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So here we are. It's one Batman three, Batman's one three. Uh, what point in the process did it hit you? Did it finally hit you like, Oh my God, we're actually doing the third vault.
We're actually going to do it. Well, for me, it was when I actually, you know, got contract talks, because breach, who's the under chief. D C, she phoned me up for me. Email or whatever.
And said, you know, what'd you be interested in doing small and Batman crossover. And you know, I'm working on the street, right now, like, uh, yeah, yeah, not really hopefully you'll get that done. We strive the past and it's gonna, well, I think, you know, we got the right people in place. We can make it happen now and I go, yeah, okay, listen, sweetheart, not in color, sweetheart.
I know it's like, but I was like, listen, I'll face no, I was like now, like, if you can make that happen, you know, yeah, I'd be interested. But it was all with not one. I owed a belief that they would be on the same page and get the launches thing. So I was doubtful until the last very moment when contracts are being discussed and so yeah, I didn't believe it would have happened.
I thought it was 2006 all over again. Right. For me, for me, same thing. Once somebody says yes and you're talking to lawyers about contracts and it's like everybody's rowing in the same direction, you know, it's going to be a reality of it.
I think that by the time Marie got to Greg and I had been talking to him, you know, I was going, well, I'm not going to do this unless Greg does it. And I think that Greg will be intrigued by it, right? So because I talked to Greg over the years about this going all the way back to 2006, but even more so, you know, a little bit more recently. And so by the time she phoned Greg, it wasn't like she didn't have, she had me on board already, but it was only on board of Greg who didn't be on board.
So she didn't really have to land me. It was one of these ones where we were all sort of converging to the same goal, whether we all knew it or not, because it, for me, there is no book without Greg. If Greg, Greg says no because he's busy or he's got other things, and then I wouldn't move forward. I'm like, no, if I can't do it, Greg, I'm not really interested.
And that's not to say that there are, you know, hundreds of great artists out there that wouldn't be sort of fun to work with, but it was for this particular crossover of these two characters. There was nobody else that could do it. I thought to the magnitude that it needed to be done given that we had teased people in the past other than Greg, am I? Because I thought it was fairly obvious.
Yeah. Made a career on one character and made a career on the other character. And he's a non-quantity for both, and he's arguably to some people the best Batman artists they've ever seen and the best. Swan are done.
Sure. Nobody that comes close. Like, okay, Todd's drawn Swan, cool. Greg, just so you don't draw a better Swan than I do, but I draw Swan.
And I did a little bit of Batman. Not even me. I wouldn't even come in a close second, even on that level. So it had to be Greg.
And if without Greg, then the so far falls apart. So I'm glad that he was willing to set aside the creech, which I know is a passion project for him for a bit to take on these 48 pages. Yeah. Well, speaking of visuals, and I think this speaks for both of you, seeing this book and I'm lucky enough to actually get a chance to read it ahead of time, I can say that it is like coming home visually.
Like it feels like a return to something. But with a modern approach, and I thought, what changes, if any, did you guys want to make and implemented that maybe you wouldn't have made, you know, 20, 30 years ago? Well, well, 20 years, 30 years ago, I wouldn't have given any thought. It would have come out and it would have been what we do.
But when this was definitely going to be a goal, I thought to myself, a part of this, aside from it being cool that it's Batman and spawn, going to be in the same book, another team up and, you know, apart from that, I said part of it is Todd and Greg back together. A lot of people are going to, that's going to tweak their nostalgia, right? Because so the comics, that's what comics is for a lot of us, right? We have our nostalgia moments and we hang on to those forever.
And so I said, I look at the work we did back then when we were much, much younger men. And as I would like to say, you could see the youth on the page and I'm just, you know, it's like other people did it. I go, how did we put this much detail? It's excruciating.
And we would crank that stuff out at blinding speed and, and namas, I don't know, I wish I had that, man. That's super power now. I lost it somewhere along the road. So one thing I said to myself was, hey, old man, you're going to have to pick up your feet and make it seem like, you know, you guys didn't miss a beat and this is just another issue off of spawn, you know, and what you were doing month after month after month after month, you know, and so, and that was much of the dismay of my partner and crime here.
