There's something iconic about the title "Batman and Robin" (as well as the idea of Batman as this well-adjusted, not-entirely-fucked-up character) - With getting a new #1 and new series to continue the story you've been telling since 2006, is this your attempt to open up the character to another audience who either have never been interested in the character, or who may have strayed away as Bruce Wayne became more and more grim?

I hadn't thought of it in those terms. The 'grim 'n' gritty', noir approach to Batman has been fairly successful over the last 25 years, so I don't know if I ever imagined it keeping readers away. It's an interesting thought. If the style of Batman and Robin opens the door for new or returning readers, I'd be very happy.

You've talked before about this title being a mix of the '60s Adam West TV show and David Lynch, with Chris Cunningham's peculiar brand of wrongness thrown in as well... This seems to continue to an extent both the pop-art imagery of early in your Batman run with Andy Kubert, and the weird psychological darkness of Batman RIP - Audiences are used to seeing a screwed-up Batman thanks to things like The Dark Knight, but the comedy/brightness that you bring to the character has kind of been shied away from since, perhaps, Bob Haney and Adam West. Is it important to you that the character has that balance?

Certainly. The Bruce Wayne voice I hear in my head when I'm writing is sardonic, upper-class, absolutely self-assured and hyper-intelligent. He's seen it all, he's been desensitized to a lot of stuff the rest of us might find shocking and I've always imagined him as a man with a very refined, jet-black sense of humour.

There have been other attempts to do a 'brighter' Batman, of course. Immediately after Frank Miller reinvented the wheel with The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One, Mike W. Barr and Alan Davis launched a brilliant run of stories which owed more to Adam West than to Frank Miller. Bruce Timm and Paul Dini's Batman from the Animated Series was portrayed as a tough but psychologically-healthy individual and Miller and Lee's All Star Batman and Robin has plenty of room for comedy, so these aspects of the character have never truly gone away and form an intrinsic part of the appeal of Batman for many people. The Batman TV series was immensely popular after all and retains a certain undeniable charm even today.

I think any good, long-running thoroughly-developed fictional character will naturally come to have many faces and aspects. Batman's had 70 years to build up quite a complex and layered 'personality'.

Of course, one of my all-time favourite Batman panels was written by Haney and drawn by Jim Aparo and shows Batman strolling down the sunlit streets of Gotham, checking out the mini-skirted girls and accompanied by the line to end all lines: 'Yes, Batman digs this day!'

I'm not saying that's the Batman we want to see on every page, but I love that he might have this aspect to his character. I love the notion of a Batman who enjoys a peaceful stroll down the summer sidewalks of the city he keeps safe. There's something very human about that and it makes him much more relatable and rounded. I can certainly see the Dick Grayson Batman digging this day on a more regular basis!

To my mind, you've firmly put the sci-fi back into Batman, after years of his comics becoming more and more... mundane isn't the right word, but more of a hardcore crime book. Then you come along and suddenly there are crazy psychosomatic drug hallucinations of aliens and then Bruce Wayne gets zapped back in time by an evil god. Is this just trying to bring back all the pre-Silver Age ideas from the character's history that've been lost, or do you feel as if Batman works better as a concept when the weirdness of his rogues gallery gets amped up?

Putting Batman up against ordinary street criminals or organized gang bosses is fine but it's a bit one-sided in Batman's favour, given his training. I tend to assume that Batman goes out every single night as Gotham's Guardian and stops dozens of robberies, muggings, suicides or whatever all the time. Those 'ordinary', 'mundane' crimes are his bread and butter but they don't really challenge him and they don't necessarily make for compelling stories, so I prefer to focus on the wilder, weirder nights of his career and I like to see him facing devilishly brilliant, flamboyant psychos who can actually put him under pressure and take him to his limits. Watching a billionaire Batman disarm poorly-trained, poverty-stricken muggers effortlessly or beating up skinny junkies might be fun for a scene or two but does tend to raise thorny issues of class and privilege that the basic adventure hero concept is not necessarily equipped to deal with adequately.

As for the sci-fi elements, there's actually very little genuine sci-fi in the Batman title or in Batman and Robin. Batman RIP was certainly an attempt to recuperate those elements of Batman's long and contradictory history which no longer fit the profile of the Grim Avenger (although it's nice to see a lot of that material resurfacing in the Brave and The Bold cartoon, which features one of the most enjoyable takes on the character I've seen for a long time).

I don't have many comics in my tattered, bath-damaged 'collection' that date before 1972 when I became a 'fan' and a collector. My era of comics is the 'dark age' of the 70s and 80s, not the so-called 'silver age', so contrary to popular belief, I don't have any particular emotional attachment to 60s comics, other than John Broome's Flash stories which enchanted me as a small child.

I grew up with Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil, Len Wein, Engelhart, Starlin, Gerber, McGregor so my comic-writing style can be traced back to some combination of O'Neil' 'relevance' and Starlin 'cosmic'. Silver age, not so much.

Something that struck me about Batman RIP was the meta-deconstruction of the Batman mythos - When Jezebel Jet told Bruce Wayne that it wasn't healthy to be Batman, she may have been evil and trying to undermine his mission, but was she really completely wrong? With a new (and probably temporary) Batman who's going to not have those demons, are you trying to show how a healthier Bruce Wayne would do things?

I never really subscribed to the idea that Bruce was insane or unhealthy. As I've said before, Bruce Wayne's physical and psychological training regimes (including advanced meditation techniques) would tend to encourage a fairly balanced and healthy personality. Bruce Wayne would have gone mad if he HADN'T dressed as a bat and found a startling way to channel the grief, guilt and helplessness he felt after the death of his parents. Without Batman, Bruce would be truly screwed-up but with Batman he becomes mythic, more than human and genuinely useful to his community. I believe he began to slay his demons the moment he became a demon.

