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Arrow Season 1: Made by comic geeks for comic geeks - SciFiNow

Arrow Season 1: Made by comic geeks for comic geeks

Arrow executive producer Andrew Kreisberg on sneaking in references to Nightwing

Stephen Amell Arrow
Stephen Amell Arrow
Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen in Arrow Season 1

You don’t have to get far into The CW’s Arrow before you hit upon a wealth of comic-book lore – from big bad villains to throwaway references. According to co-creator and showrunner Andrew Kreisberg it’s not just a sop to the core audience of comic-book geeks, but it comes from much closer to home…

“We’re comic-book geeks too,” enthuses Kreisberg. “I think the most gratifying thing about the show is that the comic-book fans seem to the dig this show, but the non-comic-book fans also dig it. You feel like you have to strike that right balance. Too much fealty to the source material and only the true comic-book fans will like it, and if it’s not enough than the true comic-book fans won’t respond, and I think the think we’re most proud of is that we’ve managed to create a show that everybody likes.

It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise given Kreisberg has written issues of Green Arrow And Black Canary and Batman Confidential, as well as episodes of the Justice League animated series, while the second of the three creators, Marc Guggenheim has written Justice Society Of America and The Flash.

Mentioning Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell)’s passing reference to a train from the fictional city of Bludhaven, Kreisberg enthusiastically interjects, “That was me, because I love Nightwing!

“That’s the perfect example, you caught that and it made you excited, and it was exciting for me to put it in there. My mother doesn’t know Bludhaven from Albuquerque, that’s a perfect example of something that’s fun for the true comic fans and flies right over the head of the normal fans, but it doesn’t make them feel left out, at the same time as it makes the Green Arrow fans, the DC Comics fans feel included.”

Arrow will return to Sky 1 in late January 2013.