Ann Nocenti started working in comics as a writer and editor at Marvel Comics in the nineteen-eighties, and quickly emerged as one of the mediums most dynamic young voices. Her best known work is her lengthy run on Daredevil where she created the villain Typhoid Mary and used the comic to address societal issues. Nocenti more or less left comics in the nineties and turned to journalism. She edited multiple magazines including High Times, Scenario, Prison Life and Stop Smiling. She directed a documentary about Baluchistan, taught film in Lapland, worked in Haitiin short, its hard not to be impressed by Nocenti.
Recently she started writing comics again. After a short run on Green Arrow, Nocenti took over writing Catwoman and this year launched a new ongoing series, Katana, about a widowed martial artist on a quest for vengeance. Both are unusual comics, Catwoman the story of a thief and accidental hero, and Katana, which blends superheroics and martial arts and has a rare female character defined by vengeance who believes that her husbands soul is trapped in her sword. The books continue Nocentis musings on violence and she brings a lot of her real world experiences to bear on the books while still maintaining a sense of fun and adventure and she spoke about her work and her own continuing adventures.
ALEX DUEBEN: Lets start with the character because Im not sure how many people are familiar with her. Who is Katana and what is the series?
ANN NOCENTI: Katana is a Japanese martial artist on a vengeance trip. Theres an innate, somber satire to a woman who is in love with her sword. She believes her sword contains her husband, so there is a touch of feminist irony. Its a cool, loaded dynamic. A girl and her sword.
Katanas husband was murdered, and in trying to get her revenge on his killers, she stumbled into a hidden world of ancient clans, The Outsiders. The idea comes out of samurai tradition, and how, in pre-judicial times, the rich hired swordsmen to protect them. My spin on that is that this ancient, extra-judicial justice organization was conceived as a benevolent tribunal to maintain world peace, yet over the centuries fell deeply into corruption. Over time, the Outsiders split and the various Clans separated, some becoming entwined with different governments and corporations, others disappearing completely. How all this will play out in Katana is still a mystery. At the same time, is issues #3 and #4, we bring in some terrific DC villains, so the book becomes a kind of martial arts/superhero hybrid.
AD: How did you end up writing the book and what made you interested in writing it?
AN: Bob Harras asked me if I wanted to start a solo book with her. Ive long adored Akira Kurosawa, Takeshi Kitano, and Zatoichi films, and filmmakers of 1970s Japan, and Ive studied Judo and Karate, so it was an exciting idea. And I love writing female characters.
AD: Katana is part of the team in Birds of Prey where she comes off in some respects as this stereotypical idea of a demure, aloof Japanese womanalbeit one who is a trained assassin and sword-master. To what degree is her solo series an effort to look at her character in a different way?
AN: There is only so much characterization you can do in a group book. You can continually give characters beats, and explore the individuals through the shifting dynamic and power struggles of the group. In Birds Of Prey, Katana was aloof, and I liked that. She felt like a loner who is begrudgingly doing time with a group. And Katana does have the old-fashion traditions in her, from being raised in a traditional Japanese household, most likely not in an urban setting. Just like I was raised traditional Catholic in the suburbs: you can toss your early training to the side of the road as you take your own journey, but a lot of it sticks. Its there in your unconscious.
AD: What are the challenges unique to writing action sequences about sword-fighting?
AN: The action sequences begin with the nature of the weapon. In Katana #1 and #2, we introduce the Sword Clan, with Coil and Sickle. The Swords are an elite clan hiding behind legitimate wealth, interested in lineage, bloodline, money and power. In issue 3 we meet the Dagger Clan, who are lowborn thugs, interested in drinking and brawling. Then Katana heads to Japan, where she begins to meet some of the more ancient members of the Clans. Ive been giving the swordsmen weapons that fit their nature. The Daggers have nasty short swords, daggers that thrust and stab. Coil, who is a mastermind, loves his Coil Sword in that it can completely ensnare you. Its a very psychological sword. Sickle uses a cross between a scythe and a sickle, a farmers hay-cutter and deaths sword. Its a mythic, pagan notion to use a farmers sword, understanding the cycles of death, slicing down the hay. In Japan, Katana meets a sexy villainess who carries a rapier around her neck. What does that say about her? So the action sequences come out of how Katana, a solo fighter with her Soultaker, takes on these various weapons and clans. Of course, having Alex Sanchez on the book is what makes it work. His brilliance, his range and depth, is stunning. Issue #4 is jaw-dropping gorgeous.
