In this episode Kara and Matt travel beyond the Podcast Pit.

Topics include Wonder Woman swag, costume diversity, global crime fighting outfits, being a queen and god aka typical issues we all deal with, big hulking man titles, cons are for everyone, hashing it out at lunch, and wonderful Wonder Woman fans!

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Transcription:

Kara: Welcome back to the comiXologist podcast, here on the show floor of San Diego Comic Con. I’m Kara, with Matt, Slim and Kzam.

Matt: Hello.

Kara: Hello. We’re here with David and Meredith Finch, creative wonder team of the “Wonder Woman” book. Welcome.

Meredith Finch: Thank you.

David Finch: Thank you. Thanks for having us.

Kara: We’re in the middle. We’ve moved past the podcast pit. We’re at the DC Entertainment booth. It is madness. There are people all over the place here. You’re repping for the book. You’ve got your Wonder Woman stuff on.

Meredith: I do. I have my Wonder Woman necklace, my shirt. Next year it’s earrings. I’m just going to have to keep adding, maybe a pair of socks. If I see some cool Wonder Woman tights this year, I’ll pick those up too.


Kara: You guys just redid her costume. Where did the idea to reinvigorate that come from?

Meredith: We talked about her costumes, and increasing the diversity of her costumes last year when we first started on the book, simply because I always say there’s not any woman who only has one outfit in their wardrobe, so why would Wonder Woman, who I think is gorgeous, only have one outfit in her wardrobe?

As our book went on, she had her God of War costume, she had her traditional super hero costume. I think it was just fortuitous. We had the opportunity of redesigning the Batman costume, with Jim Gordon taking over, and the Superman costume, so we had the opportunity to redesign her costume as well.

It just really worked out well. It coincided with the end of our first arc, and the beginning of our second one.

David: Could not have been better timing for us.

Matt: I liked how initially I was like, “Ah, another Wonder Woman redesign,” but then as you read the book, and we saw your designs, there’s more to it. Exactly what you said, there are different costumes, there are different versions of it.

She’s going to need different versions. At that point, it opened up the eyes of the reader in a way that I wasn’t expecting, and in a good way.

David: Well, thank you. Thank you. I really wanted it to be more of a superhero costume that’s more…She’s part of the Justice League, and I wanted it to be a costume that she could go fight global crime in, and be Wonder Woman.

Meredith, the whole time we were on Wonder Woman, has been complaining that she doesn’t see how she could be fighting crime in a tiny little outfit like that.

David: We had it in mind that it’s something that we wanted to do, but it’s not necessarily something we would’ve gotten the opportunity to do, so when that came up we were pretty thrilled.

Meredith: Don’t get me wrong, because I do love the classic costume…

David: Me too.

Meredith: …but I think that costume was created back in the ‘40s, and she’s a woman of the 21st century now, and I wanted her costume to reflect the fact that times have changed, and so has she.

Kara: Speaking of the changing times, how have you been trying to bring Wonder Woman into this new century, and what are you doing to make her relatable to the new audience that’s reading the book?

Meredith: I would say first and foremost, I’m trying to write a book about a woman, and the fact that she’s a superhero is secondary to the fact that she’s a woman, and she has fears, and friends, and desires, and I wanted that to be what we focused on.

I think when I’m talking about who she is as a character, she’s trying to do what all modern women are trying to do now, balance being a girlfriends, and having the responsibility of being a member of the Justice League, and now she’s also the God of War, and she has to be able to find…

David: She’s a queen.

Meredith: …and she’s the queen of Themyscira now.

Matt: Every day issues we all deal with.

Meredith: Plus she has to find time for herself, to just be Diana. I think looking at all those, and we really explored them in the first arc.

You’ll see she’s starting to find a little balance in our next arc, but you’ll see that maybe she’s not fulfilling some of those roles to the best of her ability because they don’t necessarily agree with who she is, like her role as the God of War, and how other people are now going to be responding to that.

Kara: What kind of research did you do for creating your story arcs because Wonder Woman has obviously a lot of backstory in the comics, and she’s also based with mythological elements?

Meredith: I really focused on Brian Azzarello’s run when I took over the book. There’s so much history, and I really didn’t want to get overwhelmed by 45 years, or I guess more like 55, she’s in the forties. I really focused on Brian’s run.

He did such an amazing job of creating a fully fleshed universe of characters, and giving her a whole new mythology. That’s really been, for me, it defined her as a character, and that’s my Wonder Woman.

