Earlier this month, DC Entertainment revealed that they would be publishing new chapters of their digital-first, and highly entertaining, comic Wonder Woman ’77 and that the first volume of the comic would be releasing in paperback this summer. With a rotating cast of writers and artists like Ruth Fletcher Gage, Christos Gage, Trina Robbins, Cat Staggs, Richard Ortiz, and critically acclaimed writer Marc Andreyko, the series has made more than a few fans (myself among them)!

I recently got the opportunity to speak with Marc Andreyko about his work, his writing process, and most importantly, his work on the new story arc Wonder Woman ’77!

[EatYourComics.com] You have some new chapters coming out for Wonder Woman ‘77, how would you describe the series for those who haven’t had the chance to pick it up yet?

[Marc Andreyko] It’s the comic book continuation of the TV series with Linda Carter from the 70s. It’s a Wonder Woman that isn’t bogged down by a lot of the continuity in the regular mainstream books so it’s readily accessible. It’s definitely lighter, but that doesn’t mean it’s campy or funny, it’s just more capturing the tone of that great performance that Linda Carter gave in the 70s with the added bonus that we don’t have the budget of a TV show so the artists can draw anything. We don’t have to worry about it being gangsters or Nazis it can be actual villains that they just didn’t have the technology or the finances to do in the original TV series. So it gets to merge probably the greatest Wonder Woman interpretation we’ve seen with the great rogue’s gallery of Wonder Woman that tends to get forgotten, and she’s got a pretty intense [one].

[EYC] That’s a pretty tall order! Can you give is a taste of what can we expect from your upcoming story arc?

[MA] The third print special is going to be stories by me and three other writers this time around, what their stories are, your guess is as good as mine. But for mine, one of the things I’ve always thought was interesting about Wonder Woman’s origin was that she was made from clay, so I thought “Oh… Clayface! Let’s have them meet. We’ve never really seen them together.” I thought that would be an interesting contrast there since they are both “of clay” to an extent.

[EYC] With the issues that you are writing, who are the artists you are working with and what is the collaboration process like?

[MA] The artist on the Clayface story is Richard Ortiz. He’s done a couple of arcs. He came in on “Pinched -Hit” and finished a couple of the previous ones I’ve written. He did the last two parts of the Cheetah arc that I just wrote, and to have him back is great. His style is just so vibrant and bouncy and has such energy in it; it’s sort of reminiscent of Amanda Conner but a little bit more angular. His stuff is just so vibrant you almost don’t need the dialogue to tell what’s going on. The acting, the facial expressions, just the staging of the scenes is really impressive.

[MA] I will always let the artists define their relationship with me. Some artists like to talk all the time, some artists like it to be fed through the editor and never talk to the writer, some artists you just give them the story and they run and bring back brilliance. So I kind of let them set the barometer for what our relationship is because ultimately when you are writing comics, you’re the director but the artist is the director of photography and the cinematographer so I like to give them enough in the script to know basically the information that needs to be disseminated but to give them a lot of freedom to play with camera angles and that sort of thing.

[EYC] You were talking about getting into their voice to tell the story. Do you take a different approach for taking a character like Diana as opposed to someone like Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent?

[MA] Oh yeah, it’s a different sort of approach for every character. You’ve got to find out the sort of “bouillon cube essence” of a character is. You know, if you could describe that character in four traits, what would those traits be? And then you look at what has gone before in the history of the character. I’m not a big believer in the whole retconning/retrofitting, or the “everything you thought you knew was wrong and I’m going to tell you what’s right” thing. I think that when you’re working in this sort of shared consciousness like all these character’s myths, you go back and you cherry-pick from the continuity. If there’s something that doesn’t make sense, don’t try and over explain it and un-explain it, just ignore it and use the stuff that works!

[MA] You have to have enough respect for the past to acknowledge it, but continuity, in a lot of ways, became not only the tail wagging the dog but a flea on a hair on the tail that is wagging the dog. You have to make your books acknowledge the long term fans and you’ve also got to make it accessible enough to new people coming on board but not make it overly simple. So it’s a delicate balancing act, but hey, I’m not digging coal in a strip mine so balancing narrative is a pretty good first world problem to have.

[EYC] You mentioned boiling down the characters to the four traits that use to define them. What are four traits you look at when you look at Diana?

[MA] Specifically the traits of the Wonder Woman ’77 Diana: Integrity, Empathy, Hope, and Love.

[MA] After binge watching the show when we first started talking about the book, one of the things that really stood out to me was that she very rarely uses physical violence. She doesn’t want to use physical violence, that’s the last resort, you know? If she was a cop, right, you’d use the Taser and the pepper spray or the billy club, the gun is the last resort. She tries to resolve things in a way that has minimal physical and emotional damage to everyone. It’s only when she’s up against a very physical foe like Giganta you’re probably going to be able to talk her down. Physical violence is not in her top 10 ways to resolve a conflict and I think that’s what is fascinating about her. It forces me, as a writer, to not go to the fisticuffs, to try and write around that and when there are fisticuffs to make it stay within the integrity of the character.

[EYC] This is kind of a unique print style, for a comic book. You guys are going digital first and later in June you’re releasing the trade paperback. What do you find are the benefits to being able to put it out as a digital comic first?

[MA] Well, the price point ($0.99) for each chapter is a great price point for people who might not go into a comic book store or might not know where a comic store is in their neighborhood. Because this is a comic that transcends the comic book world, and into the real world, for the time being they still think Linda Carter. The might think both Gal Gadot and Linda Carter in a couple of months, but so many people live on their devices, so to be able to have something other than Angry Birds, you can read something on your phone or iPad or computer is great!

[MA] All my colorist friends love the digital stuff because the colors are so pure. No matter how great printing on paper is, there’s always going to be a slight alteration of the color due to the paper stock, the glossiness of it, the materials the paper was made out of.

[MA] As a writer you have to be able to tell the story differently. It’s a challenge to tell a story that’s going to be read in those horizontal panels on a computer and make it work narratively there and make it work when it is eventually in print as well.

A huge thank you to Marc Andreyko and DC Entertainment for taking the time to speak with us about this awesome comic! Marc’s new Clayface story arc starts this coming Monday, Feb. 15th and trust me, you don’t want to miss it! Pick it up at your favorite digital retailer on Monday, and then let us and Marc know what you think!

We’ll be including even more of our interview with Marc with our March issue of Eat Your Podcast so make sure to check it out when it hits at the beginning of next month!

Until then: Stay Hungry, Nerds!