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Interview with Terrance
Griep,
Jr.
Interviewed by Jenna Glatzer
Terrance Griep, Jr., has been a published writer since 1993. His professional credits include numerous magazine articles, short stories, and radio plays, but his most-recognized work is on DC Comics' Scooby-Doo to which he currently contributes. Griep has written dozens of comic book stories for large companies and small, within the genres of children's literature, science fiction, mystery, and that old familiar staple, super-heroes. He lives, writes, and very occasionally sleeps in Minneapolis.
You can read his
article "Comic Book Writing" on this website by clicking
here.
Why comic books?
Frankly, I think what attracted me was re-living--or more precisely, recapturing--my childhood; what's keeping me is the compelling alchemy of words and pictures.
Of what are you most proud?
Work-wise? This is a frequently-asked question, and always a hard one to answer, mostly because I'm proud of different projects for different reasons. SCOOBY-DOO SPOOKY SPECTACULAR #1 is currently on the stands and reprints three of my favorite Scooby stories, favored because they give the reader everything that's recognizably Scooby--a mystery, a chase, a disguised villain--but hopefully much more, as well. BIG BANG COMICS #19 and #25 (from Image Comics) also deserve mention, as do THE SKULKER #1-3 (from Thorby Comics). On a humanistic level, I was proud to donate a story for the just-released-in-Europe TALES OF MIDNIGHT Kosovo relief comic.
How did you make your first sale?
My first published work appeared in FLARE FIRST EDITION #5 (Feb. 1993, Heroic Publishing). Being a fan of the publisher, I sent in a number of story ideas. Of their many super-heroes, Flare was the character I found least interesting, but I knew she was Heroic's cash cow, so stories revolving around her were most likely to get published. Or, to answer your question more directly: "A combination of dogged persistence, applied intelligence, and dumb luck. In that order."
You've written over 80 comic books for successful companies. This must mean you're rolling in the dough...right?
If you say so, Jenna, it must be true. Seriously, getting published does not guarantee getting paid; for some small publishers, getting published *is* payment. As long as everyone is up-front about who's getting what when, I see no major problem with that. Certainly, big money *does* loom on the furthest horizons of comic book writing, realized only by the hardiest and the best-connected...and the British.
What themes come up in your comics over and over? Do you ever feel that your characters deal with issues you're working on in your own life?
Oh, yes. My characters and I suffer through recurring identity crises together. I think part of what attracts me to super-heroes is that most of them have two identities, a civilian identity and a secret identity. There are days when I don't feel I have even one. For me, being a writer has everything to do with identity. I am surprised and slightly afraid to find that very often I am more real in my work than I am in my life. Along these lines, magick, astrophysics, romance, mythology, and religion are motifs which creep into my work time and again.
One of the more prominent differences between comic writers and other writers is the personal nature of feedback. Does it still matter to you if you get a letter form a fan praising your writing?
It depends. When working with Scooby-Doo, I'm very much in his shadow, and letters tend to be to or about him (which is as it should be). The best letter I received, however, was from a practicing pagan who praised and affirmed my accurate use of Celtic myth in SCOOBY-DOO #4 (which is reprinted in the aforementioned SPOOKY SPECTACULAR). It's nice to know I'm not writing in a vacuum, but I only value informed feedback...positive or negative.
As you mention, one of the great perks of being a writer is that you can "work in your underwear." However, this also comes with a certain level of isolation. Does that bother you?
Obviously, you don't know my underwear; isolation is rarely a factor. Seriously...not at all. While I am blessed with plenty of wonderful, reliable friends, if you want to be a writer, you have to cherish being alone.
Give us the real scoop about those kid's cartoons--we weren't just imagining all the drug references, were we?
If you're referencing Scooby-Doo, I'll tell you this: when I first began on the current comic book series, DC Comics was kind enough to send me a small telephone book's worth of Scooby reference--a virtual Scooby bible--and never once were there any wink-wink, nudge-nudge hints lurking about. Apparently, you, me, and everyone else drawing precisely the same independent conclusions after watching those 'toons is one of the great coincidences of the Second Millennium. I wonder if Nostradamus predicted that; if not, I'm sure he would have, if not for those meddling kids...
