CATCHING UP WITH GERRY CONWAY

[MattBrady]

by Zack Smith

Gerry Conway is one of the best-known comic book writers of the 1970s, whose works include the classic “Death of Gwen Stacy” in Amazing Spider-Man, and the creation of such characters as the Punisher, Man-Thing and Firestorm.

In more recent years, however, he’s become better-known as a writer and producer in the television industry, most recently on the NBC series Law & Order: Criminal Intent, which enters its sixth season on September. 19.

Newsarama recently spoke to Conway about his transition from comics to television, his work in animation, and what he plans to do next.

Newsarama: So you’re currently working on Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

Gerry Conway: Yes, but this will be my last year.

NRAMA: Why’s that?

GC: I’ve done it long enough – I want to move on to other things.

NRAMA: What do you plan to do next?

GC: I don’t know, that’s one of the exciting things. I might move onto another show, or create a new show of my own. I have a lot of ideas, and we’ll see where it goes.

NRAMA: What’s your current position on CI?

GC: Co-Executive Producer. What that means, on most shows, you’re in a supervisory capacity, sometimes working with other writers, working with production and directors on how the show will be interpreted, what the concept of the show is, what the show is about.

NRAMA: You’ve been with the franchise for quite awhile now. How did you get the Law & Order job?

GC: Basically, when I was on my way out of comics, feeling burned out and having not achieved what I wanted to achieve, I cast feelers with friends I knew who were connected in television.

Dean Hargrove, at that time producer of Matlock, Jake and the Fatman and Father Dowling Mysteries, hired me for Father Dowling, first to rewrite a script, then to write episodes, and finally as a producer. That established me in television, oddly enough, as a mystery writer.

I was brought in to [the 1994 CBS series] Under Suspicion because of my rep as a mystery writer. I became friends with a guy named Steve Smith, who was a co-executive producer, and he went on to do a show called New York Undercover, which was produced by Wolf Films [Law & Order creator Dick Wolf’s production company].

Steve was approached to work on the pilot for [Wolf’s 1997 series] Players, but suggested me for the project instead, based on my experience as a mystery writer. There, I met Ed Zuckerman, who became Executive Producer of the show, and later returned to work on Law & Order after Players was cancelled. He hired me to write an episode for Law & Order with him. That led to my working with Rene Balcer, who was show running Law & Order at that time. When Rene started on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, he brought me along.

It was a series of connections, from one job to another job, and that’s pretty much how it works in this business!

NRAMA: What’s working with Dick Wolf like?

GC: He’s a very smart guy who knows the business very well. It’s been an education in a lot of ways. I don’t work with him that closely, because he’s supervising three shows. I work more closely with Rene Balcer though.

NRAMA: How is working on Law & Order: Criminal Intent different from other shows?

GC: Every show reflects the individual showrunner’s personality and attitude toward collaboration. Rene has a very one-on-one approach, so he works on a writer on an individual episode, and that writer is responsible to Rene. On other shows, it’s a bunch of different people working on every episode

NRAMA: What episode have you written that you are the most proud of?

GC: I’m very proud of an episode called “Probability.” That was an episode where the murderer had Asperger’s Syndrome. I’m also proud of an episode called “Semi-Detached,” where Goran (Vincent D’Onofrio’s character), becomes emotionally attached to the murderer.

“Conscience,” where we discover a plastic surgeon who’s committing fraud, because her untrained assistant is performing the surgeries she’s incapable of performing herself, is another good one.

NRAMA: Speaking of the writing, Law & Order is famous for doing “Ripped From the Headlines” stories. How does that process work?

GC: Generally, our stories are based on news articles that intrigue us. We take those and play around with them to explore the unanswered questions, the motivations that never become clear in the news report. We try to flesh it out, and construct the characters and story around the actual case.

(“Conscience”) was based on a man who was performing plastic surgery without a license. He wound up killing someone, and got caught disposing of the body. We turned it into a story about a woman who, in order to get her parents’ approval, had to keep performing surgeries after she was physically incapable.

We combined that with a story about a heart surgeon with an untrained assistant. That sort of fleshes out the character of the piece, and provides another level of intrigue. Instead of a simple murder story, now there’s a deeper story about the motivation for the murder, and a mystery about who the actual murderer was.

There is one main storyline from a news article, and we draw in other storylines that provide subtext or contrast to the main story.

NRAMA: The show has undergone some creative changes (episodes alternate between D’Onofrio and Chris Noth, reprising his role as Mike Logan from the main show). Did that change the way you wrote stories?

