If you read comics in the 70's, you've read Steve Englehart. He wrote stories for nearly every Marvel title and a few for DC as well. He's crossed every genre, from horror to romance to westerns to superheroes--sometimes all within one issue! He wrote what many consider to be the definitive Batman. He scripted a stellar run of AVENGERS. He gave us one of the most complex characterizations of CAPTAIN AMERICA ever. In addition to this he has had outstanding runs on DR. STRANGE, JUSTICE LEAGUE, DEFENDERS, MASTER OF KUNG FU and CAPTAIN MARVEL.

Steve began his comics writing career for Marvel, writing The Beast. It was he who created the blue furred, jovial, laid-back character who became one of the most popular superheroes ever. Steve continued stretching the boundaries of superhero comics, creating, Shang Chi, The Master of Kung Fu--a remarkably complex character that could have been merely a fad of the month without the Englehart touch. His fans may know him best for Mantis, a truly singular character. A non-stereotypical female from an age of cliched women characters, Mantis was strong yet feminine and wonderfully ambiguous. In fact, few of Englehart's characters are ever truly what they seem or what they "should" be.

In the 1980's Steve continued redefining the genre with offbeat heroes like COYOTE and SCORPIO ROSE before returning to Marvel and DC to write some of their biggest characters: THE WEST COAST AVENGERS, SILVER SURFER, THE FANTASTIC FOUR and GREEN LANTERN. During the onslaught of new experimental comics companies, Steve was right in the forefront, creating such characters as NIGHTMAN for Malibu comics. This character is now the basis of a TV show that Steve occasionally scripts.

The list of achievements goes on and on. Today he is involved with his DNAGERS series of books. Occasionally he returns to comics, if all too briefly. Steve Englehart should need no introduction to comics fans, but perhaps we should let the man speak for himself...

The character you created for Malibu Comics, Nightman, has his own syndicated series. You've written a few of the episodes. I thought the first one you wrote has been the best of the series so far. What are the differences in writing for television and comics?

The biggest difference is budget: you have to pay for everything on a TV screen. So you tend to use the same sets over and over (like Johnny's apartment, the House of Soul, Briony's office, etc.) and avoid scenes that require lots of extras or strange camera riggings. You also draw the line on sex and violence and language in slightly different locations. And you write for TV in a very specific format, whereas in comics the format is much looser. But as I say as nauseum, I write characters, so all that is just window-trappings as far as I'm concerned.

Weren't you somehow also involved with the first Batman film? What happened with that?

After I wrote my mid-70s stories, I went my way and DC went theirs, so I was surprised when, in 1986, I got a call from Jenette Kahn. It seems that when those Detectives appeared, Mike Uslan, producer of the Swamp Thing film, told an interviewer he could see for the first time how to do a Batman film. In the ten years since, he had tried, first as an independent and later in association with Warner Brothers, to capture what he'd seen. A series of scripts involving Silver St. Cloud, Boss Thorne, and a truly insane Joker had been generated by Hollywood's finest writers, but somehow they weren't working. So Jenette wanted me to come back and provide whatever it was I did that nobody else could do. So I wrote two treatments (plots) and flew to New York twice for consultation. I argued (unsuccessfully, I thought at the time) against including Robin and the Penguin. And three years later a nice amalgam of these stories and the treatments, enhanced by Sam Hamm and Tim Burton, hit the screen (with Kim Basinger's Silver called Vicki Vale since Silver had been out of print for thirteen years). In the end, about 70 percent of that first film originated with me.

I'd like to ask a bit about writing itself. I have ideas all the time, but can never get them on the page. How do you get what's in your head into other people's heads, so to speak?

It's just work. I happen to enjoy it so I actually do it. There are other things I think I *would* enjoy doing but never actually do. That's the real difference. It is sometimes daunting to approach a blank screen, but I just do it, and I find that getting something down is ultimately fun. It may get funner once I edit it--George Lucas says he prefers editing to directing, and I hear that--but it's all part of the process of ending up with something you're happy with. First step: begin.

I've kept you waiting for this interview because I was continually writing other things. They had deadlines and you, foolishly, gave me all the time I needed. :-)

Do you listen to music when you write and if so, what?

