Inhuman Writer Charles Soule Talks Managing Seven Titles, A Law Firm

Over the course of the last year or so, writer Charles Soule seems to have become the busiest name in mainstream comics. He's writing a total of seven monthly titles from three different publishers, including the massively high-profile Superman/Wonder Woman, and still hasn't abandoned the law firm that has served as his day job for years before suddenly breaking big into the comics industry. Besides Superman/Wonder Woman, Soule writes Swamp Thing and Red Lanterns for DC; Thunderbolts, She-Hulk and Inhuman for Marvel; and Letter 44, a creator-owned title from Oni Press. And as a result of this sudden, massive surge in Soule-demand, the writer took to his blog yesterday to share his thoughts on "How I Do It," a response to the most common question he's asked by fans and other pros. "It is extremely important to me that the work doesn't suffer in quality because of obligations towards quantity," Soule wrote. "That's obviously very important on the creative side, but also professionally crucial on the law side. I've always had to handle significant workloads, ever since graduating from law school, but these days it's on an entirely different level."

He went on to lay out an eight-step (really seven, as one of them is repeated) plan that he uses to keep his workload under control and to feel like he's still giving each project the attention it deserves. It's certainly worth a read. What's arguably the most interesting is that Soule has been brought onto Inhuman as a kind of emergency replacement after former writer Matt Fraction and editorial had creative differences that forced him off the title. Somebody with a monthly workload like Soule has being considered reliable enough to come in and fight fires on (presumably) short notice tells you that whatever he's doing, it's working in terms of his deadlines.