As he began to write more he realized he would never have enough time to read that much material. Instead he would read just enough of the material to get the essence of who the character is.
“You have to know enough. You can’t just go in blind and make stuff up,“ he says. "You have to be grounded and read enough back story but a lot of hardcore comic book fans when they get into the business get obsessed with that thing that happened between panel two and three in that issue seven years ago. Eventually you sort of drop that and you start following the story.”
No matter what that story may be, DeMatteis still stresses that you still need to respect the tradition of that character. “You can’t suddenly turn Batman or Constantine into something they’re not but if you’re just writing the way they’ve always been it’s pointless. It’s boring.”
Well, to some degree they have to. Every character I write somehow reflects the truths of my psyche, in ways I often don’t realize. My Spider-Man isn’t Tom DeFalco’s isn’t Dan Slott’s. That said, there’s an ESSENCE of each character that has to remain. No matter who writes him, Peter Parker ihas to be…well, Peter Parker.
I think one of the main challenges of writing these characters is finding the place where our own unique voices and the voices of the character meet. And I hope that made sense!