The Spooky Six with Matt Wagner and Willow Croft
I was very tempted to turn this interview into a recipe-swap event, but the only horrifying thing about that is my tendency to scorch the bottoms of all my pots and pans, and that’s not very interesting, is it? Read on to learn more about this eminently more interesting author and his new release, which promises to be a perfect read for Halloween night!
Matt Wagner has enjoyed a career in comics for over thirty years. Born and educated in Pennsylvania, his first published work was a short story that would introduce one of comicdom’s most respected creator-owned characters–the mastermind assassin, GRENDEL. This epic, Eisner Award-winning creation has seen Matt collaborate with a host of the industry’s most significant talents and was recently compiled in a six-volume Omnibus edition that totaled more than 3000 pages. He’s also renowned for his more personal allegory, MAGE—a contemporary fantasy trilogy that spanned thirty-five years in the making.
Matt has also worked on a variety of established characters. These include his ground-breaking portrayal of the Batman villain, Two-Face, in the graphic novel FACES, a five-year stint authoring the fan-favorite Vertigo title, SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE, as well as the re-booted DR. MID-NITE mini-series for DC Comics and serving as the regular cover artist on both the Kevin Smith-penned relaunch of GREEN ARROW and a subsequent stint for the monthly BATMAN title.
Known for his character-driven stories and his obvious love of world history and mythologies, Matt has also enjoyed the distinction of being one of the only writer/artists allowed to team his own creation with one of DC’s flagship characters in two successive BATMAN/GRENDEL crossover series.
Matt has also written and drawn several high profile projects for DC including a highly successful, three-issue, prestige series starring Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, titled TRINITY and a year-long project comprised of two mini-series that chronicled some of the earliest aspects of Batman’s career in BATMAN & THE MONSTER MEN and BATMAN & THE MAD MONK.
2020 saw the 40th anniversary of GRENDEL and a special project to commemorate this significant milestone, an expanded and newly redrawn version of the original story arc, GRENDEL: DEVIL BY THE DEED—MASTER’S EDITION.
Some of his other efforts, variously writing or drawing, have included MADAME XANADU for Vertigo, ZORRO, GREEN HORNET: YEAR ONE, THE SHADOW: YEAR ONE, THE SHADOW: THE DEATH OF MARGO LANE and THE SPIRIT RETURNS for Dynamite Entertainment.
Matt also teamed with renowned film-maker Quentin Tarantino to co-write a DJANGO/ZORRO crossover series that was co-published by Dynamite and DC/Vertigo.
He continues to add new stories to the GRENDEL universe with the current DEVIL’S CRUCIBLE—DEFIANCE. His latest work is collaborating with maestro horror artist Kelley Jones on an ambitious and well-received series of graphic novels unveiling the secret histories of DRACULA.