Quotes from Christopher Priest

I think every writer is in search of the truth. We are trying to psychoanalyze ourselves.

There is no such thing as Christian art or secular art - writing, painting, drawing, whatever it is.

If I could make Panther tough, mysterious, wily, and often at odds with his 'Avengers' comrades, that was a character I'd find interesting.

I don't think there is really much from my career that I want to go back to. I think that, with most of the characters that I've been lucky enough to work with, I've said all I have to say about the Black Panther, Green Lantern, and on and on.

When I was writing 'Black Panther,' on one level, I was angry because DC would never let me write 'Batman,' so I was doing Marvel's 'Batman,' and Reverend Achebe became sort of the Joker to Panther's Batman.

Denys Cowan and Dwayne Turner's visions of Wakanda as an ersatz African Epcot Center opened my eyes to the unexploited possibilities; these men, both of whom are African American, together with writer Peter B. Gillis, created an African Asgard of sorts, and I just went, 'Oh, my.'

I'm really not used to people paying attention to my writing.

If you could access 90 percent of your brain, you'd be Charles Xavier.

The way that I process and make writing work is I'm really telling true stories; I'm just putting them in a cape and putting an 'S' on its chest.

Lots of things that go on in mainstream superhero comics are just stupid. They just show up on the page, and no one makes any mention of it.

If the League were real, today, they'd most likely be sued by every person they ever saved. They'd be subpoenaed by every authority in every jurisdiction imaginable; hearings upon hearings. There'd be waves of accolades followed by tsunamis of boos from social media.

In comics, my experience has been mostly artists whose visual storytelling chops are either weak or they're more invested in rushing to a paycheck than in doing work they can be proud of.

Writing 'Deathstroke' presents a number of challenges to me. As a Christian, as a minister, it's difficult for me to write a comic book that all but glorifies violence. So my take on 'Deathstroke' has been to not so much celebrate violence but to deal with the consequences of violence.

You don't want to have a character say what's bothering him; you want to define characters by action.

My 'Black Panther' run really wasn't about Black Panther. It was about Ross. It was about exploding myths about black superheroes, black characters, and black people, targeted specifically at a white, male-dominated retailer base.

'Justice' actually means different things to different people.

If we can provide even a fictional roadmap to what a successful, prosperous African nation might look like, then let's do that.

The problem with most liberals - myself included - is we tend to think we're post-racial: that we've got a handle on things because we're not racists.

Escapism has its place. I used to write 'Conan the Barbarian' for Marvel, which takes place in an environment completely removed from the real world.

When I read comics, they were dense stories. When you put them down, there was a sense of having gotten a great deal from them.

Most people don't realize that when we were producing 'Black Panther,' 'Quantum & Woody,' and 'Steel,' fairly few people were reading those titles. We were constantly threatened with cancellation.

I saw 'Get On Up' about a dozen times. I went every day. Every single day, I was standing outside when the movie theatre opened and bought my ticket. The theatre was usually empty. I live in a town that wasn't eager or very interested in a James Brown biopic, but I couldn't stop watching Boseman.

The 'Black Panther' series was never really about the Black Panther at all. The State Department guy, Everett K. Ross, was the series protagonist, so politics was simply a logical part of the character's tool set.

I think everybody wants to feel validated in some way, and when you're looking for leisure activities or if you're looking for escapism or things like that, you want to read about characters you can identify with.