Journalistic objectivity be damned. I was pretty excited to talk with Bryan Q. Miller, an executive story editor for Smallville and a relative newcomer to comic scripting. He started out with Teen Titans, but has gone on to write over a dozen issues of Batgirl, chronicling Stephanie Brown's first year under the cowl. And it's great. Genuinely fun and funny, and as Miller puts it, "Hopeful" too. If you haven't been reading the series thus far, Wednesday's issue #15 is a perfect jumping on point. It's also the start of Dustin Nguyen's tenure as regular artist. And if the included preview doesn't sell you on both of these guys…well, boy, I just don't know.
Let's get down to that Q & A.
Paul Montgomery: Can you talk a bit about getting the gig on Smallville? How did it come about?
Bryan Q. Miller: I started on the show as an unpaid intern in Season Five (an internship was required for my Grad School curriculum). I stayed on until I was hired up as Writers' Assistant in Season Seven — during which time I was accepted in the WB Writers' Workshop. Staffed up onto the show as a writer in Season Eight. I was VERY fortunate in how it all fell into place, and am immensey grateful and appreciative to everyone around me for helping to make all of that happen.
PM: If IMDB hasn't led me astray, you're an executive story editor these days. What does that involve?
BQM: Slightly more responsibility than I had as a Story Editor, but not quite as much responsibility and accountability as a Co-Producer (which is the next level up).
PM: What was the transition like, starting in television and then writing for comics? Do I have that right, chronologically?
BQM: Television, then comics. Correct. I think the biggest realization for me was that, even though it seems like you can suddenly go imagination crazy in a comic book (as producability and money aren't issues on the page), page count suddenly becomes insanely valuable. Pages essentially equate to television's producability. Is a certain sequence worth using some of your 22 (or now, 20) on? Is a joke or a gag good enough to justify dedicating a panel to it? Etc.
PM: Were you part of the decision as to who the new Batgirl would be, or was Stephanie Brown part and parcel with the new gig?
BQM: Stephanie was already in the works when I came on board. When I put together my pitch for my take on Batgirl, the only ingredients that were pre-set were "Stephanie will be Batgirl. She will interact with Oracle. Wendy will also be a part of the book." It was on me to Iron Chef it.
PM: It's been a lot of fun getting to know Stephanie a bit better over the past year. What's changed in your understanding of this girl since first getting the gig? How has she changed?
BQM: Stephanie's much more self-aware now than she has been in the past. It's a natural part of growing up. You learn a lot about yourself in college. She's reached a point where she's able to not only address her flaws, but to identify them and try to make peace with them. She's also learned to stop living in the past. Stephanie's made mistakes. Things happened. Dwelling on those things isn't going to help anyone. Making sure she never makes those kinds of mistakes again is very important to her. Her crosses with Red Robin and Bruce (see the Collision trade and Bruce Wayne – the Road Home, Batgirl #1) solidify that for her.
PM: She's obviously a very different kind of Batgirl than Cassandra Cain. Stephanie feels very much like the second coming of Barbara Gordon. But do you see those two having any key ideological differences? Or does it simply come down to generational differences?
BQM: There's a tonally lighter core to the Barbara Gordon years under the cowl that Stephanie definitely feels connected to. But there's more of a circumstantial difference between BabsBatgirl and StephBatgirl. When Barbara started out, the world was a far less dangerous place. There was an element of not just self-validation, but of female-hero validation in Barbara creating the mantle. Stephanie picks up the baton at a time that's far more dangerous. And though there's definitely still a self-validation piece to the Batgirl puzzle in Stephanie, her journey is much more about redemption and spreading hope in a city that's constantly on the verge of falling into the abyss.
PM: Was that sense of hope important to DC editorial? Was it always the intention that this new Batgirl series be lighter in tone when compared to the other Gotham books or was it just your personal take?
BQM: My take from the top was all about Stephanie and redemption and hope. Any lightness in the book comes from how Stephanie sees the world, and how she approaches Gotham.
PM: Stephanie is juggling her role as Batgirl with a college course load. What do you see as her goals right now? Does she know who she wants to be in five or ten years? Would she leave Gotham for a great job offer? Would Batgirl go with her?
BQM: As for what her goals are in the immediate (specifically here at the beginning of the next leg of her journey) – she kind of has everything in her life under control. School's going well. Batgirl's going great. What could go wrong? This next chapter in Stephanie's life is going to explore the "what could go wrong." Steph's ongoing goal throughout "The Lesson" is to preserve not only what it means to be Batgirl in the face of adversity, but what it means to be Stephanie Brown. Would she leave Gotham for a job offer? She needs to figure out what she wants to do with her adult life first. It's safe to say that I know who/what she ends up being/doing with her life, five/ten years from now. Naturally, Steph going to have to come to those conlusions the hard way – on her own.
PM: Where did the idea for Proxy come from? We've seen a few teasers for this "Death of Oracle" story coming up in Birds of Prey. Does Wendy figure into that in any way?