GC: It did. The character Vincent D’Onofrio plays is a Sherlock Holmes, he’s very intellectual about how he solves a crime, he gets deeply into the psychology of the murderer.

The Chris Noth character, Logan, is more of a street cap, someone who’s brass tacks, “what do we know?” He goes by his street smarts, his instincts, his years as a cop. The way you tell the mystery and the way you solve the mystery is very different.

NRAMA: Purely fanboy question…have you thought about inserting a comic book reference into an episode, particularly a reference to Thor, seeing as Vincent D’Onofrio played a character mistaken for him in Adventures In Babysitting?

GC: I haven’t, and I’m sure Vincent wouldn’t enjoy it! (laughs) I do think my comic book background has had an influence in the way I tell the story and the choices I make, though I can’t be more specific. It’s a subconscious influence.

NRAMA: Was working in Hollywood always a goal for you?

GC: Yes. I started out writing comics as a teenager, but one of the earliest things I did was make 8-mm movies with my friends. I wanted to be a film writer or a television writer, but there was no career path to that.

I was also a huge comic book fan, I was excited to be writing comics, but I could not imagine myself a comic book writer at age 50, that didn’t seem to be a career plan, primarily because the business tends to chew up and spit out people over a certain age…similar to the film and television business, but here you have a better retirement plan.

NRAMA: Your first credited script is Fire and Ice for director Ralph Bakshi. How did that come about?

GC: My writing partner at the time was Roy Thomas, we’ve been friends for many years. We moved out to California within a few years of each other. My goal was to break into writing films and television, and Roy’s goal was to move away from New York. Bakshi was developing Fire and Ice with Frank Frazetta, and Bakshi was a comic book fan, so he felt it was natural to bring in comic book people…Roy in particular was known at the time for his sword and sorcery work.

NRAMA: The film was recently released on DVD. Have you seen it?

GC: You know, I haven’t seen it in a long time. We were both happy and unhappy with how it turned out. Basically, everything that’s in the movie is what we wrote, so we’re happy about that. But the movie represents about 2/3 of what we wrote, so we’re unhappy about that.

Ralph refused to let us cut it down for the length it needed to be. We had written a two hour film, and we knew that an animated film had to be eighty, ninety minutes at most. We kept saying to Ralph, “We need to cut this, we need to cut this, we need to cut this,” and he kept saying, “It’ll be fine, we’ll fix it in post.” So he ended up with a first cut that was way too long, and when he edited it down, he managed to eliminate all explanation of the plot, and it made the film incomprehensible.

So everything in the film is ours, but we wound up losing about 40 minutes of script – we lost the background of the characters, we lost the name of one of the characters, he was never named in the film, which wasn’t intentional, it was just clumsy. And we were very unhappy with that – it seemed like a film where characters ran back and forth, without motivation, and as a result, I don’t feel very connected to the picture.

NRAMA: In addition to Fire and Ice, you worked on a number of animated shows [including G.I. Joe, The Transformers, and The Centurions]. What are the differences between working in animation and live-action?

GC: There are a number of differences – in live action, you can write real characters with depth. That’s not to say you can’t do that in animation, but there was no incentive to do it in animation, back then, I can’t say it’s the same today, because the main incentive of those particular shows was to sell toys.

The toy companies drove the development. Writers could put in extra levels of character, but at the end of end of the day, it was a 30-minute advertisement. You could consider it an infomercial for toys. Some were better than others, but that’s what they ultimately were. I have a 10-year-old daughter, and the stuff she’s watching today is head-and-shoulders above the stuff we were doing 20 years ago, which is head-and-shoulders over what was being done 20 years before that, a natural progression.

NRAMA: You also worked on Batman: The Animated Series, was that experience similar?

GC: I did two of those, for Michael Reaves, the story editor. That was a good experience. One of the Batman stories I wrote was based on one of my favorite Batman stories by Denny O’Neil, “Appointment in Crime Alley,” I loved that story and wanted to pay homage to it. That was the only time I consciously used something from a comic book.

NRAMA: What have been the best shows you’ve worked on?

GC: The two best shows I’ve worked on are diametrically opposed in terms of style, tone, and the respect that they’re accorded by the community. Law & Order: CI, and Father Dowling.

I honestly think they’re the two best shows I’ve been involved with. CI is very stylish, with a very somber tone, and Father Dowling was frivolous, comedic and old-fashioned, and didn’t take itself very seriously. But both were very successful under the parameters under which they were working.

NRAMA: How do members of the cast and crew (of your shows) react when they find out about your comic work? Do some come onto the show as fans?

