I personally got to draw a take on a character that I've had in my mind since I was a teenager. That was pretty sweet!

Weirdly, I'm not a horror fan, but those kind of horror leanings are something that are very easy for me to get into.

For me, I'm a fan of really dark, depressing stuff.

There's a great line by Joss Whedon: "Make it dark, make it grim, make it tough, but then, for the love of God, tell a joke." Even for a reader, there's only so much punishment they can take. You've got to give them a break here and there.

I feel like I've been training my entire career for this moment in a lot of ways. So many artists just want to draw Batman, and I'm getting the opportunity to do the backups in a brand-new Scott Snyder project that has so many artists.

You get to play with shadow, mood, and tone. And this [Batman All-Stars] is such a moody story.

That's the type of thing you need to keep in mind when drawing comics. The storytelling. Consider the action and the space available to you, that's what will make it a great comics page. Once you've figured that out, you can always find/make the reference to support your storytelling decisions. So by all means, study film, but as with any reference, the results are better when they inform the craft and not dictate it.