I also wanted to show a healthier Gotham City too. That whole Son-of-Sam, Rorschach-narration - 'This city is an open sewer where the rats feed on the broken dreams and filth of umm...other rats...where sneering, gnawing urban predators...blah blah...' - has become clichéd, tired and unconvincing. If Gotham was so bloody awful, no-one normal would live there and there'd be no-one to protect from criminals. If Gotham really was an open sewer of crime and corruption, every story set there would serve to demonstrate the complete and utter failure of Batman's mission, which isn't really the message we want to send, is it? You've got Batman and all his allies as well as Commissioner Gordon and the city still exudes a vile miasma of darkness and death? I can't buy that. It's simply not realistic and flies in the face of in-story logic (and you know I like my comics realistic!) so my artists and I have taken a different tack and we want to show the cool, vibrant side of Gotham, the energy and excitement that would draw people to live and visit there.

Gotham needs as many faces as Batman - it should be the loudest, sexiest, jazziest city on Earth. It has the best restaurants, the best theaters, the best art, the best criminals, the best crimefighters etc etc. People put up with the weird crime for the sheer buzz.

Why does Damian want to be Robin, if he can't show off to his dad?

Ultimately, Damian wants to be Batman. Being Robin is a step along the way.

Are you going to reference Dick Grayson's previous attempt to be Batman in the early '90s at any point in Batman and Robin?

Probably. I've tried to keep Dick Grayson's entire character history in mind, much as I did with Bruce Wayne in the earlier volumes of the story. Issue 2 has a reference to Grayson's time as a beat cop in the Bludhaven PD and the Bat-Bunker has a few trophies of his Nightwing adventures.

You've talked before about how the first year of the series works out, with artist Frank Quitely drawing the first and last three issues. What happens after the first year of the book? Are you planning on sticking around with Batman as a character, or will you be finished with Gotham for awhile once #13 rolls around?

That was the original plan but I can't seem to stop coming up with ideas for Batman, so we'll see how it goes.

Okay, last one. How would you sell Batman and Robin to people who haven't picked up a Batman comic in years?

Batman is dead. Robin is now Batman and Batman's evil son is now Robin. Everything is new again. If you ever liked Batman and don't want to see how that dynamic plays out, then may the Lord have mercy on your dry and shriveled worthless husk of a 'soul'! G'wan, g'wan, g'wan and buy Batman and Robin before the whole world starts laughing at you for missing out! Missing this is like missing your own birthday!

Batman and Robin #2 is in comic stores now.

Why bring back Barry Allen?

Because the world needs heroes.

Bringing back Barry Allen, that was something that grew out of everything we were doing with Final Crisis with Grant [Morrison] and everything. You know, Grant and I had talked a lot about this, too, when we were working together on DC Universe Zero way back when, about what was going on with the Flash Universe, and more specifically the DC Universe.

With Final Crisis, it was a full circle from Crisis on Infinite Earths, and with Darkseid representing the ultimate evil, and Grant really playing the theme that Darkseid really is evil incarnate without room for any grays, Barry Allen was by all accounts considered the greatest force for good in the DC Universe, and so he was brought back to combat that as a signal of ushering in the new age of heroes back in the day with Showcase #4. Barry represents that.

My, and a lot of fans', opinion about this is that Barry Allen was almost more powerful being dead, because he was this figurehead, this person who made the ultimate sacrifice. He became this almost Guardian Angel for the DC Universe. By bringing him back, do you lessen that?

That's what the story's about: If Barry Allen is back, what does that mean to what he sacrificed, what does that mean to what he was seen as, what does that mean to the Flash universe... It's a very different situation to [Johns' previous series] Green Lantern: Rebirth.

To my mind, Green Lantern was broken in a way that Flash wasn't. Green Lantern missed Hal Jordan, missed the Corps.

I wrote the Flash for five years. I wrote Wally West for five years, I love Wally West, I love the Rogues. I think the Flash universe has continued on, though it's recently tripped. Whereas Hal Jordan's return brought the entire [Green Lantern] universe back. You know, the Green Lanterns had become kind of complacent. You only had Kyle Rayner and John Stewart flying around, really. But the Flash universe, it progressed. Wally West became a great Flash, you had a new Kid Flash, Jay Garrick was still around, new speedsters showed up. Even Iris West moved on. That's not to say there's nothing to build up or nothing new to add. There is.

Did you approach this as "I love Barry Allen, and therefore he's going to be the Flash"? I mean, like you said, you wrote Wally for years.

Not at all. I grew up reading Wally West comics, I read Barry Allen comics in back issues. I like the Flash; whenever I put a name down, listing my favorite characters, the Flash was always number one. I'm getting into Barry Allen now, so it's really a process of rediscovery, for me, of that character. But it's the concept, and the idea of the Speed Force, that is at the core of it all for me.

For me, the Barry Flash is much more of a science fiction,science hero, and Wally was more the superhero. Is the book returning to its science fiction roots?

There's definitely a lot of science fiction in it, absolutely.

And another major difference with Wally was, he never had much of a life outside of being the Flash.

Yeah, that defined his character once he became the Flash, his life became about living up to Barry's legacy and everything else was a part-time job.

Yeah, it was always about living up to Barry's legacy. And then, beyond that, he became his own character, his own hero, his own Flash, but he was never really out of the uniform very much. Barry is, or was.

So what do you think about complaints about DC being retro, with bringing Hal back and bringing Barry back? How much of that is because [DC] is being nostalgic, and how much is because the concepts just didn't work that well without those characters?

Well, I think Green Lantern is anything but a retro book. And you have a whole new, young audience reading about Green Lantern. That's a good thing.

I grew up reading comics in the late '80s and the '90s. Is it nostalgic that Cyborg Superman is prominent again in Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War or Bane in Secret Six. I don't think it's a case ofcertain characters like Hal and Barry coming back because they want to be retro, everyone has their favorites, and a lot of these characters are valuable to the DC Universe from all eras. The 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's. Booster Gold has made a big return to prominence. The JSA continue to have characters from all eras, including several new ones. Is it nostalgic for Barry to be back? For some people it will be, but for others - for most readers, Barry Allen is new to them. I'm a believer that all eras, including this one, are valuable to DC. I hate limiting anything in comics.

Barry's been dead as long as he'd been alive, so there's a whole generation who've never read Barry Allen as the Flash.

Yeah, but to me, that's exciting as hell. Barry Allen is "new" to most readers.