It's like, what the fuck are you doing, man? Well, let's stop him going. Hey, old man, you better open those pages of spawn. What we used to do, I go, I'm just trying to follow in our own footsteps.
And so to me, that was, that was the conscious decision to go over the top with the detailing and all the trash and the alleys and all iron work. I wanted it to, for those who have been fans of Todd and I as a team, which there are many, that when they pick up this book, which they are guaranteed to do, that when they open it up, it will be everything that they remember. I mean, you can't have a proper reunion. It's just like right now there's a Pantera, we can't call it a reunion because they have brothers or dead, but it's a tribute.
And, but you got, you know, Zach, wow, bring in the flame. You got, you, you're bringing it. You know what I mean? And so that when you go to that Pantera show, you're back there.
It's exhilarating and it's a failing and it's everything you hoped it would be and more. And so that was it, man. I was just trying to bring, bring it for the fans to go, wow, yes, this is how it was. And for me, it was, it was knowing that Greg like me can sort of, sort of rear our childish sort of emotions very easily to just let him put on paper what might be fun for him to enjoy, which is why the first question that I asked once we sort of got the contracts out of the way was I got on phone with Greg and said, what do you want to draw?
I didn't have a story. I didn't have the story. I just, I wasn't going to come up with a story. I didn't think it would be fair.
It would be, it would be sort of respectful to Greg without sort of asking, getting his input. So I was like, Hey, Greg, we're going to do this. Thanks for coming on board. I think it's going to rock.
By the way, what would you like to draw? Because whatever you say you want to draw, I'm sure that it will be, it will show on the pages and if it shows on the pages, it'll be an awesome book I would want to buy. And all I have to do is figure out how to accommodate my story to get to what you want to draw. That's easy, right?
As an artist first, writer second, it's easy for me to basically come up with story elements that fit visual, right? And maybe that's backwards to some people. But for me, it's, it's worked my whole career, especially with Greg. Yeah, I mean, I live the industry for what 25 years.
So I can't be wrong. Is that where the ales came from? Todd asked me, you know, as you just got, as you just saying, you know, what do you want to do? What were you excited?
You know, and of course the first obvious, you know, go to is the Joker, especially being you have the parallel of, you know, the clown, violator and all that. And because that's part of the mirror image of the spawn and the Batman universe. You know, but I think, you know, speaking for myself, you know, you know, had enough Joker for a time, you know, I get why there's a lot of it out there that's successful. But I think, you know, instead of burning out on more Joker, which you've been cool and fun, he has his appearances and we see the Joker.
But let's do something else. So to me, the obvious thing was Court of Owls, you know, because you know, Court of Owls is during my Batman, me and Ron, it's what I'm kind of most proud of. You know, I think Scott had a brilliant idea with the lore behind it. And I just, I'm so proud of it.
And so I go, it'd be really cool to introduce that into the story. And, and so, you know, that worked out perfectly with Todd, which he'll explain in more detail. And I had the opportunity to create a new talent, which is going to make an awesome toy, by the way. And you'll all want to pick up immediately from release.
So yeah, that was it. You know, so I'll take it from there. Yeah. Well, Greg, you can love anything Adam Visually.
I've learned over the decades of being around Greg that he'll hit any basically pitch I can throw out of this was going to be no, no different. And to me, I wanted to have a little bit of fun visually, but without getting distracted from the title of the book, which was Batman, I assume that's why people were going to come. That's who people wanted to see. And it's kind of easy to get distracted with other things.
And if all of a sudden we had the court and we had the Joker and we had all prison break in Arkham Asylum and then we had all my heroes basically coming through the portals. And it just gets muddy. I think the waters get muddy and I wanted to focus. I think there's a lot in there.