BQM: You'll see some fallout from "Death of Oracle" over in Batgirl, but due to some timing issues between Birds and Batgirl, story-wise, the real fallout from the event won't be felt until February or March. So then's when you'll see how it affects Team Batgirl. As for Proxy, when I found out Birds was coming back and realized I'd need Babs to have a smaller presence in the book, Wendy finally had a chance to shine. What's most interesting about exploring Proxy is that she is in NO way "Oracle Jr." Save the wheelchair, she and Barbara are entirely different people. They react to situations differently. They intereact with Stephanie differently. Wendy has a lot of baggage weighing her down, and she's a bit of a hot head. That's going to cause some bumps in she and Batgirl's working relationship.
PM: The book's featured some fantastic guest appearances and team-ups. Can we expect to see more of Damian Wayne and Supergirl in the series any time soon?
BQM: Look for the return of the Dysfunctional Duo when Robin forces a team-up on Batgirl in January's Issue #17, "Frogs, Snails & Puppy Dog Tails." I've got another Supergirl story planned, but it doesn't quite fit in with the next arc, so it will hopefully fall (if this little engine that could is still chugging along) somewhere in year three. In the interim, there's a Klarion "team-up", as well as one with Blue Beetle Jaime Reyes.
PM: Steph had a bit of a contentious moment with Bruce Wayne recently. Was it as big a surprise to you as a writer as it was to those two characters? Stephanie seemed absolutely mortified. What is their relationship like going forward?
BQM: The slap heard 'round the parking garage! I think the surprise was all on the characters' parts. That was the moment I knew was forever going to be in that issue, from the moment (former Batgirl editor) Mike Siglain said we were doing the Road Home event. I had always planned for Bruce's return to glance off of a regular Batgirl issue. But maybe only for a scene that would start that specific issue. Once we found out we were doing a tie in, that's when the task came up of writing a whole issue around the pair. The slap suddenly came to mind, and the issue unfolded backwards from there. Going forward, as Bruce will be out and about globally, there won't be that much face-to-face time for them.
PM: And speaking of relationships, there's another detective in Stephanie's life. Any room in Batgirl's life for a little romance?
BQM: Yes and no. There's the issue of the age gap between Nick and Steph, and also the issue of whatever it is that's going or not going on between Nick and Babs. Nick and Batgirl will definitely both get closer this year as they look into the Order of the Scythe. As to how close, I can't say. I'm sure there's more than enough awkward to make for some interesting moments between the two.
PM: Can you tell us anything about this Order of the Scythe we've been hearing about? It sounds scary. Is it scary?
BQM: They will ultimately prove more dangerous than "scary." The "Reapers" (as Team Batgirl calls them at first) are a Skull and Bones-type organization on Gotham U.'s campus with way too much time and money on their hands. And nefarious intent! And mysterious motives!
PM: Dustin Nguyen's taking over art duties this week. How does a transition like this affect the way you approach the script? Did looking at his existing work inspire any future story elements? What does he bring to Batgirl's ongoing story?
BQM: In the initial script, I approached it as just another issue, as it was our first time working together. Moving forward, we've talked about things like panel count, action description — all things any writer and artist suss out as they begin their relationship. There's also a special treat in the first few pages of 15 that should make Dustin's fans happy. What Dustin brings to the next chapter in Batgirl's journey is a sense of danger. The next leg is a bit darker than Batgirl Rising, and his pencils are a perfect fit. The first year was the year Steph had fun kicking butt and taking names. In "The Lesson," she's going to have to take a few on the chin if she wants to make it through.
PM: What's next?
BQM: For our girl, the unsinkable Stephanie Brown — Rogues; a sidekick Batgirl neither wants nor needs; Klarion the Witch Boy; a new car; Ace the Bathound; Blue Beetle… and a bunch of stuff I can't really talk about yet. Hope you like it!
On the personal side, I've got an episode of Smallville coming up ("Luthor" in December), and also wrote a chapter of April's Pirates of the Caribbean: Six Sea Chanties, the graphic novel anthology that heralds the arrival of the next Pirates film.
PM: Thanks!
BQM: No, Paul, thank YOU!
Batgirl #15–written by Bryan Q. Miller and drawn by new series artist Dustin Nguyen–hits shelves this week.
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Great interview, Paul! I love Stephanie Brown and Bryan Q Miller’s Bagirl series. This is one the best ongoing super-hero titles out there. Now that DC has dropped the price of books back to $2.99, I highly encourage those of you not reading this book to re-invest some of the savings from your monthly stack in this book. Those of you that like Spider-Man (particularly classic stories or Ultimate Spidey) will probably like this.
Those Bat history panels are amazing. I wish I could buy them all!
Batgirl has been great.
The Q stands for ‘quality’. Bryan Quality Miller.
Yeah, BATGIRL has been great. I’m happy to hear that Miller sounds like he’s got some great plans in place. Thanks for the fun interview, Paul!
What a great interview, Paul! I love getting really deep into a creator’s perspective on their character. Really top stuff, sir.
I love this book so much and I’m happy to hear about the plans to go forward with it. Awesome interview!
It can also be Bryan Quantity Miller, because of the quantity of fun and laughs he provides. Zing!
Excellent interview, Paul. I think Batgirl might be my favourite book right now and it was great to hear some insights from the writer.