How much of this is open to people who have never read a Flash comic before?

100%. Just like Green Lantern: Rebirth. Green Lantern: Rebirth was a jumping-on point for a lot of people who'd never read a Green Lantern comic before. That was their first comic. I mean, not everyone's read comics for 20 years, a lot of people forget about that. This is definitely for fans of the Flash, but also for new readers who've never read the Flash, have never met anyone in the Flash universe.

Is Flash: Rebirth all about laying the groundwork for what's coming? How much of it is a story complete in and of itself?

It's a story in and of itself that obviously sets up the status quo for a lot of these characters. There'll be a couple of new characters coming out of it.

In the same way that Green Lantern: Rebirth set up pretty much the remainder of your Green Lantern run?

It has a definite ending, just like Green Lantern: Rebirth had a definitive ending, with an open road ahead. The last issue doesn't end "To be continued." It ends.

Is that the way you tend to think, in terms of character and stories? Is the point of Flash: Rebirth, to you, to relaunch a franchise?

It's a story about a guy who's come back, but feels the seconds slipping away,everything moving at breakneck speed and he isn't quite sure which way to turn at the fork in the road. Sure, there's going to be people who'll say "My favorite Flash is Barry Allen" or "My favorite Flash is Wally West" or "My favorite Flash is Bart Allen." Same with GreenLantern, everyone has their favorite characters, but...

But with Green Lantern, you almost get to the point where you can please everyone, because there are multiple Green Lanterns...

You can never please everyone, but there have been multiple Flashes since Barry Allen met Jay Garrick.

But there can only be one fastest man alive, surely. Doesn't there have to be a Flash in a way that there doesn't have to be one Green Lantern?

You'll see what makes each of them individual, just like you did in Green Lantern, through Flash: Rebirth. I think that'll become pretty clear.

Flash in all his incarnations has become somewhat of an avatar for the DC Universe. Barry ushered in the Silver Age, but Wally, to an extent, the changes he went through mirrored the direction of comics at the time, from Mike Baron's quasi-mature approach to Mark Waid's updated silver age run that set the tone for DC's superhero books for the next five years or so. Do you feel a similar pressure with Rebirth?

Of course, but I'd rather go for it or not. I believe in the Flash, I believe it can grow, and Ethan is doing an amazing job. Barry Allen ushered in a lot of heroes, but the world could always use more imo.

You're bringing back Bart [Kid Flash, who was killed in 2006] as well, right?

Bart comes back in [Final Crisis:] Legion of 3 Worlds - Sorry for the delay, but the art is worth it, it's freaking amazing! - but in Flash: Rebirth, he's back from the future and his attitude is "Wally's the Flash, I'm Kid Flash, Now Barry's back. What's going on? If Barry's back, where is everyone else?

"If everyone's coming back from the Speed Force, where's Max?"
Is the tone similar to Green Lantern: Rebirth? Because Green Lantern has a tone of, I don't want to say "space opera," but it's been very grandiose and the stakes have never been small.

Green Lantern is to Space as the Flash is to Time.

The backdrop is, big and epic. But it's a little bit more character-focused, though, the difference being, I gotta get into Barry Allen's history more because he's more of an unknown to people.

Barry didn't really have much of a personality, either. He died before the trend for giving your heroes more of a personality than just a schtick - in Barry's case, being late - kicked in.

Hopefully, you'll feel different as the series progresses.

Starting with Hal Jordan and bringing him back, even back then, was this great thing... I remember the skeptics on that, but it turned out well and I'm hoping to do the same thing with this.

By this point, Barry's better known for that legacy, for dying.

Yes. And why there's an ominous or reluctant attitude in Barry will become clear.

Do you think Flash is one of the more inviting of the DC superheroes to new readers?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

We've got Green Lantern being made into a movie, all the talk about Wonder Woman back and forth, and obviously Superman and Batman...

The Flash is undoubtedly one of the most popular characters that the DC Universe has. I think he's one of the most popular characters in comics. Superspeed is one of the most amazing powers that I think people can get into and explore. Speed is something, today... everyone wants things to go faster, downloads to go quicker... No-one has anytime for anything. Speed is something that, today, we're always trying to get everything to go faster. As our society "progresses," everyone is wanting things to move faster, everyone is texting, using Twitter, all this stuff, all this constant communication and interaction, it's all about speed.

It used to take weeks to deliver a letter, and now you can communicate with someone in, like, two seconds. You can communicate with two or three thousand "friends" about what you're having for lunch immediately, all at once. It's pretty amazing.

In that case, is the Flash more suited to the modern world?

Absolutely. I think Barry Allen is more relevant now than he was back then, including his identity outside of the uniform... And not just because CSI is a TV show, but because the technology and the world has progressed.

Criminals are caught because of DNA, and Barry Allen hasn't been operating in a modern world since, what, twenty-plus years ago.

So what's your one-line pitch to io9 readers to read Flash?

He's the fastest man alive. If you've ever wished you had more time to do everything you wanted to do, here's a story about a guy who has that ability.

And then you can go and pitch that as a movie.

[Laughs] Who knows...

io9: I think Repo!, being a rock opera, is an a category by itself. I'd like to see the opera format come back, to have many more movies like this.
TZ: Well, obviously this is my baby — at least one-half my baby — so I'm in agreement with you. I'd love to see more of this sort of thing, and I think there is a market for it. I just think because it hasn't really been fully done, at least not successfully, people aren't really aware that there is a market for twenty-first century opera.

io9: You've garnered a great internet buzz.
TZ: We're doing great in that regard, at least great by my standards.

io9: The internet has the power to make movies these days — Snakes on a Plane is my major example. I think the web can do a lot.
TZ: It's true. I've watched some of my favorite porn there.

