HEROES: Who Is David Golightly?
DAVID GOLIGHTLY: I'm recently married to a fantastic woman who loves me regardless of the obsession I hold for comics and fanfic. I'm the PSA Director for my company, where I'm also an audio producer and radio host for two stations. Gee, it sounds so fancy when I type it out like that.
H: What's Your Background?
DG: I have a degree in rhetoric with a special in journalism. Radio sucked me in before I graduated college and I'm glad it did. My writing background is largely in journalism, as I haven't done any professional writing otherwise. Nothing published here that paid (well). The occasional short story or article, but nothing to really write home about.
H: Where Do You Live?
DG: For now I'm living in a town called Ebensburg, Pennsylvania. It's small and quiet. It's almost exactly between where both my wife and I work, so it was a compromise living here, although not a bad one. Winter sucks bigtime here, especially for the elevation.
H: What's Your Philosophy of Writing?
DG: Write for yourself, not for what you think people want to read. Let them be the judge of what they want to read...who are you to tell them? Sure, shout from the highest mountain how awesome your shit is, but don't expect everyone to love it. Plow through the blockage, put words on paper, and eventually you'll find something that is exactly right for you. I firmly believe that writing is a personal experience, and not necessarily one that needs be shared.
H: Why Fan Fiction?
DG: I was bored one day. Seriously. I was at a point where I had hours to kill every day, and I wanted to get back into writing. Using someone else's characters, especially ones I loved growing up, seemed more fun than burning out on my own original stuff. I'm angling back to the original works now, but without the exercise that is fanfic, it would be total garbage.
H: You wear two hats: Editor and Writer. Which one is harder?
DG: Writer, no doubt about it. As an editor all you have to do is cross the T's and dot the I's of someone else's work. It's much easier to be objective and say, "This doesn't work, and here's why!" Do that to yourself and you're more likely to start second guessing everything you scribble. Which some people enjoy, I'm sure. I don't. That's why I plow through my writing. If there's a continuity error I write in something to the plot later to fix it.
H: HEROES FOR HIRE at Marvel2000 was your first fan fiction series. What did you learn from that experience?
DG: That mixing original characters with established ones is not recommended. I roll my eyes when re-reading that stuff. It was sooo obvious what I was doing in that series, and I can't believe I let myself do it. On the positive side, I did learn more about team dynamics. An ensemble cast is fun to play with but sometimes the multiple subplots get away from me.
H: Do you think you'll ever return to HEROES FOR HIRE? It was a well-recieved series, after all and both Luke Cage and Danny Rand are very popular characters.
DG: think about it a few times a month. I left a few plots threads dangling when I left the title that I toy with going back to. Luke Cage was a ton of fun to write, and I see why people like him so much. If I did go back, it would probably just be to tie up those loose ends. I hate loose ends. It doesn't seem fair of me to leave baggage behind for someone else to pick up.
H: You wrote seven issues of THE FLASH for DCInfinity. What made you decide to write a character that is about as far as you can get from Power Man and Iron Fist?
DG The Flash is my favorite comics character. A lot of my writing is inspired by Mark Waid (amongst others like Grant Morrison and Alan Moore), and it was Waid that got me back into comics. I read comics when I was a kid, but got out of them around the time of the rediculous Spider-Man Clone Saga. My brother took me to a collectibles store in downtown Pittsburgh one Saturday, and I wondered into the comic area to see how much had changed with some characters. I grabbed a Waid issue of Flash, loved it, and started collecting again. When Mike Hintze was recruiting to launch DCI I demanded Flash right away.
H: You and Cory Wiegel worked together on a bunch of X-FORCE issues for Marvel2000. Was that the first time you collaborated with another writer?
DG: Wow, you did some digging! I didn't think many people knew about that since we only did it to make way for a new writer. We had a ton of fun working on that project. Cory plotted and I scripted. And yes, it was the first real collaboration like that for me. David Wheatley had left the site and his X-Force plots needed tied up. Cory asked, I answered.
H: What particular issues/problems do you face as a writer in trying to wrap up dangling plot threads left over from another writer's run?
DG: In a way, it's easier to tie off someone else's work, for much the same reasons I said it's easier to be an editor than a writer. There's a goal and you already have the groundwork laid down for you. The only problem is figuring out how to get there.
H: Being a major pulp fanatic one of my favorite characters is THE SHADOW and I loved the four issues you did for JLU2001. Why The Shadow? Especially since I suspect most fan fiction readers have little interest in pulp characters.
DG: I love pulp characters. It's the whole tone of the writing. You get a real larger than life feeling from pulp stories, and that is the kind of escapism I strive for. The Shadow is possibly the coolest pulp character there is. I watched the Alec Baldwin film version of The Shadow and decided that I just had to write it. The imagery was too great not to try out. I wrote the first two issues before I even had a site for it to be hosted at! By the way, I wrote the fifth issue a few months ago and sent it to the editor, so next update it should be ready for reading.