AD: The other comic youre writing now is Catwoman and I read in an interview that youre a big fan of a character I love, Irma Vep, and that shes influenced your take on Catwoman.
AN: When I had a film magazine, Scenario, I published an unproduced screenplay by Edward Gorey, and when I was interviewing him we talked a lot about the influence of early filmmaker Louis Feuillade on Goreys work. Feuillade made Fantomas and the Les Vampires serials in the 1910s, and Irma Vep was a woman in a catsuit who snuck around and stole jewels. She was a bit like a ninja Catwoman. Then the French director Olivier Assayas re-made Feuillades Irma Vep (an anagram of vampire) with Maggie Cheung. So my early visual imprint of this vampy, catty ninja sneak thief comes from there. I like that mysterious, very German Expressionist archetype, matched with Selina Kyle, a sassy, liberated, urban girl who love clothes and parties.
AD: Catwoman is a great character because shes a thief who grew up in poor, very tough circumstances and has a class-based perspective, which is rare in comics and elsewhere. But she also has a sense of morality and honor, which makes her an accidental hero.
AN: I guess that could be called thieves honor. Why do some kids rise out of poor home situations to do well, and others dont? Ive worked with at-risk kids, poor kids, criminals. Some take what they get and develop a great sense of justice, others are monsters. I was an editor on Prison Life Magazine, and reading the stories of convicts and looking at their artwork was a little window into that kind of struggle. Selina Kyle was most likely a product of the state. Kinda like factory farming, kids from broken families get bounced from foster care to reform schools to juvie detention centers and many end up in prison. Raised by the state, with stints in the street. I was talking to my editor, Rachel Gluckstern about this accidental hero idea, and what kind of morals and honor Catwoman has, especially now that shes joined the Justice League, and we were reminded of a Bob Dylan quote: To live outside the law, you must be honest.
AD: Now because of current events in recent months, theres a lot of talk about violence and pop culture and theres violence in your stories and its integral, but its complicated. Its not always triumphant in the way that its portrayed in many comics. I think about how in martial arts, the goal isnt fighting. Related to that, Katana uses a sword, Catwoman has a whip, Green Arrow and Daredevil, two other character youve written, have unusual weapons.
AN: I think my work in comics is one long, ever-shifting treatise on violence, especially my run on Daredevil. The superhero genre itself is about having conflicts escalate into violence. You can do an issue here and there with conflict resolution that is non-violent, but mostly the fun is how the action plays out. Katana takes violence seriously. Shes highly trained, but has a long way to go before shes a master. And her mission is serious. Catwoman is looser about it. Shes got kleptomania, no amount of jewels can make her happy, shes got an action jones, just for the pure thrill of action. Im always very influenced by the artist, and in this case, Rafa Sandovals work has such intense joy and energy to it, I love how sometimes we just play: the big lug Catwoman fights in #18, its almost like Three Stooges violence. Sometimes the action is so wacky its like Tex Avery or Chuck Jones. Her fight with the Joker, on the other hand was brutal. Then she gets stuck in the Black Room and has an almost mystical level of violent action. The violence and action come out of the story. The Black Room is jam-packed with evil objectsso the violence is like something from hell. There are crazy surprises in issues #19-24, but during that time shes also going to get involved with some gritty street crime, with the Rat-Tails and the Vice and Murder squads at the Gothan PDHQ.
AD: Just to turn back the clock for a moment, you worked as an editor and writer for many years in comics and then you pretty much left the comics industry to go back to school and you worked a journalist, filmmaker, teacher, you edited High Times and other magazines, you worked in theater. Could you talk a little about what you did and why? You were successful and doing well and then in your thirties, changed tracks and did so very successfully.
