In the late 1980s Ann Nocenti was a highly visible writer at Marvel Comics. Best remembered for her four-year run on Daredevil and the original Longshot miniseries, Nocenti’s work was well regarded by comic fans and professionals.
Starting in the early 1990s Nocenti’s visibility steadily declined. Her material came out infrequently. Then in 1995 she quietly wrote her last comic books — a Typhoid Mary miniseries for Marvel and Kid Eternity for DC Comics.
In a recent interview on Newsarama, Nocenti says that she stopped getting called for jobs in the mid-nineties when the comic book industry started to downsize. Once this happened she began working in film and television, and also wrote stories for newspapers and magazines. In 1997 Nocenti became an editor for Scenario magazine, where she interviewed screenwriters and directors.
Nearly seven years passed before Nocenti started getting calls to write comics again. One of those calls came from Joey Calaveri, an old friend and editor at DC, who offered Nocenti the opportunity to play around in the Gotham City sandbox.
Nocenti makes her comeback in February with an eight page black and white back-up story in Batman: Gotham Knights #38, illustrated by John Bolton. “It’s a comedic story, about a new villain that manages to get Batman and Catwoman tied up and hid in his basement...and what he does to them,” she says.
Nocenti also has a 64-page Batman/Poison Ivy one-shot, with art by John Van Fleet, due out later this year. “My Poison Ivy story has a guy who is building the tallest building in Gotham, and the shadow from the building hits the ledge in Arkham where Poison Ivy keeps her plants... she's pissed, naturally, and $#%@ happens,” Nocenti says.
During the interview Nocenti says that she is writing a two-part Catwoman/Batman tale as well. She describes it as a story about guns. It will be illustrated by Ethan Van Sciver (New X-Men, The Flash: Iron Heights).
