Johns talks writing

Comicfoundry scored another interview with an inside look at the creative process of one of the busiest writers in comics Geoff Johns. I am a big Geoff Johns fan. JSA has been the most solid, bang for my buck books on the stands. This interview focuses mostly on Johns' view of breaking into the industry today and offers a few tips:

"The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics" (by Dennis O'Neil) outlines the format that you need to know. It's like "The Screenwriter's Bible" (by David Trottier), same kind of book. But you would want to have a full script done so they could read your dialogue and know that you know what you're doing with the comic.

I actually saw this book at an art supply store before Christmas and should have picked it up but didn't. Has anyone used it? Is it worth it?

It’s hard. A lot of writers today come from different fields now. They come from film or TV, or novels. Or, one guy I know, Will Pfeifer (Aquaman), was writing for a newspaper. A lot of writers who are coming in now have already gotten their chops elsewhere. They've already proven themselves as storytellers. And they come in and learn the format of comic book writing and get in that way. It's really, really competitive now. Between DC and Marvel, they probably put out 120 books per month, mainstream. If you want to do mainstream books, the best thing to do is start writing.

As a hopeful future comic writer I take this to heart. Johns goes on to say that he gets a lot of people coming up to him asking about breaking into the business, about their great ideas, but they haven't written them yet. This is a problem I also have. I have to force myself to sit down and hammer something out. What about you folks? Any other hopeful comic writers in the bunch? Any pros who want to offer some more bits of advice? We'd love to hear it.