Martin Luther King Jr. Day always gets me thinking about dreams, and it occurs to me that that’s essentially what the process of writing fiction is about: having dreams, then committing them to paper. The better the writer, the more vivid the dream.
Of course, in the world of script writing, in which the visual medium takes care of all the narrative tasks except for dialog and character action, it’s sometimes pain-inducing, to the point of needing a dose of generic Ultram, to maintain much control over mood and tone.
In the entertainment biz, if a film or TV show or even a comic book flops, the knee-jerk response is to blame the writer. But is it always the writer’s fault? This reminds me of a story to illustrate the point.
About 15 years ago, when DC Comics was rebooting its entire universe, new writers were getting fresh shots to create new takes on characters that had been established for 60-some years. One of the most successful makeovers was performed by writer Frank Miller on Batman. With his Dark Knight Returns miniseries paving the way, Miller grabbed talented hotshot artist David Mazzuchelli to draw his Batman reboot run, Batman: Year One.
Miller being the writer he was and Mazzuchelli being the artist he was, the story arc was a huge hit. One of the writers to follow up on BATMAN was Max Allen Collins, whose re-treatment of the second Robin, Jason Todd, played a big part of his first story arc, which at the time was billed as kind of a follow-up to BATMAN: YEAR ONE.
The storyline wasn’t considered as compelling, by most fans, and Collins’ run on the title was short-lived, despite his being one of the best mid-list detective novelists working today. However, unlike Miller, Collin’s work on Batman was not blessed with the artwork of David Mazzuchelli. Instead, his issues were illustrated by a solid, but far less stylistic, far less eye-popping artist.
Collins maintains to this day that if the artwork was set aside and his script was read side-by-side with Miller’s, his work on Batman would stand the test of comparison. Perhaps it’s a moot point since his run came back in 1987-88 and the dispute is now nearly 20 years old, but it is an interesting interpretation. And an example of how being paired with good talent - be it a solid cast, a great director or a good artist - matters as much to the final product as does the quality of writing.