AN: Thats a funny question. I definitely have an action jones, and Im a news junkie, so I was always off chasing stories, sometimes in extremely dangerous places. Perhaps Im just nave and stupid, I dont know. But also, there was a bit of a bellweather back then, that the arts were shifting. There have been seismic shifts in the music industry, the artworld, publishing. The agricultural age shifting into the industrial age was a shock for many workers. Now the computer age, the Internet age, is bringing radical paradigm changes in how the arts are produced, marketed, and where the profits come from. So I think to survive, now more than ever, one has to perfect the art of re-invention. Especially freelance artists, writers, filmmakers, musicians. These arent secure career choices, so you have to be flexible.
AD: Youve traveled a lot and spent time in Pakistan and Haiti, made a documentary about Baluchistan, taught film in LaplandI stand a little in awe of many of the things youve done. Does it make it easier to write about globe-trotting adventures, physical risk and accepting that as part of daily life in comics as someone whos done all these things?
AN: Yes, I think so. I was in China a few years ago, which wasnt dangerous so much as there was a creepy sense of being watched, of a surveillance society and a firewall that blocked much of the Internet. At the time I was writing Green Arrow, and he was pitched to me, in the New 52, as a young tech-savvy international playboy guy, so I had him get into a tech war with the Chinese. Chinas cyber attacks and surveillance culture has become big news. Of course, I proceeded to tear down Green Arrow and take all his money and toys away from him, but I found his arrogance hard to write without knocking him around a bit. The idea was to eventually give him the kind of bones and DNA of the Denny ONeil era social justice Green Arrow, but he just isnt there yet. Did that answer your question? Maybe not.
AD: So Katana has just launched, Catwoman is moving along. Do you have any other projects, in an out of comics that youre thinking about or plans for 2013?
AN: Im working on a film about Falcon hunting that I shot in Pakistan, still teaching Indigenous film, and working on a documentary to be shot in Haiti. Some of my early comic work, like Someplace Strange and the unpublished Jezebels Virtue will hopefully get republished. But for now, I am very happy writing Katana and Catwoman. I consider myself extremely lucky to be working with great artists and editors on two fantastic books.
Recently she started writing comics again. After a short run on Green Arrow, Nocenti took over writing Catwoman and this year launched a new ongoing series, Katana, about a widowed martial artist on a quest for vengeance. Both are unusual comics, Catwoman the story of a thief and accidental hero, and Katana, which blends superheroics and martial arts and has a rare female character defined by vengeance who believes that her husbands soul is trapped in her sword. The books continue Nocentis musings on violence and she brings a lot of her real world experiences to bear on the books while still maintaining a sense of fun and adventure and she spoke about her work and her own continuing adventures.
ALEX DUEBEN: Lets start with the character because Im not sure how many people are familiar with her. Who is Katana and what is the series?
ANN NOCENTI: Katana is a Japanese martial artist on a vengeance trip. Theres an innate, somber satire to a woman who is in love with her sword. She believes her sword contains her husband, so there is a touch of feminist irony. Its a cool, loaded dynamic. A girl and her sword.
Katanas husband was murdered, and in trying to get her revenge on his killers, she stumbled into a hidden world of ancient clans, The Outsiders. The idea comes out of samurai tradition, and how, in pre-judicial times, the rich hired swordsmen to protect them. My spin on that is that this ancient, extra-judicial justice organization was conceived as a benevolent tribunal to maintain world peace, yet over the centuries fell deeply into corruption. Over time, the Outsiders split and the various Clans separated, some becoming entwined with different governments and corporations, others disappearing completely. How all this will play out in Katana is still a mystery. At the same time, is issues #3 and #4, we bring in some terrific DC villains, so the book becomes a kind of martial arts/superhero hybrid.
AD: How did you end up writing the book and what made you interested in writing it?
