Thought Bubble 2024: Chip Zdarsky Spotlight Panel

On another sunny autumnal afternoon in Harrogate comic book fans congregated to one of the bigger panels of the weekend featuring writer/artist Chip Zdarsky and hosted by Kofi Smiles. Here’s what I learned, from this very light-hearted and entertaining panel, about the man and his career in comics, covering his work on Sex Criminals, Daredevil, Batman and so much more:

1. Brian Michael Bendis thought for ages he was Matt Fraction.
2. At an early age he was hospitalised (those of us present promised we would not say why, and I’m keeping that collective promise) and Marvel Secret Wars #7 was the first comic he remembers reading as he lay in his hospital bed recovering. He calls it his “comic book reading origin story”.
3. Zdarsky enjoys creator-owned comics because it allows him the space to consider his writing craft, free from the prerequisite conventions of Marvel and DC Comics. for example, the expectations by fans, and editors, for fighting scenes “every four pages”. It allows for more inventiveness and creativity.
4. When Zdarsky got the Batman gig, he was advised by friend, Matt Fraction, that writing Batman is like being in a covers band. You’re playing the classics, but putting your own spin on it.
5. Spider-Man: Life Story – in preparing for this he read 800 issues of The Amazing Spider-Man and made notes of any interesting story beats. He laos kept a second time line on which he plotted important historical events and a third onto which he plotted his cast’s changing age and key events in their lives. Sound sounds an intense process. But, if you’ve read this mini-series, you’ll know it paid off.
6. Zdarsky pitched his first Daredevil arc at a Marvel summit in New York. Everyone expected it to be a comical take, but it wasn’t. It was enough to get creatost in the room heated, especially as it involved Spider-Man threatening to beat up Daredevil because Matt Murdoch had just killed someone. Zdarksy sees Spidey as Marvel’s moral compass. He is the reader. It’s an interesting take and one that does hold some water. Peter Parker speak for us. Plus, if he is a guest-star you can get away with writing him a bit differently. Just like The Punisher, who Zdarksy said is ” a great guest star”.
7. Sex Criminals – As the artist on this series part of his job was to put in “dumb jokes” and sex jokes in the background. The main characters based on friends of his. Friends who didn’t know each other before hand. By the end of the series, with some of the positions they had to pose for, they had become good friends. But never anything pornographic. “We never presented them to be titillating”.
8. They only ever thuoght Sex Criminals would last three issues. Five, if they could talk Image Comics into it, for a collection. But, it blew up and writer Matt Fraction had a bit of a wobble when this happened. Part of the mental health issues explored in later issues reflect Fraction’s own issues that were born from this dilemma.
9. Zdarsky loves Manga because the creators write about whatever they like be it “rice, or ping-pong”. He enjoys the genre defying nature of this and runs a regular podcast talking about Manga entitled Mangasplaining.
10. Thanks to owning Sex Criminals, Zdarsky and co-creator Fraction get a cheque every six months. It’s this financial security that allows him to not only write for the Big Two but also fight fr other creators too. Not for the first time have I heard creators espousing creator owned series as the way forward, and a good point to end on too.

Right, onto the next panel.