I mean, there's a lot of threads. There's a lot of sort of, you know, there's a visual one panel and a one panel and a one panel and maybe maybe too much of a tease at times, but I didn't want us to in 48 pages to go, oh, now we got a service that idea for two or three pages. And next thing you know, you're running out of pages. Yeah.
Because Greg committed to 48 pages and I didn't want to come back to him and say, Hey, can you do 50 or 60 or 60? I wanted to basically be sort of true as I could to it. And so the only way I was going to do that was to stay on course. This is a Batman spawned book, put all the window dressing there, put all the fun stuff that I would want to see, but don't lose sight of what the story is.
It's about these two men and some of their similarities and some of their contrast. They're on there. And I'm glad Greg picked the Court of Owls because I agree. I think Joker, there's no lack of Joker stories out there.
Right. And I think people are excited to see the Court of Owls, especially a new talent that's in the book. We just launched it. We just launched it from there and then just made it made it up as we were going literally make it made it up.
It feels like Batman and spawn. If you compare this to the last, they have kind of cooler heads than they did. I feel like is that a reflection of you guys now as creators where it's like, you can still you can still bring the heat, but we can't just have that minutes. One punch another 20 for 20 pages.
We have to do something else. They're old and tired. Like we are. Right.
Well, spawn is now 300 issues deep and in my mind, in my mind, he has matured. He understands that being angry all the time isn't the way to go, although his emotions do flare up in this book. But yes, I at some point when you're a grizzled veteran of war, then of course you have to sort of slow down and catch a breath and be a little more methodical about some of this stuff, right? Without betraying who you are.
And so I would say that the Al Simmons character is way more emotional than Bruce Wayne is for sure. Sure. Yeah. I needed to show that part to show that it actually can be a detriment to things moving forward and wanted to show that, you know, not having superpowers, but having the intellect that Bruce Wayne has also has huge, huge advantages to it too, right?
Especially given that, as I mentioned, he couldn't quite trust spawn. He wasn't just going to give in. He's not that sort of silly that he's going to say, oh, you're getting screwed. I'm getting screwed.
So you know what? You and I are going to be pals. So he had he did have a backup plan, which was building that device that he has at the end. Right.
That was that was his backup that if he got in trouble, then he would have literally released the hounds, even if he had to do it on spawn himself, right? No, he could trust him either. Yeah. I read a fun interview earlier about this book in which you talked about with the old 2006 pitch that you did want to do, you know, Joker and Bile, and that kind of led itself to that idea.
Obviously, there are some shades of that. I think that was in its own way a little bit of an homage like, hey, this is a cool idea we had. We tried that out. But I think there might be based on how this wraps up a little more than you're letting on that maybe there's more to it.
And is there without getting into any dicey territory a desire for another one? So here's I would say, and I'll let Greg go. But usually doing more of something is predicated upon a couple of things. One is the commercial success of the first one, right?
So if a movie doesn't do well, then you don't do a sequel. And then if people like it and they go, oh my gosh, I'd want to do another one, then the question is, can you get the original people back to do more of it? And that that's sort of the second part of it. So I know that Greg and I, although, you know, we're just catching our breath from getting this done and it was a labor of love, it was still a lot of work that we need to catch our breath and that maybe down the line after we see, I mean, look, the sale is going to make it the number one selling comic book of the year.
So that one that that box is check mark. So now the question is, how long, even if we both wanted to do it, how long do you wait before you do the sequel? My brain tells me you wait longer than people think so that you create a pent up demand and then all of a sudden people go, oh my God, it's been 10 years and they're finally going to get the Joker and clown together and they're going to come back and do it. Remember, they're the cliffhanger.
I don't know that you even think about it, even if we wanted to, that you come back like four months later and say, hey, we're going to now give you part two, because why not make it a hundred page story and just tell the big story in and of itself. It was just a lot of fun comic book stuff. Like, you know, here's the two heroes. It's fun.
It's fun. Here's the flashbacks, all the rogues gallery. Here's a new character. The talent is based on a new modern characters that Greg and Scott Snyder created.