GC: I haven’t encountered that, but generally speaking, the comic book work has a “street cred” quality, because it’s outside the typical TV writer background. It makes it seem like I’m bringing something extra to the mix.

That’s different from 20-25 years ago, when I was first breaking into writing for TV and film. I found writing comics was a blessing and a curse, because people over a certain age felt that comics were kid’s stuff would use comics as a bludgeon, and say, that story’s too comic book-y. The credibility of comic book writers in film and television is much higher now than it was then.

A lot of people at the executive level read my work growing up, and relate at a fanboy level. They ask what it was like working at Marvel, and working with Stan Lee. I tell them the truth - that I worked with him a lot when I started at Marvel, and less as time worked on. He was kind of like Dick Wolf by the time I came in.

NRAMA: Would you say working in comics has helped your career in Hollywood?

GC: Absolutely.

NRAMA: Combining your worlds a little, did you see either the Punisher or Man-Thing films?

GC: No. For the Punisher, it’s kind of a painful experience. Painful on a creative level, because neither of the films called “The Punisher” is based on my character I created and wrote. In both cases, I think it was disastrous. And on a professional level, I don’t even get a credit as one of the character’s creators.

As for Man-Thing, my involvement was very small – I was one of the creators with Roy Thomas and Gray Morrow, but Steve Gerber is more responsible for the mystique of that character. Then again, I don’t get any credit on the screen, either, so…

NRAMA: If you could return to comics, would you?

GC: That’s something I’m asked in almost every interview, and I always say, Oh, I don’t know…it’d have to be the right project, and the right company, and it’d have to be something I was enthusiastic about. I don’t know if I could, to be honest. The kind of comics that are done these days, I don’t know if they’re the kind of thing that my writing would be compatible with.

[kalorama]

I think Conway is one of the the most underrated comic writers of his era. I grew up reading his stuff and, to this day, he's one of my favorite Batman writers. The stuff he did on Detective with Don newton and Dan Adkins was topnotch.

[CodeGuy]

That was a very interesting interview. He was very forthright about the kinds of work he's done in the past, especially the animated work.

I'd like to hear more about how he feels that comics today might not match his writing style. I think a lot of writers from previous eras don't adapt well. However, his experience on shows like Law and Order makes it seem like he'd be one of the ones who'd be able to adapt. Very interesting.

[Aquajacket]

There are a handful of writers that I can honestly say are the reason I read comics today. Gerry Conway is one of them.

[SaturnKnight]

If I'm not mistaken, the original Justice League of America trilogy that was the basis for Identity Crisis was written by Gerry Conway.

Besides his well-known work on The Amazing Spider-Man, Conway is also the co-creator of DC's Vixen and the guy who wrote the vastly underrated Atari Force.

I had no idea he was working on Law & Order. That's wonderful news. I'm happy to hear he's doing well. His work for DC was a big part of my childhood and adolescence, particularly the Detroit Justice League which I always loved. Best wishes to him and continued success here in Hollywood.

[dlfurman]

Agreed. Very interesting interview.

What struck me as very curious was the line where he didn't want to be fifty and (known) as a comic book writer. Granted, the time he broke into Hollywood, the stigma on comics only being for the kiddies was serious obstacle to overcome.

Too bad the interviewer didn't ask Mr. Conway about the recent influx of "Hollywood" types coming into the comic-book business and what he thinks of that.

[Andrew.T]

It's nice to see the industry has not forgotten one of the best writers in the business. Gerry is responsible for creating some of the most memorable stories and is one of the creators of my favorite character, Firestorm The Nuclear Man, along with another industry great (also working with Starlin on the current Mystery In Space!), Al Milgrom!

The industry misses you -- at least this reader does!

[Andrew.T]

What a hoot!

Yes!

Gerry DID write those JLA issues, 166-168, the Great Switcheroo, of which Identity Crisis was based! That JLA story is THE BEST JLA story I've ever read! What fun!

And yes, Conway and Garcia Lopez DID do the 1st 12 issues of Atari Force and the funny thing is -- I'M REREADING THAT RUN RIGHT NOW!

Last night, I just finished the issue where Morphea rescues Tempest from the clutches of Dark Destroyers minion, Psyklops -- the maniac who feeds off the pain of his victims! I think it was issue #8!

What a GREAT run! As I was reading, I said to myself, could you believe this was based on the Atari video games of the 80's? Conway did such an incredible job, the stories hold up even today.

Timeless, brilliant stuff.

And what a team -- Martin Champion, Tempest, Dart, Babe, Morphea, Packrat, Blackjack... they don't make 'em like they used to boys!

