Mark Waid Quotes

All of us who grew up reading comics love the memory of sitting under an apple tree with a comic book in one hand and a peanut butter sandwich in the other; the tactile sensation of the paper on the skin and so forth is part of the experience.

- Mark Waid

When I was a kid, what captivated me about detective fiction were the puzzles more than the detectives or their enemies. And as I've gotten older, I see a lot of merit in setting your investigative sights higher than figuring out how someone stole Encyclopedia Brown's bicycle.

- Mark Waid

There is a reductive nature to the Internet, and it's not limited to comic book news sites and stuff: it's everybody. There is a reductive nature of it, by which anything that's said very quickly gets reduced down to the next. Reduced, reduced, reduced to the point where rumors with some sense of nuance to them just become fact.

- Mark Waid

Everyone knows what it's like to make the wrong decision for the right reasons. For me, wrong decisions are the heart of drama - a character who's always making the right decisions is boring.

- Mark Waid

I'm a big veteran of being able to, in one comic, explain to you everything that you need to know to get forward in the story without you having to refer back to years of continuity and a universe in these superhero comics.

- Mark Waid

We want the reading experience of digital comics to be as simple as tapping a tablet or an arrow key or mouse button to move forward or back.

- Mark Waid

Serial fiction is a conceit of comic books and soap operas. As one goes, so goes the other in terms of public consciousness.

- Mark Waid

There are other ways to create tension and drama than to have somebody stabbed through the back with a sword.

- Mark Waid

The problem with most digital comics is that you're simply taking print material and adapting it. It's like reading through a cardboard tube.

- Mark Waid

I think there's a moral imperative when you're writing fictional heroes to give characters who somehow give us something to aspire to as opposed to dragging them down to our level.

- Mark Waid

Find me anybody in comics who has a longer history of yanking defeat from the jaws of victory than Bruce Banner.

- Mark Waid

What I need is for comics to not cheapen out and just do what they think a bunch of bloodthirsty 15 year old fans want.

- Mark Waid

For me, it's infinitely more interesting to read or watch a character making decisions they think are right, but the audience knows differently, and seeing that disconnect. The only way characters can grow and learn is by making the wrong decisions and then learning from them.

- Mark Waid

We're brought up to believe in a fairytale-romance sort of way that true love is out there and true loves don't care about what you look like and stuff, just what's down inside. And that's probably true, but what's also true, sadly, is that true loves are very rare and very hard to find.

- Mark Waid

Years ago, I was asked to come up to do a store signing in Vermont. The short version is the two younger guys who own the store pick me up at the airport and start driving me around Vermont, showing me the sights and the textile mills and the restaurants, and the punchline is there's no store. There is no store!

- Mark Waid

When you're a kid, regardless of the age you grew up, everything is high opera. With hormones raging, you have to fight external and internal battles that you've never had to deal with before. Unlike Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, who have seen it all and been through it all, everything heightens the drama.

- Mark Waid

You don't want to hit readers over the head like they're completely incapable of picking up on subtlety.

- Mark Waid

Flash is about freedom; Flash is about expression. Flash is about just the joy of exuberant running and of freedom, and the moment you weight him down with too much Batman-like baggage... that's not the Flash anymore.

- Mark Waid

Teaching is good for me. It forces me to articulate ways of doing things or rules of thumb that I've sort of taken for granted.

- Mark Waid

I think someone like Jack Kirby, for instance, would suffer greatly in the transition from print to digital were he still around.

- Mark Waid

I'm not a big fan of the George Lucas school of meddling and tinkering. That's a slippery slope.

- Mark Waid

I think superheroes are about flying. They're not about moping.

- Mark Waid

Certainly, your characters - whether they are superheroes are not - should have foibles. They should have problems; they should have things that their powers can't solve. That's what makes them nuanced, interesting characters. They can have intense motivations. They should have intense motivations to do what they do.

- Mark Waid

To my mind, a mix of veterans and rookies is number one on the list of 'things that make a good Avengers team.'

- Mark Waid

The best stories, the most-fun 'Avengers' stories, explore the relationships between the characters.

- Mark Waid

I genuinely enjoy the puzzle put before me with a crossover - how do I use this bigger piece of the Marvel Universe to tell a character-based tale I wouldn't normally think to tell?

- Mark Waid

The beauty of Captain America is that you didn't have to come from a distant planet, like Superman, or he didn't have to be born into a family of billionaires like Bruce Wayne. He happened to be in the right place at the right time, and someone gave him a magic potion, and he grew muscles and became a superhero.

