Comic book action and Jewish folklore come together in Dark Horse Comics series The writer. Film and stage icon Josh Gad has teamed up with production/writing team Berkowitz Bros. to produce a miniseries to tell a story about the creation, family, mythology and history of Judaism.
The writer revolves around writer Stan Siegel, an everyman who finds himself and his loved ones thrown into a world of fantasy and folklore while a dark threat looms over them. Screen Rant spoke with Gad and the Berkowitz Bros to find out where The writer came and the powerful story behind it.
Screen Rant: So Josh, Ben, Max, tell me how the three of you came together and how The writer developed?
Benjamin Berkowitz: It’s funny. When you work on projects, they’ve been in development for years and Max and I have been talking about how there’s a consistent rise in anti-Semitism. And the whole representation of these characters in comics who identify as Jewish, as soon as they jumped from the page to the screen, it was like their Jewish identities were falling by the wayside. So we thought, “How can we combat this?” So we created this vague concept of who, in real life, is someone that people look up to, who represents them, and who makes change in real life. And of course, the only person we thought of was Josh. So we created this concept, loosely based on my past, where I literally ate paper. I like, when I was little, to eat pretty much the entire mini Torah in our house. And whether that gave me superpowers or indigestion, I don’t know, but we got in touch with Josh and pitched this vague idea.
Josh Gad: Yeah, it wasn’t the first time I’d been approached about doing something in this space and, you know, I was always hesitant, because I didn’t feel like there was a story that I could at least contribute to that would be worthy of anyone’s time or attention. person, in what sometimes feels like an excess of material coming your way. And when the boys presented it to me, it was immediately striking, because it seemed so different from anything I had actually seen or read. He utilized a rarely used form of mythology and myth, which is Old Testament mysticism, in a way that, frankly, I can count on one hand, and more likely two fingers, the amount of time I’ve seen these elements used. Obviously, Raiders of the Lost Ark being the biggest, but you know, it felt like an opportunity to do something that in this space is really increasingly difficult, which is surprise your audience. And I loved that you married the everyman, and the fact that this doesn’t look like Peter Parker or Bruce Wayne, it seems, frankly, to me, that seemed very appealing. It seemed like those two pieces presented enough reason to enter the world of comics because we had created, or were in the early stages of creating, something that seemed to have a reason for existing and therefore a reason to attract readers. ‘ attention.
Max Berkowitz: And to go back. I mean, not only is Josh a Hollywood legend, we all know he’s a talented and amazing writer, but like Ben said, he’s always calling out anti-Semitism on social media too.
Benjamin Berkowitz: We all get inspired, you know, when it comes to this kind of Jewish folk mythology. We were all inspired by Mike Mignola’s work and what he did with international folklore, and we kind of took it and put our own spin on it. But you know, it allows readers to be inspired, to go deeper. And so we really wanted to do that with our work. And then, of course, we were inspired by works like Grant Morrison and how he’s able to go beyond what comics can do. And that’s what we really tried to do from the first to the fourth edition.
In addition to the three of you, you all worked with Ariel Olivetti, whose art is absolutely phenomenal at this. I mean, some of the scenes, especially the ones with monsters, are downright biblical. What made him the right artist to work on this?
Benjamin Berkowitz: He was the only artist to work on this story, you know, he’s a legend. We are all inspired by your work. You know, Cable in the Marvel Universe. All your characters jump off the page, they have big, disgusting muscles. And it looks like you can, almost, touch the fur coming off these creatures. The way he approaches color palettes is like a biblical scale. So we came to the consensus that he was the artist. So I contacted him via DM and he kind of fell in love with the proposal and felt very connected to the story. And you can see his passion on every page. And he surprised us with everything, like, in the third issue, they’re in the unknown world that was, originally, when we were writing it, we imagined it as a dark earth hellscape. But he kind of brought in these beautiful pastel colors. Working with him in general was really a learning experience for us, coming from the world of film, television, commercial cinema, we all had to tweak our brains a little bit. And Ariel helped us a lot with this.
