Matt Fraction Has a Baby! And a New Child!
How’s it going?
Good
What did you do today?
We just had a baby not to long ago.
In September right?
Yeah
Doesn’t that feel stalkerish?
No, he was on Wikipedia like two days after he was born.
Wow, that’s soon
Somebody updated my Wikipedia with him, so yeah he’s going to be one of those babies who grows up on the internet I guess. I’m on a nightshift so I didn’t get to bed till like 8 in the morning so I didn’t get up till like 4 or 3 so it’s a pretty short day so far.
[Laughs] So you got up at 3 pm?
Yeah, I went to bed at 8 am.
Oh man that’s insane, so that’s all you’ve been doing? Just baby?
Yeah, well I can probably start dialing back to a more human schedule cause he is starting to sleep through the night. But yeah I was on night duty so my wife would go to bed with him, so whenever he would cry or fuss or need a diaper change that was me, but now he’s sleeping through the night and they go down together and really I usually have to change him once in the night but it’s normally around 6 in the morning and she gets up with him around 7 or 8 so she takes him till I get up, it’s been like that for a couple of weeks.
So how do you get him to sleep? Do you tell him stories?
We don’t normally have a lot of trouble with him, he just conks out. He has a time of night where he will conk out, somewhere between 8 and 10, but we haven’t had much trouble with him going to sleep.
That’s nice, are you going to get him into comics at an early age?
Yeah, sure absolutely
I know it’s a little early to be talking about this
Yeah it’s extraordinarily early, but yeah. One of my editors Axel [Alonso] has my favorite story about being a parent and working in comics, when his kid was 2 he was coloring in a coloring book and he stopped and he tells him “Dad, you work with Spider-Man right?” and he said “Yeah” and just says “Okay” and goes back to coloring.
That’s adorable.
I love stories like that.
So does he already have any comic book clothes? I’m sure you guys got plenty of gifts, did you get Underoos?
Well I’m pretty guilty of that, we have a few things of Spider-Man. My dad got him a teddy bear dressed up as Spider-Man.
Awesome.
So yeah it’s little bits and pieces here and there, he’s still in a pretty monochromatic place in his life so he really works best in black and white.
Well at least he will always have an early association with Spider-Man that will probably get him into comics sub-consciously. You write Punisher: War Journal and your Punisher is not as severe as Garth Ennis’. I’ve read that you’ve described it as the Red Bull to Ennis’s Whiskey. What’s your goal? Are you trying to target a younger audience or are your trying to tell a different story?
Both. Well, that was sort of Marvel’s directive. The goal for the book was we were trying to bring the Punisher back to the Marvel Universe and I knew exactly what he meant. I love Garth’s run on The Punisher and I think when Garth is done on The Punisher, especially Max Punisher, it’s going to stand with Stan [Lee] and Jack [Kirby]’s Fantastic Four, [Frank] Miller’s Daredevil, and [Brian Michael] Bendis’s Ultimate Spider-Man. It’s going to be one of the most definitive runs of a Marvel character, but that book doesn’t serve the audience that might want to see Punisher shoot Rhino in the face with a bazooka. So out of Civil War, Mark Miller had come up with this really great, dramatic entry for Frank back into the Marvel Universe and having him interact with the cape and costume crowd. That was always the objective and that was always the goal, the mission statement for the book was always:
“Frank and the Marvel Universe”
And that’s really how it differs. You know he’s not going to go after white slavers
Both [Laugh]
This is the book where Frank is going to run into Spider-Man on the roof, you know what I mean?
Yeah, because I mean he’s not really running into anyone from Garth Ennis’s run.
Exactly, and he never will. This book is “Real World”, as opposed to the Marvel records with the Y thing. Garth’s stuff is not connected to the Marvel Universe.
Do you see your Punisher as a character himself? Do you see yourself playing the Character
Yeah, I don’t know if I can necessarily say how Garth does what he does, but yeah just by the virtue of being a character that’s going to run into the Rhino. Early on when Axel [Alonso] and I were working out the book together he said, “This is a book where Galactus could come and Frank would just think ‘I’m going to need a bigger gun.’”
