CON AWAY FROM CON CONTINUES! Superstar writer Scott Snyder came under the spotlight here at WonderCon as he talked about his career to date, including past and current work on Batman, Detective Comics, American Vampire and Swamp Thing. And those in attendance even got to hear about his escapades as a theme park’s roller-skating janitor!
Snyder started off talking about how the last two or three years have been an amazing ride with experiences on Detective Comics, American Vampire and more as he tells stories that people are really reacting to and enjoying.
What happens as he's working out the story is that he latches on to what's interesting to him. Small details he's noticed of cities like New York have informed how he's approached stories of Gotham City and how the characters interact with it and are influenced by it. As an example he talked about Batman and how Bruce Wayne used to view Gotham City as a friend and known quantity. But now he’s learning as the Court of Owls continues hounding him that not only may Gotham be a stranger but it may even be an enemy.
How Snyder gets to the root of the story is he first figures out how the heroes relate to the villains and what frightens everyone. Every story has to be something that brings new aspects of the character to light and has to have the heroes question themselves and their place in the world around them.
His involvement with Swamp Thing started with a phone call from Geoff Johns (who called while Snyder was in the middle of cooking dinner), who asked what sort of ideas he had for stories about the character. Exploring who Alec Holland really was proved to be the most interesting aspect he wanted to explore. Snyder said the thrill of WonderCon so far was meeting Len Wein and hearing about how much of a fan of his work on Swamp Thing he is.
Moving over to American Vampire, he says it was a story he had been thinking about for a long time but there were a glut of vampire stories at the time. Vampires are popular because they're scary and he wanted to expand on the idea of people you knew who had been turned into vicious monsters. And he's using archetypes like cowboys and movie stars and others to tell those stories.
With Animal Man and Swamp Thing coming to a crossover soon be prepared for some of the most twisted stuff you've seen since he and Jeff Lemire spent time just coming up with the most twisted things they could think of that would work for the characters.
That’s all for now from Scott Snyder. But tune in to DCComics.com in the near future for more from this popular and talented writer.
