Smoothies with Jeph Loeb

While walking to the cafeteria with Jeph Loeb, writer of too many comics classics to name in one readable sentence (but hey, let’s try: Long Halloween, Spider-Man: Blue, Batman: Hush, Superman For All Seasons just to name a few), and producer/writer on some of the best television out there (Smallville, Lost, Heroes), I realized I had started making small talk with a man who has brought me countless hours of comic book greatness and television.

After discussing the more disgusting points of buying those $7.99 whole chickens at Ralph’s (they really are disgusting: sitting in their own moisture and oil for hours, with dew from the top of the plastic dome bathing the chicken in condensation; they really are grease-flavored chickens), Jeph bought his smoothie (we were both disappointed they didn’t have mango) and we found a place to sit down for the interview.

I made a sound like a 78 year old man would make when we sat down, and I attributed the deterioration of my young body to comic books by calling it a “Comic Book Body”. He laughed and I asked the most burning question I had for him first:

Someone told me about some kind of Buffy Animated Series…is
this happening?

Yeah, I don’t know that’s it’s going to happen. Although I am a big
believer that all the really good buffy stories begin as stories of
resurrection…so, I met Joss Whedon, creator and emperor of all
things Buffy, [Brian-laugh] I guess it was about five years now, cause
I was on Smallville, for three years and Lost for one, count
backwards, So I spent a year and a half of my life with Joss
developing thirteen scripts all with the Buffy writers, including
himself, getting Eric White from My Dead Girlfriend, and really one of
the more terrific animation designers, Eric Radomsky who won an Emmy
for his Art Direction in the look of both the Batman the animated
series the first one and uh, Spawn, so we, just, had the most
crackling team in the world. And unfortunately our network which was
uh, then, The Fox Channel, I guess is what it was called, got bought.
Fox Kids, that’s what it was called. It got bought by Disney and
Disney said “we don want anything that isn’t made by us and we don’t
want to make Buffy” and so we went into hibernation and there’s been a
couple times when it looked like it was goign to come back jout b/c it
was just a hot dog idea and as Joss likes to say, “it’s a big mountain
of money just waiting for somebody to come along” and for us it’s an
opportunity to tell stories that all took place in Year One. TO be
able to go back to the innocence of high school

Aw!

And to be able to tell stories that happened mostly betwewn episodes 6
and 7, We used to call them episode 7 and a half…

So is this for sure not happening, is it still up in the air,
or?…

Well, nothing ever dies, especially when you’re a vampire, but at the
moment it’s kind of in the freezer

I’m a huge fan, some of my favorite work of yours is Hush, I
loved Spiderman Blue, I think it’s one of the best Spiderman stories
ever, and I’ve noteiced that one of my favorite thigns that you write
is superhero relationships. When a superhero has a certain love that
thtey have ,a certain person they’ve always wanted but can’t get to,
or someone as socially inept as bruce wayne, do you bring any of your
own relationships into the comics, do you stay true to the character,
how do you start writing these superhero relationships, what’s your
state of mind, here?

Well, since they’re pretty screwed up, I hope they’re not my life. No,
but, I think that inherent in the creation of some of the best
characters is the idea that you can save the world, but you don’t know
that you get loved for that.

And the exception of really Lois and Clark, which my personal opinion
is that they were better not married, and the rest of them are just
tragic. I mean, it’s just one terrible relationship after another and
for reasons that I’m not entirely pleased with, they generally end in
death; and for someone who’s experienced death, I suppose there’s
something to be said for the fact that the heroes keep getting up and
going on.

On the other hand, for me, the most realistic depiction of a way a
relationship would end would be at the end of Hush, between Cat Woman
and Batman. And it really is just a very classic sort of thing, which
is [that] these are two people whose jobs conflict with each other and
because of that he is not willing to compromise, so she has to walk
away. And That’s not something that I know personally, but it is
certainly something that people know and talk about and it’s one of
the problems that faces everybody. And really the best comics that I
like to read are ones that are metaphors for real life without having
to hit you over the head with it, you know, or do it straight ahead.
I’d rather not tell a story about why a relationship doesn’t work
because you’re a villain and I’m a superhero, I mean that just isn’t
interesting to me. but if you put it on the job or on the actions or
on trust, you can tell that story without having to write down that
line.

I know size doesn’t matter, but how long is your pull list?

[laughs] I’m terrible, I buy everything. I’ve said this before, I am
actually the best baromteter as to whether or not your book is
working, cause I’m very fortunate in that I have for more years than
I’d like to admit, (I obviuosly buy them new), I’ve had a comic book
collection, and I have every Marvel and DC comic from 1964 from
present day.

Oh my GOD

So, I have a garage that…I don’t think I’d like a fire, but…

[Brian laughs]

…but you know a flood would definitely help.[laughs]

Literally, as we speak right now there are two guys who work for me at
Heroes who are now working for me on the weekends, at my house bagging
and categorizing it, because my insurance company has said to me “for
years we’ve allowed you to say to us that you have this huge comic
book collection…so now we need you to categorize it and we need a
digital picture of every single comic book you have. And I’m talking
about, there’s like 100,000 comics in there.

Oooh my GOD.