This is the Frank that, on some levels, is always kind of thinking “What would I do if Galactus does show up?” I think Garth does what he does so well and I don’t think you need two Garth books out there and honestly there is no one else that can do a better Garth Punisher than Garth Ennis, or trying to do an entirely different take on a similar character in a different world in a different frameset with different rules.
So then you’re telling a completely different story.
Yeah
So, you’ve done what I think most good comic writers have always wanted to do: you’ve taken a very ancillary Marvel character [Iron Fist] and made him great through his own title. How did you guys think of taking Iron Fist and doing that with him?
Well sort of Ed’s dirty little secret is his entire run from Detour and Accidental Death and on is always wanting to write Iron Fist,. Even going through Captain America and X-Men, it’s all roses for him as it led to him writing Iron Fist, his favorite character. So this was really a passion project for Ed like Daredevil, Criminal, X-Men, and Captain America, which are very important to Marvel. So the idea of Ed wanting to launch a seedless character, at best, into his own book did not fill anyone with confidence over there. So they wanted him to get a co-writer and long story short he came to me. So that was it. I was brought in once the ball was rolling
So, were you guys friends before?
Yeah, we were certainly friends before. We started to become tight over the process of this book. We knew each other, we met, we hung out. It was nothing else, but sort of anexchange emails and then after a while we knew we had similar tastes and such. When I got the Punisher gig, Axel recommended Ed to me as a kind of mentor almost. Ed was pretty instrumental and helped me navigate my pitch, because being asked to pitch a book that was actually going to happen, you know what I mean? It wasn’t a cold pitch with Punisher. So it was kind of one of those things with the trains moving and you want to be the conductor, so Ed and I kind of worked together getting my Punisher pitch together. We had a good relationship and the Iron Fist thing occurred to him while he was talking to me and we glued together really well.
That’s cool. You said that was Ed’s dream character. Do you have a dream character that you would like to write?
Numerous
But if you had to pick one.
I’m not a fan of answering that question because I don’t want an editor to remember that they have a pitch in a desk drawer somewhere and they get someone bigger than me who can clap their hands and get things moving. There are a lot of great characters at Marvel and DC that I would love to write.
[Laughs]Fair enough. On a similar vein, then, who was your favorite comic book character growing up? Did you read comics when you were growing up?
Oh yeah I read comics when I was growing up. Spider-Man was always my favorite character for me, but also Fantastic Four and X-Men. I think everybody hits a certain age where X-Men became, like, a preaching, you know what I mean?
I know exactly what you mean. Right there with you.
You just wake up one day and all you can think about is X-Men and eventually discover girls and they push they X-Men out of your head.
[Laughs] Sadly that’s not true for my life.
Awww
[Both Laugh]
But yeah Spider-Man and X-Men were definitely were pretty huge for me growing up.
So how did you get into actually writing comic books?
Well, I sort of decided I was going to do it and then I started to do it just to work on my craft and idiom in the privacy of my own home, I wrote hundreds of pages that no one ever saw, sort of like an artist and would draw sketch book. Then I started to get into commentary on the internet. Kind of in a pre-blog base with a web zine it spun off, or spun out, of the Warren Ellis form back on Delfi which had 10,000 unique visitors a day or whatever. So I started 2 at a time when comics on the internet were coming online and the community was very small and very intense, and I happened to be in the right place at the right time to write a lot of pieces that got a lot of attention.
I had a lot of Pros, Editor, and Editorial people writing to me. Whether it was agreeing or disagreeing, I was getting attention. And eventually I got a work offer. I did some short stories which lead to a graphic novel, which led to one thing that led to another and that was always the goal. I stopped doing the commentary stuff after a year just because I was very weary of falling into the trap of being the guy who always talks about doing something but never does it. So I got to a point where I thought that it was time for this to no longer be a hobby or a secret but for a time to be down in it and get my hands dirty.
How long do you think it was until you actually buckled down? You know how people say “I’m going to be writing this” or “I’m going to be a writer” and never follow through? How long do you think the period was between you deciding, you wanting to do that and then actually doing it?
I can tell you exactly
Okay, when was it?
