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" 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
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" 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
" I always felt like the 'outsider' kind of kid. "
Tom King
Outsider
Always
Felt
" I love comics for comics' sake. Always have. Always will. "
Tom King
Sake
Will
Love
" Not to get political, but it seems like every day I read the paper, and you're reading about nuclear war and Russians taking over the country and Nazis again. It's like every once in a while, the world blinks for a second, and it goes, 'Darkseid is!' The world has changed, and it's changed in a 'Darkseid is' way. "
Tom King
War
Day
Political
" Honestly, I grew up a huge Peanuts fan. "
Tom King
Honestly
Grew
Fan
" I still feel it's kind of weird to say, 'I'm a comic book writer.' "
Tom King
Weird
Book
Writer
" 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
" 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 can't tell a Batman story without the Joker, and you can't tell a Joker story without Batman. They're just the symbols of the best and worst of humanity. "
Tom King
You
Worst
Story
" 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
" My dad left when I was young. I didn't have a dad. I'm part of that divorced generation and didn't want to do that to my kids, so I took a year off and became a full-time dad, changed diapers and all that while my wife worked. "
Tom King
Wife
Off
Generation
" 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
" Batman's not mine. He doesn't necessarily belong to me. As a character, he belongs first to the audience and second to the hundreds of writers who have been writing him in comics for 75 years. "
Tom King
Me
Him
Character
" I went to college in New York. I interned at Vertigo, and then I interned at Marvel working for Chris Claremont. Just to age myself, this was in 2000. "
Tom King
New
Age
New York
" 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
" 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
" 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
" My scripts, they're pretty serious. I basically just describe stuff. I don't put too many notes and letters to the editors. But when I wrote 'KGBLT,' in parentheses I wrote, 'Well this is the best thing I've ever written. It will all be downhill from here. I'm so sorry for the rest of my career.' "
Tom King
Career
Rest
Sorry
" If you're a writer, you're constantly doubting yourself. "
Tom King
Doubting
Writer
You
" 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 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
" It's hard to find a unique look for a Batman villain. Everything like a scar on the face, or a skin condition, there are so many unique signifiers taken. "
Tom King
Look
Face
Unique
" 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
" That's all the Joker is. It's Batman without love. The Riddler is the opposite of that. It's the detective in him. "
Tom King
Joker
Him
Detective
" 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
" 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
" That's what's great about the Batman universe. When you explore Gotham, when you explore the villains, all of them point to this one character. This iconic American symbol for how we deal with pain and loss and how we move forward after it. "
Tom King
Loss
Character
American
" 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
" 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
" When I write, I see the pages in my head, not the words. "
Tom King
Write
Words
See