How much control do you retain over your creation? Do editors, publishers, or artists ever try to change your vision?
I could go on and on. Ultimately, it comes down to this: a publisher's job is to publish stuff and turn a profit; an editor's job is to make the stuff
salable...not necessarily "good," but salable; it's the job of the creators to make the story--not themselves--look as good as possible. As these roles overlap--speaking aesthetically--creative vision and control are eroded. In a business sense, what appears in my article regarding creative control holds up pretty well. And on a related note, writing comics often involves writing characters whom you didn't create (my personal experience includes Scooby, Superman, and Batman, among others). Writing each of them is like driving a bus; you're okay to take it around the block, but you're expected to return it at the end of your shift in exactly the same condition you found it.
As you've mentioned, the comic book market has suffered a major downswing in the past few years. Do you have any ideas why, and do you expect the market to bounce back?
Many people in the business are pessimistic, absolutely certain that high technology diversions have sounded the digital death knell of comics, but they're wrong. These things are cyclic. Something will rekindle popular interest in comic books, and I'm determined to be in on it. What caused the market to collapse--implode, really--shortly after my article was written? Greed. Good, old-fashioned, short-sighted,
Garden-of-Eden-variety greed. Marketing scams blew up in the faces of everyone involved: publishers, editors, creators, retailers, and, yes, the fans...all guilty. At the risk of sounding Pollyanna-esque, however...we need only love comics for what they truly are, and it won't happen again.
Do you think conventions are valuable tools for aspiring comic writers?
No. They are absolutely essential tools for aspiring comic writers. If I had the article to do over again, I would add this: you will never, ever get ongoing income from writing comics until and unless you make personal contact with your potential clients. Period.
Different media employ different structures. For example, screenwriting typically uses a three-act structure, playwriting a two-act structure. Is there any such standard for comic books?
As much of a standard as you'll find on a television soap opera.
What are the advantages/disadvantages to self-publishing instead of submitting to companies?
Another good question, and another one which might well unmask me as the raving lunatic I am. If you self-publish, you obviously have complete creative control...the American Dream, you're your own boss! You own it all! Top o' the world, ma! Ahhh, but now you must invest your own precious sheckles and time in promoting and distributing your work with no guarantee of success (indeed, far from it!). There's a third option, one that I would more ringingly endorse, and that's working with a smaller company.
In the simplest terms: the largest companies pay well and possess (relatively) enormous resources for promoting and distributing your work; the smaller companies, self-publishing efforts included, usually don't. Conversely, the smaller ponds do make each creator more of a big fish, so said creator can maintain more control over both creative and business matters. Ultimately, *everything* you create for the largest companies is filtered through the sieve of
color-by-numbers corporate politics. And most importantly, the largest companies--as a general rule with some noteworthy exceptions--still cling, like fossils which absurdly refuse to die, to the practice of forcing creators to sell all or most intellectual property rights to the company; mercifully, most smaller companies have given up this despicable practice, if ever they sullied their souls with it.
What are your future writing goals?
Get two (or more) regular monthly books from the major comic books companies; write a novel; make a cool mil. I'll never get out of comics completely--not voluntarily, anyway--but I'm also interested in using comic book writing as a springboard into other things. I've also worked in radio and voice acting and would love to get back into those.
Anything further you'd like to add?
Writing comic books is the hardest kind of fiction writing there is, bar none. I'm lucky to have started with comics because everything else I've done since--radio, short fiction, nonfiction, web sites--has been catalyzed by my comic book experience...it's a much like a boxer training in a rarefied atmosphere; the actual match seems easy by comparison, just as writing anything else seems easy when compared to comics. My advice to aspiring comic book writers? As with any kind of writing, start out doing it for fun; *work* toward doing it for profit.
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