Top 30 Ann Nocenti Quotes

I am thrilled to be working with Alex Sanchez as the artist on ‘Katana.’ His work is wildly eclectic, exciting and powerful, yet slyly humorous, which is a perfect match for Katana.

There was a Japantown in San Francisco, but after the internment camps that locked up all the Japanese, Japantown shrunk down to just a couple tourist blocks.

Mythology contains a rich history of legendary weapons, most famously ‘Excalibur,’ weapons that could only be used by the pure of heart.

I actually have a peculiar feminism that does not involve the idea that women shouldn’t be sexy. Female characters written in comics have always been pretty damned sexy, and used their sexuality. And I don’t have any problem with that.

When I was in college, I worked at a state hospital that was a dumping ground for all manner of the criminally insane and ‘mental defectives’ as they called them back then. It was a horrible place, like Arkham, mostly in terms of total neglect of the inmates, so I wanted to write an Arkham story.

The Creeper in the ‘Katana’ series is the same Creeper that will be in ‘Villains Month.’

When I read Katana’s run in ‘Birds of Prey,’ I was curious about her restraint. She didn’t laugh, didn’t loosen up, didn’t seem to have a light side. I thought, well, that demure nature is what we believe of women of Old Japan, so she seemed not like a modern Japanese but from an earlier time.

I’m a huge lover of ‘Seven Samurai’ and anything Kurosawa ever did. The comedic work out of Japan in terms of martial arts movies, some of them are hilarious.

I’m very much about stories that are fast but character development that moves slow.

Katana is a trained, disciplined martial artist. She removes herself from Birds of Prey to go on a personal journey in Japantown, San Francisco, and pursue a quest for vengeance against the Sword Clan, the men that killed her husband.

I think the best collaborations in comics come from a lot of talks with the artists where you are finding out what they want to draw, what kind of villains they want to do.

I’m dying to fool around with the distance between Selina Kyle and Catwoman. And, you know, the whole double identity thing is endlessly fascinating. I mean, you can always find another riff for it.

I walked the streets of New York; I would feel the presence of Daredevil. I would see him up on the rooftop. What you are doing in your life, you start to see in your book. It all starts to merge together.

It always amazes me that Japanese comics have, like, 200 pages. How do they do that? They’re fat books; it’s a whole different kind of comic that’s very close to their films. So I’m drawing from that history and bringing it here – bringing it to Katana.

I like talking about comic book process, and one of the things is that I have plans going ahead for years, and the plans constantly get thrown away and shifted. There’s a difference between planning and what actually happens in life, and comics have a life of their own.

I’ve never written a character that wasn’t burdened by years of pain and trauma. Let’s face it: Most comic-book heroes have some serious baggage. Not Green Arrow. He’s a healthy guy – imagine that? Carrying your hero around in your head, imagining the world through his eyes, is just a hoot.

I wanted the new Green Arrow to somehow sense his long, brutal past. It’s like someone who has past lives they can’t remember but feels occasional flashes of.

I’m one of those people who believes you are what you do.

Catwoman has an awesome, iconic personality. It’s a blast to write her. You get her; she’s an archetype. You can just kind of put on the cat-suit.

There is an unspoken feminist layer to Katana. She’s an aggressive modern woman with traditional Japanese roots. She was in love with her sword because she believed it contained her husband.

I don’t think most people are all heroic or all villainous, so I find ambiguity of motivations to be a natural human condition.

I’m a huge, huge lover of weaponry, of Japanese martial arts movies.

I am inspired by both Japanese Samurai films, in particular the films of Kurosawa, and how they share the spirit of American Westerns, with the influences running in both directions, and including the ‘Spaghetti Westerns’ and films of Sam Peckinpah.

Green Arrow has gone through so many changes; he’s been right-wing, he’s been left-wing, he’s been rich, he’s been poor, he’s been a social justice guy, then when I got him, he was a rich playboy guy. So it was a lot harder to get into a character that has so many personas in the past, and I just looked at his anger.

Comics shouldn’t be ‘tools’ for anyone’s agenda except for the characters. And I am speaking only of super hero action comics. I love many of the alternative comics that are like journalistic stories. Documentary comics, a mix of reportage and fiction. Those are just great.

The things that churned inside Daredevil were deeply religious, somewhat guilt-driven traces of the messianic, with his powers being a compensation for and driven by the vulnerability of being blind. Green Arrow is not driven by dark forces.

People struggle with moments of deep dread about life and moments of surety. Often within the course of the same day. Life is a roller coaster, especially if you take risks.

I know my predecessors have written a Green Arrow who has a lot of thoughts about social justice, but that was a more evolved, older, wiser Green Arrow.

There are a lot of Chinese comics, but the Chinese comics tend to be more historical and conservative. Japanese culture, just the comics are amazing. They’re like films: very few words; they move so much in these books with hundreds of pages.

When my editor sent me the first two images of Joker’s daughter, I was struck by how confident she looked despite her boney appearance and horribly scarred face. So I starting thinking, how did Duela gain such confidence in a world that prizes beauty?