Benjamin Berkowitz: And he strangely gave everyone a mustache. But now that I think about it, everyone in Boston has a mustache, like our father, as a child, had a mustache. So he did his research.
Josh Gad: I also think there’s something so inviting about Ariel’s images that have a dimensionality that I find very, very captivating, which means you want to imagine yourself literally jumping into the pages. And I think that’s, you know, a great gift for the illustrator. And what was so fascinating about the process was the opportunity to work with someone who forced us to do less work on the writing because he was able to pick up the baton and create enough evocative images that the reader had everything they needed without us. -feed them. And that really is an amazing gift that we are incredibly inspired and grateful for, definitely
Let’s delve deeper The writer itself. The first thing I want to ask you about is your central character, Stan Siegel. The first thing I liked was the classic comic book, alliterative name. That’s great, but his name obviously evokes some specific comic book creators. Do you want to talk about the protagonist, both his name and his type of upbringing?
Benjamin Berkowitz: You kind of hit the nail on the head with the comic book alliteration. But, yes, we really wanted this book and these characters to pay homage to the people who built the industry and who played a decisive hand in shaping it into what it is today. And the same happens with Siegel, one of the creators of Superman, one of the greatest characters ever created. And then Stan Lee, who is Marvel but also a controversial figure in his own right, when it came to his own Judaism, because of the anti-Semitism of the time, he felt the need to avoid, you know, expressing his Judaism, its connection to Judaism. But there’s also some controversy surrounding his involvement in the characters, but he’s obviously a central figure in the comic book industry, and we really wanted to pay homage to that. And so the creatures and the world itself were a direct homage and honor to Jack Kirby, the king.
I definitely noticed this, especially in issue three. I won’t spoil it, but there’s one character in particular that shows up, and as soon as I saw him, I thought, “Is that them?” so you made him talk. You guys really went ahead and put this character in there. And I was kind of shocked. At the same time, I loved it. It was my favorite moment in the series.
Benjamin Berkowitz: I mean, it’s one of our favorite characters that Jack has ever created. So, I mean, we had to put it there.
Josh Gad: It’s also the inspiration, I would say a book that certainly inspired all three of us, which is Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. And, you know, I think, in Ben’s opinion, this legacy of real Jewish superhero creators, in their own weird, meta way, made them worthy of becoming superheroes in the pages of these kinds of books, all these years later. supported, as you know, progenitors of this type of incredible legacy. And so I think it was also doubly exciting to not only write a character like that, but to write a character like that that speaks directly and is an homage to the writer, right? The ones who did the work, the ones who created Superman himself, right? It should work that way.
With Stan, I think what I really liked was not just the ingenuity of having to eat the paper, like you were talking about with Ben, but also the limit you gave him. He can create any type of power, but is limited in the powers he creates. They can never be the same thing twice. It’s a really fascinating idea for a character.
Benjamin Berkowitz: Absolutely and the idea of him being a writer, and the power of the written word, you know, in Judaism, words are extremely important, you know. They have the power to create, to destroy, they are vital to the practice of Judaism. And so we wanted to embody that in Stan, in that power. And the idea of, like putting the paper in your mouth, comes from the myth of the Golem, because sometimes that’s how you brought the Golem to life. You wrote “Life” on the paper. Or sometimes it was written on the forehead. But in our case, Stan, when he ate the paper, it would appear as “Echol”, which means “Eat”.
Max Berkowitz: At Comic-Con. On our panel, we had so many questions about evacuations just from eating paper, like almost 80% of the questions. I think someone called for a fuzzy evacuation.
Josh Gad: Yes, it was very high in IBS patients.
