world of fantasy and folklore as a dark threat looms over them. Screen Rant sat down with Gad and the Berkowitz Bros to discover where The Writer came from and the powerful history behind it.

Screen Rant: So, Josh, Ben, Max, tell me how the three of you got together and how The Writer developed?

Benjamin Berkowitz: It's funny. When you work on projects, they're in development for years and Max and I, we've been talking about how there's a consistent rise in antisemitism. And all of the representation of these characters in comic books who identify as Jews, as soon as they made the jump from the page to the screen, it was like their Jewish identities were kind of getting sidelined. So we were like, "How can we combat that?" So we kind of came up with this loose concept of who, in real life, is someone that people look up to, who represents them and is a change maker in real life. And of course, the only person we thought of was Josh. So we came up with this concept, loosely based off of, like, my past, where I would literally eat paper. I like, when I was little, I pretty much ate the entire mini Torah in our house. And whether it gave me superpowers or indigestion, I don't know, but we reached out to Josh, and we kind of pitched this loose idea.

Josh Gad: Yeah, it wasn't the first time that I had been approached about doing something in this space, and, you know, I'd always been hesitant, because I didn't feel like there was a story that at least I could contribute to that was worthy of anyone's time or attention in what feels like sometimes a glut of material coming their way. And when the boys pitched me this, it was immediately arresting, because it felt so unlike anything else I had really seen or read. It utilized a rarely utilized 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 amounts of time I've seen those 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 more and more difficult, which is surprise your audience. And I loved that you marry that with the everyman, and the fact that this doesn't look like Peter Parker or Bruce Wayne, it looks like, frankly, me, is that felt really compelling. It felt like those two pieces presented enough of a reason to enter into the comics world because we had created, or we were at the beginning stages of creating, something that felt like it had a reason to exist, and therefore a reason to grab readers' attention.

Max Berkowitz: And to go back. I mean, not only is Josh a Hollywood legend, we all know that he is such a talented, incredible writer, but like Ben said, he's always calling out antisemitism on social media too.

Benjamin Berkowitz: We were all inspired, you know, when it comes to this sort of Jewish folklore mythology. We were all inspired by the work of Mike Mignola and kind of what he's done with international folklore, and kind of like taken it and put his own spin. But you know, it kind of allows readers to get inspired, to go in 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 kind of push the envelope of what the medium of comic books can do. And that's what we really tried to do from issue one to issue four.

In addition to the three of you, you all worked with Ariel Olivetti, whose art is just absolutely phenomenal in this. I mean, some of the scenes, particularly 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 for this story, you know, he's a legend. We were all inspired by his work. You know, Cable in the Marvel Universe. His characters all kind of pop off the page, they're bulging big, disgusting muscles. And it feels like you can, almost like, touch the fur coming off of these creatures. The way he approaches color palettes is kind of like on a biblical scale. So we came to this consensus that he was the artist. So I reached out to him on DMs, and he kind of fell in love with the pitch, and, like, felt very much connected to the story. And you can see his ion on each page. And he surprised us with everything, like, in issue three, they're in the unknown world that was, originally when we were writing, we envisioned it as a dark land hellscape. But he kind of brought in these, like, beautiful pastel colors. Working with him in general was really a learning experience for us, coming from the world of film, television, commercial filmmaking, we all had to to adjust our brains a little bit. And Ariel, very much helped us along with that.

Benjamin Berkowitz: And he weirdly gave everybody a mustache. But now thinking about it, everyone in Boston has a mustache, like our dad growing up, had a mustache. So he did his research.

Josh Gad: I also think that there's something so inviting about Ariel's imagery that it has a dimensionality to it that I think is really, really captivating, meaning you want to sort of imagine yourself quite literally jumping into the pages. And I think that that is, you know, that is a great illustrator's gift. And what was so fascinating about the process was the opportunity to work with somebody who forced us to have to do less work with the writing because he was able to take the baton and create enough suggestive imagery that the reader had everything they needed without us spoon-feeding them. And that really is an amazing gift, and one that we were so incredibly inspired by and grateful for, definitely

Let's dig into The Writer itself. The first thing I want to ask is about your central character, Stan Siegel. First thing I liked was the classic comic book, alliterative name. That's just great, but his name obviously evokes a few particular comic book creators. Do you want to talk about the protagonist, both his name and his kind of creation?

Benjamin Berkowitz: You kind of nailed it with the comic book alliteration. But, yeah, we really wanted this book and these characters to honor the people who built the industry and who a decisive hand in shaping it to what it is today. And so with Siegel, one of the creators of Superman, one of, or 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 antisemitism at the time, he felt the need to kind of shy away from, you know, expressing his Judaism, his connection to Judaism. But then there's also some controversy around his involvement in the characters, but he is obviously a pivotal figure in comic book industry, and so we really wanted to honor that. And then the creatures and the world itself was very much a direct homage and honor to Jack Kirby, the king.