It was 3 ½ years. I guess if I can look at a calendar I can give you something very close to an exact date But yeah it was close to 3 ½ years where I very literally decided, like the way you turn on a light switch, this is what I’m going to do.
Wow that’s crazy specific. What time period was that?
Like ‘96 or ‘97
So were you out of college or coming out of school?
I was in and out of college, technically I’ve never been fully out of college, but yeah I worked comic retail with Shelton Drum of Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find in Charlotte, NC, and apparently heroes caught on out there. I spent the spring and early summer of ‘97 being his road guy and I went to like 9 shows in 10 weeks, something like that, or maybe it was 6 shows in 7 weeks or something like that. It was New York, Dallas, New York, Detroit, New York and Charlotte, I know I’m forgetting one in there, but there was a lot of driving. But along with me and Sheldon were in New York doing a show, my carbonara would put on the shows in the church basement, and I remember we were waiting for a cab or something and I looked over at him and I said “Yeah this is what I’m going to do for the rest of my life.”
That’s awesome
And that’s when I started to figure out how to write a comic book, and then it wasn’t until 2001 that I started writing stuff that would get printed.
Now that you’re being published by Marvel and Image, what do you think your favorite working environment is? What’s you favorite publisher? What are your favorite working conditions?
There’s no ideal, really. There’s no utopian state out there. They all have their pluses and minuses, I mean theirs great stuff at being at both places.
Marvel is a professional comic organization to it’s core. It’s filled with pros who get paid to not miss their deadlines. The production pipeline is pretty tight. I mean I work with people who have deadlines all the time but they don’t go off the reservations or anything like that, not unless they’re superstars. We get lettering proofs, we get paid on time – everything is great there. They’re really great editors there. Theirs is a commercial organization working in place. They’ve never missed a royalty payment, it’s just air tight and it runs cleanly and you get to play with some of the biggest and greatest icons in the western medium. I mean I had a Spider-Man comic come out the week Spider-Man 3 came out! It gets no better then that. The one weekend a year where people are going to go into a comic shop looking for Spider-Man, that was the Spider-Man book that came out that week.
That’s amazing
That’s a fucking brain-melter is what that is! And that’s great! And if you read Punisher you’ll notice I love working in Spider-Man wherever I can. Anytime I get to write Spider-Man I get to put words in his mouth, and that is a huge a huge thrill, being a grown up who came from a childhood full of Spider-Man underoos.
I’m still looking for adult-sized Spider-Man Underoos
Let’s go back to that whole problem with you and girls and X-Men you know, that’s troubling.
[Laughs]Come on! They like that!
Spider-Man Underoos are trouble. They are going to cause a little thing where the girls would be like “ Oh…he what?”
“Put your clothes back on, I’m going home”
That’s the sound of a zipper going back up, but I did see someone was making Wonder Woman underwear for big girls.
Yeah, but you see that’s kind of the thing though. That’s hot. Like if I saw a girl wearing those. She would totally have me!
[Laughs] I think there’s something a little pedophilic about that.
Okay maybe to a certain degree, but if there was a girl into superheroes that much is what I’m saying, you know? Like the whole costume thing goes along there. Geek chicks are hot.
I think that’s an inch away from cosplay. Suddenly she’s dressing herself up as Natasha and wants to fight some squirrels? It’s a slippery slope that’s all I’m saying.
You sound like you’ve had some experience in this.
No comment
[Both Laugh]
Now this is kinda left field but where did you come up with the idea for Casanova?
The idea was that I was never going to be asked to write an ongoing comic again and Image was giving me a chance to do it.
Really? Why not?
It was the first comic I was asked to do an ongoing series that created everything else, and they approved it. So the idea was if I never get the chance to do this again, shouldn’t you make the shot count because you may never get the chance to do it again so make it count for all you can. So that was it, I wanted to write a comic that I wanted to read but didn’t exist, and I always loved spy’s and secret spy’s especially with the kinda ridiculous, and the secret spy genre has always been a favorite of mine. And for a lot of comic book fans when there favorite superhero puts on capes mine always put on suits, so I wanted to write that kind of super bond kind of thing. And like I said it was me wanting to write the comic I wish I could read.
Is there anything you’re reading that we should all be picking up?
