm just reading them because I've been reading. I'm not, and I didn't even, I didn't even continue with green Lander, which Jeff Johns was still writing and was, I was in love with, you know, Jeff nade, sticking around reading superhero comics worth it.
When he did, when he was hitting his stride in Greenland. I mean, but the truth was, as I did a little, you know, a little examination of the soul to, and thought about the comments. I said this new [00:33:00] 52 stuff. They may call it a great jumping on time for me. It's a great jumping off time.
yeah. So, but there, I mean, there are good comments. I read them occasionally and this one was one that did the Superman special. The plan was phenomenal. I wish I could remember the artist's name. It's a pair of Japanese artists that go. I think it's gory Hulu. I'm not sure that's it, but anyhow, wonderful stuff.
and you know, that's and you see that, and gene just did a book, about. The Catholic high school were until recently he was a math teacher and about the history of their basketball team and about the kids on the basketball team and about how they never had, they never won a California state championship, but [00:34:00] maybe this year they would be able to, and.
It was a very personal book. and also interesting stuff about Catholic schools and about the history of basketball and about all sorts of other things. This is wonderful, big, fat, long comic book. that, is, Oh, there's so many great comics out there that orange superhero comics, I. I love a French comic.
I read, I could almost have read in French because it hardly had any words in it at all, but, but, it was called, the artist's name is, shabu and it's mostly takes place around the lighthouse, with very few characters. and one character living in the lighthouse and it's black and white and it's exquisite it's you know, it's not about, it's not about effects or [00:35:00] flashiness or finishing.
This has its place, but, but it's, it's about. The story and a few characters and not very many words. And it's, boy, is it good? And stuff like that is much more the reason I read comics now that the occasional really terrific, severe Ocala, You know, that's just, it's just worry.
This is not going to get me any work at DC or Marvel, but I was pretty sure that wasn't going to happen anyway. so.
Jeff: Yeah. but like I said, though, I do think what you did create is something that does have lasting. I, and I know that's not your view, but I do find it. I think it says something about what you did, the fact that people still are using those characters to this day, even though unfortunately, DC, I think is making a big mistake by not having you give those voices [00:36:00] back to those characters.
Dan Mishkin: That would be nice. Thank you for saying it. I guess, I guess I do feel something similar to what you're saying. it's but it's not so much that they're still being published, in one form or another it's that people still come to me at cons saying. How much they love them, you know, that, that 40 year old woman who practically melted on the floor because she was meeting one of the creators of Amadeus, you know, the people who.
I've discovered over time that a lot of people really liked my three year run on wonder woman in the early eighties. and that's tremendously gratifying. and that was the, you know, one of my big goals for writing wonder woman was, it was. I'm going to make the relationship between [00:37:00] wonder woman and Steve Trevor seem utterly believable and completely natural.
And none of this. how could a man. play second fiddle to a powerful woman. Crap. You know, the stuff that led to his being chilled off twice because people didn't know what to do with it, though. Part of what I had to do was figure out how to integrate, The two previous Steve Trevor's into him.
That's the story that got, just got reprinted in the wonder woman, Steve, Trevor, trade paperback. That was, that was supposed to come out at the time, the movie premiere, but it didn't. but I did that. I mean, I treated it. I treated it as a perfectly. Breathable relationship. I it's not even, I [00:38:00] wouldn't even call him settle second fiddle.
So who knows? I mean, junior partner, whatever he's is less powerful, but he certainly adds a lot to the lips, you know? And she thinks no less of him. He does not feel emasculated. and I found that the trick to making it work was just believing that it would work. which I'm afraid, some of my predecessors couldn't wrap their heads around.
Right, right. But you know, it was, I also had the example. I don't know if you've ever read the, the, British comic strip modesty blaze.
Jeff: I have not.
Dan Mishkin: Okay. So, so modesty, has a partner, a big. Of, of a guy who's, her she's formerly a criminal boss. Phosphorylated displaced person after the second world war and she's, but she then ends up working for like British intelligence and she's got this bruiser, Willie [00:39:00] Garvin as her right hand, man.
And. That relationship again, it's like perfectly natural. he, he knows that she's gonna, she's gonna make the plans. He has his input, whatever. Right. and so I really had modesty and Willie in mind when I was starting to do wonder woman and Steve. and I was really.
Really so happy when I saw the wonder woman movie and saw that's really what they did with those two characters in this movie. It was never a question of how could they be partners? You know, It's just, yeah. You know, they are, and I totally went with, it was love at first sight. and even though, so, you know, she's the first man she's ever seen.
So it's a little, you might question love at first sight, but it's a comic book, you know, and. And that's what happened. they fell in love [00:40:00] at first sight and they discovered that they worked really well together. And so they did. and, yeah, that's, it's get an editor. These are once told me you, the knock on me there was that I think too much, but sometimes thinking about who the characters are, you know, You gotta start with feeling an emotion and what your gut is telling you, but, you know, it's, it's, it's really good to think about thinking about who the characters are and follow them, you know?
So that's what I trying to do.
Jeff: I completely agree. And I do think you're, I think it's important to look at characters from that standpoint. well, I do want to thank you very much, sir, for talking with me.
Dan Mishkin: Yeah, sure. Have I totally bent your ear? can you even talk anymore? I mean,
Jeff: honestly, sir, you were fantastic and I definitely want to have you on, especially when you're.
the pros book and your two and the graphic [00:41:00] novel comes out.
Dan Mishkin: Oh my gosh. Yeah, your mouth to God's ears. But, but I will. Yeah, I really, I enjoy talking with you and as you can tell, I have a lot, I have a lot to say,
Jeff: like I said, it was completely my pleasure. So I always love talking about. Conflict with someone.
Now who's a co creator of great comic books, but someone who does seem to, as you said, put true thought into what they are creating. I always appreciate that.
Dan Mishkin: It's really funny. And I'll let you go. Is that there's I know so many really good artists, especially it sometimes true writers who they really know their stuff, but they can't articulate to other people what they're doing.
You know, and which is not a knock on them. It's just that, they don't have, you know, they've never converted it into a language I'm doing this. Mmm, true. That's true. A lot of people who were skilled at various things, they don't think [00:42:00] about all the steps that go into it, but I like.
Thinking about how it all gets put together, you know, so
Jeff: indeed.
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