Benjamin Berkowitz: Just going back to the limits of power. We also didn’t want him to be dominated, right? And then having these limits and, like, limiting your ability. So when it comes down to it, use the power of the writer especially, which is essentially the most powerful you can have in a story. You know, we feel the need to put these guards up so we can’t use this power again. So now that you know that all four questions have been resolved and that he used this power, how do we revisit them? So we have to figure out how we’re going to revisit these characters that are lost or not, and he needs to be a more creative writer with his powers.
It’s kind of funny because you’re writing about a writer and you have to be more creative to make him more creative. Another character I really liked that you included was his daughter, Izzy. Izzy is black and Jewish, and I really thought that was a powerful moment in the first issue when Stan called her school after she got into a fight and her ex, Izzy’s mom Bets, talked about being black and Jewish, being a minority. in minority. That was a very powerful moment. Do you want to talk a little about raising his daughter and what she brought to the story?
Benjamin Berkowitz: You know, it was named after Josh’s daughter. But with this story, we also wanted to take this opportunity to tell readers that there is a kind of spectrum of Judaism. That Jews are not just Ashkenazi, lox, and bagel-eating Jews. There is vast diversity in Judaism. And so we wanted to really explore that. Israeli Jews, Ethiopian Jews, Mizrahi, Indian Jews, Chinese Jews. And so we wanted to really open readers up and see that in our story, and want to explore and learn more.
You talked about mythology. Solomon’s Ring, golems playing a big role in the story. But it’s not just mythology. You also really build a world around Jewish history. Throughout the comics, you see Solomon’s role in history, seeing these great, pivotal moments in Jewish history. Do you guys want to talk about emphasizing history as well as mythology when it comes to creating your story?
Josh Gad: I think we’re currently at an inflection point where, unfortunately, there are a much larger number of people who either don’t know that the Holocaust existed or don’t want to believe that the Holocaust existed, which sets a very dangerous precedent when we know that we are immersed in a world that is clearly becoming the age of disinformation. You forget the lessons that history teaches you to warn you about what can become very real again if you are not careful. This felt very personal to me because I am the grandson of not one, but two Holocaust survivors. From the age of six, my grandparents told me stories to remind me never to forget, to enable me to continue the tradition of warning people about the dangers of bigotry, the dangers of scapegoating, the dangers of not just anti- Semitism, but hatred in general, and the real-world effects of what can happen when these things are allowed to permeate a society and a culture. My family lost probably 60% of our family tree during that time, just based on the spread of hate. These people were murdered in cold blood. And you know, these are people who could have been my aunts and my great aunts and uncles, who could have had, you know, children and grandchildren who would have been my cousins, and I will never meet them, because they never had the chance to exist. And so all of this, you know, hopefully goes beyond entertainment and becomes, and I use this word carefully, edutainment, because I think we want people to not only engage with this in an exciting and fun way, but also leave with understanding. maybe a little more than when they got into it.
That’s a really powerful response, Josh, thanks for that. This leads to my next question. Ben, if you and Max want to talk about this too, your story doesn’t shy away from very real and scary things, especially modern Nazism, which we’ve unfortunately seen a huge rise in in America, and your story doesn’t do that so much as “Here’s our thug who is an ethnofascist”, but more in the sense that this is a very powerful idea that has never really left our world. How have the last few years shaped what you wanted to do with your story?
Benjamin Berkowitz: Max and I talk about this a lot, and all of us as Jews, it’s always in the background of every day, every moment of what you’re thinking about, you know, everyday anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, trauma. We really wanted to incorporate these real moments that are happening now and in the past, so that people can experience them and want to learn more and dive deeper beyond our comics. And with our character, King Solomon, who has become immortal, and is witnessing these unbearable tragedies throughout history, you know, he’s almost helpless, because he can’t impact change. But then you have this villainous character of Helena, who has experienced her own trauma and wants to use her power to change the world, to rewrite it and to erase everything that happened. But you can’t erase the pain we all experience, because it’s something we live in. We need to remember and make sure this never happens again. And so we wanted to really weave that into our story and also force people to want to learn beyond.