io9: How did your collaboration with [co-writer] Darren Smith start?
TZ: It's been a really long journey from stage to screen. It's kind of hard to fully pinpoint when it went from just being a wacky, fragmented collection of ideas into a cohesive story that is now Repo! But in a nutshell — Darren Smith and I began writing what we call ten-minute operas, and they were ten-minute stories put to music that we would do just as a duo in clubs and coffee shops in L.A. That was in 1999, 2000. And one of those short stories, ultimately, is what grew into Repo! The Genetic Opera. It was called The Necromerchant's Debt, and it was this ten-minute opera about a futuristic graverobber and what this graverobber sees. Basically, he sees the underbelly of society from lurking in the shadows in the graveyard. That concept is what grew into Repo! How we came up with that concept ... ? [laughs] I think what it was is that I've always had a love for the macabre and the occult, so I had this idea for a graverobber. I think I was thinking something along the lines of a Victorian melodrama, and Darren Smith, rightfully so, said, "I've seen this done so many times, this sort of Edgar Allen Poe or Tim Burton take. So why don't we put it in the future?" And so that's sort of how it grew. At the time, Darren Smith also had a friend who was going through a bankruptcy, and a lot of his possessions were in danger of being repossessed. So as we were coming up with ideas for what this graverobber might be seeing in the graveyard, we came up the idea of him witnessing a Repo Man. And in the future, the Repo Man's not just taking your car or your TV — he's literally coming and taking your body parts. So that was the germ of the story.
io9: That's interesting, because I got the feeling from the movie that the Graverobber was sort of the unofficial narrator. He framed the story. Was that intentional?
TZ: Yes, it was. It's sort of ironic how the story has shaped and reshaped itself over the years. When we began the ten-minute operas, just because it was just the two of us, I was acting out the parts and Darren Smith was playing the music. Just by that nature alone, it had a narratorial vibe and aspect to it. And as we expanded the story and added more characters and locations and the whole thing, the Graverobber sort of started to become more worked into the plot, as opposed to this disenfranchised observer. By the time we came around to the finished movie, ironically, it kind of went back to being much closer to what the original short story was.

io9: Were there things that you were really surprised by when you were translating The Necromerchant's Debt? Were there parts that were particularly challenging to adapt?
TZ: The whole thing is difficult. I guess I should say first that the journey from The Necromerchant's Debt to Repo! The Genetic Opera the stage play to Repo! The Genetic Opera the movie was an almost decade-long process. It went from being a two-person show into a full-length play that Darren Smith and I self-produced in L.A. It ran there twice, successfully, and then it got picked up by an off-Broadway theatre company and we took it to New York in 2005. From there, we made a ten-minute Repo short film, which we used to help finance getting the movie made. So the whole process has been one of adaptation. When we knew that it was going to be a movie, when it was a sure thing, we had to re-evaluate a lot of the script. We especially found that one of the major differences, which is a real problem between stage and screen, is that on stage you want to tell everything, and on screen you need to show everything. As such, some of the songs that might have been the biggest hit on the stage — the ones that people called showstoppers — well, the reason they call them that is that you literally stop the show, you stop the action so that people can sing a big number and then the audience will applaud and then you go back into the story. That doesn't work so well in movies. In fact, I've seen a few musical films that have tried to manufacture the place for a curtain call and applause, and it always feels weird. It always feels fake and forced. So some of our best standalone numbers, in my opinion, had to be either cut or trimmed from the film, in order to make a film where the action was driving the plot, as opposed to a bunch of fancy singing.

io9: I guess one of the things that emerged was the graphic novel introductions to the characters. Or was that always there?
TZ: There was always, I think, a comic-book-type vibe to Repo! It's sci-fi, it's set in the future, the characters wear cool, outlandish outfits — and for Christ's sake, it's called Repo! and there are singing graverobbers! I think it always had a comic-book graphic quality with it. But when it came to the movie, we had a couple of things going against us right off the bat, and the main one was budget. We were attempting to do an opera, which of course is supposed to be grand and big, and it's all singing, which presents a whole new level of complication in terms of how you can edit, choreography, all that stuff. So a lot of the reason comic books became a real option is that we didn't have the money to shoot everything we wanted. That said, I think it was one of those happy accidents where the role of the comics kept growing. And if you think about traditional opera, the type our parents — or somebody's parents — might have liked, every one of those comes with a program or a playbill. So when you see it, you actually have in front of you an entire detailed synopsis of the play. You know who dies, you know what happens, right from the get-go. It's not a surprise. You're just there to enjoy the opera aspect, to enjoy the music, and you're not necessarily trying to follow along. Even if they were singing in perfect clear English and they over-enunciated every word, you still wouldn't catch it all on the first listen. You're absorbed by the music and the visuals. So I look at the comics as though they're almost like a twenty-first century version of an operatic playbill.

io9: I really liked them.
TZ: I fuckin' like 'em too!

