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Executive Producer Marc Guggenheim, whose experience outside of TV has included a number of comics including Flash: The Fastest Man Alive and Wolverine, releases his first novel today.Overwatch is a kind of hybrid legal thriller and espionage drama, with its lead character — attorney Alex Garnett — stumbling into a web of conspiracy and intrigue that leaves his father, a former Chief of Staff and Solicitor General to two presidents, looking like a pretty good candidate for the assist. Instead, Garrett turns to a paranoid hacker and starts unraveling a decades-old conspiracy.Guggenheim joined ComicBook.com to talk about the project. You can get a copy here and watch the book’s trailer below.ComicBook.com: It’s funny, because you see so many attorneys who turn to entertainment and write about attorneys. Do you think that, like doctors, this is just a field where you enter into it and amass so many crazy stories that nobody else can be as convincing?Marc Guggenheim: That’s a great question. I’m tempted to say it’s because writing requires research. Writing a novel — as opposed to a screenplay or teleplay — requires a massive amount of research. And if you’ve spent a number of years studying and working in a particular field, well, that’s one less field you don’t have to research. I say this with tongue partially in cheek, but the collective “they” advises beginning writers to “write what you know.” There’s a significant amount of wisdom in that. Plus, it’s no secret that my first two gigs as a professional writer involved writing about lawyers. And here I am with my first novel and the protagonist is an attorney. I’m currently writing on a show called Arrow and one of the main characters, Laurel Lance, is an attorney. When we originally pitched the series to the network, I joked that we decided to make Laurel a lawyer because “I’m contractually entitled to one character per series that’s easy for me to write.” Again, my tongue was firmly implanted in my cheek, but often a truth is said in jest.But in all seriousness, I also happen to have a deep affection for dramas involving lawyers. L.A. Law and the writing of David E. Kelley were huge — massive — influences on me, both as a lawyer and a writer about lawyers. I’m a huge fan of Scott Turow’s writing. I love stories involving lawyers and the law because it’s a subject matter I’m genuinely interested in. And I always try to write about subjects that interest me. That seems the sensible thing to do. It’s only a matter of convenience that I have experience as a lawyer that helps me write about them.
