DC er uden tvivl utroligt glade for det arbejde, som forfatteren Matt Fraction og kunstneren Jorge Jimenez har leveret med deres nye Batman-tegneserie, for på trods af at den først blev lanceret i begyndelsen af september, er det første nummer i denne nye saga allerede i gang med sin tredje udgivelse efter at have solgt hundredtusindvis af eksemplarer. Det er nærmest overflødigt at sige, at der måske ikke er nogen større superhelt i dag end Gothams Batman, og da vi talte med Fraction på San Diego Comic Con Malaga, måtte vi naturligvis spørge om, hvorvidt denne modtagelse har overrasket ham.
"It sold 500,000 copies, it's the biggest selling comic of the year. By the time I realised that I should be afraid, it was too late. I was six issues in before it occurred to me. Oh, this is a big deal, I should be freaked out by this. It feels incredible, the reception has been amazing. It's Batman, he's the coolest character in comics, people love him. I'm thrilled to be here, I can't believe I fooled somebody into paying me to write it. It's great."
Vi spurgte også Fraction om, hvad han ønskede og stadig ønsker at opnå med denne serie, hvortil han fortalte os alt om planerne om at bringe en version af Batman og Gotham tilbage, som er forsvundet i den seneste tid.
"I wanted to do... I was interested in telling a story that was very superhero forward. And Batman has been very black and grey and brown and green, and Gotham City looks like a dead avocado and you need a tetanus shot every time you go outside. That wasn't what made me fall in love with the character and I think the reason it's endured 85 years is because you can tell all these different stories with that character. And I wanted to do a superhero forward version of the book. The first time Jorge and I spoke, I was like, I want to put him back in the blue and the grey. I missed that and he immediately went, yes!"
Fraction fortsatte: "I wasn't kidding, comics are a visual medium. I wanted a book that looked beautiful, I wanted to see a Gotham where I understood why people would live there. I wanted to celebrate all the comic book stuff that people love. Just because I missed it, but it's also the thing that made me... Batman was the first comic I ever read. I was three years old, it was 1978. I feel like I'm dancing with the girl that brought me. So I want to celebrate all the stuff that made me love comics, and that means colour and pop and scale and energy and all that stuff.
"For all of the remarkable work that's happened with Batman, I really do think he's endured because none of those stories invalidate any of the others. You can have Lego Batman and Ben Affleck in movie theatres at the same time and no one's confused. It's all Batman. So I wanted to write a comic with that same kind of energy, like anything goes."
Du kan se hele interviewet med undertekster nedenfor for at høre, hvad Fraction havde at sige om den seneste Superman film, hvordan det var at skrive Hawkeye og meget mere. Vi talte også for nylig med Fractions partner, Kelly Sue Deconnick, om hendes indsats for at omforme Captain Marvel og om, hvad hun har planlagt for fremtiden.