AN: Bob Harras asked me if I wanted to start a solo book with her. Ive long adored Akira Kurosawa, Takeshi Kitano, and Zatoichi films, and filmmakers of 1970s Japan, and Ive studied Judo and Karate, so it was an exciting idea. And I love writing female characters.
AD: Katana is part of the team in Birds of Prey where she comes off in some respects as this stereotypical idea of a demure, aloof Japanese womanalbeit one who is a trained assassin and sword-master. To what degree is her solo series an effort to look at her character in a different way?
AN: There is only so much characterization you can do in a group book. You can continually give characters beats, and explore the individuals through the shifting dynamic and power struggles of the group. In Birds Of Prey, Katana was aloof, and I liked that. She felt like a loner who is begrudgingly doing time with a group. And Katana does have the old-fashion traditions in her, from being raised in a traditional Japanese household, most likely not in an urban setting. Just like I was raised traditional Catholic in the suburbs: you can toss your early training to the side of the road as you take your own journey, but a lot of it sticks. Its there in your unconscious.
AD: What are the challenges unique to writing action sequences about sword-fighting?
AN: The action sequences begin with the nature of the weapon. In Katana #1 and #2, we introduce the Sword Clan, with Coil and Sickle. The Swords are an elite clan hiding behind legitimate wealth, interested in lineage, bloodline, money and power. In issue 3 we meet the Dagger Clan, who are lowborn thugs, interested in drinking and brawling. Then Katana heads to Japan, where she begins to meet some of the more ancient members of the Clans. Ive been giving the swordsmen weapons that fit their nature. The Daggers have nasty short swords, daggers that thrust and stab. Coil, who is a mastermind, loves his Coil Sword in that it can completely ensnare you. Its a very psychological sword. Sickle uses a cross between a scythe and a sickle, a farmers hay-cutter and deaths sword. Its a mythic, pagan notion to use a farmers sword, understanding the cycles of death, slicing down the hay. In Japan, Katana meets a sexy villainess who carries a rapier around her neck. What does that say about her? So the action sequences come out of how Katana, a solo fighter with her Soultaker, takes on these various weapons and clans. Of course, having Alex Sanchez on the book is what makes it work. His brilliance, his range and depth, is stunning. Issue #4 is jaw-dropping gorgeous.
AD: The other comic youre writing now is Catwoman and I read in an interview that youre a big fan of a character I love, Irma Vep, and that shes influenced your take on Catwoman.
AN: When I had a film magazine, Scenario, I published an unproduced screenplay by Edward Gorey, and when I was interviewing him we talked a lot about the influence of early filmmaker Louis Feuillade on Goreys work. Feuillade made Fantomas and the Les Vampires serials in the 1910s, and Irma Vep was a woman in a catsuit who snuck around and stole jewels. She was a bit like a ninja Catwoman. Then the French director Olivier Assayas re-made Feuillades Irma Vep (an anagram of vampire) with Maggie Cheung. So my early visual imprint of this vampy, catty ninja sneak thief comes from there. I like that mysterious, very German Expressionist archetype, matched with Selina Kyle, a sassy, liberated, urban girl who love clothes and parties.
AD: Catwoman is a great character because shes a thief who grew up in poor, very tough circumstances and has a class-based perspective, which is rare in comics and elsewhere. But she also has a sense of morality and honor, which makes her an accidental hero.
AN: I guess that could be called thieves honor. Why do some kids rise out of poor home situations to do well, and others dont? Ive worked with at-risk kids, poor kids, criminals. Some take what they get and develop a great sense of justice, others are monsters. I was an editor on Prison Life Magazine, and reading the stories of convicts and looking at their artwork was a little window into that kind of struggle. Selina Kyle was most likely a product of the state. Kinda like factory farming, kids from broken families get bounced from foster care to reform schools to juvie detention centers and many end up in prison. Raised by the state, with stints in the street. I was talking to my editor, Rachel Gluckstern about this accidental hero idea, and what kind of morals and honor Catwoman has, especially now that shes joined the Justice League, and we were reminded of a Bob Dylan quote: To live outside the law, you must be honest.
