I got to meet the terrific Alan Grant at Dublin Comic Con this weekend;
He was a pleasure to talk to. So friendly, and informative. A real gentleman. I asked him a ton of questions. I also attended a panel he did on writing in the comic book industry. He told me The Ventriloquist was originally supposed to be a villain for Judge Dredd, but then he decided he'd be a better fit for Batman's world.
I asked him out of all the villains he created in his run like Anarky, The Ratcatcher, Kadaver, and The Ventriloquist, which one was his favorite, and he told me Anarky, because he wishes he had been like him when he was 15 years old lol.
He said he tried to refresh Detective by creating all those new villains instead of relying on the old reliable big name popular villains all the time, which is why only Penguin, Joker and Catwoman appear in his run. I told him his Penguin stories, including the one he did in the Secret Origins Special, are some of the best Penguin stories ever written. He told me he loved writing Penguin, and felt he's too underrated in recent years (I agree with him). He also said he heard they killed off The Ventriloquist, and I told him they did, and replaced him with a woman. He asked me was she any good, and I told him she's not a patch on Wesker (which she isn't).
I asked him that since he was writing Batman around the time the first Burton Batman movie came out, and there was a whole new legion of fans and interest in Batman, did he feel the pressure to make quality stories for all the new readers. He said no because he doesn't pay attention to the movies. He said they're two different worlds, and the comics are the real deal, so he kept doing them the way he always did.
He said he did love working under pressure though, and felt he worked best when someone demanded tasks of him. He said he always wrote down all his ideas, and then came up with the stories.
I asked him which story in his run is his favorite, and he said 'Trash' in Detective #613, because it showed the hero of the story as a school child who ends up tragically killed. He said he always tried to show the humanity and tragedy of Batman's world, and that was why he often tackled drugs in his stories because they were a real world problem, and he figured they would be in Batman's, too. I then asked him the immortal question which Batman movie does he like best. He said he doesn't really like any of them, just bits from them. I then asked him what did he think of BTAS, and he said he really liked that, the episodes he'd seen anyway.
I told him his run on Detective is one of the best runs in a Batman comic book ever, and he was very humbled and flattered by that. He said he'd love to be writing Batman again, and I said I do, too. I told him he has a lot of fans. And his stories are still revered and hold up brilliantly today.
It was a great experience chatting to him. He also autographed one of my comics from his Detective run;
Love them.
