Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by J. M. DeMatteis

Quote by J. M. DeMatteis

“Ultimately, any character you write - no matter how fantastic or alien - is an extension of yourself. When our characters reflect the truth of our souls and psyches, they become real and compelling. The wonderful paradox is that the characters then take on lives of their own, separate from their creators. That's where the magic comes in.”

Quote by J. M. DeMatteis

Author

J. M. DeMatteis
J. M. DeMatteis

J. M. DeMatteis is a renowned comic book writer and scriptwriter, known for his significant contributions to the comic industry. Born on December 15, 1953, he has been active in the comic field since the 1970s. DeMatteis' works are celebrated for their deep storytelling and complex character development, with his scripts for popular comic series such as 'The Fantastic Four', 'X-Men', and 'Batman' receiving widespread acclaim. more

You May Also Like

“In a 22-page comic, figuring an average of four to five panels a page and a couple of full-page shots, a writer has maybe a hundred panels at most to tell a story, so every panel he wastes conveying a.) something I already know, b.) something that's a cute gag but does nothing to reveal plot or character, or c.) something I don't need to know is a demonstration of lousy craft.”

“Twenty-two pages is not a lot of space. Believe me. Having written a bazillion comics, I still find myself more often than nine pages into a script and realizing to my horror that I'm only about a quarter of the way through the story I wanted to tell, and the next thing you know, I'm making fresh coffee and tearing up the floorboards to rewrite.”

“Stan Lee always wanted to do another syndicated strip while we were doing Spider-Man. I was working two jobs, and he wanted to make time to do another strip. He wanted to do a humor strip. I said, 'Stan, I barely make it through the week now. How the hell am I going to do another strip?' He said, 'Oh, I'm sorry, I always forget it takes you longer to do a page than it takes me to do twenty pages.'”

“The secret to writing sound effects is having a room you can be alone in, trying to make the sounds yourself, and seeing what comes out. It's similar to if you're writing a character talking with their mouth full: the only way I know to transcribe that is to stuff my fist in my mouth and write down what sounds I make when I try to talk.”

“All the other editors at DC never gave me a moment's time. They would take the thing and give me a check and say, 'I'll see you in two weeks.' They never gave any kind of encouragement or information. They were very competitive with each other. They didn't want to teach an artist and then lose him to some other editor.”

“When I went to Stan Lee - every time I was with Stan, I learned something every day. When I would do a pencil job, if I didn't have much faith in it I would hand it in and invariably Stan would make it look like it was a well-written and well-planned-out story. It made me tell people, 'If you want to become an artist, go to work at Marvel. Stan will turn you into a storyteller.'”