AD: Now because of current events in recent months, theres a lot of talk about violence and pop culture and theres violence in your stories and its integral, but its complicated. Its not always triumphant in the way that its portrayed in many comics. I think about how in martial arts, the goal isnt fighting. Related to that, Katana uses a sword, Catwoman has a whip, Green Arrow and Daredevil, two other character youve written, have unusual weapons.
AN: I think my work in comics is one long, ever-shifting treatise on violence, especially my run on Daredevil. The superhero genre itself is about having conflicts escalate into violence. You can do an issue here and there with conflict resolution that is non-violent, but mostly the fun is how the action plays out. Katana takes violence seriously. Shes highly trained, but has a long way to go before shes a master. And her mission is serious. Catwoman is looser about it. Shes got kleptomania, no amount of jewels can make her happy, shes got an action jones, just for the pure thrill of action. Im always very influenced by the artist, and in this case, Rafa Sandovals work has such intense joy and energy to it, I love how sometimes we just play: the big lug Catwoman fights in #18, its almost like Three Stooges violence. Sometimes the action is so wacky its like Tex Avery or Chuck Jones. Her fight with the Joker, on the other hand was brutal. Then she gets stuck in the Black Room and has an almost mystical level of violent action. The violence and action come out of the story. The Black Room is jam-packed with evil objectsso the violence is like something from hell. There are crazy surprises in issues #19-24, but during that time shes also going to get involved with some gritty street crime, with the Rat-Tails and the Vice and Murder squads at the Gothan PDHQ.
AD: Just to turn back the clock for a moment, you worked as an editor and writer for many years in comics and then you pretty much left the comics industry to go back to school and you worked a journalist, filmmaker, teacher, you edited High Times and other magazines, you worked in theater. Could you talk a little about what you did and why? You were successful and doing well and then in your thirties, changed tracks and did so very successfully.
AN: Thats a funny question. I definitely have an action jones, and Im a news junkie, so I was always off chasing stories, sometimes in extremely dangerous places. Perhaps Im just nave and stupid, I dont know. But also, there was a bit of a bellweather back then, that the arts were shifting. There have been seismic shifts in the music industry, the artworld, publishing. The agricultural age shifting into the industrial age was a shock for many workers. Now the computer age, the Internet age, is bringing radical paradigm changes in how the arts are produced, marketed, and where the profits come from. So I think to survive, now more than ever, one has to perfect the art of re-invention. Especially freelance artists, writers, filmmakers, musicians. These arent secure career choices, so you have to be flexible.
AD: Youve traveled a lot and spent time in Pakistan and Haiti, made a documentary about Baluchistan, taught film in LaplandI stand a little in awe of many of the things youve done. Does it make it easier to write about globe-trotting adventures, physical risk and accepting that as part of daily life in comics as someone whos done all these things?
AN: Yes, I think so. I was in China a few years ago, which wasnt dangerous so much as there was a creepy sense of being watched, of a surveillance society and a firewall that blocked much of the Internet. At the time I was writing Green Arrow, and he was pitched to me, in the New 52, as a young tech-savvy international playboy guy, so I had him get into a tech war with the Chinese. Chinas cyber attacks and surveillance culture has become big news. Of course, I proceeded to tear down Green Arrow and take all his money and toys away from him, but I found his arrogance hard to write without knocking him around a bit. The idea was to eventually give him the kind of bones and DNA of the Denny ONeil era social justice Green Arrow, but he just isnt there yet. Did that answer your question? Maybe not.
AD: So Katana has just launched, Catwoman is moving along. Do you have any other projects, in an out of comics that youre thinking about or plans for 2013?
AN: Im working on a film about Falcon hunting that I shot in Pakistan, still teaching Indigenous film, and working on a documentary to be shot in Haiti. Some of my early comic work, like Someplace Strange and the unpublished Jezebels Virtue will hopefully get republished. But for now, I am very happy writing Katana and Catwoman. I consider myself extremely lucky to be working with great artists and editors on two fantastic books.