“I always think of the Joker as the ultimate bully. Nothing he says is funny except to him.”
― Paul Dini
“There was a time I was willing to be a clown for people who I felt were the perfect person for me.”
― Paul Dini
“Mr. Freeze is motivated by different things. He doesn’t really have that much of an axe to grind with Batman. Batman is an irritation and an impediment to him, not an enemy that he hates. He doesn’t have the hatred that the Joker has for Batman.”
― Paul Dini
“What makes Batman and what makes other superheroes work is the myth that when life is at its lowest, and when you need a hero, a hero swings down and helps you.”
― Paul Dini
“To overcome any form of adversity, to not give up, to not give up on yourself, your dreams, to not sequester yourself away from people – that’s the most important thing to do with your life.”
― Paul Dini
“I was one of those goofy kids whose year narrowed down to focus on Christmas from about September on. I guess I was like Ralphie in ‘A Christmas Story,’ in that I would get swept up into the anticipation of the holiday, watching the lights go up, hearing the songs in the stores, getting special Christmas issues of comics and all that.”
― Paul Dini
“Kids love the Hulk, but they’re not really sure: ‘Is he a monster or is he a hero?’”
― Paul Dini
“We had established Harley Quinn as an accomplice to the Joker who was also crushing on him and found herself in the middle of this weird relationship being at the beck and call of his every whim. We wanted to stretch her and make her a stronger character, so to have her leave him and go off on her own was a story I wanted to tell for a while.”
― Paul Dini
“I was writing a script about the Joker menacing a regular person who had strayed into his path, and I needed to give him a gang of henchmen to work with him. The idea occurred to me, let’s put in a female henchperson, because that seemed like a fun variation on the regular big thug guys.”
― Paul Dini
“’Jingle Belle’ spins out of my love for just sitting down and reading a good, fun Sunday morning comic strip panel.”
― Paul Dini
“You don’t have to limit yourself or feel that you’ve been limited by an act of cruelty.”
― Paul Dini
“I’m not saying I talk to cartoon characters all the time, but the characters are very real to me. In a very non-insane way.”
― Paul Dini
“Mickey Mouse did not stay the little squeaky guy in ‘Steamboat Willie.’ He went on to have many different versions.”
― Paul Dini
“I really didn’t have any plan for her other than the henchgirl role, who was better at getting laughs out of the other gang members than the Joker was. I gave her the name Harley Quinn because I thought Harley was a fun name for a girl, and a lot of ‘Batman’ character names have a bit of a pun to them, like E Nygma.”
― Paul Dini
“As much fun as it is gaming, I have so much to do that I’ve had to get away from them. I still enjoy them. When I go to a friend’s house and they have a game on, I’ll happily join in and play.”
― Paul Dini
“It’s a lot of fun to identify with a character who lives by their own rules.”
― Paul Dini
“I have played games like Angry Birds and, you know, Plants vs. Zombies and things like that just for fun on the phone and everything.”
― Paul Dini
“Batman is dark and moody and spooky and, in some cases, methodical.”
― Paul Dini
“One of the things I’ve learned from animation is that some guys are really good at writing, some guys are really good at design, some guys are really good at directing. It’s almost like working in a band – not everybody plays every instrument.”
― Paul Dini
“Jim Henson once allowed me to visit the Muppets on set and spent an entire day showing me how he and the other puppeteers performed Kermit and all the characters! After that, I was lucky enough to work with both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg on many fun animation projects and learned so much from them.”
― Paul Dini
“The Joker is a tremendous vehicle for talented actors. Cesar Romero’s was a bubbly, lunatic criminal. Nicholson did him as a vain, preening manipulator. Heath’s performance of the Joker was remarkable, too. His was a low-simmering crazy street clown. Joker can be played all these ways, and they’re all true.”
― Paul Dini
“Encourage your kids to be creative. When you see them tracing a character from TV or a comic, say something like, ‘That’s nice. Now how about you create a character yourself?’ Keep kids curious and excited about creating.”
