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" I started out as a novelist, and I think novels have gotten a little stiff, a little repetitive, and the energy in comics was much more appealing. "
Tom King
Started
Think
Energy
Related Quotes:
" I don't believe in writing for goals, or else I'd write essays. "
Tom King
Essays
Believe
Writing
" Batman gets close to the insanity of Gotham, to the craziness, to what drives that city mad, and not be driven mad himself - or, at least, most of the time he isn't. That's most like the mission of the C.I.A. We get into the heads of our enemies without becoming our enemy. "
Tom King
Mission
Insanity
Enemy
" I try not to push characters too close to myself because they get harder to write, but as a writer, you try to find odd little personal experiences that you hope are universal or think might be universal. "
Tom King
Push
Find
Hope
" I wanted to be a writer, and my mother was like, 'No, why don't you become a lawyer?' That sort of thing. "
Tom King
Lawyer
Mother
Become
" I have my dream job. If I was seven years old and you asked me what I'd want to be 30 years from now, I'd say exactly who I am. So, 'rare' and 'lucky' are the exact right words. It took a lot of hard work, and I took a weird route to get here, but man, am I grateful for it. "
Tom King
Grateful
Man
Me
" I wanted to look like the most diverse writer in comics! Spy genre, space genre, crime genre, and then you realize that it's all actually the same thing. "
Tom King
Look
Space
You
" I love continuity. I was a continuity nerd growing up. I loved buying a comic in the middle of something and loved digging for back issues or going forward and trying to figure it all out. "
Tom King
Loved
Trying
Growing Up
" If you actually read the 'New Gods' tetralogy, this epic without an ending, it's like dipping your head into madness. You feel a little bit like the Joker for a little while. And I mean that in the best way possible. "
Tom King
Joker
You
Ending
" I'm a firm believer in putting your experiences in your writing, of bleeding into the page. "
Tom King
Experiences
Writing
Firm
" I grew up in a weird environment. My mother's head of the home video division, basically. She played a big role in the invention of DVD - she won an Emmy for it. Or rather, she's part of a group that won an Emmy for it. "
Tom King
Home
Environment
Group
" I grew up your classic nerd who was not good at throwing balls or kicking them. I was good at reading stories by myself. That was my specialty as a child. "
Tom King
Myself
Good
Classic
" That's my whole point as an artist - I'm trying to get you to turn a page. "
Tom King
Trying
Turn
Point
" What eventually you find in comics is the only thing unique you can bring to a character who's been around for 80 years is yourself. "
Tom King
Find
You
Yourself
" I wanted to write about the Trump era, but I didn't want to write, 'Fascism sucks' or 'Trump sucks.' That doesn't get you anywhere. "
Tom King
Write
You
Want
" You throw sadness, you throw depression, you throw horror at Batman, he's like, 'Yeah, yawn, I've done that.' You throw happiness at him? That's something that riles him; that's something that he's not used to. "
Tom King
Sadness
Him
Happiness
" My first book is called 'Carry the Three.' It's definitely in a drawer, and it's terrible. I never sent it to anybody. My wife read it, but nobody else. "
Tom King
Three
Wife
Book
" It's funny, you know: my mother-in-law, who doesn't have an ounce of nerd in her, is just so excited by the fact that I write 'Batman' because she'll see an article about me in the 'Washington Post' or 'The Wall Street Journal' or something. And that means so much to me. "
Tom King
You
She
Me
" Honestly, I grew up a huge Peanuts fan. "
Tom King
Honestly
Grew
Fan
" I love comics for comics' sake. Always have. Always will. "
Tom King
Sake
Will
Love
" I think sometimes you go through an experience, and you don't feel the impact, especially in a war experience, until way past it. "
Tom King
Impact
Experience
Past
" I've been the desperate writer before. I wrote a novel, and they paid me for it, and I've had those calls from my agent, and I'm like, 'Do you need me to ghost-write a vampire novel? What do you need? I'll do Transformers... tell me!' "
Tom King
Me
Like
Need
" Writing is weaponized empathy. It's putting yourself in someone else's head. It's finding what's in them that relates to you. "
Tom King
Finding
Empathy
Writing
" All stories are just stories of a character changing. "
Tom King
Changing
Character
Just
" I served my country; I did that. I was in the C.I.A., and I served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I love this country with every part of my body, and I was willing to risk my body and my family for it. But I wake up in a country I don't understand anymore. "
Tom King
Wake Up
Love
Family
" As ever, I caveat with saying that I don't write about the factual content of my C.I.A. experience. Ever. People who are working hard to save lots of lives depend on me to keep my mouth shut. "
Tom King
Mouth
People
Saying
" I still feel it's kind of weird to say, 'I'm a comic book writer.' "
Tom King
Weird
Book
Writer
" I'm a comic book writer, so I work with a lot of artists. Sometimes, you get art back, and you're like, 'Oh, no.' Sometimes, you get art back and you're like, 'That's exactly what I imagined in my head,' and you're happy about that. "
Tom King
Book
You
Work
" When I talk about the C.I.A. stuff, I feel guilt because I left. I really believed in that job, and my colleagues are still there. But I have kids now. "
Tom King
Talk
Now
Colleagues
" I always felt like the 'outsider' kind of kid. "
Tom King
Outsider
Always
Felt
" I've said this before, but I don't like putting captions in my comic books. I feel, for me, they become a crutch, a way to ignore the essential fact that our medium is a visual medium, and the greatest pleasures to be derived from comics are how stories can be told with pictures. "
Tom King
Way
Ignore
Feel