When I started out as a novelist, I thought I was going to be a private-eye writer. That was my intent, and that's what I studied, I mean, scholarly.

When I was in high school, I started writing a serial novel, longhand, set in the Arthurian mythos, and influenced not incidentally by Marion Zimmer Bradley's 'The Mists of Avalon.'

My college senior thesis was going to be on the American private investigator.

I think when you're working with a character that another writer is acting as - for lack of a better word - custodian of, your obligation as a professional is to not do anything that violates that 'primary' take.

I think that Batman loses his efficacy and mythology if he's got too many people around him. That's what the Justice League is for, you know what I mean?

Fear is one of the elements of nonlethal weaponry. You're going to get hurt, and you don't want to get hurt. Pepper spray hurts. You don't want to be sprayed. That's why it's a useful deterrent as a nonlethal weapon - I'm not advocating spraying people randomly.