Broken Frontier

Superstar writer Peter David sat down with Broken Frontier and shared his thoughts on social issues in comics, character-driven stories, writing for comics and more. One of the most respected names in comics today, David is best known for his long runs on X-Factor and The Incredible Hulk and has recently been working on the adaptation of Stephen King's Dark Tower. Join us at Broken Frontier as we get the the quick scoop on many things from Peter David.

BROKEN FRONTIER: One of the things that really makes your work stand out is that you put a lot of emphasis on focusing on characters and really deeply developing them in your comics. Rather than just focus on action, you have a lot of moments of character drama. What are you thoughts on the character-driven narrative?

PETER DAVID: These are character driven books, comic books by and large are character driven. People become invested in the characters and what happens to them. So I feel that first and foremost X-Factor is a character drama, set against a noir-like detective environs. If the readers don't care about the characters, absolutely nothing else matters. So, I can do whole issues that are just character interaction, and I think they can be just as dramatic and perhaps easier to relate to than very very involved major crossover events.

BF: You've had very long runs on several books, like The Incredible Hulk and X-Factor. Did you find yourself attached to certain characters?

PD: Sure. I start writing the characters and I find that the more I write about them, the more I find things to explore. Things happen to them over the course of stories that makes me say: It would be cool if they ended up doing this as a result. One thing tends to lead to another. As long as I feel that I have enough to say, as long as I feel that my contributions are appreciated on the book, I tend to stick around.

BF: You explore social and political issues in your comics. Recently in X-Factor Rictor and Shatterstar got back together and Siryn lost her baby. Do you find it important to bring up these issues?

PD: Well, I don't sit there and say: “Ok. I think I'm gonna write about this social issue”. When I had Rictor and Shatterstar reunite I wasn't thinking about a social issue, I just thought it would be an interesting story development, and it would give Rictor something to do. I hadn't had much for him to do over the previous issues. With Syrin, I wasn't saying: “I think I'll write a story about a woman losing a child”, but that's the way the story wound up developing.

I think it's kind of dangerous if you decide that you're going to start making your comic book a vehicle for social issues, because then you risk getting preachy, and writing stories that are one-sided, I'm not interested in doing it like that. I'm just interested in writing stories that are relevant to people's everyday lives on some sort of a basis. If as a result of that there's some sort of overlap with a social issue aspect, then so be it, but it's not like I sit there and think to myself: “Ok, now it's time to write a very special issue of X-Factor ripped from today's headlines”.

BF: You give brief updates on your family at the start of some of your comics, I think this really endears you to your readers. How did you first start doing this, and what was the original idea behind it?

PD: I just wanted to do something different with the opening. I thought that just writing an update of what happened the previous issue was kinda dull, so I just wanted to do something that would pretty much guarantee that people would read the stuff that happened before. Also, since the recap pages generally don't appear in the trade paperbacks, I wanted to make them fun for people who actually support the book on a monthly basis.

BF: You wrote “Writing for Comics and Graphic Novels”. Do you think it's important for writers to share the craft with the next generation of upcoming writers?

PD: Oh absolutely. All of us at one time or another were on the other side of the table, we were on the outside looking in. We were always looking for people to help us out and give us advice. Most of us were just hoping to find out the “secret word”, we thought there must be some sort of magic thing that you have to know in order to get in, unfortunately it's just a lot of work and keeping your fingers crossed and a certain degree of luck. I kept on having people ask me various questions about how to break in, and that was one of the reasons I decided to just write the book, so I could just refer people to that.

BF: I know there's no “ordinary day” in writing, but how does the craft of writing work for you? Do you have a specific game plan you follow?

PD: Generally, I work on novels in the morning and comic books in the afternoon. I'll work on other projects in the midst of that. I'm really not much more organized than that.

X-Factor #207 is on sale July 21 from Marvel Comics priced $2.99.