MARS HILL – Broyhill Chapel on the Mars Hill College campus is typically reserved for religious services, but last Thursday morning, something along those same lines took place for the 25 people attending a writing lecture delivered by DC Comics legend Dennis O’Neil.
During the course of an hour, the man best known for his groundbreaking work writing characters including Green Lantern, Green Arrow also took time to tell the audience about his career-defining turn as an editor for the Batman series of comic books in the 1980s and 1990s.
“What we did is go back to 1939 and explore the concept of the lone avenger obsessed with the death of his parents,” O’Neil said of adapting a character that had lapsed into parody in the aftermath of the campy the Adam West camp television show of the 1960s. O’Neil’s stories moved Bruce Wayne into a more believable role as a dark and brooding hero without pushing the envelope too far into the grim and gritty world that other comic books dived into during the 1980s.
“Frank Miller has made him a lot darker than I would be familiar with, but it’s still the character,” explained the creator who gets credit for coming up with villains such as Ras’al Ghul and Maxi Zeus. “Batman still has the best rouge’s gallery in the business.”
O’Neil was invited to speak at Mars Hill by English department faculty member Dr. Marshall Angle as part of the freshmen seminar on comic book writing he is teaching students this semester.
O’Neil’s 2001 book The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics is the text used in class and Angle got in touch with the author through his work with the non-profit HERO Initiative which provides financial assistance and emergency aid to those working in the comic book industry.
“I found out that he was available and the next thing I knew I received a phone call from Denny saying that he and his wife would like to come see Asheville,” Dr. Angle said. “This is a guy who has done some of the most significant work during his 45 years in the business and we’re thrilled to have him visit.”
O’Neil conducted two lectures Thursday, including one where he focused on the importance of sophisticated storytelling in what was once viewed as a medium strictly for younger audiences.
“When I worked with Neal Adams on the Green Lantern and Green Arrow stories, our agenda was to make kids aware that the environment is in trouble and that racism still exits, mainly so that when they grew up they could come up with answers to the problems of the day that were a lot better than what was offered by a couple 30-year-old comic book guys,” he said. “Superheroes are really modern myths for contemporary society and we’re wired to have certain mythology in literature to cope with the troubles of the times in which we live.”
The former newspaperman who worked for both DC Comics and its major competitor Marvel Comics also discussed the time he made major changes to a major character and found himself on the end of criticism from none other than famous feminist Gloria Steinem.
“I made Wonder Woman into a non-super powered martial artist in a jumpsuit,” he explained. “I thought I was bringing a feminist perspective to the stories of our time, but Gloria Steinem pointed out that I had taken the one super-powered heroine on the stands and reduced her to having a male mentor. She never mentioned me by name, but boy did that stink!”
The 71-year-old said he will soon be working with some of the characters that influenced his early appreciation of the art form such as The Lone Ranger and The Green Hornet and emphasized that when it comes to writing the characters are always key.
“It’s not as much about the ingredients you use as it is the recipe,” he said. “We’re telling stories and ideas can come from everywhere. Almost anything can be a starting point for a story. The important thing to remember is to do the best you can with your characters, let it go, wish them will and don’t try to second-guess yourself or your readers. For me, that turned into a great ride and a terrific job.”
Freelance writer Jonathan Rich has often been accused of looking a little too much like Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons. To that he replies, “Worst. Analogy. Ever.”
1 Comment
Thanks for the post. It was a fun event and I hope more schools will follow Mars Hill's lead in bringing comics into the classroom.