It’s going to be a whirlwind 24 hours for Ariel Winter.

Sunday night, the young actress was on stage at the Emmy Awards along with her cast of Modern Family to clam the prize for Outstanding Comedy Series, and tonight she’ll be walking the red carpet at the premiere of her new animated film, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1.

Winter gives voice to the first female Robin, Frank Miller’s stroke of genius for his landmark comic book story. She’ll join co-stars Peter Weller and David Selby on the red carpet at the Paley Center in Los Angeles tonight, September 24, for the West Coast premiere of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1. Also on hand will be a quartet of filmmakers: executive producer Bruce Timm, director Jay Oliva, writer Bob Goodman and dialogue director Andrea Romano. The event is completely sold out.

Now in her fourth season as Alex Dunphy on Modern Family, Winter has already carved out quite a career in her brief 14 years. On the big screen, Winter has been seen in films as varied as One Missed Called, Speed Racer, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and A Thousand Words. Anchored by a recurring role as Lucy Moore on ER, Winter’s television career includes guest roles on Criminal Minds, Nip/Tuck, Monk, Jericho, Bones, Crossing Jordan and The Ghost Whisperer.

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1 represents Winter’s second foray into animated DCU entertainment. Winter provided the voice of the savvy 10-year-old Princess Perdita of Vlatava, whom Oliver Queen races to protect in the DC Universe Animated Original Short, Green Arrow. She reprised the role for an episode of Young Justice. She has been particularly active in animation, providing voices for films such as ParaNorman, Ice Age: the Meltdown, Over the Hedge and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, and TV series like Phineas and Ferb and The Penguins of Madagascar.

In many ways, Winter is a spunky teenager with equal amounts of smarts and sass. She is honest at every turn. So you know her answers were fun when we sat down to discuss Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1 …

QUESTION: Imagining many of your fans are experiencing Batman: The Dark Knight Returns for the first time, describe your character Carrie Kelly’s place in the story.

ARIEL WINTER: Carrie is sort of a street kind of gangster girl who lives in this shady part of Gotham City. She’s always dreamed to meet her hero, Batman. One day she’s walking with her friend Michelle, and they get mugged by the Mutants – but Batman saves her. So she then sets out to be Batman’s partner in crime, er, crime-fighting. And eventually, she succeeds and becomes Robin.

QUESTION: How do you see Carrie’s sense of Batman?

WINTER: I think Carrie feels super ecstatic when Batman includes her in his little facade of Batman and Robin. She feels so honored – it’s a really big deal for her. I think she’s not really not just a crime fighter, though – she’s kind of like his daughter. She really cares for him, and he really cares for her. They’re like family.

QUESTION: Are there similarities between Ariel Winter and Carrie Kelly, and how did that help/hinder getting into character?

WINTER: Carrie and I share a lot of characteristics. We both like crime fighting. We both like Batman. We would both blow off school for crime fighting. (giggles) Actually, no, I would do my school during the day and then crime fight at night.

It wasn’t really hard getting into Carrie’s mindset because I’ve always wanted to play the sort of Tomb Raider, Kick-Ass role where the girl is really the brains behind the power. So I was excited when I got to do it. I just devoured the script. I was surprised. It was pretty violent. I read it and I saw some of the things and I was like, “Woah! That is so cool.” I’m a big fan of that action, thriller sort of thing, so it was exciting for me to read.

QUESTION: How important to you is being the first female Robin?

WINTER: It’s really cool to be the first female animated Robin. There’s been so many amazing boys, but I think I can just bring something new that the fans have never experienced. So I’m really honored to be part of such a fantastic project.

Female empowerment really is important to me. I’m a big nerd of the books from the 15^th  Century and 16^th Century, when the men had all the power and the women had none of it. So to have Robin be a girl is cool because it gives girls a chance to know that they can do everything boys can do, and even better. No offense (laughs), but it’s true.

QUESTION: Are you into comic books?

WINTER: I’m an avid reader, so anything I can read is awesome. I go into comics stores and I can be in there for hours. It’s truly amazing when you open a comic book, because you’re immediately sucked in from the first line. The writing, the graphics, the artwork – it makes you feel like you’re inside the story.

QUESTION: You’re 14 and acting all the time. How do you balance acting with education?

WINTER: You have to be really smart to be an actor. It’s not just saying lines. You have to know the thoughts behind each line, to know what you’re saying. So I think it’s very important to get an education. And I won’t be going to college for acting or film school – I will probably go to college for medical research because it’s something that really interests me. I always tell kids that you’ve got to have something else to fall back on. Acting is my first love – I hope I can do it for the rest of my life. But I’m going to go to college and get a degree in something else. I really feel school is important.

Fuck!

And now that I’ve established my bona fides, let’s get to today’s topic: naughty words.

They aren’t new, these verbal no-nos. Virtually every culture has had them, though their content, even allowing for translation glitches, is not always the same. (My doo-doo is your Number Two?) I don’t know how far back on civilization’s continuum the use and misuse of these words goes.  Did the early farmers, about thirty centuries ago, have them?  How about the hunter-gatherers?  The guys who made the cave pictures?

Maybe some of you have answers; I don’t, but I do know that ever since we homo sapiens started hanging around in cities and having politics and organized games and such, we’ve been able to let go of frustration by uttering, or shouting, some syllables that redden mom’s ears.