[CodeGuy]

Originally Posted by dlfurman

What struck me as very curious was the line where he didn't want to be fifty and (known) as a comic book writer. Granted, the time he broke into Hollywood, the stigma on comics only being for the kiddies was serious obstacle to overcome.

I don't think that's what he meant. Here's what he said:

I was also a huge comic book fan, I was excited to be writing comics, but I could not imagine myself a comic book writer at age 50, that didn’t seem to be a career plan, primarily because the business tends to chew up and spit out people over a certain age…similar to the film and television business, but here you have a better retirement plan.

It sounds to me like he didn't want to *be* a comic writer at 50, not that he was concerned with being known as one. I think he was mainly referring to how young most people in the industry are.

[SaturnKnight]

Originally Posted by Andrew.T

It's nice to see the industry has not forgotten one of the best writers in the business. Gerry is responsible for creating some of the most memorable stories and is one of the creators of my favorite character, Firestorm The Nuclear Man, along with another industry great (also working with Starlin on the current Mystery In Space!), Al Milgrom!

The industry misses you -- at least this reader does!

Oh, duh! How could I forget he co-created Firestorm?!

Conway is the writer most closely associated with the character, ever.

I'm so embarassed; please forgive my sin, Gerry!

[Kolimar]

Originally Posted by dlfurman

Agreed. Very interesting interview.

Yep.

Originally Posted by dlfurman

What struck me as very curious was the line where he didn't want to be fifty and (known) as a comic book writer. Granted, the time he broke into Hollywood, the stigma on comics only being for the kiddies was serious obstacle to overcome.

That's what I thought.

Originally Posted by dlfurman

Too bad the interviewer didn't ask Mr. Conway about the recent influx of "Hollywood" types coming into the comic-book business and what he thinks of that.

Stop stealing my thoughts!!

[SaturnKnight]

Originally Posted by Andrew.T

What a hoot!

Yes!

Gerry DID write those JLA issues, 166-168, the Great Switcheroo, of which Identity Crisis was based! That JLA story is THE BEST JLA story I've ever read! What fun!

And yes, Conway and Garcia Lopez DID do the 1st 12 issues of Atari Force and the funny thing is -- I'M REREADING THAT RUN RIGHT NOW!

Last night, I just finished the issue where Morphea rescues Tempest from the clutches of Dark Destroyers minion, Psyklops -- the maniac who feeds off the pain of his victims! I think it was issue #8!

What a GREAT run! As I was reading, I said to myself, could you believe this was based on the Atari video games of the 80's? Conway did such an incredible job, the stories hold up even today.

Timeless, brilliant stuff.

And what a team -- Martin Champion, Tempest, Dart, Babe, Morphea, Packrat, Blackjack... they don't make 'em like they used to boys!

Atari Force was one of DC's buzz books in the early 80s and justifiably so. Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez did some of the very best work of his career on that book. It still reads well--a good scifi action team book. And yes, the cast was indeed stellar!

[Kolimar]

Originally Posted by SaturnKnight

I had no idea he was working on Law & Order. That's wonderful news. I'm happy to hear he's doing well.

You would have known if you had been been reading the right thread: Comic book creators and their work in other fields. What do you think?

Shame on you, Jer.

[Kevin T. Brown]

Originally Posted by kalorama

I think Conway is one of the the most underrated comic writers of his era. I grew up reading his stuff and, to this day, he's one of my favorite Batman writers. The stuff he did on Detective with Don newton and Dan Adkins was topnotch.

Yes, that's probably the best and most underrated runs of all time....

[Stratocaster]

GC: Basically, when I was on my way out of comics, feeling burned out and having not achieved what I wanted to achieve, I cast feelers with friends I knew who were connected in television.

This comment compels the question: What did Conway want to achieve in comics and why does he think he failed to achieve it? It would be fascinating to hear his answer to this question.

[Comic-Reader]

Gerry isn't one of my favorite writers, but I did like some of his stuff.

In addition to what's been said above, Gerry, a huge Supergirl fan, developed two Supergirl analogues of his own:

- Power Girl for DC in 1975 and

- Ms. Marvel for Marvel in 1976

Although the Power Girl character was created by Joe Orlando and Wally Wood, Gerry wrote those early appearances in All-Star Comics (the "Super Squad") which developed her character and personality.

As for his JLA run, it had its hits and misses, but no one can deny its impact. He wrote pretty much all issues between 151 to the end of the series. Much of the issues up until 200 were good, some very good. After that, he mostly lost his way. The Detroit League had its good points, but the lineup felt inappropriate for a JLA team. However, the last arc where a revamped Despero kills Vibe and Steel was good.