H: You seem to delight in moving back and forth between Marvel and DC characters. Do you have a preference?
DG: Marvel, mainly because the characters are more relatable. It depends on the mood I'm in. I see Marvel as the more modern approach to heroes and DC as a more classic approach. When I sit down to work on a fresh issue of something, the mood I'm in determines the universe I play with.
H: One of the more ambitiously creative fan fiction projects of recent years is the site that you and Bowie Sessions created: SECRET ORIGINS OF THE JUSTICE LEAGUE. Tell us how you guys came up with the concept and can we hope for new stories soon?
DG: I'm trying to remember the exact sequence of events for how that came about. Doug Bookey was going to launch an Ultimate DC site, and I was interested in working on something for it. I decided on Green Arrow and worked up a prop for around six issues. I had met Bowie through another site (2099UGR? That sounds right. He has a better memory than me) and we got to talking about an Ultimate Justice League book. Eventually, we had all these strict plans for multiple characters that we really didn't want to meddle with a group site. So we started our own. When Bowie got shipped out due to being in the military, the momentum died way down for Secret Origins and never bounced back. I doubt I'll write anything there anytime soon.
H: THE VAULT at Marvel2000 was another series of yours that gained much deserved praise for it's unique look at supervillains. Was that a difficult series to write?
DG: It was difficult in the sense that there were roadblocks to it being initially released. First Mike Exner III (an EiC at the site at the time) wanted proof that I could swing it. So, I sent a single scene to him, which ended up being the cold open for the first issue. Then, before the series could even hit the 'net, I had to wait for certain elements to transpire in Chris Munn's Thunderbolts title. He was originally going to use a scene I wrote as a preview to the new series. Chris finally said to just go with it and the first issue was finally released. Now I only get an issue out every few months, but that's due to time constraints. I have big plans for The Vault, I swear. I just need more hours of daylight.
H: You're an Editor at Marvel2000 and you're also the editor of your own Marvel fan fiction site, Marvel Knights. Do you ever feel conflicted in that dual role?
DG: Not especially. I'll admit that I give more energy to M2K than I do the MKG, but that's because the Marvel Knights Group is way smaller and much more contained. M2K is large enough that it's taken on a life of it's own, but the MKG is my baby. I'm much more selective about who I let write there.
H: Why Marvel Knights? Why not just recruit those writers for Marvel2000?
DG: Cory Wiegel asked me the same question a year ago. The site began because a story I pitched to Strange Tales got rejected, and I didn't agree with the reasoning. I set out to collect writers to weave dark, brooding stories about the streets of the Marvel universe and people responded. The reason I didn't just port all those things over to M2K was because of the heavy history the site already had with those characters. I wanted a clean slate for me and my writers to work with.
H: Marvel Knights has recently had it's One Year Anniversary (Congratulations!) and there's a event to commemorate the occasion. Tell us about "City Of Chaos" and how it's going to change The Marvel Knights Universe.
DG: Thanks! It's been a long, crazy year and the site wouldn't have survived without the dedication of the staff. City of Chaos came from me wanting to pit the Marvel Knights core characters against the Knights of Gotham City. What would the Punisher do if faced with a weirdo in a bat suit? There are a lot of similarities in these characters that I want to explore. While I don't want to give the story away, I will say that there will be lasting effects felt in our shared universe. There's a planned spin-off title once the event wraps up.
H: Hobbies? Other Interests?
DG: I play the ocassional video game, and I mountain bike once in a while. I'm a bowling fanatic with a high score of 274. I latch on to entire series of books, rarely reading a stand alone novel. The Dresden Files, the Stephanie Plum books, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Harry Potter, LOTR, Star Wars...
H: What's a Typical Day In The Life Of David Golightly like?
DG: My wife has to be at work several hours before me, so I wake up when she does and then write for a bit. Once work wraps up I hang out at home, then write myself to sleep. If it's a weekend I can usually be found in the car, driving to whatever part of the state I have an obligation in.
H: Who would you rather invite to dinner: Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark?
DG: Tony Stark, but only because when he was being pompous I would know it was the real deal. Bruce Wayne is a mask that only acts like a rich jerk. I hate it when people are fake like that.
H: What else do you want us to know about David Golightly?
DG: I have a cat named Frankenstein because that was the only name me and my wife could agree on. I love brainstorming with writers, so hit me up and we'll chat. I'm always open to new concepts or titles, sites or characters. My favorite TV show is M*A*S*H. I have the Flash's lightning bolt tattooed on my right shoulder blade. I prefer Good Humor products to Blue Bunny (that's a looooong story). I firmly believe that Stan Lee did not understand women. My voice is so deep that I used to call my friends off of work by pretending to be their father (I was in middle school when I did that, by the way). There - everything I'm sure you DIDN'T want to know about David Golightly :-)
-D. Golightly
http://dgolightly.livejournal.com
http://www.marvelknightsgroup.org