You take the thing that is the worst thing that could have happened to you, the worst challenge in your life, and you turn it into fuel. You don't give up. And that's what Gotham is about.

Scott Snyder

Categorized in : Challenges Giving Up Don't Give Up

I'm a difficult person, sometimes, to work with because I'm so intense about this stuff sometimes, and I get focused in ways that I think can be overwhelming for me and also the people I work with, where I'll get so about every little bug in the thing, every little line.

me work sometimes people

With books like 'AD: After Death' and 'Wytches,' a lot of those things are inspired by reading things that terrify me.

things me reading death

I love working on 'Superman' and 'Batman' dearly. by Scott Snyder

I love working on 'Superman' and 'Batman' dearly.

batman superman working love

The Batman that I loved growing up, the thing that Frank Miller did in 'The Dark Knight Returns,' is that he's so vulnerable and mortal in his 50s. That book was the first time I saw Batman as being really layered, human, and suffering, and worried that he wouldn't achieve what he wanted to achieve. Seeing him being obsessed and pathological.

suffering dark time book

The secret to 'Year One' is that it's a Jim Gordon story. It's a great Bruce Wayne story, don't get me wrong, but Jim Gordon is the focus of that book. To me, that's the stronger emotional arc. It's not that the Bruce Wayne stuff isn't masterful, because it is, but it's Jim's book.

great me focus book

The only way to write Batman, if you get the chance - and I hope everyone out there gets the chance - is to imagine you made him up.

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There's an element of ego to writing the Riddler. You research a lot of things that you end up jettisoning as a writer, and Riddler was a lot of fun to get to have that sort of annoying know-it-all personality lording over the city. He's a lot of fun to write about.

city you ego personality

I don't know if this is the same for everybody, but for me, sometimes I get depressed, where I wake up and I can feel a change. Something went wrong, and it's almost like you feel tingly in a way where you know something is off, and from that point forward, this anxiety kicks in where you just worry and worry... this cyclical, terrible nature.

me you nature change

Monsters can be scary, and they're great, but they're only really scary when they're reflections of us and they show you the things you're scared of might be true about your own nature.

true great you nature

I've said before, I've always had difficulty with anxiety and depression. I've been on medication for it since I was about 18 years old, varying degrees of medication. I've had big ups and downs with it and very bad periods.

ups-and-downs bad anxiety depression

With 'Batman,' I actually had a really bad period when we started 'Zero Year,' right at the beginning, I just wasn't taking care of myself at all. I was up too late all the time, I was working too hard. I wasn't exercising.

beginning myself care time

When I've gone through those periods of depression or anxiety, it's almost like your body is telling you constantly with these panics that the world really is the terrible place that you think it is, and all the things you fear are true about yourself have to be true.

yourself you fear depression

You have a book like 'The Shining,' where the hotel is scary - but scarier because it's the haunted house of Jack Torrance's heart.

you house heart book

The fun of superhero comics is finding ways to turn the pieces that you know so that they're suddenly about things that you want them to be about, as long as they're true to the core and true to the DNA of the mythology.

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