I definitely picked up on that, especially in issue three. I won't spoil it, but there's one particular character that pops up, and as soon as I saw him, I was just like "Is this them?" then you had him speak. You guys really just went full on 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, it's one of our favorite characters that Jack ever created. So, I mean, we had to, we had to put him in there.

Josh Gad: It's also the inspiration, I would say a book that certainly inspired the three of us, which is Michael Chabon's Kavalier & Clay. And, you know, I think that to Ben's point, that legacy of actual Jewish superhero creators in its own strange, meta way, made them worthy of becoming superheroes in the pages of these kinds of books all these years later, They deserve to be held up, as you know, progenitors of this kind of incredible legacy. And so I think it was also doubly exciting to not only write a character like this, but write a character like this that directly speaks to and is an homage to the writer, right? The ones who did the work, the ones who created Superman himself, right? It should work in that kind of meta way.

With Stan, I think what I really liked is not just the ingenuity of having to eat the paper, like you were talking about Ben, but also just the limit that you gave him. He can create any sort of power, but he's limited in the powers that 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 incredibly important, you know. They have the power to create, to destroy, they're kind of vital to the practice of Judaism. And so we wanted to kind of incorporate that into Stan, into this power. And the idea of, like placing the paper into the mouth, that comes from the myth of the Golem, because that was sometimes 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 "To eat".

Max Berkowitz: At Comic-Con. At our , we had so many questions about bowel movements just from eating the paper, like almost 80% of the questions. I think someone asked for a plushy bowel movement.

Josh Gad: Yeah, it was a very high in IBS patients.

Benjamin Berkowitz: Just going back to the limits to the power. We also didn't want him to be overpowered, right? And so having those limits, and, like, limiting his ability. So when it came to him, using the power of the writer, especially, which is essentially as powerful as you can get in a story. You know, we felt the need to put on those guards so we can't use that power again. So now that you know all four issues are out and he's used that power, how are we going to revisit them? So we have to figure out how are we going to revisit these characters who are lost or not lost, and he needs to be a more creative writer throughout with his powers.

It's kind of funny, because you're writing about a writer, and you've got to be more creative to make him more creative. Another character I really like that you included in this was his daughter, Izzy. Izzy is black and Jewish, and I really thought it was a powerful moment in the first issue, when Stan's called to her school after she gets into a fight and his ex, Izzy's mother's Bets, talks about being black and Jewish, being a minority in a minority. That was a very powerful moment. Do you guys want to talk a little bit about creating his daughter and what she brought to the story?

Benjamin Berkowitz: You know, the name was in honor of Josh's daughter. But with this story, we also wanted to kind of take this opportunity to tell readers there's a sort of spectrum of Judaism. That Jews aren't just Ashkenazi, smoked salmon, bagel-eating Jews. There's a vast diversity to Judaism. And so we really wanted to explore that. Israel Jews, Ethiopian Jews, Mizrahi, Indian, Chinese Jews. And so we really wanted to open readers up and to see this in our story, and to want to explore and learn more.

You guys have talked about the mythology. The Ring of Solomon, golems playing a big role in the story. But it's not just mythology. You guys also really build a world on Jewish history. Throughout the comic, you see Solomon's role in history, seeing these big, pivotal moments in Jewish history. Do you guys want to talk about emphasizing history as well as mythology when it came to creating your story?

Josh Gad: I think that we're currently at an inflection point right now where, unfortunately, there's a far greater number of people who either don't know the Holocaust existed or don't want to believe the Holocaust existed, which sets a very dangerous precedent when you know you are immersed in a world that is clearly becoming the disinformation age. You forget the lessons that history teaches you in order to warn you about that which can become very real again if you're not careful. This felt super personal to me, because I'm the grandchild of not one, but two Holocaust survivors. From the age of six, my grandparents would tell me the stories in order to remind me to never forget, in order to empower me to continue the tradition of warning people about the dangers of bigotry, the dangers of scapegoating, the dangers of not only antisemitism, but hatred in general, and the real world effects of what can happen when you allow those things to permeate a society and a culture. My family lost probably 60% of our family tree during that period, just based on the propagation 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 that would have been my cousins, and I will never get to meet them, because they never got a 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 do think that we want people to not only engage with this in a thrilling and fun way, but also to leave it understanding maybe a little bit more than when they went into it.

