Honey Badger, that would never happen. You also wrote that he’s like ‘The Punisher‘ villain Billy Russotti. So does this mean he’s like a criminal mastermind? No, it means that he wears an eye patch and takes care of sick puppies! Not only is that a horrible pun, it’s also untrue because he is not a supervillain, and he’s really not anything like him, either. He’s certainly got a lot of power at his fingertips, and he’s definitely got a lot of money because he just bought an entire country… but when you look at the comics and the cartoons he looks like kind of a guy who has his sh*t together, who has a few friends who he’s always hanging out with, and his girlfriend or ex-girlfriend or whatever and the rest of it. He just seems like a kid. What can you tell us about your relationship with the Punisher? Will you find common ground or do you come from completely different points of view? They’re kinda both the same thing. He just has a certain kind of way about him that [makes me think] “Why the f**k are you with that guy? I mean he’s got kind of an outlaw element to him, he’s also kinda a punk, but then he also has like a street tough kind of element to him, which reminds me a little bit of me when I was a kid… Did he just throw you off or did you write it into the script that he’s like you? No, I mean it’s more of how I wrote him. I didn’t really want him to be a character from the Marvel universe because I didn’t want him to be a superhero and I didn’t want him to be a villain… I wrote him to be kind of an anti-hero. Like the kind of guy you just don’t like… like somebody who’s not right in the head… a guy that could probably be very effective in some of the situations he might find himself in… you know he could work for the police force, he could do all kinds of stuff. This is actually the first time I’ve ever heard of anything besides Marvel and DC. So why do you think that is? When I was growing up, they were probably more popular than DC. They had more stuff and then once I really grew up and got into reading comics I was like “Oh yeah, Marvel is definitely the superior company.” I know a lot of people think that Batman is better than Superman, for example… and I totally disagree with that, but the reason I didn’t know about Punisher is because they just weren’t publishing stuff like that at that time. I kind of just forgot about it or something. Now that you’ve been asked to write the Punisher, what new info or ideas did you have? What kind of stuff did you come up with for him? The only thing I really wanted to do was to change him up a little bit and make him a little bit more likable and actually give him a reason to be doing this kind of work. He’s a character I never had the chance to really understand. He has this long-standing vendetta against the mob and I have a similar background so I kind of just wanted to talk about the kind of stuff I had going on. It’s kind of like this kid that did this thing and he just seems like he’s a good guy because even though he has these like revenge motivations, he doesn’t just sit around waiting for his enemies to fall into a trap like the Punisher does. He actually seems more like a revengeful bounty hunter or vigilante. How would you describe the style of his work? Because Punisher seems like he’s a little different from the rest of the X-Men cast and this Marvel world. He kind of stands out as this character that doesn’t really fit into the Marvel universe. If you looked at him just as a mercenary or a vigilante then he wouldn’t really look out of place, because he’s probably the kind of guy who could probably go into Hell’s Kitchen or something and get people to pay him to protect them and stuff… He’s this one-man justice league, and he’s a character who’s got a reputation in Hell’s Kitchen and all over the place. I wanted to give that to him, and I wanted to show that there’s really some stuff to him that could be talked about and I also wanted to show how hard he has had it and why he has to do this. You’re creating a lot of characters in the past and now you’re working on these new characters, what is the appeal of writing about a character that you might have to do a lot of research on, where it’s not just about someone in a costume beating up the bad guys? Well, I’m a big fan of the characters. That’s like one of the things that motivates me to write them, so it’s kind of like “Oh, now I get to make fun of this character I’ve always liked!” because I feel that I really know the history of these characters and where they come from… I also try to make sure that I’m not just being disrespectful. I do want to respect the original artists who worked on the stuff and you can still make fun of it, but just do it in a respectful way. It doesn’t have to be like some kind of slavish imitation. Your dialogue for him had a great sense of humor, and he’s actually funnier than some of the other Marvel characters. Would you be open to writing him in other mediums, like live-action or animation, at all? Yes, I’m hoping that he will. The funny thing is I’ve already had a meeting about it where they said they might be doing a film and they actually asked me. I’m pretty interested in developing him as a character. I want to try and see what he would be like in different mediums. I also kind of want to get into the process of what it takes to make one of these films, because that can be really hard. I’m kind of curious about what they have to go through to get this stuff made. Do you think the timing is right for this character? Obviously we’re a little bit past your Punisher, which I thought was a great Punisher story. There’s been so much that has been developed over the years and there’s a lot of stuff. I think it’s the perfect time to do something like this. I mean they might be able to set up one of the other Punishers, or they might want to do him one-on-one. I don’t know what it’ll be. It’s just an idea and I haven’t got any more than that. Do you think the Punisher will eventually evolve into a Marvel character? The more I’ve read about him, the more I think they might want to do something like that. I think that would be kind of cool. They should put together a list of like one-man villains or one-man gangs that have been around… there’s definitely enough characters out there to make that list and I think it would be really interesting to see one of the Punisher characters in an anthology or something. Maybe he could show up in one of the other Marvel books, and they can just leave it like that for an episode. I think that would be cool. They could just say “you know, a random guy named Bobby comes along and he has all these powers…” You are very specific in your stories, and with this new Punisher you might see the series evolve a little more in a new direction. What is the future of your Punisher? I want it to be the kind of thing that people can just enjoy. You don’t have to know everything about this guy. I want you to be able to pick it up and read it and figure out what’s going on without the need to know everything about this character. I just want to make sure that I don’t over-explain stuff, which is why the X-Men comics were so successful. You can pick up a comic and read it and be able to look back and say “Oh, that guy was just a bad dude! I totally didn’t know that!” but you didn’t feel like you’d be missing anything. There are some things in comics that you just have to know. You have to know the backstory and the history of the characters, but I would like to just keep it as simple as possible. I want people to be able to get into it. It’s sort of like when you do something in a movie. You don’t have to tell people who the bad guys are, you don’t have to tell them where they’re from, but when they come out they just sort of pop in your mind. I want it to be the same thing with the Punisher because there’s some stuff that you should know, but I want to make it clear to people that they don’t have to know. They just have to enjoy it… some people like to figure out what’s going on