Life After Gargoyles: Greg Weisman Speaks

Greg Weisman has been professionally involved with comics since his days at college. After initially being at DC, he branched out to work for Disney and sold them the animated series Gargoyles. Though Gargoyles is no longer airing new episodes, Weisman has launched a bestselling comics series dealing with the characters. He told GraphicNovelReporter about how he broke into the comics business, the early stages of Gargoyles, and his latest work with Young Justice.

How did the whole Gargoyles franchise get started?

Going back to the early ’90s, I was working at Walt Disney Television Animation as a development executive. My team and I created and developed an original show called Gargoyles and it started off as comedy adventure. We failed to sell it [laughs], so we redeveloped it as an action drama. After fits and starts, we did manage to sell that version. And we produced the show for the Disney Afternoon.

I can’t really picture it as a comedy.

It looked very different. A lot of the characters you would recognize have parallel versions in the comedy development. Some characters didn’t exist at all, and some characters existed but were incredibly different. It would have been a great comedy adventure in the tradition of Gummi Bears or Darkwing Duck or that kind of thing. I can’t say I’m upset we didn’t sell it, because what we sold instead was a lot more fun.

How did it become a comic?

I’d been interested in doing it as a comic for some time. We tried to get the rights to do a comic from Disney, and we were more or less asking Disney to give it to us for free, and they would get their money off our profit. They said no to that. But they did say they had a deal with a company called SLG to do a handful of other books. I think it was Haunted Mansion, Wonderland, and Tron. They said, “Would you guys be interested in doing a book with SLG?” We said yes, so SLG was approached. and they were interested in doing Gargoyles. We produced 12 issues of Gargoyles and six issues of the spinoff, Gargoyles: Bad Guys.

How much creative power have you had in it?

I pretty much had full creative freedom. There was a moment at the very beginning where Disney was giving notes on my scripts and it became clear, I think, to Disney, that I knew the property better than the guy giving me notes. So they backed off completely. Dan Vado at SLG trusted me to know the property, and we had a bunch of different artists working on it. I would have loved having one artist, but, scheduling-wise, it just didn’t work out that way. So basically I was the creative head of what we did and I had a free hand on every level. I got to tell the stories I wanted to tell.

Do you think people who aren’t familiar with the Gargoyles animated series can get into the comics?

I think so. We made a real effort in the early issues to introduce any concept you needed to know. If you were a new reader, if you needed to know something, we made sure to reintroduce that concept, even the concept of Gargoyles as a whole. I’ve seen fans write, “I don’t know how a new person could get into this." But that's because they're reading all their knowledge of the series into it. Bringing more to it than is necessary. Sometimes we introduce something and the new reader will go, “I don’t know who that character is,” and then it’s a cliffhanger and we explain who he is in the very next issue. You may not always get instant gratification, but if you read through, you get it all. We have three trades: Gargoyles Clan-Building Volume One and Clan-Building Volume Two, and the Bad Guys trade. If you read all three, you get a bunch of individual stories, but you get two real great, individual arcs. It’s great if you’ve seen the series because that doesn’t hurt, but you don’t need anything more than what’s in the comics.

What’s the response been from fans?

I think the fans largely really enjoyed the stories and love getting new material, new canon material from the artists and myself. I think some like some stories better than others, but that’s always going to be the case. The response seems to be fairly positive, and I was happy with the response. I feel pretty good about it.

Have people you worked with on the show read the comics?

I don’t know. There are some people who worked on the comics who also worked on the show. I didn’t go out to everyone who worked on the show to get their response. I hope a few of them saw it and enjoyed what they saw.

Are you still coming out with new comics?

Not right now. SLG’s license from Disney ran out, and Disney wanted to raise the license fee and SLG couldn’t afford to do that at this time. At the moment, as far as I know, the license is up for grabs. I’m certainly willing to do more. I’d love to do more. But right now no one has the license, so I’d guess you’d say it’s in limbo.

What could help that?

A lot of things could help that. It would help if Disney reduced the license fee. I understand they want more money for it, but it would seem to me some money is better than no money. If they charge a little less, SLG might renew it, or another company might pick it up. We were one of SLG’s bestselling books. Gargoyles was pretty much SLG’s bestselling title when it was coming out. I think there’s a value there. Again, I’d be more than willing to write some more.

Have you been able to write things in the comics you couldn’t have in the animated show?

I think that the manner in which I told certain stories I couldn’t have done on television. It's a different medium. My career began in comics before I moved into animation. It’d been years since I’d done comic books, so I had to relearn old skills as I was writing the Gargoyles book. I would say that the first five issues or so are the TV series in comic book form, and then after that, certainly by issue seven, eight, nine, I tried something much more experimental. Although I think the basic story I told could have been on TV, the method of telling it would be very different. I really learned to tell a comic book story there. I think Bad Guys had a really strong story that was told in a fashion that fit the medium we were telling. Bad Guys has colored covers but it’s a black and white book. It has a much more noir look to it that I think worked very well.

How did you get started in comics?

I was in college…a long time ago…and Marvel announced they were competing for a new talent. I thought, “Gee, they’re just going to get inundated.” And I figured that if Marvel was looking for new talent, DC would announce they were looking for new talent. It was just the way it worked between those two companies, in those days at least. One did something; two seconds later, the other did something similar. So instead of preparing materials for Marvel, I prepared materials for DC. And I was right. Sure enough, a month later DC announced their talent search. I was one of the first people in line, so to speak. Basically, that’s how I got my foot in the door at DC Comics. I started writing for them while I was still in college. When I graduated, I went on staff there as an editor. I worked my way up to associate editor. I left my staff position at DC, but I continued to write freelance for them while I was working at Disney as a development executive.

Is there anything else you’d like us to know?

I’m doing a new series called Young Justice, and we’re premiering the show at Comic-Con this year at the tail end of the Batman: The Brave and the Bold panel. I’m also part of the DC Showcase Project. If your readers are going to be at Comic-Con, they should definitely stop by. That’s what’s taking up my time these days: Young Justice.

Anything else about Gargoyles?

Again, I’d love to do Gargoyles. Electric Tiki is putting out a Goliath statue, which is pretty impressive looking. I’d recommend that to your readers.

 

-- Danica Davidson