― Paul Dini
“In those times when a kid first tries to express themselves creatively, it sets them on a different path. Sometimes, that path can be really wonderful and can lead to a career doing some of the things you love. I also think that the price on that is a certain amount of alienation or distance created between a lot of the people around you.”
― Paul Dini
“There’s a little bit of Sid and Nancy to the Joker and Harley look, which I always felt would not be a bad look if they were in a live-action movie.”
― Paul Dini
“We’re all painfully aware of how suddenly violence can occur, how crippling it is, and how survivors have to find a way back from that.”
― Paul Dini
“My story is just my story, and it’s not nearly as traumatic as some.”
― Paul Dini
“You have to remember, when someone hurts you, that you are so much more than what they took from you.”
― Paul Dini
“You have to be kind to yourself to survive in the world.”
― Paul Dini
“There’s a sort of eternal, indefinable 20th century quality to ‘BTAS.’ We never really pegged the decade, but it’s anytime in the 20th century, so I often harkened back to things from the ’40s or ’50s.”
― Paul Dini
“When you do an animated series and add characters who are not from the canon, you really have to win over the hardcore fans.”
― Paul Dini
“In every story I’ve written with Batman, there’s an element of justice – you never want to have the story end on a defeatist or a cynical note.”
― Paul Dini
“I’ve always felt in my own small, little way that if I could just write a story where it works out well, where the scales of justice are balanced, then that’s something that I do really love to see in the world.”
― Paul Dini
“When it’s only you that you can rely on, you’re surprised at the resilience you have.”
― Paul Dini
“If you let tragedies stop you along the way, then you’re never going to grow as a person.”
― Paul Dini
“Creativity, for a lot of young people, is a coping mechanism. It’s the only place they feel comfortable. It’s the only time they feel like they’re being heard or can make a difference, is if they can go into a room and do a drawing or go to a garage and play a song or retreat to this world.”
― Paul Dini
“’Boo & Hiss’ has been a passion project of mine for a couple of years. I was intrigued with the idea of what would happen in a classic cartoon predator/prey relationship if the predator – in this case, a cat – got to finally do in his adversary only to have the mouse return as a ghost and bedevil the cat.”
― Paul Dini
“There’s something very, very liberating about Harley Quinn. Much more so than a character like Catwoman or Poison Ivy. Those are great characters. But then again, those characters are more of the femme fatale and the temptress roles.”
― Paul Dini
“Wonder Woman is out there very much defending the right and being strong and being a positive role model.”
― Paul Dini
“Quite often in comic book movies, very good actresses are relegated to being the girlfriend or the helper or the sidekick or something.”
― Paul Dini
“The old Rankin-Bass animated specials seemed to exist in a loosely shared reality, which is what attracted me to them. Santa, Snow Miser, Rudolph, Frosty, even the Easter Bunny seemed to be on nodding acquaintance with each other, even if only in cameo appearances in each other’s cartoons.”
― Paul Dini
“I take inspirations from newspaper strip cartoonists who look for ways of expanding their characters’ worlds once they have established the initial concept of their strips.”
― Paul Dini
“As much as I liked the build-up to Christmas, the week after always socked me with the blues.”
― Paul Dini
“To some degree, I don’t think ‘Batman’ works in a completely modern city; I think Gotham has be reflective of his personality and those of his enemies.”
― Paul Dini
“When you’re writing for a game – even if you’re using very well known characters like Batman and his villains who lend themselves to many different interpretations – you have to keep in mind that you’re writing for a different medium. Things are a bit more straightforward than it is for a feature film or a TV show.”
― Paul Dini
“With ‘Wonder Woman,’ I did one story with Alex Ross, and I had a lot of fun doing it, but I don’t think I could do a ‘Wonder Woman’ book on a regular basis, because there’s so much history there and so much mythology and everything.”
― Paul Dini
“I felt that, with ‘Zatanna,’ I had a chance to do a story about a strong, driven woman.”
― Paul Dini
“You can have villains like the Penguin, who strut around in a tuxedo with an umbrella, and Poison Ivy and all of the fantastic stuff she does, but unless there’s a bit of a human in there, and unless there’s a credible threat, then Batman himself doesn’t work.”