That's a very powerful answer, Josh, thank you for that. That leads into my next question. Ben, if you and Max would like to talk about this as well, your story doesn't shy away from very real and scary things, particularly modern-day Nazism, which we've unfortunately seen a big rise of in America, and your story doesn't do it so much as "Here's our bad guy who is an ethno-fascist", but more in the sense that this is a very powerful idea that 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 have talked about this a lot, and we all have, as Jews, it's always kind of in the back of every day, every moment of what you're thinking of, you know, everyday antisemitism, 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 do a deeper dive beyond our comic. And with our character, King Solomon, who has become immortal, and he's witnessing these, these unbearable tragedies throughout history, you know, he's almost helplessness, because he can't impact change. But then you have this villain character of Helena, who experienced her own trauma and wants to use her power to change the world, to kind of rewrite it, and to kind of erase everything that happened. But you can't erase the pain that we've all experienced, because it's something that we live in. We need to , and we need to make sure that it never happens again. And so we really wanted to kind of imbue that into our story, and also force people to want to learn beyond.

Max Berkowitz: I feel like I was dealing with this every day for the past year. I mean, in my own life, you had people, even DMing, even your own friends, saying certain things, and you're like "What did you just say?". So you want to teach people about these moments of past history and what's happening now and what's correct and not correct. But also, we want to entertain people too.

Benjamin Berkowitz: I mean, you see how they incorporated Nazis into Indiana Jones and how it's still relevant today in our story and other stories. I mean Mike Mignola has been incorporating Nazis into Hellboy. There's a reason to that.

Benjamin Berkowitz: But it's scary, because people really do believe these antisemitic tropes. And people that you know as well, it's like "What did they just say? They really believe this?".

No doubt. I mean, The Writer definitely delved into a lot of strong themes and tapped into these personal fears and this trauma that's just been building. Your story is obviously a very personal one about what being Jewish means. And there's also a theme of the power of creation. As writers yourselves, what does it mean to be writers, particularly writing a comic book story?

Josh Gad: For me, it was kind of wish fulfillment, because I've always ired the form, and in a way, never felt myself worthy to enter the fray of creating something in this arena. And so to both celebrate the work of these kinds of writers, while also getting to create a superhero in the form of a writer. I was really excited and spoke to, I think, all of our collective insecurities about, are we good enough? Do we have enough of a feel for this and an understanding so that it doesn't just feel like another random celebrity and a group of people who usually are met with skepticism when developing something like this, but that we actually have done all of the work that you would expect in order to be worthy of your time and your interest. And I think that that was a beautiful challenge, because it kept us very honest and sober throughout the process. We kept checking in with ourselves to to really look back on some of our favorite works to make sure that we were living up to the expectation we would have as readers and the thrill now of being able to share this with the world and not be met with "Oh, God, why did you waste my time?". But rather, "This is surprisingly good." There's no greater compliment. "This is surprisingly good to me." is the greatest thing any reader can say, because it was surprisingly fun for us, it was surprisingly challenging for us, it was surprisingly rewarding for us, and the fruits of our labor are now being met with something approximating universal positivity, and it's a thrill to not let people down, to feel like this transactional relationship that we hope to keep having, where you trust us enough to keep writing these. It's a gift, and it's a return on our investment, and hopefully our readers' investment,

Benjamin Berkowitz: With all of this, we also wanted to show off our own process of writing from the beginning to the end. So you can see, sort of an evolution of the writing style, and even the approach to the story as Stan and his mother and Izzy kind of go through the journey from beginning to end. And so, you know, you'll find that in the captions, his own anxieties, his note-taking. So we kind of infuse our own experience writing the story into the actual story of the book.

Max Berkowitz: With the illustration work by Ariel, you can also see that we collaborated, showing an evolution to Josh throughout the comic as well. So I thought also working with an artist, but someone like him, he makes it so much easier.

The final issue of The Writer has come out. Fans can read everything from start to finish. What is something you hope readers take away after finishing your story?

Benjamin Berkowitz: That's a great question. One, I hope they have fun. We wanted readers to have fun. And also, it goes back wanting to engage and learn more about Jewish folklore and mysticism, just like how when we watched Raiders of the Lost Ark, I wanted to learn all about that. You know, growing up, we went to Hebrew school. We were never taught about any of the mythology, the fact that Jews during the Antiquities practiced magic, that they had these bowls with inscriptions made to trap demons in them. I never knew about that, and if I had, I would have probably become a rabbi, because it's awesome, and so we want people to come away with that educational cool factor, just like when people watched The Exorcism for the first time. I don't think anybody in the world knew that exorcisms were really performed until they saw that movie. And I'm sure they wanted to do a deep dive and look at what that movie has kind of spurred. 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 available now from Dark Horse Comics.