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Doesn’t matter if it’s personal or professional, a good partnership takes work.

Brian K. Vaughan

My mom once told me that a good relationship isn’t where the other person makes you feel better, but where they make *you* better.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Better Feel Good Mom Relationship
I remember seeing Stand by Me, when I was around 12, and just feeling like, “This is so refreshing to see kids swear and smoke cigarettes like my friends.” It just felt much more real than the Sesame Street version of childhood that I’d been spoon-fed.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Childhood Friend Kids Real Refresh
After 9/11, I knew I wanted to write about power and identity and the way Americans on all sides of the political spectrum often mythologize our leaders, which are themes that the superhero genre has always handled really well.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Leader Superhero Writing
The longer I’ve been writing scripts, the more I find that you have to give the artist more leeway or else you’ll just be disappointed. You can’t force them to draw every image that’s in your head.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Artist Giving Writing
I’ve always thought of fantasy as a genre of best-case scenarios, and horror as a genre of worst-case scenarios.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Case Fantasy Horror Scenario Worst
We’ve all seen lots of stories about a young protagonist having adventures, and usually they’re all boys, [and] there is sometimes a token female, or two.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Adventure Boys Female Two
That was the appealing thing about comics: There literally is no budget in comics. You’re only limited by your imagination.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Budgets Comic Imagination
I like things that are weirdly imaginative and couldn’t be real, but I also like stories that are recognizable and relatable.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Imaginative Real Stories
I write the book for one person – for Fiona [Staples, the artist]. I spend a lot of time just thinking how she’ll react to things and manipulating her into drawing perverse, horrific things. It’s a really weird job but I enjoy it.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Books Jobs Manipulate Thinking Writing
Adaptations are great, but for me, comics have always been the destination, not a stepping-stone to get somewhere else.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Adaptation Comics Destination Great Stepping
I’m not afraid of the world. I’m afraid of a world without you.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Afraid Love Without World
I’m 40 now, and I have children of my own. Before I forget my own childhood completely, I want to take some time to take a look at the ’80s and think back.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Before Children Forty Now Think
Next up, I’m going to grow a big, disgusting beard, just so people will start talking about Alan Moore and me in the same breath.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Breathe Disgusting Next People Same
I grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland in 1988 and there was just one year where suddenly all of the delivery kids that used to be boys were suddenly girls. It happened at our church too. Altar boys were suddenly altar girls.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Boys Girl Happen Kids Suddenly
Doesn’t matter if it’s personal or professional, a good partnership takes work.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Good Matter Partnership
I know I’m a grumpy old man, but I’m always more delighted by readers talking about the actual comics than people talking about how eager they are to have their favorite comics be “elevated” into another medium.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Adaptation Men People
I mean, do you know what you get when you call a suicide hotline in New York city? A busy signal. Literally.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Country Mean People Suicide
We describe [Paper Girls] as Stand By Me meets Terminator.It’s a story about nostalgia and childhood, but with an action-packed, sci-fi bent.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Childhood Girl Stand
Every issue, the characters and I duke it out. They usually win.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Character Issues Winning
Some people are haunted by their pasts, but not my family. I mean, how can you be haunted by something that never really dies?
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Mean Past People
Pacifists are like vegans, I’m more of a vegetarian. I enjoy fish and occasional maulings.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

More Occasional Pacifist Vegeterian
Immigration confuses and terrifies me, so why not try to write a comic and make some sense of it?
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Immigration Trying Writing
The appealing thing about comics: There literally is no budget in comics. You’re only limited by your imagination.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Comics Imagination Limited
I don’t start a story until I know where it’s going to end.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Book Comic Ends Stories
It was interesting looking back at the ’80s and trying to find newspaper headlines from the time – the cliché of history repeating itself.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

History Interesting Itself Repeats Trying
A comic script is basically a love letter from you to your artist.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Artists Letters Scripts
After ten years of toiling away in Hollywood, I realized that there’s no better place for new ideas than comics.
BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Hollywood Ideas Years

Doesn’t matter if it’s personal or professional, a good partnership takes work.

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Doesn’t matter if it’s personal or professional, a good partnership takes work.

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