Harley Quinn Comic Writers Palmiotti and Conner Tease Harley's Drastic New DC Comics Look

Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner have been writing the adventures of Harley Quinn for DC Comics [...]

By ComicBook.com Staff

Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner have been writing the adventures of Harley Quinn for DC Comics for awhile now, letting the character grow far beyond her twisted relationship with The Joker, and become a stand-out anti-hero on her own. The series has been an unbelievable hit, frequently in the top ten and outselling DC books like Justice League and Wonder Woman. The married writing team has clearly had a blast, and as Harley hits the big screen in live-action in Suicide Squad, they've leaned into the idea that if the movies can pull from their take on the character, they can pull right back.

"Unlike a lot of other characters, she's not dependent on one costume. Harley, even in our book, we change costumes every issue. The film does their own thing," Palmiotti told Comicbook.com at the Suicide Squad world premiere in New York. "It's kind of cool – Batman doesn't really wear pinstripes…"

"When he's Bruce he probably does!" Conner interrupted with a laugh.

"Always a troublemaker," he responded. "It's cool, it's nice to see the character constantly changing and becoming her own person."

"[She's] evolving. We like to see a character grow, and that's where we want to go with her," Conner added.

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(Photo: DC Comics)

Jimmy and Amanda had fun with the "cinematic" joke, where Harley changed her hair in a recent issue to mimic the look from the film, but they're not stopping there.

"She actually shaves her head and gets a Mohawk soon," Palmiotti teased. "We'll see how that goes over with people! But she joins a punk rock band and sports a Mohawk. Those are a fun couple of issues, as well. She's constantly changing her look, but at her heart and soul, that's Harley."

The pair recently moved out of New York to (gasp!) Florida, but having their longtime home as the setting for Harley's adventures has remained important to them.

"If you're going to write a real place, know the place you're writing," Palmiotti said. "Everything in our book is about Manhattan, New York, the Boroughs, it's accurate. The crazy people are extremely accurate," he said with a laugh. "I just figure when we write something like this, if it doesn't sound right it takes you out of the story. You can always tell when someone's writing about a place they haven't been, and it pulls you out. Not only with the locations, but Harley herself, her accent is like every Brooklyn girl I ever grew up with."

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The pair, thanks to a longtime relationship in addition to a longtime working partnership, have an incredible give-and-take, and admitted that they get themselves and each other into a bit of trouble because of it.

"It's both goading and reining in [each other]," Conner said of their working relationship. "Every once in awhile I'll get a script and go, 'oh, they're not going to let us get away with that, Jimmy. I'd like to see it, but there's no way they'll let us get away with that."

"We definitely keep our whole group of people very busy in Los Angeles, looking at our scripts, going 'no, you can't do that. You can't do that. Why are you doing that? I don't understand why she's throwing poo!' You know?" Palmiotti added.

"We're the king and queen of red flags," she said.

"A lot of red flags. We're gonna do an issue called 'The Red Flag.' Maybe a character called 'The Red Flag;' everything he says has to be censored. He'd be a horrible human being. We can write that," Palmiotti said, both of them laughing away (and noting that they're seriously considering such an issue).

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(Photo: DC Comics, preview from Harley Quinn #1)

Harley Quinn #1, part of the new DC Rebirth relaunch, is in stores today, giving fans a fresh start on the character. Conner and Palmiotti write, with art by Chad Hardin and Alex Sinclair.

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