- Mark Waid

I broke into comics by working as a press reporter for the industry, for a trade press in comics, and reporting on events and reporting on books and so forth, and I got to know some of the editors at DC Comics in the mid-'80s.

- Mark Waid

By coincidence and not design, 'Everstar' is written and drawn by an all-female creative team, and it makes me smile to think that there may be young female readers out there, future writers and artists, who get to see that comics doesn't have to be a 'boys' club.'

- Mark Waid

The first rule of new media is nobody gets rich, but everybody gets paid, in a perfect world. Maybe you don't get fabulously wealthy doing your webcomic, but as long as you can make a decent living.

- Mark Waid

In a perfect world, I'd like to start running comics for kids - by kids.

- Mark Waid

If I wanted to write a bunch of comics about 50-year-olds sitting around having a conversation about politics, that would be realistic, but it'd be the dullest comic in the world.

- Mark Waid

There's a reason Archie didn't go the way of Betty Boop or Davy Crockett or Woody Woodpecker, forgotten relics of a bygone era, and it's because when 'Archie' stories are at their best, anyone of any age can see a little bit of themselves in them.

- Mark Waid

I was the last guy I imagined anyone would ever associate with 'Daredevil,' but once I gave the character some thought, much like with the 'Fantastic Four,' I found my hooks and, I think, some angles on the series that have never been explored.

- Mark Waid

I'm a big fan of when you model a character as someone with a biological origin, doing deep dives and a lot of research.

- Mark Waid

I don't write stories about despair. I write stories about hope.

- Mark Waid

I do believe that any sort of electromagnetic energy that can be measured beyond the moment of death is, by the definition of energy, eternal. But I cop to the fact that calling it a 'soul' and presuming it sustains our consciousness in any form is, to put it kindly, a leap.

- Mark Waid

I am just tired of writing about heroes that we're dragging down to our level, and I want to write about heroes that we want to be.

- Mark Waid

It's always an amazing gift to be able to work with storytellers who 'get it' and who can not only draw anything but can draw it better and more dynamically than you'd ever envisioned.

- Mark Waid

I just love rolling up my sleeves and doing research, and I especially love doing research on the origins of folklore and the origins of mythology.

- Mark Waid

It's Marvel's toybox; I'm just glad I'm able to play with the toys and have some impact on what goes on. I didn't create Daredevil, so I'm not about to stand here and say that I'm the only one who gets to play with the toy.

- Mark Waid

When they first asked me to do 'Hulk,' my first instinct was to say no because I didn't think I had anything to say with the character, especially when they said, 'Please do what you did with 'Daredevil,' whatever that was.'

- Mark Waid

I think there are things that digital can't do as well as print thus far. Even an iPad is only 80% the size of a standard comics page, so the images are going to be smaller. You don't get your big, whopping two-page spreads.

- Mark Waid

I'm a great salesman when I believe in a product that somebody else is producing, but I always feel very awkward and clumsy asking for money for my work.

- Mark Waid

I like being able to have a conversation. I like being able to do a vocal interview.

- Mark Waid

I'm a big believer that if you buy a comic, you ought to own it.

- Mark Waid

If you go back and look at the first issue of 'Indestructible Hulk,' if you have a sharp eye, you'll catch something that I totally forgot to put in there. In my horror, I only realized after the fact that I took totally for granted that everyone in the world knows what triggers the transformation.

- Mark Waid

Anyone can write a detective story about a detective who fails, for Pete's sake. That's pretty unambitious.

- Mark Waid

I got taught a lot of great lessons by superhero comics as a kid about virtue and self-sacrifice and responsibility. And those were an important part of imprinting my DNA with ethical and moral values.

- Mark Waid

Especially in the digital age, people want everything now, now, now.

- Mark Waid

When you're writing a team book where every character already has his or her own series, you don't have dominion over them as individuals - but what you can exploit is their relationships with one another.

- Mark Waid

What sets 'Archie' apart from the many, many times I've reworked and rebooted long-standing characters is that this time, it was really scary.

- Mark Waid

I think it's imperative of me to advance that theory that you can win your small victories against the dark.

- Mark Waid

Heroism is heroism, regardless of the timeframe or the backdrop.

- Mark Waid

When I first did 'Empire,' it was a severe break from everything I'd written up to that point, which is all very continuity-driven, super-heroic, and ethics and morals-infused. 'Empire' was a chance to break away from that.

- Mark Waid

Dialogue is one of the easiest ways to get character conflict across immediately in comics.

- Mark Waid

Maybe this is because I'm a comics historian as much as anything else, but I really have a deep-seated respect for the characters that have been around since before I was born and are probably going to outlive me.