io9: You're working on a graphic novel of your own right now. Was doing those bits for Repo! what got you into comics, or were you always into comics?
TZ: I don't know if I was necessarily always into comics, as such. I've become a real fan of the graphic novel medium in the last few years — and ironically, more for the writing than the drawing. That said, I think it's best when you get both. My background is actually in illustration. That's what I went to school for, that's how I earned my living ... pretty much up until Repo! I did storyboards for movies and advertising. I actually worked in animation for two years, as a board artist. My background has always been in the visual arts, and Repo! has been an amazing vehicle for me to get to showcase a little bit of a lot of talents. Every one of those talents, though, whether it's drawing or writing or singing — they all come down to hopefully being able to tell a good story. As an illustrator, I always try to have pictures that set up some sort of drama, or create the idea for some sort of narrative, whether it's explicit or abstract. For me, drawing is very much about telling a story; writing is obviously about telling a story; performing is about telling a story. That's what drives me. A lot of people have asked me, "What do you like more?" and I'm like, "I don't know! I like storytelling!" But the reason I'm interested in working on a graphic novel right now is partly related to the whole experience I had with making Repo! It's been so overwhelming and so long — not just making the film, which has its own huge struggle, but there were years of trying to get it off the ground as a play. By the nature of what it is, you have to involve tons of people. And that's great in many ways, you know, you have collaborators, you have partners, you have cast members and crew members and all this. But I think it's been so many years of working in that sort of art by committee that I'm really interested in my next piece — or at least one of my next pieces — being a little bit more small, a bit more of a singular voice, a unique vision. I think the graphic novel medium is really good for that.
io9: How much did you work with the cinematographer to fashion the visual look of the film? I didn't get to see the stage play, so I don't know how it looked before, but it looked really different compared to other movies. How much did you get to work on that?
TZ: My experience on Repo!, as far as I know from everyone that I've spoken with who is a writer or director or producer, has been rare. For one, it's rare to get a gothic opera financed; somehow I managed to do that. [laughs] Beyond that, it's rare that any writer has as much creative involvement as I did with Repo! I've been involved from the get-go and I'm still involved today; literally, just before you called I was preparing some images to send to a magazine, and I've kind of been doing a little bit of everything, from helping to promote the film, to drawing pictures — everything. We worked with some really, really talented people that clearly brought a lot to the world of Repo! that wasn't there before. Joe White is our cinematographer, and David Hackl, who has now gone on to become a director himself, was our production designer, and Harvey Rosenstock was our editor. Repo! had such a long life on the stage, and existed for much longer than most movies ever do in a visual sense — you know, a script might be floating around for years, but not necessarily a script with actors attached and costumes that have been made and photos of sets. When I came on set initially and met the entire production crew, it was actually really awesome how much reverence they were giving to the artwork that had already been created. I'd go into, for example, the costume designer's office — Alex Kavanagh, who's amazing — and she'd have all these images from my old stage play sketchbooks taped up on the walls. They were treating it almost as though it was the Bible. That's not to say they didn't add to it, because they did, and it most cases they really improved upon whatever my initial concept was. It was so cool to see. They could have come in and said, "Screw these guys! Who are they?! They did some cheap black-box theatre play. I'm going to go in and redesign everything." They didn't do that. They treated it with a lot of respect and looked at it as a starting point, as opposed to something to just disregard.

io9: Did you get that same feeling from the actors? You worked with a lot of people I consider famous, like Sarah Brightman and Paris Hilton — did you get to see what they thought of Repo! and the whole idea of a rock opera dystopia?
TZ: I consider them famous, too! There were moments, of course, when I'd have my geeking out. On the one hand, I was a collaborator with them, as a performer, but on the other hand, I was in a managerial-type role, as a creator. You want to maintain an air of professionalism, but there were plenty of days where I was just kind of like, "I'm going to excuse myself for a minute and go geek out in the bathroom." And come back and be cool. But everybody that got involved with Repo! the movie — and honestly, as far back as I can remember — has always gotten involved with the project because they got the project. Everyone that signed up for what we were doing knew what they were getting into, and as such they embraced it. Now that's not to say that everybody didn't bring a lot of themselves to each of the roles and modify what might have been exactly on the page, but everyone was really reverential towards the source material. We didn't have any actors coming and saying, "You know what? I'm kind of moonlighting as a singer-songwriter. Can we just throw away this 'Legal Assassin' song and put in my own little pop jam?" Nobody did that. Nobody came in with that diva nonsense. Everybody understood they were doing an opera, which meant it wasn't just a mashup of songs, like an MTV lineup. It really was an opera; it was a twenty-first century opera. The fact that everybody got involved for very little money bespoke the fact that they were onboard for the fact that we were doing something different, we were doing something culty, and they liked it. They embraced it.

io9: As far as Lionsgate dropping out of promoting the film — was that because they were nervous because it was different? What was their concern?
TZ: It's unfortunate. And I should also say that they're not necessarily the bad guys right now; they just don't believe the market for Repo! is as big as we do. So our job, and the job of people who see the movie and like it, is to talk about it and show them, "No, no, no — I'm a real ticket-buying member of the public, and I like what you're doing. And I want to patronize it. And I want to buy Halloween costumes. And I want to buy the soundtrack. I want to buy the Repo comic book, if it ever comes out!" One of the eye-opening things for me was that as we were making the movie, I had no idea about the separation between the producers of the film and the distributors of the film. They're two completely different entities, and they don't necessarily come at the project in the same way, and they don't necessarily even consult with each other. All along, before I had made a movie, I always just thought, "Oh yeah, producers! They do everything!" We had a group of producers, Twisted Pictures, who for the most part financed the movie, financed the making of the movie, were involved with the creative building and editing and the final product, and then once that was done, they were basically done. Now it got handed over to Lionsgate, who — while they were involved with the production — were involved in a much more limited way. And their job is not to make movies; their job is to sell movies. And they looked at it and they said, "Okaaaay." Even Rocky Horror, which I love and which a lot of people compare Repo! to, was a box-office failure when it came out. It did horribly. It wasn't until years later that it caught on with the whole midnight-movie thing. I think they just looked at what we had, and maybe they were assuming we might have done something more along the lines of Dreamgirls [laughs] or even Sweeney Todd. And then we come and give them this trashy culty twenty-first century opera, and you know, I almost don't even blame them. They kind of went, "Well, what the fuck do you want us to do with this?" When that happened, I was pretty mortified. I thought the hardest thing was going to be getting the movie made, and getting it made well. I had no idea that now getting it actually seen by people was going to be one of our biggest battles. So when they said, "There's not a market for this. There's a niche group of weirdos that'll enjoy this. Otherwise no one will like it, you're going to be ridiculed by the press, and it's a straight-to-DVD movie." And of course, that was a huge blow. I thought, "Oh, well, shit. Is that true?" After years of making it, and after looking at the end result and being happy with it ... I know plenty of writers who get something made, who see it, and who say "I don't like it at all, that's not my original vision." Thankfully that's not the case for me with Repo! Anyway, even though that was a blow to my ego, and to the two Darrens' egos, we of our own volition entered Repo! in a couple of festivals, and we'd sit there with a real audience. And we realized: Maybe they're wrong! These real audiences were eating it up. Every festival that we've gone to we've sold out, with people angry that they can't get in. We've had people coming to these things dressed up as the characters ... to a movie they haven't even seen yet! I think it's awesome, because when does that happen? I talked to someone from Lionsgate about this who had been at the company for fifteen years or something, and he told me, "You know, there's never been a Lionsgate movie that I've been involved in where anyone has dressed up as the characters — certainly not beforehand." The closest thing they had was Saw, and people didn't even dress up as Saw characters until Saw III, when the company started actually licensing Halloween outfits. It wasn't people going, "Hmm, I saw a trailer on a website, and I'm going to go into my laboratory and construct my own Amber Sweet outfit." This Halloween, I've probably gotten fifty separate MySpace messages from fans who made their own Repo! costumes. And I mean, they're elaborate. There were three or four Repo Men — they actually made the Repo Man outfit, with the light in the helmet and the whole thing. That's not easy! I wouldn't know how to do that! So the point is, I think we appeal to a group of people who are hungry for more than just your typical moviegoing experience. They're hungry for something that feels like an event, that feels like a community — in the way that I think Rocky Horror appealed to people. I think that they're at least projecting that on Repo! Now, will we live up to that, in the end result? I hope so.