― Paul Dini
“There are some short stories in R. Crumb comics that are just wonderful and touch me in ways no other comics do.”
― Paul Dini
“For years, humorous characters in cartoons have been almost exclusively male.”
― Paul Dini
“Most female characters have either been the temptress – like a Betty Boop type – or the victim – like an Olive Oil type.”
― Paul Dini
“If the opportunity came my way, if somebody wanted me to look over a script or sit in a room in sort of like a brainstorming session… I would certainly be open for that.”
― Paul Dini
“I remember very vividly going to school, being very happy, and then just having guys there who were just out to make my life miserable.”
― Paul Dini
“It’s wrong to become a bully yourself or to take it out on other people, and in my case, I just retreated to a place where I was safe. And that place was my imagination, books, and television.”
― Paul Dini
“Characters do change over time; there are surprises, role reversals, and things like that.”
― Paul Dini
“I’m a very visual thinker, so the characters are running through my head, doing what they’re doing when I’m writing them. And there’ll be moments where I’ll just kind of throw a look off to the side as if I’m talking to one of the characters. It’s always been something that I’ve had with me since I was a little kid.”
― Paul Dini
“I look at the Marvel movies and the DC movies and various creators’ creations, and I think, you know, that’s really pretty cool.”
― Paul Dini
“I think you have to serve a lot of masters when you’re doing a video game: you’re not just telling a linear story or doing something that’s all action.”
― Paul Dini
“If we made the ‘Batman’ games more realistic, you’d have to be Bruce Wayne for half the game, counting his money and dating supermodels.”
― Paul Dini
“With ‘Tower Prep,’ Cartoon Network wanted to go into a new area where no other kids’ programming was going. There were a lot of kids’ sitcoms on the air, but they wanted to really go with more of like an adventure/drama feel.”
― Paul Dini
“I’ll continue doing ‘Jingle Belle’ as long as I’ve got a good story for her.”
― Paul Dini
“As far as doing a TV special, I would have to be in control of it. I’d want my own team of animators to work on it.”
― Paul Dini
“As much as I love elements of Spider-Man’s past, I don’t really want to go back in and retell the Gwen Stacy and Green Goblin story in animation just so I can do my take on it. I don’t want to redo the first ‘Spider Slayer’ story.”
― Paul Dini
“There’s a different energy to Spider-Man than there is to Batman.”
― Paul Dini
“As cool as it is to be Spider-Man at times, there’s also a price to pay for that – and he has to learn to balance things out.”
― Paul Dini
“Batman is pretty much a self-trained guy. I think it would be fun to do a character like Superman or Captain Marvel or maybe Green Lantern, somebody who’s got a completely different resource for fighting crime and fighting villains.”
― Paul Dini
“’Batman’ is pretty much real world-centric.”
― Paul Dini
“I’ve always liked the Krampus character, and I’ve always been fascinated with him, especially the tradition that he was such a part of the holiday season in Europe, in Germany, Austria, northern Italy, various other places.”
― Paul Dini
“If everybody’s a winner, nobody has to try very hard.”
― Paul Dini
“I have a great fondness for any character I work on. Whether it’s somebody like Batman or Harley Quinn or whatever character I’m writing, I just really enjoy the heck out of it, and I try to do the best job I can with it.”
― Paul Dini
“If ‘Jingle Belle’ harkens back to anything, it’s sort of the Harvey Comics. Not really ‘Archie,’ but more of a teenage version of what Harvey Comics would have become, with the type of fantasy wonderland of her and her various friends.”
― Paul Dini
“Jeph Loeb has been great to work with, and he’s been really supportive of some really bizarre ideas I’ve had.”
― Paul Dini
“If your child has something creative they really want to do, it’s up to you, their parent, to help make that happen.”
― Paul Dini
“I grew up loving cartoons, comics, magic, and writing.”
― Paul Dini
“One Thanksgiving weekend, I had a lost weekend at a friend’s place with ‘Grand Theft Auto.’”