Matt: What about you, David, on this book, I think it’s probably the most different shift in titles for you to draw. I think I, growing up, used to drawing big, hulking men titles, Batman.

David: I still love those.

Matt: Who doesn’t? I love a good hulking man every now and then. For you, it’s a big tonal shift. You’re drawing Wonder Woman, who’s the biggest female character in comics. How did you approach that going into it, especially with Meredith writing?

David: I love drawing all the big…I love “The Hulk”, and I’ve still never gotten a chance to draw a Hulk book. I got to draw Batman, that was great. I would love to do Superman one day.

I always go back to that because it’s what I love, but it’s nice to just try something different, and this was so completely opposed to anything I’ve ever done before. I think that I would’ve been very reluctant to do it.

Certainly, I wouldn’t have done it on my own, but with Meredith writing it, I felt like we were doing a story that’s coming from a female perspective. I’m an old school comic geek really, so I don’t know if I would’ve felt qualified because things are different now, and times have changed.

Looking around the convention, the people that are coming to the convention, it’s not just older guys anymore. When Meredith was looking at writing it, it seemed right. I had loved where she was going with the character. We were talking about it, and I thought she had a really good vision for it, and she sold me on it.

Matt: Plus you guys are in the same house. It’s got to be the most easy collaborative process ever.

David: Or worst, depending. It’s easy. It really is.

We’ve had fights, but she always wins, so that helped. It’s really her story, so I give feedback here and there, and I read things, and I say, “Well, I like this,” or “I don’t like that,” but ultimately it’s her final decision.

I think if we were really butting heads, and co-writing it, maybe it would be tougher, but I stay out of the story as much as I can.

Matt: I’m putting myself in both your shoes. If I worked with my wife all day, and then we shut it off, how does that work because that’s what I think about in my marriage?

Meredith: We don’t actually see each other all day long.

Matt: You’re in your own office.

Meredith: He goes down to the basement, and I don’t disturb him. He’ll come up for coffee, he’ll come up for lunch, he’ll come up, and say, “Hey, how’s it going,” but for the most part it’s like he drove to work, and I drove to work. When the kids get home from school, that’s when we get together, unless we go out to lunch.

If we need to talk story, or something like that, then I’ll say, “Hey, let’s go for lunch.” It seems like for us that’s a nice, neutral environment, and we can just sit down.

David: I don’t know what it is, but going out for lunch, seems like …story stuff happens.

Meredith: If we’re ever stuck for a story…over a glass of wine at lunch.

Matt: I think that’s what it is. I think most good ideas come from that, from a glass of wine, and just hashing it out.

Meredith: And food.

Kara: You guys excited for the Wonder Woman movie?

David: I can’t wait. There’s not been a superhero movie that’s come out yet that I have not liked. I don’t care. I like them all. This one, it actually looks incredible. I think Gal looks amazing. I’m looking forward to seeing, there’s the full statue up there. I haven’t had a chance to go and check it out. I can’t wait.

Meredith: All the new trailers that they’ve just come out, I’m like, “Oh my gosh. It looks so great.” Even though it’s the Batman/Superman movie, I have a feeling it’s really going to be Batman, Superman…

Matt: Wonder Woman.

Meredith:….and she may just steal the show.

Kara: We’re waiting for your new costume to show up as a cameo in the background somewhere.

Meredith: That would be fun, although we have seen a couple cosplayers with the new costume on. There was one from Chile that looked phenomenal. It’s on Twitter.

Kara: Do you guys get a lot of good interaction with the fans of the book?

Meredith: Yeah. I could not ask for our fans to be more supportive. The first morning the book comes out, I go down, there’s all sorts of support. We’ve been really blessed.

Kara: Wonder Woman fans are wonderful.

Meredith: They are.

Matt: Well played.

Kara: I’m just waiting. I’ve got all my Wonder Woman puns.

Matt: You’ve got your corny one liner in for the day, I think.

Kara: Let us rope you in.

Matt: We should leave before they kick us out.

David: That one took me a second.

Kara: I love Wonder Woman, so I am so excited that there’s the Wonder Woman book, you’ve got Sensation Comics, she’s getting a movie. I’m like, “Ah, it’s a Wonder Woman renaissance. Thank goodness.” Thank you for all the work that you’re doing on it.

Meredith: Thank you.

Matt: Thanks very much for taking the time out to talk to us too.

David: Our pleasure.

Meredith: Thank you for taking your time to talk to us.

Kara: Thank you.

(Source: SoundCloud / comiXology)

Oct 02, 2015 12:30pm
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