I remember when I first started on THE BEAST, I could not have music; it was too distracting. But I got over that as I got more comfortable with writing. For years I listened only to rock. Then I added opera, because opera is really stories told in music, so I can provide myself with a soundtrack and emotional ride for my own work. Then I threw in jazz, because I wanted to go there for a while. And during the spring and summer I'll listen to baseball. In other words, very little distracts me now, and I'll go with whatever fits my mood.

What current comics do you read today and why?

I never answer that question :-) Once upon a time I got all comics for free, so I read everything. Today, much like you, I have to buy what I read, so I only read part of what's out there, so I know I'm missing things, so I don't name any names.

Many people feel that the comics industry as a whole is in serious trouble. What do you think can save it?

First, I don't know if it can be saved. It seems to me that there's an impulse in some people that likes what comics provide. For many years the *best* way to satisfy that impulse was through comics. Now it can be satisfied through movies and CR-ROMs as well, so it may well be that the potential audience is permanently fragmented.

But *if* it can be saved, I see two things that used to work and are missing now. First, I think books ought to be cheaper. Kurt Busiek argues the exact opposite (make them more expensive so retailers will want them), but I believe that although retailers are crucial, they will also stock items enough people want, and the key to upping those numbers is to make comics more accessible. If you only read one type of book and that type eats up your budget, you won't/can't check out other types--therefore your knowledge of comics is limited--therefore your interest in comics is limited. But if your interest could expand, you'd find new types of books you liked, by writers and artists you weren't looking at so you'd like to see what else they're doing--and comics would assume a larger place in your life, which would make you take a flyer on yet another type. I say ditch the computer color and fine paper, as wonderful as it is, and get the price of the books down. If you like comics you may miss the gorgeous color but you'll like more comics.

Second, I really feel that innovation is in short supply these days. With obvious exceptions, I see a lot of books where people are *replicating* the old stuff as opposed to blazing new trails. They're doing a really wonderful version of The Hero we all know and have loved for 30 years, but that's just preaching to the steadily shrinking choir. I say go out and convert new people; show them something they didn't see 10-20-30 years ago. That does not have to mean the Vertigo or the Hero-is-realy-a-drunk-pervert or the I'm-starting-over-because-I'm-famous approach. I wouldn't do any of those. But I would find something new to say, something tied to today's reality, and not the timeless "illusion of reality" I see too much these days. I could do Captain America right now without trading on my past or anybody else's, and still keep him Captain America. That's what we did (mostly) till the late 80s. I've talked recently on AML about keeping the pact that says "we all believe these stories are true." There's another part of the pact (at least for me) that says "These guys are alive and growing." When Stan talked about "the illusion of change" he did not mean what a lot of people today think he meant. Cap has to stay Cap, but he should grow.

So--more accesible stories about people with blood in their veins. Force comics to come alive. If anything will work, that's what I think it is.

What do you think about the new relationship of the internet and comics?

I like it because I liked both the internet and comics, and I like progress. We won't have comics you can read on the net till we're all wired better than we are, but it'll come.

Your Batman stories with Marshall Rogers in Detective 466 - 477 were considered by many to be the definitive Batman of the 1970's. Now most people would look to Frank Miller's Year One. What do you think of the direction that Batman has taken?

Well, people generally tell me that they think Marshall's and my stuff is more important than Frank's. I imagine other people tell Frank his is the best. But from *my* experience, I can't buy your premise. In any event, it's either been twenty-five or fifteen years since *somebody* did *something* definitive, so that may say something to your question.

I think Batman is caught up in what was recently discussed on AML about all DC characters; you have the sense you're reading *this month's* Batman rather than *the* Batman. I happen to like the latest guy but I wish there were more stability to the characterization.

Why hasn't this great run been collected into a trade paperback?

I'm not the person to ask, but as it happens DC is finally putting it out this October.

Another great trade paperback could be made out of your classic run on Captain America. After all these years yours is still my favorite Cap. It was so different from what had come before. Did you get any resistance to your interpretation?