― Paul Dini
“’Batman Beyond’ started because we were tossed a curve, because the higher ups at Warner Bros. wanted a different take on him.”
― Paul Dini
“I remember when I saw ‘The Dark Knight’ movie, and I was sitting there watching it, and there actually came one or two places where I had trouble divorcing myself from the reality of the locations because it was filmed in Chicago, and I know that city quite well.”
― Paul Dini
“I think that when you’ve got a world in which it’s plausible to have a guy dressed as a giant bat and fight evil clowns and other nightmarish freaks, I think the world has to be visually a little more arresting than a regular world.”
― Paul Dini
“That’s the thing about writing for a lot of the villains is that, as a writer, you kind of have to put the best part of your own personality aside and instead focus on whatever little strange quirks you may have in your personality.”
― Paul Dini
“Hugo Strange is interesting in the sense that he’s a master manipulator. He doesn’t really engage Batman in any sort of physical way. His weapon is his mind, and he’s very incisive and clever: he reads people and sizes them up almost instantly.”
― Paul Dini
“I wouldn’t call the Joker exactly easy to write.”
― Paul Dini
“Nobody loves a good ‘Batman’ story more than I do.”
― Paul Dini
“You don’t have a Batman without Bruce Wayne. Batman is the edge or scary image for Bruce to use.”
― Paul Dini
“Bruce Wayne needs a sense of humor to do his job. Batman, for a very long time, was going to a very dark place.”
― Paul Dini
“I like artists to have some freedom.”
― Paul Dini
“Batman doesn’t use a gun. When Bruce Wayne thinks he had to resort to a street thug’s level to defend himself and the girl he was rescuing, he decides he can’t be Batman anymore.”
― Paul Dini
“Initially, kids are attracted to Superman as a hero because he can take care of problems and still appear as friendly as your dad.”
― Paul Dini
“Batman’s got this whole cloaked ‘man of mystery’ thing around him and represents a wish fulfillment. He’s more driven than Superman yet is also very human.”
― Paul Dini
“In ‘Batman Beyond,’ Terry McGinnis has the responsibility of protecting Gotham City, as well as maintaining a home and social life. He’s also got a single mom and a pesky younger brother, which young kids will relate to.”
― Paul Dini
“I looked at comics like a buffet table, where you take a little bit of something and leave the other stuff behind.”
― Paul Dini
“Without Wonder Woman, there would be no Black Canary; without a Superman, there would be no Flash. They all come from that.”
― Paul Dini
“Everybody looks back on what they studied and what they grew up with.”
― Paul Dini
“I think nobody knows more about comic book characters than Seth Green. I thought I knew a lot, and he leaves me in the dust.”
― Paul Dini
“The agents of S.M.A.S.H. are the most powerful team in the Marvel universe in terms of muscle power.”
― Paul Dini
“I remembered what it was like: the weirdness, being the odd man out, trying to make my way around campus, and trying to figure out who my friends would be, who to steer clear of. I wrote it all down in a fanciful way – the feelings of alienation, the feelings of uncertainty, of being away from home for the first time.”
― Paul Dini
“As a writer, every time I create a character, I try to go for something to captivate the audience in some way. It’s also an extension of how the audience would like to see themselves.”
― Paul Dini
“A lot of times, female characters – particularly the villains – come off as very one-dimensional. They get the short shrift in that they’re only given the snappy comeback, or they’re relegated to a very stereotypical role. I want to know what’s driving them – that’s what’s really interesting.”
― Paul Dini
“I get it, cops deal with a lot, but at the same time, we crave justice, and we do want to believe things are going to be all right.”
― Paul Dini
“I was working in cartoons. I could go to Comic-Con, buy the Hal Jordan ring, I could buy animation cels, but at the end of the day, I come back to an empty apartment. I had a life that was only around me, and when I was broken, my world was broken.”
― Paul Dini
“I’m always thinking about stories and ideas, and I have a few I’d like to actively pursue, but as much as I love them, I love the process of creation, and I want to go on and create things for myself, and create new things.”
― Paul Dini
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