Max Berkowitz: I feel like I’ve dealt with this every day for the last year. I mean, in my own life, you’d have people, even DMing, even your own friends, saying certain things, and you’d be like, “What did you just say?” So you want to teach people about these moments in past history and what’s happening now and what’s right and what’s not right. But we also want to entertain people.
Benjamin Berkowitz: I mean, you see how they incorporated Nazis into Indiana Jones and how that’s still relevant today in our history and other histories. I mean, Mike Mignola has been incorporating Nazis into Hellboy. There’s a reason for that.
Benjamin Berkowitz: But it’s scary, because people actually believe these anti-Semitic tropes. And the people you know also think, “What did they just say? Do they really believe that?”
Undoubtedly. What I mean to say, The writer it definitely delved into a lot of strong themes and explored these personal fears and this trauma that is building up. His story is obviously a very personal one about what it means to be Jewish. And there is also the theme of the power of creation. As writers, what does it mean to be a writer, especially writing a graphic novel?
Josh Gad: For me it was a kind of wish fulfillment, because I’ve always admired the form and, in a way, I never felt worthy of entering the fray of creating something in this area. And so celebrate the work of this type of writer, while at the same time creating a superhero in the form of a writer. I got really excited and talked about, I guess, all of our collective insecurities about are we good enough? Do we have enough to feel this and understand so that it doesn’t seem like just another random celebrity and group of people who are usually met with skepticism when developing something like this, but that we’ve actually done all the work that you would expect to be worthy of your time and interest. And I think it was a beautiful challenge, because it kept us very honest and sober throughout the process. We kept checking back in to really look back at some of our favorite works to make sure we were living up to the expectations we would have as readers and the excitement now of being able to share that with the world and not be met with. with “Oh God, why did you waste my time?” But yeah, “This is surprisingly good.” There is no greater compliment. “That’s surprisingly good for me.” is the best thing any reader can say, because it’s been surprisingly fun for us, it’s been surprisingly challenging for us, it’s been surprisingly rewarding for us, and the fruits of our labor are now being met with something approaching universal positivity, and that’s a thrill of not letting people down, of feeling this transactional relationship that we hope to keep having, where you trust us enough to keep writing this. It’s a gift and a return on our investment and, hopefully, our readers’ investment,
Benjamin Berkowitz: With all of this, we also wanted to show our own writing process from start to finish. So you can see a kind of evolution in the writing style and even the approach to the story as Stan, his mother and Izzy go through the journey from beginning to end. And so, you know, you’ll find it in the captions, in your own anxieties, in your notes. So we kind of infused our own experience writing the story into the actual story in the book.
Max Berkowitz: With Ariel’s illustration work, you can also see that we collaborated, showing Josh’s evolution throughout the comic as well. So I also thought about working with an artist, but someone like him makes it a lot easier.
The final question of The writer it went out. Fans can read everything from start to finish. What do you hope readers take away after finishing your story?
Benjamin Berkowitz: That’s a great question. First, I hope they have fun. We wanted readers to have fun. And also, I want to get involved and learn more about Jewish folklore and mysticism, just like when we watched Raiders of the Lost Ark, I wanted to learn everything about it. You know, growing up, we went to Hebrew school. We were never taught anything about mythology, the fact that Jews during Antiquity practiced magic, that they had bowls with inscriptions made to trap demons in them. I never knew that, and if I had, I probably would have become a rabbi, because it’s amazing, and so we want people to get that cool educational factor, just like when they first watched The Exorcism. I don’t think anyone in the world knew that exorcisms were actually performed until they saw the film. And I’m sure they wanted to dig deeper and see what that film stimulated. So we really wanted to do that with Jewish folklore and mythology and magic.
Max Berkowitz: I mean, half of our calls are us telling each other random facts and information about things. So we want people to research and learn things about Jewish mythology and folklore.
The Writer #1-4 is now available from Dark Horse Comics.