Super-heroes were created to represent the best in all of us. We should aspire to match their nobility, not their ability to shoot big chrome guns. Mark Waid More Quotes by Mark Waid More Quotes From Mark Waid In the long run, the quality of your work is all that matters. That is your only resumé. Be professional. Make sure your editor or publisher can always reach you. Do what's asked of you if your conscience can bear it. But know that, five years from now, as fans or prospective employers are looking over your published pages, no one will care that this story sucks because the publisher moved the deadline up or because the editor made you work an android cow into the story. All they will care about is what they see in front of them, and they will hold you responsible for it, no one else. Mark Waid editors running years What makes a good editor is staying the hell out of the way as much as possible. ... If you're a DC or Marvel or Dark Horse or BOOM! editor who's assigning work, then if you did your job properly to begin with, then the people you've hired can be trusted to do what they do without excessive meddling. The ideal situation you're shooting for as an editor is to groom a collaborative creative team to the point where their work sails effortlessly through production and the most you have to do is fix the spelling and the commas. Mark Waid horse team jobs The best comics editors have the smallest egos. The worst ones feel like they have to justify their salaries by making changes just so they can leave their fingerprints. Every creative medium has those guys, and they're all loathsome. Mark Waid editors guy creative Never forget that at the end of the day, as a creative person, your résumé is all you've got. Mark Waid never-forget the-end-of-the-day creative We're brought up to believe in a fairytale-romance sort of way that true love is out there and true loves don't care about what you look like and stuff, just what's down inside. And that's probably true, but what's also true, sadly, is that true loves are very rare and very hard to find. Mark Waid you true-love love-is love Heroism is heroism, regardless of the timeframe or the backdrop. Mark Waid regardless backdrop heroism When I was a kid, what captivated me about detective fiction were the puzzles more than the detectives or their enemies. And as I've gotten older, I see a lot of merit in setting your investigative sights higher than figuring out how someone stole Encyclopedia Brown's bicycle. Mark Waid enemies someone me bicycle Everyone knows what it's like to make the wrong decision for the right reasons. For me, wrong decisions are the heart of drama - a character who's always making the right decisions is boring. Mark Waid me decision heart character Especially in the digital age, people want everything now, now, now. Mark Waid digital age want people Captain America is an interesting character because it makes you ask those questions in yourself as a writer. What do we want as a nation, what do we mean as a nation, what is our role in the world as a nation? What are our strengths and weaknesses as a country? Mark Waid yourself you character world I got taught a lot of great lessons by superhero comics as a kid about virtue and self-sacrifice and responsibility. And those were an important part of imprinting my DNA with ethical and moral values. Mark Waid great moral important responsibility There is a reductive nature to the Internet, and it's not limited to comic book news sites and stuff: it's everybody. There is a reductive nature of it, by which anything that's said very quickly gets reduced down to the next. Reduced, reduced, reduced to the point where rumors with some sense of nuance to them just become fact. Mark Waid down internet nature book I'm a big fan of when you model a character as someone with a biological origin, doing deep dives and a lot of research. Mark Waid deep you research character When you're a kid, regardless of the age you grew up, everything is high opera. With hormones raging, you have to fight external and internal battles that you've never had to deal with before. Unlike Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, who have seen it all and been through it all, everything heightens the drama. Mark Waid fight never you age There's a reason Archie didn't go the way of Betty Boop or Davy Crockett or Woody Woodpecker, forgotten relics of a bygone era, and it's because when 'Archie' stories are at their best, anyone of any age can see a little bit of themselves in them. Mark Waid best go age way I am just tired of writing about heroes that we're dragging down to our level, and I want to write about heroes that we want to be. Mark Waid i-am down tired writing I just love rolling up my sleeves and doing research, and I especially love doing research on the origins of folklore and the origins of mythology. Mark Waid doing just research love Maybe this is because I'm a comics historian as much as anything else, but I really have a deep-seated respect for the characters that have been around since before I was born and are probably going to outlive me. Mark Waid i-was-born me respect born I don't write stories about despair. I write stories about hope. Mark Waid write about despair hope I do like Hank Pym. Mark Waid hank like
