ROBIN #1 script and Project list!
Updates! Signing this weekend! Robin #1 with some behind the scenes material AND the massive Secret project updates for paid subscribers!
October has been a weird month. It feels like the longest and yet also fastest month for some reason. Too much happening in some ways, and then nothing is going on. Not sure how to describe that feeling. But getting things done was a drag this week. I was working but not at the pace I’d like to.
But what better way to end the month than with a…
SIGNING THIS WEEKEND! This weekend I’m doing a HALLOWEEN SIGNING at I LIKE COMICS in Vancouver, Washington. The main thing I’ll be signing is DARK RIDE #1!
Saturday, October 29th from Noon to 2pm!
I LIKE COMICS
1715 Broadway St
Vancouver, Wa 98663
Come on by! I’d love to see you!
After the Robin #1 script, I have the massive list of secret projects that I’m working on. When you read it, you’ll probably ask “When does this guy sleep?!” And the answer is “It depends…?”
Anyway, this is a very long post so let’s get started with ROBIN!
Way back in 2010 I was offered a chance to write an issue of Superman/Batman. I had done a few inventory issues of the series as test runs with the company in 2009, so it was time for the real deal. It was coming out in October, so the theme had to be Halloween, oh and it had to have Damian and Supergirl in it.
Damian was a new-ish character back then. Introduced in Grant’s Batman run, but after Damian’s father’s death in RIP/Final Crisis he’d fully taken on the role of Robin. A lot of people saw him as this entitled brat who would kill without remorse…and I LOVED HIM. I also love writing what people see as “jerk characters” which I’ve talked about a bit in the Flash Files. But there was something about Damian. This cocky kid with a huge heart that appealed to me.
And the opportunity to write him was right up my alley. I had a blast with that issue. It was a fun horror story with Damian and Kara having a bit of tension that turned into friendship. I think?
Afterward I asked if it were possible to write MORE Damian/Robin. I was told no. I also didn’t know at the time that the New 52 was being put together, so big plans were already on the move and I wasn’t in them.
For almost 10 years I kept trying to write Damian. Any chance I had. And I had almost given up.
Until spring of 2020. I was wrapping up Flash when DC asked if I was interested in doing a Robin series. I’m close with James Tynion IV and knew his plans for Batman in 2020 and so it made sense that I could dive into Gotham. Also, having done Flash for many, many years, I had a few personal work goals in front of me. I was looking for new challenges, I had a short attention span, AND I wanted to work on something unexpected. I didn’t want to dive right into one of the BIG PLAYERS in the DCU. I wanted to explore some other pieces, especially as I was going to start working on Infinite Frontier/Dark Crisis that fall as well.
Damian/Robin fit the bill. I had a storyline for a year with the Lazarus Tournament, and it would lead to SHADOW WAR where I would end my run before moving on to something else. I also knew that “BATMAN VS ROBIN” was coming in fall 2022, so the series had a ticking clock built into it with it ending in summer 2022.
Knowing all that I got to work on the series in fall of 2020.
One of the major elements of this series was that Damian liked Manga. It started because I already felt the Manga influence coming into the book. I love Naruto but also Battle Royale. The Battle Royale manga had a major influence on my writing. It was released from Tokyo Pop almost 20 years ago. It was a popular book, then a movie and a manga. The movie is Quintin Tarantino’s favorite movie of all time. But the Manga was more my jam.
When I started putting together the outline I realized Damian, being a teenager, would also be into manga. But how do we show that in an interesting way? And in a way that also told a story? That also connected to the emotional journey Damian was about to undergo?
I had an idea for something…different on how to introduce this concept to the series and to the reader.
I wrote the script and turned it in. I did a quick photoshop job to show what I meant. Below is a screen grab of the script and that example. If you look close you can see the cobbled together rough example I made. (Apologies to the artists for how I butchered your art!)
Even with this example, we got a tiny bit of resistance from DC at first. They weren’t sure how it read or would play out, BUT they trusted me and they trusted Gleb Melnikov to execute the idea. And he did. Amazingly.
Gleb inked this page with the same brush that Mangaka’s use to ink a page. It’s one of my favorite things in the first issue and in the whole series. He totally nailed it. I first noticed Gleb’s art in Angel #1 at Boom, and knew I had to work with him. And he did a lot of DC Comics art on his social media. He clearly loved the DC characters, too. And 100% got Damian. Gleb was my first and only pick to draw the Robin series, so when we got him, I knew it was going to be something special. Gleb is a blood brother now and someone I’d work with forever.
In the lettering stage I tried to convince DC that we should have it lettered in Japanese, but it didn’t work out. There was an issue of timing and we needed to get the book out the door. But it still worked without it. It hit the tone we wanted and helped establish what kind of series Robin was going to be.
Robin #1 was easily one of my favorite thing’s I’ve written for DC Comics. The first two collections that showcase the Lazarus Tournament are in stores now!
And now for you paid subscribers you’ll find the full #1 script after the paywall.
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