io9: You mention people hungering for more of this type of entertainment. Is there anything that influenced you while you were writing Repo!, something that you think everyone should have seen or read if they're a fan of this kind of stuff?
TZ: I think probably one of my favorite — I guess you can call it a rock opera, although technically it's more of a rock musical — of late is Hedwig and the Angry Inch. I think that's a wonderful movie and play — in fact, in many ways it's a better play than a movie. What I really like about Hedwig and the Angry Inch is that I think it has a lot of the fun, camp, cult, draggy, trashy element that movies like Rocky Horror or Moulin Rouge or Repo! have, but it has something, I think, more than what Rocky does, for example. It has this story revolving around a character that on face value, seems like someone that most people would never be able to relate to. I mean, most people don't walk through life with a botched sex change operation! But yet, when I watched it, I got choked up. I cared for that character, I rooted for that character, I sympathized with that character. So when we were doing Repo! — even though Repo! is nothing like Hedwig except for the fact there's music involved — Darren Smith and I were really interested in trying to have all the camp and fun and the spectacle that you see in a lot of musicals and operas, but to try to have a human story with real heart and real emotion at the center of it.
io9: I have one final kind of funny question. Do you think it's likely that this dystopian future will come to pass and that we might, in the future, have the whole organs-becoming-currency thing? And if so, would you be more of a Zydrate addict or a Repo Man? Where would you be in that society?
TZ: I'd be a scalpel slut!

io9: Nice.
TZ: I'd be a Gentern, if I could fit in the costume. [laughs] Well, that's a great question, and when Darren Smith and I were researching and doing the writing of Repo!, we actually had some really cool interviews and some cool stories we found with surgeons and transplant doctors. We just studied what's really out there. The reality is, a lot of what's happening in Repo! isn't as far-fetched as it may seem. And certainly, perhaps not that far off in the future. Organs are used as currency. Maybe not at Walmart, but there is a market around body parts — and ironically, right now, at least in the States, the only people that don't profit from organ donations are the actual donors. Everyone else literally makes a killing off of it. And in other countries, there are tons of stories, in South America, for example, of people who are selling, like, a kidney to fat rich Americans. And they're doing it for a price that you'd be kind of like — "Woah, you're losing a kidney for just, you know, a Whopper combo super-sized? That's pretty intense." And even recently, the Chinese government, which has denied it for ages, came clean on the fact that they had been in many cases executing prisoners and then taking their organs and selling them again to rich, fat Americans. So I don't think it's that far off. Do I ever think that Big Brother's going to come in and actually on-the-books sanction murder? I don't think so. But do I think that there's perhaps a lot of social commentary and satire in what we're doing? Yes, that was definitely intentional. But in terms of what I would be in that future ... aw, jeez. I think I'd be a graverobber. I wrote that character for myself and it's definitely a big part of my life and my personality, not just in the fact that I've been doing it for so long, that it feels like — but I think that what really is appealing to me about that character is the fact that he is kind of like the bastard son, you know, he's very much like a Shakespearean archetype in that he witnesses and he can clearly see what's wrong, and in many cases what's right, with the picture. But he doesn't get caught up in it. He's outside of it. He's like, "You know what, you guys have your own dramas, you have your own families, the laws are fucked up, and I'm not going to get involved. I'm just going to watch from the sidelines and I'm going to take care of me." That sort of character appeals to me. I suppose if the choice was either going under the knife to perfect my image (and being repossessed) or actually being forced to repossessed organs almost like as a mercenary, I'd rather be on the sidelines just watching.

io9: What got me about the story was what you mentioned, the social commentary on the whole crazy world of body image and perfection.
TZ: Well, one of the things that made me realize we were on the right path with the story is that maybe four years ago, I was teaching art at a small private little art school in Calabasas, California. The school was in kind of a popular area; there was a little shopping plaza there. At the end of the shopping plaza was what I always thought was a spa. It was a private art school, so obviously my students, my clientele, were often times wealthy people — and more often than not, unfortunately, they were kind of like single, kept mothers who would pay sitters to take their kids to and from while they "got their nails did" and whatever else. And they'd often go to this spa. And I thought they were there just getting the massages, getting some sort of oil treatment, maybe getting a tan. What I didn't realize was that they were really going in there and getting plastic surgery. I walked by one day and there were little balloons up and little fucking cookies and stuff to grab, you know, and I said, "Oh, what's going on? Are you guys having a sale or something?" This group of women looked at me with a straight face — there was no irony in what they were saying — and they were like, "No, no, we're having a Botox party!" I was just like "Hooooly" — what do you say to that? "I didn't get the invitation."

Repo! screencaps by Amber Loves Zydrate at Repo-Opera.com.

Repo-Opera.com
TerranceZdunich.com

io9: LG15: The Resistance is, oh, roughly a million miles away from what people think of when they think of lonelygirl15, in part because the mainstream hype for that really peaked before the series' revelation of a wider, more SF and fantasy-based mythology. Is it a problem when you explain to people that this series isn't really just a girl sitting in front of her webcam at home, talking about her life, but instead all about secret societies and genetically superior beings?

Joshua Fialkov: Yeah, I definitely think there's a huge audience out there that would love the show if they just knew what it really was.

