Jay Faerber - Early Life and Influences

Early Life and Influences

Faerber grew up in Pennsylvania, his early interest in superheroes sparked by TV series such as Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, the Adam West Batman series and the 1960s The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure, which featured his first exposure to the Teen Titans. This led to Faerber's interest in comic books, beginning with Marv Wolfman and George Pérez's The New Teen Titans #25 in 1982, the first comic book with which he discovered that medium's more mature storylines and detailed artwork. Faerber's view of the series' ability, at the time, to stand on its own without requiring reading the related titles influenced Faerber's stated practice of keeping his own creator-owned books independent of one another, in order to avoid obligating readers of one of his titles to read the others in order to comprehend the storyline. The title also led to Faerber's interest in many other titles, such as Marvel Comics' Uncanny X-Men.

During the early part of his childhood, Faerber would buy his comics from a local pharmacy, which limited his reading to Marvel and DC Comics. For Christmas 1986, Faerber, a high school freshman, was taken by his mother to his first comic book shop, Gema Books, where he discovered books from companies other than the Big Two, such as Elementals, Miracleman and The New Wave, the latter of which impressed him with its experimental biweekly, 16-page format, its emphasis on character depth over physical combat, and the originality of the character's personalities.

As a child, Faerber would write and draw his own comics, though he assumed that writing was merely a means to provide something for him to draw. This changed by his first or second year of high school, when he discovered the TV series Spenser: For Hire, and later, the novels on which it was based by Robert B. Parker, whom Faerber names as the biggest single influence on his career as a writer. Although he had already been a fan of other private eye shows such as Magnum, P.I. and Riptide, the humor, intelligence and pace of the first Spenser novel he read, Ceremony, had such an effect on him that he tried writing a prose mystery story starring a private eye from one of his comics, which he let his English teacher read. The teacher, Maureen Purcell, the daughter of Golden Age comics artist Howard Purcell, praised Faerber's story. Faerber continued drawing, but concentrated more on prose writing. He was accepted as an art major at a local community college, but dropped out after one semester, when an instructor told him he needed to learn how to draw in order to draw comics. Realizing that his abilities lay in writing, he switched majors.

Faerber has also cited as influences the crime novels of Andrew Vachss, Robert Crais and Lee Child, as well as the television writing and detective novels of Stephen J. Cannell, in particular his work on the TV series Wiseguy, and Chris Haddock's work on the Canadian TV series Da Vinci's Inquest.

Seminal works in the comics medium that Faerber has cited as influences include John Byrne's work on Alpha Flight, Mark Waid's work on Captain America, Fabian Nicieza's runs on The New Warriors and Psi-Force, Mike Grell's work on Jon Sable, Freelance, Bob Harras' work on The Avengers, and Robert Kirkman's work on the comic book Invincible.