‘We know we’ve fucked up the atmosphere and doomed the lovely polar bears and we can’t even summon up the energy to feel guilty anymore. Let the pedophiles have the kids. There’s nowhere left to turn and no one left to blame except, paradoxically, those slightly medieval guys without the industrial base. What’s left to believe in? The only truly moral, truly goodhearted man left is a made-up comic book character! The only secular role models for a progressive, responsible, scientific-rational Enlightenment culture are … Kal-El of Krypton, aka Superman and his multicolored descendants!

So we chose not to deconstruct the superhero but to take him at face value, as a fiction that was trying to tell us something wonderful about ourselves. Somewhere, in our darkest night, we made up the story of a man who will never let us down and that seemed worth investigating.’

‘There are, according to the recently launched World Superhero Registry, more than 200 men and a few women who are willing to dress up as comic book heroes and patrol the urban streets in search of, if not super-villains, then pickpockets and bullies. They may look wacky, but the superhero community was born in the embers of the 9/11 terrorist attacks when ordinary people wanted to do something short of enlisting. They were boosted by a glut of Hollywood superhero movies. In recent weeks, prompted by heady buzz words such as “active citizenry” during the Barack Obama campaign, the pace of enrolment has speeded up. Up to 20 new “Reals”, as they call themselves, have materialised in the past month.’

“Batman was comedy,” West says, “let’s face it. What I loved about Batman was his total lack of awareness when it came to his interaction with the outside world. He actually believed nobody could recognise him on the phone, when he was being Bruce Wayne, even though he made no attempt to disguise his voice.”

“In the same way that Inspector Clouseau never notices his accent,” I suggest, “when everybody around him is also French.”

“That’s right. In the first episode, Batman goes into a nightclub in the cowl, cape and bat gloves. When the maître d’ says: ‘Ringside table, Batman?’ he replies, ‘No thank you – I’ll stand at the bar. I would not wish to be conspicuous.'”

• Brian Bendis … ‘i hope your internet personality becomes your real personality- watch how fast you get punched in the face.’ [link]
• Ben Templesmith … ‘Currently inking a demonic turd.’ [link]
• Matt Fraction … ‘man, you know you’re starting to make it when the torrent sites have your books up before lunchtime’ [link]
• Cameron Stewart … ‘How does one get urine ON TOP of a urinal?? People are monsters’ [link]
• Andy Diggle … ‘Ah, London, it’s good to be back. First stop: Gosh comics.’ [link]
• Ed Brubaker … ‘And now I get to go write Captain America some more today.’ [link]
• Neil Gaiman … ‘Locked out of hotel room. On third notworking roomkey. Inside the phone is ringing with another interview. I smile and twitter.’ [link]
• Joe Quesada … ‘Damn you, Warren Ellis, just LOVE ME!’ [link]
• Warren Ellis … ‘Also, one of you made off with my Bag Of Ideas today and I want it back. Name your terms.’ [link]
• Brian Wood … ‘I stupidly did it again. I done read some blogosphere and am now struggling through the shit-colored tsunami of ugly negativity.’ [link]