The long and short of the series is that the fountain of youth is real, and it's in the blood of girls all across the world. That's really the springboard that everything in the LG15 universe is based around. It was always the basic concept the guys were going for, and I think from a mythology stand point what they're doing is really strong. But, as you said, educating the audience that we're something else has been one of the big challenges of creating the new show.

When you look at what's come before and there's 500+ lonelygirl15 episodes, plus another 100+ episodes of KateModern. So, with the Resistance one of the challenges was finding a way to have a fresh start, introduce the new show to a new audience, but, keep the core of the story in tact, because that's what the existing fans want. So, where I'd say we excel in the new show is that it's both a fresh start and a continuation of what's come before.

I think what's amazing about the show, and what I really focus on, is the idea that this is a show where we get to see not just the mythology and the craziness, but, also get a chance to meet our characters one on one. They're each pouring their hearts out to the audience on a weekly basis. As I look at what we're doing, while the idea of it being in the vein of a Buffy or a Heroes is certainly valid, what we're really emulating is the classic Shakespearean structure. Now, while that structure is inherent in any genre fiction, it's even more prevelant in what we do, as you're literally getting soliloquies from the characters on a weekly basis.

io9: How are you managing the juggling act between appeasing the fans of the original lonelygirl15 and newcomers to LG15? You mentioned Buffy as a touchstone, and that's definitely a classic in terms of mixing the personal and supernatural; is that a model for combining the confessional diary format and tone of lonelygirl15 and KateModern with the larger story?

Fialkov: Most definitely. Alongside that, I'm also drawing on my lifetime love of manga, which, as a format, definitely follows with what we're doing. In Manga, one of the recurring themes is that balance of internal monologue, relational drama, and ass kicking drama. Comics as a whole do such a great job of balancing that, but, with manga, the creators have really figured out that particular recipe. Even when a series is 30 books long, there's a fantastic ability for many manga creators to make every book feel like a jumping on point, and that, for me, is what really makes them the phenomenon they are.

For me, to go back to the Shakespeare analogy, you don't get bumped out of Hamlet when he does the To be or not to be... speech, nor do you get bumped out of Richard III when he "Now is the winter of discontent"'s it up. It's just a basic device of the medium. The video blogs are the equivalent in our shows. It's a way to personalize the story, just like using the internet in general is a personal experience. When Jonas confesses his feelings of self-doubt and pain, it's as though he's confessing it to you individually, rather than to the audience as a whole. I think you see that in how passionate our fans are about the characters, despite knowing it's all just a show.

io9: When you say that the show isn't just the videos, but also the website, is that in the sense of ARGs as we recognize them today, or is this also something that you guys want to revolutionize, the way that lonelygirl15 made people pay more attention to webdrama?

Fialkov: I think the way that we're approaching it is a bit different. I've followed a few online ARG's, the Dark Knight one, and the Lost stuff especially. While they're both amazingly well done, what they don't really do is effect the content. So, you get this feeling that what you're doing is a diversion. For us, the puzzles, interactivity, and the like actually drive the story. When you help solve a puzzle you have Sarah saying, "Thank you so much."

The level of storytelling that allows you... it's just breath taking. We watch the comment boards and see what people are saying, and while you can always sort of guesstimate what the reaction will be, when you see them playing along (even when they don't think they are), it's just simply amazing.

io9: How did you end up involved in this? Most people - myself included - know you from your comics work; was this what brought you to the attention of [LG15 production company] Eqal, or was this gig something that you lobbied for?

Fialkov: It's funny, but, it ended up being exactly what I needed, even if I didn't know it. I come from a pretty strong film/tv production background, but, five or so years ago, I stepped away from it to pursue comics. Frankly, I love making comics above all else. It's the thing that keeps this old heart of mine pumping. So, when the opportunity first presented itself, I wasn't instantly jumping up and down with glee. I took that first meeting with the guys pretty tentatively. I had a great thing going in comics. I was making a decent living, working regularly, and, best of all, not taking any work that I didn't absolutely want to do. I don't know that most freelancers in any business feel that way. So, when I sat down with them, it was much more out of curiosity than for a "gotta get the job" kind of thing.

But, after spending that first hour or so with Miles Beckett... I don't want to say that my eyes were opened, but, I really got a new perspective. Comics, for good or ill, is an old fashioned medium. I think as look at the difficulties being had in making the leap into new technologies for the industry, you see that there's some creakiness in it. I think the medium itself is timeless, and will always be there, always a part of our culture. But, it hasn't evolved. It stopped moving forward.

As a creator, I'm interested in moving forward, breaking boundaries, and doing stuff that truly is different. Comics, try though they may, still have a hard time swallowing that. I've been extremely lucky with my work, everything from Elk's Run to Punks, all of which are uniquely bizarre in their own ways, and each managed to find a modest audience. But, doing work like that is what inspires me. I love superheroes as much as the next guy, but, I think finding something new and different to say within those tropes... well... it's challenging, especially for me.

With LG15, and, the whole concept of Social Shows on the web, it's like having a blank slate. We're literally defining what the medium can and can't be. There are no rules, and the audience just wants to be challenged. What Miles and Greg, and the rest of the Eqal crew have figured out is that the only way to truly embrace the web is to invent something wholecloth that literally IS the web. Our show isn't just the videos, it's the website as well. That's a logic that when Miles pitched it to me just made me stop and say, "Wow."

Working in comics, you're constantly going to meetings, hearing pitches and the like, for what the 'future' is going to look like. Nine times out of ten... they're bullshit. Sitting there with Miles that balmy summer evening, I realized that this was that one time that it's not.

io9: You mention the "LG15 Universe" earlier - Does that mean that there's potentially more where this came from after LG15: The Resistance? Is there even an end planned for LG15?

Fialkov: I've got stuff planned out for quite a ways out for our show, but, in addition to that, there's actually an Italian version of the show in the pipeline, as well. For good or ill, there's a lot of threads that have been started and explored on the show thus far, and while addressing them is certainly part of my job (and motivation), I think the idea that this isn't just this one group of kids dealing with the problems, but, in fact a world wide occurrence and people everywhere are forced to explore, fight, and combat it, is frankly amazing.

io9: Somewhat connected to that - Will the story ever crossover from web to TV or movies (or even comics, given your background)? Obviously, each medium has its pros and cons, but there's something about this that just seems so webby to me - Is that a failure on my part, or is it integral to the storytelling?