I mean those boxes have about 500 comics in each of them and there’s,
I don’t know, 170 boxes in there or something ridiculous.

Oh my god

My favorite is: a friend of mine’s husband came over, it was a writer
that i worked with on Smallville, and she said to her hsuband, she
said “you’ve GOT to go out and see his comic book collection and we go
out in the garage and he walks in and he looks around and he goes,
“this isn’t a collection this is a problem, you have a problem Jeph
and you have to admit it to yourself.

So getting all the way back to when I go to the comic store, I’m very
lucky in that I don’t have to think about what a comic book costs, I
can just go – well, first of all, even when I didn’t have any money I
was that way anyway, it was just sort of like “I MUST HAVE THEM” I’ll
figure out how to pay for it later,

but if I don’t buy your comic, there’s something wrong with the comic.
It’s not workin! Cause I can buy anything! And you know, I have pretty
wide taste as far as things go.

Well speaking of Heroes, you mentioned Heroes back there, how
did Tim Kring come to you with the actual idea, cause something that
I’ve been trying to pitch Heroes to a lot of people that usually
don’t[ like superhero stuff, b/c I think it’s a great show and I’m
trying to tell them all about this and one of the things I always get
is just like “what’s the difference between that and X-Men?” and just
like all these other things it’s just a bunch of people with powers.
What do you think sets Heroes apart? To get us help get other people
into heroes.

Well first of all, the initial thing, I sort of heard it in the idea
stage, and then I heard the pitch that he took to the network (before
he took it to the network), and then I read several drafts and then I
saw the pilot. I wasn’t involvedf in the production at all, I was
asked to come on after the Pilot was made, and I could not be happier
about that.

Tim’s basic concept, (which is – Ordinary people find out that they
have extraordinary abilities) is, it’s not a new concept. If you go
back into Greek mythology, Hercules didn’t know what he was when he
was a kid. Far be it from me to go in to blasphemy, but you know
there are Christ stories, where Christ is, there’s not a whole lot of
teen Christ story. SO, the world may have known that he was a
messiah, but I don’t know that he knew that that’s what he was.

Anyway, the thing about the show that I think makes it unique is that
it lives int he real world. It’s NOT like thet X-Men, because in the
X-Men, it is an organized idea, in that there are mutants and we know
there are mutants around us. If you are a mutant you have a choice,
you can be a bad mutant and sign up with Magneto, or you can be a good
mutant and find Xavier and throw on a costume and go out and fight
other mutants

Right

Or go out and fight crime. Our guys don’t do any of that. Our guys
are basically just trying to get through the day. And it affects their
marriages, it affects their loves, it affects their work, and a couple
of the guys have lost their jobs.

When we start talking about these characters, we don’t start from the
point of view of “it would be cool if a guy could fly”, we start with
the character and then we approach the power the same way that you
would approach, essentially, a handicap:

[e.g.] Ok so this guy is a brash, arrogant, politician who doesn’t
listen to people and is constantly running away from his past,
constantly running away from h is problems. So what makes that
character interesting? Now, if I said to you, and he’s blind. It
would be a different show, but…the fact that he can fly, is
something that is a problem for him it is not something that he wants
or covets or any of those things. And so, I’ve written the X-Men…

[Brian and Jeph laugh]

You know, I’ve lived in that world, and I don’t see it as similar on
any level. Other than the fact that yes there are people on our show
that have – we don’t really call them powers, we call them abilities –
and in many ways we look at it, they don’t really have abilities, they
actually have disabilities. And apparently there’s an awful lot of
people that like it, so that I think is good news.

Yeah, you definitely have a lot of people loving it. So,
Spiderman Project! I’ve heard you have some Spidey in the works, can
you tell us anything about that?

I had a Spiderman story and I knew the only person I wanted to do it
with was Jeff Scott Campbell. There are certain characters that guys
are kind of born to draw and in the same kind of way have wanted to
draw, that’s my relationship with Jim lee was built out of the fact
that he desperately wanted to do a Batman story, and I had one, so,
you know, it was a good marriage. Jeff and I have talked about
working together forever, and I knew that it was either going to be a
Batman story or a Spiderman story. I personally think that Jeff’s
style lends itself better to Spiderman, I like the fact that it is
fluid. For me, Batman looks best when he is built and he does a lot
of poses, and he’s really a Gargoyle at the end of the day. And Spidey
on the other hand is jumping around all over the place and that’s
really more the energy that I needed Jeff to bring to it, and he’s got
a way, so…but because of the nature of it – it’s a one year story –
it’s 12 issues, because of the nature of it, we’re going to have a lot
of it in house before that happens, and so i would say that we’re
probably a couple of years away from that happening.

One last question, I see you’re almost done with your smoothie,
as long as we were talking about Buffy. Hotter Buffy: Christy Swanson
or Sarah Michelle Gellar?

I mean, you’ve gotta go with Sarah, she was in for the longest amount
of time, but personally….and while I’m a huge fan, HUGE Faith fan,
the person that always got me rockin on that show as Darla, aI thought
judy bench was the hottest person on that show…

[laughs]Awesome, nice. Thanks a lot for your interview, see
ya around we look forward to your work.

Cool

Anything else you want to have on the site?

This is Jeph Loeb and thanks for coming by.