- Mark Waid

I don't know if you'd do a Marvel story on Ferguson, because it trivializes what the real flesh-and-blood people on the ground are doing there. But you can make an allegory and deal with the bigger questions.

- Mark Waid

Juggling a huge cast is a bear.

- Mark Waid

The nice thing about working with BOOM! on 'Irredeemable' and 'Incorruptible,' man, was they let me have my head. No one said boo about anything.

- Mark Waid

I love the challenge of taking established, iconic comics characters and showing readers why they remain contemporary.

- Mark Waid

In Marvel Comics, the worst thing was always that your loved ones could be attacked, or you could be horribly beaten in a knock-down, drag-out fight, but in the Superman comics, you would be run out of town with people throwing rotten vegetables at you and waving a sign that said, 'Superman, Who Needs You?'

- Mark Waid

Captain America is an interesting character because it makes you ask those questions in yourself as a writer. What do we want as a nation, what do we mean as a nation, what is our role in the world as a nation? What are our strengths and weaknesses as a country?

- Mark Waid

If you come into any creative project without questions, you're gonna bore yourself, and it'll show on the page.

- Mark Waid

I love what Max Landis is doing with 'Superman: American Alien.' That's a really good book.

- Mark Waid

Jan. 26, 1979, was the most important day of my life. Because that's the day that I saw 'Superman: The Movie.' I came out of it knowing that no matter what the rest of my life was going to be like, it had to involve Superman somehow.

- Mark Waid

Know what your characters want, know what they need most, know what they fear most, and don't be fearful of facing it, no matter how unpleasant it may be.

- Mark Waid

A superhero is someone who, at some point or in some way, inspires hope or is the enemy of cynicism.

- Mark Waid

The fun of writing established characters is that there's a rich mythology to draw from - you get to play with toys you loved as a kid.

- Mark Waid

If you're ruling the world, you can't trust anybody. Because even those who profess to be working in your interest - those are also villains in and of their own right.

- Mark Waid

I think of it this way: When you hear that people have downloaded your comic, appreciate that thousands are eager to hear what you have to say. The poetry club down the hall may not have the same problem. That's a good problem to have.

- Mark Waid

I think comics are really - superhero comics are at their best and most primal when they're about joy and flying, and about escaping the gravity of the world. But, at the same time, that's not to say all stories should be happy.

- Mark Waid

Style and entertainment tastes change, but the core emotions of being a kid - which, not coincidentally, are the core foundations of any good story - are constant.

- Mark Waid

I do like Hank Pym.

- Mark Waid

The idea of lasting consequences isn't your usual 'Archie' trope.

- Mark Waid

Indestructible does not mean utterly invincible.

- Mark Waid

I'll still do print comics; as long as there's a market, I'll still be there. I just have a hard time believing that's the future.

- Mark Waid

What's interesting is that younger characters just have a more vibrant, exciting point of view on the world. They are more emotional, they are more dramatic, and they are just electric.

- Mark Waid

Hulk fans are impossible to please.

- Mark Waid

What I've found over the years working on various projects is, you can have a clever book or clever tagline, but there has to be a story to go along with it that leads to something bigger. Something with a little more texture to it.

- Mark Waid

We have a lot of supergeniuses in the Marvel universe, but very few of them are women.

- Mark Waid

Every ongoing character has to start somewhere.

- Mark Waid

I'm not as good a prose writer as I'd like to be, but I never aspired to that.

- Mark Waid

I love Jughead. I love his one-step-removed perspective on everything in Riverdale. And I love the fact that he wears that stupid hat.

- Mark Waid

I'd still love to work with John Romita Sr. at some point. That's the dream.

- Mark Waid

I wouldn't mind taking a stab at... I'd love to take a shot at 'Doctor Strange' at some point.

- Mark Waid

Real science is the greatest, most exciting springboard I have available to me as a writer, and I don't feel the least bit constrained by it.

- Mark Waid

Younger characters are just much more emotional.

- Mark Waid

I love 'Archie' comics.

- Mark Waid

I know my 'Archie' history.

- Mark Waid

I love print comics.

- Mark Waid

There have been many days when I have had to work up to writing 'Irredeemable' because I just didn't feel like wallowing in that world, feeling those emotions... but that's the process.

- Mark Waid

I knew I really wanted to work in comics in 1979.

- Mark Waid

You can do all of the world-building you want; at the end of the day, what's important is the heart and the drive of the story and the heart and the drive of the characters.

- Mark Waid