The kids are all right. Well, not really. These are Gotham Kids, so nothing is ever really “all right.” Especially when they attend Gotham Academy, a new entry to the Bat-Books from writers Becky Cloonan, Brenden Fletcher, and artist Karl Kerschi. A gothic school, mean girls, young love and mystery are all woven together into a tapestry appealing to both young adults and faithful long-time Batman readers.
Again DC turns to exploring Gotham to reinvigorate the Batman Universe. Gotham Academy has a large cast of characters, including the main protagonist Olivia. Dark, but vibrant with youthful energy, the first issue has been a smash, wetting the appetites of readers to discover more about this school and the kids who attend it. For anyone who has read Becky Cloonan’s work, or recently caught Brenden Fletcher’s contributions to the new direction of Batgirl, then you know they are perfect for this.
I was curious. I wanted to know more. I tracked down Cloonan, Fletcher and Kerschi at New York Comic Con and got the skinny on the newest series in Gotham. If you are not sold on the idea yet, just read how Cloonan, Fletcher and Kerschi relate to each other. The riffing, the clever immediacy of their comments and the sense of humor is infectious, and that’s something they bring to Gotham Academy.
CraveOnline: Gotham Academy. Weird story. How’d you all get involved with it?
Becky Cloonan: Mark Doyle had just got the job as the Bat Office head editor. He sent me an email saying he was going to call me Friday. I thought, ohh what could this be? He called, and Brenden and Karl were all in the studio with me, we were in Canada, and Mark said pitch something. A one shot, a mini-series, what do you want to do? He suggested something geared a little younger, like what’s it like to grow up in Gotham. Then it clicked and I said, Gotham Academy. He asked if I was going to write or draw it and I said write it, and Karl is going to draw it.
Karl Kerschi: I looked up and said huh? What Becky?
Cloonan: I said it’s okay. It’ll be fine. Then I told Mark I’d need a co-writer, Brenden.
Brenden Fletcher: And I said I don’t know if I can do that Becky!! Uhhhh, uhhhh.
Cloonan: Then I touched my finger to his lips gently and said shhh shhh. I said it’s going to be fine.
Fletcher: And I immediately felt calm come over me. The story then just started magically appearing.
Kerschi: And I said, Becky! We’re going to draw a lot of Batman right?
Fletcher: And I said no, noooo, no Batman. (Laughs) That’s the thing; this isn’t Batman’s story. Karl kept saying “Maybe I could just draw Batman…” NO! Then he’d say, “Maybe Batman could…” NO! (Laughs)
That’s the trick though. Most people see Gotham and think Batman instantly. How will you hook them into this story?
Fletcher: It’s all about characters and we knew we had great characters. We also knew this is a Bat-Book and it takes place in Gotham. So these characters, and the actual school building, connect back to Gotham and back to Batman. All roads lead back to Batman. (Laughs)
The dialog in this book is top notch. Who handles those duties?
(At this point a Cosplayer—you know how I love those—dressed as Joker starts running around and laughing at top volume)
Cloonan: I don’t like that guy. He’s been laughing a lot.
(I then scream at him to shut up, which he does)
Cloonan: Thank you. Yeah, uh dialog. When Brenden and I write we have a very collaborative process, and actually Karl was in on it to. He should probably get a writing credit one of these days. (Laughs) We just jam out ideas. Brenden and I make a list of the points that we need to hit and then we split it up into scenes. I claim my scenes and he takes his…
Fletcher: She says, ‘oh these scenes are really good, I’m going to take these, and you have the rest.’ (Laughs)
Cloonan: I say, ‘this scene is really difficult, you take that one’.
Fletcher: Yeah. Becky says, ‘This scene has a lot of peaking and tortured romance, I’ll take that one. These scenes are boring in the classroom learning about Gotham history, Brenden you can have those’.
Cloonan: That’s your thing. You like that. (laughs) When I write dialog I underwrite. I try to get to the essence of what they’re saying and then beef it up later. Brenden is the opposite. He overwrites.
Fletcher: I feel like I’m underwriting, I don’t know maybe I do overwrite.
Cloonan: You do, you list all your ideas and we have to pair them down, and with me, we always have to beef mine up. With Brenden we usually have to take things out, but it’s good because he’s writing down everything that comes to his mind. We can cherry pick that stuff.
Fletcher: I also have a history with Karl so I know I can through anything at him, and Becky’s picked up on this to, and Karl’s just going to edit it and make it work.
Kerschi: Often including dialog. There’s actually a lot of my dialog in that book.
Cloonan: It’s great because then we can edit it together. We just took a road trip together, which was fun.
The art style is very different in Gotham Academy. Is that just how you draw or did you have to invent something new?
Kerschi: I work in a different style for every project depending on what that project is. This is similar to the work I did in Teen Titans awhile back. I think that’s because this style lends itself to books with younger readers. I think books like Teen Titans or Gotham Academy should have characters that really look like they’re young adults. Getting that across is my primary objective. We also grew up watching a lot of Anime and I wanted to recreate that on the page by doing books that have painted backgrounds and then characters kind of layered over top of it. It almost looks like an animated film we stole screen shots from. I think we did that in Teen Titans number one, and I think we’re really doing that in Gotham Academy. Our team now is really nailing it because we have Romain Gaschet in France who is painting over all my backgrounds, and Dave who is coloring all the characters. I almost cried when I saw the first pages come in.
With only one issue in, it’s hard to pick out the main character. As time goes on, who is going to step to the forefront?
Fletcher: It was all about Olive. It was Becky’s concept to do a story about the school and kids. Usually when you come up with a new concept it’s all about one character, like Power Girl or Nightwing. This is about the place, so the place came first. Then we were talking about who is in this place and that’s when the conversation really became about Olive. After that the supporting cast just rolled in organically as the backdrop to Olive’s story.
Kerschi: Olive is inextricably linked to Batman in a way nobody knows about yet.
Cloonan: We have so many characters that I love. Whenever we make a new character I think, I don’t know about this guy, but once we start talking about them and I think they’re amazing, my favorite new character. We have so many stories; we have three years of material at least. Especially after this road trip we just went on.
Do you like having such a large casting pool to draw from?
Fletcher: It’s amazing, and if everybody just has faith in what we’re doing, we’re going to deliver the kind of story that nobody has ever seen before
Any reveals you can give us about the future in Gotham Academy?
Cloonan: A lot of adventure, a lot of mystery. The first six issues is not a self-contained story because it leads into the next adventure, but all the small threads will begin to lead into a bigger arc. Soon there’s web.
Fletcher: The big thing we can reveal is that the first six issues will clarify what Olive’s deal actually is and why she’s connected to Batman. You might also get a sense of how she’s linked to Batman and the Academy.
Cloonan: I always think of this like Batman is out there solving crimes happening right now. These kids are solving crimes that happened a hundred or two hundred years ago.
Building this other universe, I’m hoping you’ll turn away from bringing in multiple guest stars.
Fletcher: It’s not another universe, we’re focused on building a corner of Gotham you’ve never seen before. The moment we start bringing in more familiar faces, it takes the spotlight away from building this new place. We need readers to really understand these characters.
Cloonan: I like it that we’ve created this school that exists in a bubble outside of the rest of Batman Universe.
Kerschi: I think as people get into Gotham Academy, they won’t want us to bring in anyone else.
