Comic Addiction Talks To… Sean McKeever
Interview by Antony Ellis
May 5, 2008

I was recently very lucky enough to get to chat with current Teen Titan scribe Sean McKeever who took time out of his busy writing schedule for DC to speak with me about future projects, Final Crisis and his spectacularly successful “gateway” comic, Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane.

Comic Addiction:  Thank you for agreeing to talk with us Sean.  Firstly, I’d like to start where we usually do with all our guests and ask how they began reading comic books, particularly superhero books?

Sean McKeever:  I was three, and my parents bought me a Spider-Man comic from the pharmacy because I apparently wanted it really badly. That was Amazing Spider-Man #149, which began a lifelong love of comics.

Comic Addiction:  Obviously a lot of your highest profile work, until very recently has been with Marvel, were you primarily a Marvel reader?

Sean McKeever:  Oh, yeah. Definitely. I mean, I’d read some Archie and Richie Rich and stuff, and the rare Superman or Batman, but it was all Spider-Man. I probably didn’t read any Marvels outside of Amazing, Spectacular and Marvel Team-Up until 1980 or so. I branched out some when the first Secret Wars came out, and then I branched out big time for Secret Wars II, buying every single crossover. As for DC, I suppose it was 1986, with The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore’s “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” when I first took an interest there.

Comic Addiction:  You’re now writing DC’s Teen Titans – did you follow that book when you were younger?

Sean McKeever:  No, I didn’t at all. Whenever I was at the newsstand, I’d stare at the covers, all fascinated, but it was so alien to me that I never cracked it open. It wasn’t until college, during the Wolfman/Grummett years, that I tried the series out, and I quite liked it. I stuck around until #100.

Comic Addiction:  Can you give us a little insight as to who your favourite characters were back in the day and what it felt like to be writing some of the big name characters now?

Sean McKeever:  As I mentioned, Spider-Man has always been number one. Getting to write him in dozens of comics has really been a dream come true. Writing Dr. Doom (in Marvel Adventures Spider-Man and Megamorphs) was a huge trip for me. I was also pretty geeked to write Batman, however briefly, in Teen Titans, and most recently, dialoguing Darkseid in Countdown.

Comic Addiction:  Who were some of your influences in regards to comic book writing and why?

Sean McKeever:  They’re mostly guys from the 90s, when I really set my mind to writing comics. Kurt Busiek, Garth Ennis, J.M. DeMatteis, Peter David and Warren Ellis were pretty big inspirations. Paul Jenkins was a huge influence. He actually edited the hell out of my earliest scripts and has always been very helpful and encouraging to me.

Comic Addiction:  Would you care to shed some light on how you got into the industry?

Sean McKeever:  It feels like it was a very long road to get to where I am today. I sent my first-ever pitch to Marvel when I was 13 or 14, and then started seriously pitching after college. It wasn’t until I realized that I should try writing stories that had nothing to do with characters I didn’t own that I got any traction. I started getting published in Negative Burn in 1995, and then began The Waiting Place in 1997.

Despite the acclaim I was getting, it still took until 2000 for me to get paying work, which was at Marvel, co-writing The Incredible Hulk with Paul Jenkins. Paul’s a friend and mentor and knew I wanted to work for Marvel, and it turned out editor Tom Brevoort was a regular reader of The Waiting Place, so it was a combination of perseverance, contacts and timing.

Comic Addiction:  Quite embarrassing to admit for a twenty-something male to admit, but I’m a huge fan of teen dramas on TV, and looking at your work with The Waiting Place, Mary Jane and now Teen Titans it seems like you enjoy to write this genre.  Are you a fan of TV shows of this nature and why do you feel you succeed in writing believable teenagers?

Sean McKeever:  I really have a hard time watching stuff like Dawson’s Creek and Gossip Girl and the like. It all comes off as very manufactured and phony to me. Gives me the willies. The only TV show like those I ever really enjoyed was Freaks & Geeks, because it had a certain undeniable sincerity to it.

I’m not really sure why I gravitate to the teen genre; it’s something I contemplate quite a bit. I think it’s just a great Petri dish of humanity, that coming-of-age time, that it makes for great drama. Teens are still far more malleable and vulnerable to change; it’s both very exciting and very scary.

Comic Addiction:  One of your huge achievements in the industry is the Mary Jane and Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane series.  I recently handed these to my fourteen year old sister who had never read a comic book before and she’s now hooked!  So thank you for that!  Was that an aim you had in mind?  To get people who don’t normally read comic books into the format?

Sean McKeever:  That was an aim Marvel had. Really, when I dive into writing a series, I’m not thinking about that stuff; I’m just trying to write compelling stories about interesting characters. But there is definitely a certain extra joy in writing “outreach comics” and hearing stories like yours. I love it.

Comic Addiction:  How did you come up with idea for Mary Jane?  Were you a fan of old school romance comics?

Sean McKeever:  I’ve never really read those old romances, believe it or not. With Mary Jane, it was Marvel who came to me, presumably based on my track record with The Waiting Place and Sentinel and Inhumans. They wanted an out-of-continuity series starring MJ, with Spidey as a supporting character, and with the help of editor MacKenzie Cadenhead, I took that basic concept and ran with it.

