Patrick Gleason Talks About Boyzarro in “Superman #42”

DC Comics has published an interview with artist and writer Patrick Gleason, in which he discusses the introduction of Bizarro and Boyzarro to the Superman universe in “Superman #42”. Here’s part of the interview…

After helping to introduce Jonathan Kent, was it fun to flip it on its head and introduce us to Boyzarro?

Yes. Boyzarro was an idea that was kind of a joke. “Well, obviously if there’s a Bizarro, we need a Bizarro Boy, too.” That’s what I was calling him at the time. I did a sketch of him, and as soon as I drew it, I knew who that character was. I could see into this character’s soul. He was just a special character. So much so that I actually changed the end of issue #42. The original focus was going to be about Bizarro, but as I was writing the script, I called Pete up and told him that I thought this was actually a Boyzarro and Jon story. There was a fluid, organic process with this. It really took over. There’s a lot more, obviously, to come with him.

So how did his name evolve from Bizarro Boy to Boyzarro?

It’s kind of a funny thing. I’m on Instagram and Twitter, and I share artwork and things like that. One day, I decided to show Bizarro Boy off. I was just really proud of him. I’d taken a break from art duties to focus primarily on writing last year, and I just wanted to give people something to look forward to and let them know I was going to come back on art. So, I posted this preliminary design for Bizarro Boy, and the response to it was great. I had multiple people on multiple platforms say, “We love Bizarro Boy, but why didn’t you just call him Boyzarro? It’s right there!”

And I kind of sat back, and said, “Oh, they’re right! They’re right. That’s a great name!”

I went back and counted, and there were five or six different people on Instagram and Twitter, and I responded and re-sent the drawing with the name crossed out and Boyzarro written on it instead. I said, “You know what? You guys are right.”

Read the complete interview at DCComics.com.