[holtom2000]

ahem. justice league nerd here. it was ivo, not despero. and I think demaittes wrote that arc
the league, mainly vibe and gypsy, destroyed despero when bats came back.
fond memories of justice league detroit
great justice league writer no doubt about it

[creatorman]

The Crime Alley episode he mentions is one of my most memorable ones from Batman: TAS. Would be cool if he developed a dark and gritty comic book character into a TV series, or even create one of his own. Imagine Imagine...

[s05bf0d4]

Does anybody else agree that Gerry Conway's work on Spidey is the best run so far? The guy took many risks that todays writers are too afraid to do.He killed off Gwen Stacy, introduced some of my favourite characters in comics as well as killing off many other Spider-man villains (it was the writers after him that brought them all back). Let's hope Conway comes back to writing Spider-man some day.

[gwangung]

Originally Posted by CodeGuy

It sounds to me like he didn't want to *be* a comic writer at 50, not that he was concerned with being known as one. I think he was mainly referring to how young most people in the industry are.

Well, not quite. It's that, as Conway sees it, ANY entertainment industry chews up and spits out creators rather quickly. At the time he broke in, you'd get paid far more in Hollywood than you would in comics.

Not that people will pay attention; they'll just distort his words so they can grind their favorite axe.

[christosgage]

Gerry's episode about the guy with Asperger's was the best CI I've seen. The first thing a lot of comics industry people ask me when they hear I wrote for Law & Order SVU is "Do you know Gerry?" (Answer: unfortunately no, different shows/different offices.) He is still highly regarded by a lot of folks in comics and I suspect would be welcome back should he ever decide to try it...and I hope he does!

[Simon DelMonte]

Originally Posted by Stratocaster

This comment compels the question: What did Conway want to achieve in comics and why does he think he failed to achieve it? It would be fascinating to hear his answer to this question.

I suspect he wouldn't care to say much about this, but I do recall that he left his two DC books, JLA and Firestorm, quite abruptly shortly after Crisis and before Legends. i would guess that something happened at this point that made him reconsider his career. It was a shock to see him just leave two books he'd been with for years.

[Andrew.T]

G-Money!

That's what I should call Gerry because anything he wrote, got my money!

As someone else stated, I wonder what Gerry wanted to achieve in comics that he feels he didn't.

His run on JLA was one of the greatest. Pure excellence. To date, no one has been able to top his JLA stories in my mind.

Spider-Man, I agree, I liked Gerry's run on Spiderman probably better than any other writer who has been associated with the character.

And Firestorm, Wow. Just Wow.

As a kid, he had me hooked. I remember one of the very first comics I ever bought was Firestorm # 3, first series and it was just bang, bang, bang --- brilliant from start to finish. As a young reader, I felt that he understood teenages and what they go through in school. It's what got me hook, line and sinker into comics. It was almost as though he was speaking directly to the reader -- he understood his audience and knew how to keep them screaming for more.

The whole concept of Firestorm was just brilliance. The idea of two characters merging into one where one manages the corporeal body and the other, a teacher / professor is the conscience really hit home. As a kid, it made me listen to my own inner voice a whole lot more.



He and Milgrom just 'got' the whole concept down pat. I still remember issue #5 and there being no #6, his appearance in DC Presents #17 and then hooking him into JLA before blasting off into his own book. The whole Conway Firestorm run was just a smorgasborg of fun, imagination and wonder. To date, the only other comic which still resonates as strongly as Firestorm to me was Wolfman and Perez's New Teen Titans.

Gee, those were the creators who were able to craft original stories, grab the kids without speaking down to them like most of the young readers comics do and keep them coming back for more. Maybe if they got more creators like Conway working, they might be able to start ringing kids back into the medium.

God, what I wouldn't give to get Conway and Milgrom back on the REAL Firestorm.

With all the joy his work brought to readers, what more could a creator ask for, or want?

[MShivers]

Not to downplay Gerry's Silver / Bronze Age achievements, but I'm actually a fan of his work on Spectacular Spider-Man and Web of Spider-Man in the late-80's early 90's. His character development of Robbie Robertson and Glory Grant was phenominal.... it's a crying shame that future Spider-Writers have never built further upon those foundations.

- Michael

[nightwingoracle]

I loved Conway's BATMAN/DETECTIVE tales of the '70s/'80s, and I enjoyed most of his JLA stuff as well.

I also loved his FURY OF FIRESTORM!!