Comic Addiction:  What was your idea behind Sentinel also?

Sean McKeever:  That was another where Marvel came to me. Then-editor Marc Sumerak had an idea for a series about a kid who finds a beat-up Sentinel and salvages it for his own purposes, and I took his idea and pitched it. As opposed to Mary Jane, where they came to just me, this was a pitch-off with several other writers.

As an aside, I was also in a pitch-off for Inhumans with Tom Breevort at the helm, and that was a bit more open in terms of series concept. In the same week, I found out that I won both pitch-offs. That was one of the best moments of my life.

Comic Addiction:  Awesome!  Speaking of awesomeness, Mystique was another great book that you worked on.  How did you feel when the title was cancelled?  I feel it was one of the casualties on the cull of X-Books and was really unjustified.  Did you have further plans for the title?

Sean McKeever:  It was really unfortunate. Through no fault of anyone’s I had to spend some time tying up Brian Vaughan’s main plotline, which was the identity of The Quiet Man.  So, while I did feel I got to put Mystique on a path I was happy with, focusing more on her shifty personality and terrorist past, I didn’t really get to usher in my longer-term plans. I had intended to make the book a sort of “Mystique vs. The World,” with mutants, humanity, everyone wanting her out of the picture, and her pursuing her own ends of mutants before humans, no matter the cost. It would most definitely have been a dark book.

Comic Addiction:  You won an Eisner in 2005 – how much did that rock?

Sean McKeever:  That was pretty surreal. I remember going to my first Eisners ceremony in 1994, and not once did it occur to me in my wildest dreams that I’d be up on that stage.

Comic Addiction:  Can you give us a little insight in how the switch from Marvel to DC came about?  What was it about the opportunity that was compelling enough to go exclusive?

Sean McKeever:  Mike Marts, who I’d worked with on Mystique, and also a few projects that have yet to see the light of day, went over to DC from Marvel. I was in New York and visited him at DC’s offices and he introduced me around. A couple months later I was asked to join the writing team for Countdown, and then I was offered the exclusive. At the time, I felt I was getting lost in the shuffle at Marvel and many of the projects I had set up were being knocked back down for one reason or another, so I took DC’s deal.

Comic Addiction:  You started on Birds of Prey but soon had to drop writing that title.  What were the reasons behind this?

Sean McKeever:  I had started on Teen Titans with very little lead time. I was behind schedule from the start, and with Countdown and getting up and running on Teen Titans, by the time I got to Birds I was even further behind schedule. I found it very difficult to justify working on another series when I had to really get cranking on the other, so the result was I wound up behind on both and got really stressed out by that and had to bow out.

Comic Addiction:  What was it like writing a huge project like Countdown with numerous other creators?  After the success of 52, did you feel the extra pressure?

Sean McKeever:  I didn’t really feel all that much pressure because I had a very specific job, which was to focus on the storytelling. The plot was already there for me, so it was actually somewhat freeing.

Comic Addiction:  What are some of your favourite books at DC right now?  Are you excited for Final Crisis?

Sean McKeever:  I am super stoked for Final Crisis, as well as Geoff’s Legion of Three Worlds story. I’m not a huge Legion guy, but reading his interviews about it make me smile. Right now, I’m really enjoying Action, Batman, Batman and the Outsiders, Wonder Woman and Blue Beetle. I’m sure I’m forgetting one or two regular joys.

Comic Addiction:   Is Titans going to be involved in Crisis?  How does an event like that affect the writing on a regular title?

Sean McKeever:  We’ll be touching on an element of Final Crisis in Titans, but it won’t be anything so significant that you could truly call it a “tie-in.” Dan has wanted to ensure that the monthlies are doing their own thing, and doing it well, as much as possible during Crisis.

Comic Addiction:  And what’s Dan Didio like as an editor on Titans?  Is very he hands on?

Sean McKeever:  He’s very involved with story. A huge majority of the direction and stories are from me, but he’s there to challenge me and throw ideas at me and to guide me. It’s a really great collaboration, I feel.

Comic Addiction:  Would you like to share with us some future work you’ll have from DC?

Sean McKeever:  I’ve got a Terror Titans mini-series starting in September, spinning out of the current Teen Titans arc, with art by Joe Bennett. Other than that, it’s Teen Titans all the way.

Comic Addiction:  Are there any DC or Marvel character’s you’d love to get your hands on?  I’d personally love for you to come back over to Marvel and write either the Young Avengers or the New X-Men.  Did you read these books?

Sean McKeever:  I read and enjoyed both those series, sure. But I don’t really think so much about characters I’d love to tackle anymore; Spider-Man was number one by a huge margin, and I got to write a few dozen comics with him in them, which was a true joy. I will say, though, that I’d someday like to write Batman, and that I also think I could do a great Cloak & Dagger.

Comic Addiction:  Are you doing the convention circuit this year – if so, where are you gonna be?

Sean McKeever:  I’ve got a couple small shows in May: one in Oconomowoc, WI, and one in the Cleveland area. I’ll be at WizardWorld Chicago in June. Outside of that, nothing’s for certain yet, but I’m looking at the Toronto FanExpo and Baltimore.

Comic Addiction:   Great speaking with you Sean.  Thank you very much for your time.

Sean McKeever:  My pleasure.