Fialkov: We're open to exploring it wherever it goes. Again, part of the thrill of working at a so called "Web 2.0" company (at least in mindset) is that there are no borders, and no limitations. We can literally do whatever we want, wherever we want it, and, as long as our fans are on board, we get away with it.

[LG15: The Resistance]

io9: The posters promoting War Heroes slam Obama, while the tone of the comic is, in kind, fervently patriotic. Is all of this satire or sincerity?
Millar: It’s amazing how many people seem to think this is a neo-con comic. Same thing happened on [Marvel’s] Ultimates, when it was clearly anti-war through and through. I feel like [director Paul] Verhoeven must have felt after Starship Troopers, in the sense that many people are missing the political satire. In my story, America is clearly engineering terror attacks as a means to garner control back home, enslave the population, and send kids with nothing to lose into the Gulf. It’s fake terror to justify an aggressive foreign policy.… There’s nothing duller than some worthy anti-war [commentary]. We know it’s wrong, illegal, and ill-considered. You don’t need me to tell you that. So I’m jumping one step ahead and planning a heist story of sorts in the middle of this bad situation.

io9: Islamic people in the book are generally seen as terrorists. Does political correctness—or at least parity—have no place here?
Millar: Political correctness doesn’t interest me. It shouldn’t influence any writer, or we’d have bland books. Frank Miller is my favorite writer and he just writes what he wants to write. But this is by no means anti-Islamic. It’s anti-fundamentalist, of course, but essentially this can also be read as a book about a bunch of people in a Third World country fighting back against superpowered aggressors who are here on a crusade. I just set the camera up and let the story tell itself. The book doesn’t take sides.

io9: If you were an American citizen, would you vote McCain or Obama?
Millar: I quite like McCain, but he’s the shiny berry on a plant that’s going to poison you. He’s dangerous because he’s the acceptable face of something just completely unacceptable to almost everyone now, but is likable enough to possibly pull this off. I’d obviously vote for Obama, just as I’d have picked Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Dukakis, Mondale, or Carter over any of their Republican opponents. But I worry about the messianic hope America has invested in [Obama]. He’s a good orator and I agree with him on most things, but he’s still just a guy from Chicago. Let’s not go overboard.

io9: What do you think of McCain's much-embattled running mate, Sarah Palin?
Millar: Terrifying. America has a habit of selecting the candidate we Europeans most likely balk at. So I can’t even laugh. She represents that side of your country we can’t even begin to understand.

io9: Speaking of, what is the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull?
Millar: One will shit on your carpet and the other is heading for the oval office, unfortunately.

io9: Where does studio bidding on the War Heroes movie rights stand?
Millar: We’re in the middle of the bidding right now, and hopefully will have it all wrapped up today or tomorrow. We have two formal offers at the moment, but three other people are having [conference] calls this evening, so this isn’t over yet. Tony [Harris, the artist] and I will be exec producers and Tony might do some designs—but that will be our only involvement beyond that point.

io9: Could your movie deal affect the outcome of the comic, given how controversial it is?
Millar: I’m nearly finished and it’s a self-contained six issue [run]—so, no, the movie deal won’t have any effect on it at all.

io9: You’ve been visiting the set of the Kick-Ass set, which you also created. To what extent will that adaptation differ from the book?
Millar: Not at all, really. Wanted was maybe about 70 percent the book, in the sense that the first 58 minutes was very close and the final 20 minutes pretty close with Wesley raiding The Fraternity and killing everyone. But we still had a vast chunk in the middle that belonged entirely to Timur [Bekmambetov, the director], and felt very different. Kick-Ass is about 95 percent true to the graphic novel. A literal adaptation would be a bit pedantic, so they’ve played around with a few of the scenes and changed chunks of the dialogue. The only real difference is a cop subplot they have, which makes a lot of sense and helped stretch the eight-issue story into 120 minutes of film.

io9: Can you comment on the pictures that leaked?
Millar: I saw all the Nic Cage stuff over here. I’m a producer on the movie and that means I’m on-set a lot. But I haven’t been out to Canada yet, as my real job [comics] takes precedence and I need to finish a couple of things first. I’ll either nip out there next week or the final week.

io9: Has Nicholas Cage, a big comics fan, bro-manced you yet?
Millar: We all kind of bonded very quickly. As I said to Nic on the first day, this is a movie about comic guys and made by comic guys. So we all instantly hit it off …. He’s quite different from what I expected. Much more considered and calm. Almost zen-like. I was hoping to have stories about him pimp-slapping assistants.

io9: Where does the adaptation of your Dark Horse comic book Chosen stand with Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaughan, whose expressed interest in it?
Millar: [Sony] Screen Gems made us an offer years back when it first came out, but I wanted to finish the project and didn’t want to sell it before I knew how the story ended. Chosen, you have to understand, is just part one of a three-part story called American Jesus. The second book, The Second Coming, should be out sometime in 2009 and Chosen itself will be reprinted in a new format by Image in January, I think. I’ve frozen all movie contact on Chosen until the whole thing is finished in the spring, but Matthew said he wants to do Chosen as soon as we’re with finished Kick-Ass. We’re talking about another thing too, but Matthew’s very passionate about [Chosen].

io9: You’ve been entrenched in Hollywood matters lately, but have you begun thinking about the most important time of the year for a comic-book creator? I speak, of course, of Halloween…
Millar: Halloween is a heathen, Satanic celebration of the night, and I refuse to take part in such devilry. Oh, but I do go around the doors with my daughter to get free treats from the neighbors. I dressed up last year as a skeleton. Not very inspired, I know, but the outfit was 10 bucks at Woolworth’s and I like a bargain. This year my daughter wants to go as Batgirl, and her best friend is going as The Joker dressed as a nurse from The Dark Knight. So she requested that my wife and I go as Batman and Catwoman. I feel it’s a bit obvious for the neighborhood comic writer, but I’ve learned to essentially do as my daughter commands.