Only from Kirby. After I left and he took over, he grumped about my take--"*my* Cap wouldn't have any crisis of conscience"--which I totally understood. Everybody else was very enthusiastic.

It's impossible to talk about your comics career without covering the Avengers. Are you keeping up with the current Avengers?

Of course.

Both of your excellent Avengers runs ended...shall we say, abruptly? That's one of the hazards of comics, though. As a writer, is it frustrating to deal with having stories that you can never finish or that are finished by others? (And not at all like you had in mind?)

Sure. It really pisses you off at the time, and on occasion forever after. But it is a reality of the business.

John Byrne destroyed everything you had slowly built with one of the best characters you've ever written, The Vision. Do you have any choice words about that?

It wouldn't do any good. Byrne answers for what he does just as we all do.

One of the things I loved is that when you had Beast join the Avengers you said he'd been in California, losing his nerd persona and getting hip -- he read Casteneda and listened to Stevie Wonder -- what would he do today?

He'd be making a fortune doing e-trades on the net and really digging women's soccer.

I've heard it said that you invented the cross-over with your classic Avengers/Defenders six part cross-over. Considering how abused the cross over has become, do you regret that?

No. I don't mean to sound snarky, but I try to innovate. That's what I do. After that I can't control any genies I let loose from the bottle, so I don't try.

Mantis was of course one of your most important contributions to Marvel's staple of characters. You continued to write her adventures later at DC, at Eclipse...do you feel you've finished that particular story?

Not at all. In fact, I was harried and brutalized during my last use of her at Marvel, and then they trashed her big time. So not only do I have more to do with her, but I have to recover her from the heap they left her in. Even if I did her as Willow or Lorelei, I'd want to work my way out of what they did to Mantis.

What was it like to come back to the Avengers after roughly eight years when you began writing West Coast Avengers?

It was a lot of fun. I like the "Avengers mystique," so it was fun to write Avengers, but the good thing was it was different Avengers, which meant a different vibe. I'm not putting down the Wanda-Vision-Mantis-Celestial Madonna vibe, but I wouldn't have wanted to do it again. So I got to do Hawkeye-Mockingbird-divorce-Pym suicide. And Al Milgrom's art also made it very different from the look of the previous Avengers. So I got to write Avengers and at the same time I got to do a new strip.

I loved the fact that a major superhero team was based somewhere--anywhere else but New York. Why do they all have to be in New York?

In real life: beats me. In the Marvel Universe: so they can easily meet each other.

Why have you more or less stopped writing comics?

On the one hand, I have other things to do; on the other, the market is a lot harder to crack. That part breaks two ways: one, there are fewer slots and people who have been working more recently are legitimately at the front of the line; two, some people today just can't think as big as we did when Marvel was growing, so my approach makes them nervous. I must say that it's personally frustrating to read so much of what's coming out now and *know* I wouldn't just replicate.

What would it take to get you back into comics again?

I assume you mean on a regular series. I'd have to be able to do as much as I could do within the current reality. I've been doing two-part stories for Batman, and as much as everyone likes what I'm doing, I know I could do more. Part of my game is developing people over time and I can't do that without a regular monthly book.

Will we ever see Coyote again?

As soon as I can swing it. He was going to become an Image book just before they crashed.

If aliens were about to pull you up in their tractor beam to take you aboard their space ship...what would you grab to take with you?

You're getting strange, Michael.

Your novel from 1981, Point Man, was excellent. Why didn't you continue with more novels?

I was writing my second when Atari hired me to do games and I got caught up in computer work.

Many of your contemporaries have written graphic novels. How come you haven't written "the ultimate Englehart story"?

I wrote the prose novel The Point Man, which is *one* UES, but a lot of my stuff is a UES in its own context. I mean, Captain America #176 is a UES, and so is all of Coyote, and Green Lantern #194-198, and... Because I guess I'd consider a UES to be one only E could do.

What work are you proudest of?

I'm honestly proud of *almost* everything I've done. I don't know what I'd be *proudest* of. Batman for one thing, Phantom of Fear City for another, Giant-Sized Avengers #2 for another...

French fries or potato chips?

Really strange, Michael.

What's the nutshell message that you'd like to tell the world?

Keep expanding your world.