Even within my brief lifetime (okay, not so brief) these expletives have evolved a bit.  When I was a nipper, the word “hell,” and even more-so “damn,” were not to be uttered in polite company.  (When father spoke them from the Sunday morning pulpit, he was just doing his job – letting us know, maybe, what would happen to people inclined to use said expletives.)  And you never – and I mean never – heard them coming from screens and speakers.  (And the little sophist in the corner carps, “What about the last line of Gone with the Wind?  And I reply that the exception proves the rule and then ask, ‘Pray tell, sophist in the corner, are you a politician?’”)

Today, hell and damn are common broadcast currencies, bouncing off our living room walls even well  before ten p.m. which once marked the temporal divide between family and adult. (Did this presume that adults are not part of families?)  In some cable television venues, mostly those we have to pay extra for, nothing utterable seems to be off-limits, and even on basic cable and its cousin, broadcast TV, lips are getting a lot looser.

We’ve come a long way since Norman Mailer coined the word “fuggin” to approximate soldier dialogue in his World War Two novel, The Naked and the Dead. (I was once part of a group of sailors who were cautioned, when home on leave, not to ask granny to “pass the fuckin’ salt.”)

Does this bring us to comics?  I guess it might as well. Naughty words haven’t been used much in mainstream comics, though in the so-called undergrounds apparently anything went.  We have inched away from the time when editors and publishers were perpetually running scared, afraid to offend anyone (and good luck with that!) and thereby trigger another witch hunt of the kind that decimated the comics  business in the fifties.  How far have we inched?  I don’t know.

But it seems likely that we’ll inch further unless gents like Rick Santorum and Paul Ryan actually get the power they obviously covet.  Then?  Again, I don’t know.

But maybe the more interesting question is, should we inch further?

This horseshit will continue in a week.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

Legendary Comics launches their first series today with The Tower Chronicles: Geisthawk – Volume 1, from Matt Wagner and Simon Bisley. The 48-page prestige format release begins a new universe that represents the kinds of comics Legendary intends to explore. The Tower Chronicles is the tale of John Tower, a supernatural bounty hunter. His missions lead him into mankind’s most dangerous places to banish poltergeists, demons, and other supernatural evils that plague his “sometimes respectable” patrons.

The first issue sports two different covers, one from Bisley, perhaps best remembered for his work on Lobo in the 1990s, and Jim Lee, DC Entertainment’s co-publisher, inked by his usual partner Scott Williams. The series is being inked by Rodney Ramos, the journeyman inker best known for his work on Transmetropolitan.

The Tower Chronicles: Geisthawk – Volume 1 was written by Wagner (Grendel and Mage) in consultation with Thomas Tull, founder of Legendary Pictures. It’s interesting to note that the copyright is shared by Wagner and Legendary. The story is set in contemporary times but clearly has supernatural elements starting with Tower himself and the monsters he is charged with apprehending. As usual, Wagner’s writing is clear and never less than interesting to read. Bisley’s claustrophobic, dark artwork is great for the monsters, less so for the people inhabiting the pages.

The first serial is part of a trilogy, Wagner has told the media he has already written a total of eight volumes so the adventures are only just beginning.

The comic imprint is a subsidiary of Legendary Pictures which has co-produced countless films including many in the genre such as 300 and The Dark Knight trilogy. Editing the line is Bob Schreck, formerly of Dark Horse and DC Comics. Last year, the company debuted with Frank Miller’s former Batman project, Holy Terror.

Wagner and Schreck are taking reader questions over at the title’s Facebook page. There, additional background on the world and characters are presented, along with previews of subsequent stories

Art: George Sellas

New Pulp Author Barry Reese announced the creative line up of writers contributing stories to Tales of The Rook Volume Two, coming soon from Pro Se Press.

Press Release:

The Rook first took flight into the world of New Pulp with the release of his debut story, “Lucifer’s Cage,” in 2006. Since then, he’s starred in six volumes of his own adventures, plus a comic book adventure in All-Star Pulp Comics # 1. The character has become a New Pulp standard-bearer and is recognized both inside and out of the ever-growing field. A favorite of many artists, The Rook has been depicted by the likes of George Sellas, Frank Brunner, Norm Breyfogle, Ed Mironiuk and Anthony Castrillo.

Art: Bob Hall

Earlier this year, Tales of The Rook Vol. 1 was released to great critical and commercial acclaim, debuting at # 1 on the New Pulp Best Seller List. Now comes of the follow-up volume, which will see print in 2013 from the Reese Unlimited imprint of Pro Se Press.

Rook creator Barry Reese says, “All of the authors who took part in Volume One did a wonderful job but I wanted to continue mixing things up, getting different visions of the character and his universe. To achieve that, I only sent out invitations to authors who didn’t take part in the previous book — and I think we’ve got one heck of a lineup!”

Pro Se Editor-in-Chief Tommy Hancock, who took part in the first volume, shares that same belief. “There’s nothing like a great idea. Except when that great idea has enough legs to come around again. Pro Se is ecstatic about Tales of the Rook Volume 2 and the ever-growing collection of writers leaving their stamp on this iconic character.’

Lined up for Volume Two:

Russ Anderson, author of We Keep the Cars Running and the editor of the How the West Was Weird series.

Jim Beard, author of Sgt. Janus, Spirit-Breaker and Captain Action – Riddle of the Glowing Men.

Adam Lance Garcia, author of The Green Lama – Unbound and The New Adventures of Richard Knight.

James Palmer,author of Slow Djinn and the mastermind behind Mechanoid Press.

Sean Taylor, author of The Ruby Files and Gene Simmons’ Dominatrix.

Creator Barry Reese will also be contributing a brand-new Rook story.