And you've got this weird twist ending sort of at the end on the page and then you've got the last panel that like is sort of like, oh, and you're going, oh my gosh. So it's not, it's just teasing for potential. Nothing wrong with that. I used to like comic books that I, when I was done with it.
My first instinct was I wanted more pages. Yeah. Well, and it's interesting. I wanted to ask how much, and I think we touched on a little bit, but how much restraint did you guys have to exercise in doing this?
Because after this much time and jumping into it, like you can see the fun and the love that is on every page, not just with Greg Spencer's, but like with your inks Todd, just getting to add to it in that regard, it has some kind of an extra gravity to it. And it feels like maybe there was some kind of desire like, all right, we got 48 pages. We got to throw the whole kitchen sink at this thing. And I don't think that's, this is not a kitchen sink book.
This is a, this is one story, two characters. One night, one night. Yeah. And then it's like a couple of hours.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. And it's a ticking clock element to it, of course, which also is a, is a fun little like narrative advice that gets the reader to want to turn the page, even though you've got a kapula McFarland book in your hand and you want to look at every panel for at least a couple minutes.
But, but yeah, it was that, was that tough for you guys to be like, man, we should we throw more of this? Well, I mean, Todd, you know, put plenty of good material in there for any artist to have fun. Yeah. I think, as I keep saying was a big part of this is not an irony.
And I'm bringing a heap that we brought back in this one day. So I just kept going, here's what used to happen back then. Okay. And now, you know, it's so much road between then and now that he's forgotten how sick it was.
But so I put down a lot of detail and, and the inks would come back with more detail. So I, like to see more detail. So then I bring it to that level of detail and then the inks would come back and there'd be more detail. It's like, Oh, he wants even more detail.
So I would bring it up to that level of detail and then things would come back with more detail. So finally I go, okay, I'm going to do it like here. And what he adds, he adds and because it was never, it was always escalating. Yeah.
But we're all ourselves doing visiting height if you look back at some of that stuff. And, and while I did not want to go back to that Disney height at this age, I knew we had at least come very close to that. So that when the reader picks it up without going back and opening spawn comics at the peak and put inside by side, that if you get enough to fool him into going, Hey, the two old boys are still doing it like the young dogs. Yeah.
Absolutely. There is a, another collection coming out in April. I understand that's going to collect this plus the other two. It's going to be kind of bigger.
That's something that you kind of had a, any thoughts about, because you know, it's always fun get like closer to maybe what the original art looked like because you get to see a little bigger. Look, I'm completely biased. I think at some point, DC, we should show off those 48 pages just of the pencil because they're staggering, right? There's a beauty in raw pencils because of the gray and you get like, shape in it that you can't replicate with ink.
I think people would be staggered and all you have to do is just go and look at what Greg posts on Instagram and Facebook and you're going to you can see it, right? It's like, it's just, wow, it's almost, I almost feel a bit guilty, putting ink on it. And then, and then because of that, then, you know, I try to bust my butt on the inking end of it. And there's, I think there's another beauty just in black and white artwork, original, what we would call original artwork too, because what happens with black and white artwork is that, A, you put your own colors and your minds eye on it.
But more importantly, there's nothing there that basically hides any line. So you get to see every line laid bare. And there's, I think, a simple beauty to black and white artwork, not that Dave and Kate didn't hit it out of the park and did a wonderful job. Sure.
But you know, I think, I think that if they, and I don't know whether they're going to combine all the quote unquote prior books and or whether they're going to say, Hey, here's step one pencils, here's step two black and white. And then here's step three that color. I think all those iterations could be done. But I think it would be a shame if at some point in the future, people don't get to see what Greg was doing with his pencils and what those pages look like in black and white, because I would have wanted that maybe because both Greg and I want to be artists when we were kids.
So we would have bought it. Sure. Gentlemen, I want to thank you so much for not only your country since the industry, but to this awesome book and for your time today. Have an awesome rest of your year and congrats on the book guys.
Thank you. Appreciate you. You're gonna have some time. My pleasure guys.
Thank you.