Anything that the Hernandez brothers do. I guess Love and Rockets is not going to do an annual graphic novel format or whatever, and one of their books, Speak of the Devil, which is from Dark Horse, is coming out and one of his characters has a history of starring in sleazy b-movies and I guess her [disconnects]
[Weeps uncontrollably. Redials] Hello? Hey sorry I lost you for some reason.
I think I was talking about Speak of the Devil
Yes you were
But yeah there’s a character that was an actress starring in grade b to fairly decent movies and apparently he’s going to start doing a mini series that are those movies.
Oh that’s sick.
So Speak of the Devil is kind grade B, sleazy, you know? But it stars only one of the characters and she’s only in a little bit. Like, it’s her first movie so she’s only in a couple of scenes, but she shows up from time to time and it’s this kind of great idea
Totally
Yeah, so you see at the end papers there’s all these posters and stuff for all the other movies. So Gilbert Hernandez has always inspired me and I love everything he does.
That sounds awesome. So, do you have any superhero comics you’re picking up?
Yeah, I read a bunch just to stay abreast of everything else that is going on,
But you kind of enjoy the non-superhero stuff more?
Well here’s the thing, you don’t need me to help you to sell superhero stuff, not you like the royal you, but I mean like New Avengers is great but you don’t need anybody to advertise it, but people haven’t heard of Scalped or Fear Agent, you know? But Ed and [Brian Michael] Bendis are doing really great work right now. I can tell you this, when will this be out?
Late enough
Ah fuck it, having read a big chunk of Secret Invasion…it’s kinda the best thing Brian has written, it’s kinda the best superhero stuff Brian has done.
Really?!
With Ultimate Spider-Man aside, Secret Invasion is tremendously good
Can you vaguely tell us what’s so tremendously good about it?
Nope
Alright…I’m not looking for plot points.
No, but it’s fantastic
God I cannot wait, is Iron Fist going to factor into that at all?
No, Iron Fist is going to dodge the Skrull invasion, but there might be something kinda special and awesome happening. I’m off to New York for a couple of days for the editorial retreat and Ed and I are gonna try and get our ducks in a row. We’re trying to work on something cool for Iron Fist. It’s not going to be a Skrull thing but it’s going to be cool.
Nice, so it’s pretty safe to say this Iron Fist is not a Skrull
Yeah, totally
Sweet.
Or wait, he might be cause he isn’t in any of the Avengers and we have introduced a lot of Iron Fists so who knows? Maybe one of them is a Skrull.
There’s something for people to think about…
Why would we introduce all those Iron Fists?
Exactly, so now you have everyone questioning everything in the Marvel Universe, even the tiniest tiniest thing like if Wolverine couldn’t smell then maybe he’s a Skrull, [blah blah blah]…So how do you feel about the whole Skrull invasion?
I think it’s great, I think it gets people excited, it gets people wondering. It’s cool, it’s great. It gives everybody a chance to tell some interesting stories, the most important is what’s the net gain. It gives everybody the chance to do a lot of really great stories
Yeah that is pretty cool. So you write Punisher, Iron Fist, Casanova, and you got a bunch of lower-level, semi-superpowered guys. Doesn’t seem like you’d be the powers-type. As a kid, did you ever imagined yourself as a secret agent like Casanova instead of flying around like Superman? Both?
Yeah I don’t have the stuff to be a secret agent that much. I actually had the opportunity to meet actual secret agents, and yeah I can’t do what they do. But the cool thing about being a writer, at least to me, is being able to write different characters. I think the real answer is for every Marvel character I’ve written there’s something about them that kinda vexes you in someway, and whether it’s the disfulfillment of having those powers or something deep in the character – so I think the answer is yes all across the board, even though it’s kind of a cop out answer.
That’s cool, it was a cop out question. So do you think your son is going to affect your writing? Are you going to write more kids friendly books or factor him somewhere into your writing in someway, shape, or form? How do you think that will change your career?
I have a couple of friends who work in kids’ television who have always wanted me to pitch stuff, but my brain’s never worked in that way so I assumed that kids ideas would happen at some point; or so I hope – that would be really exciting. It’s weird, I’ve noticed like a sensitivity for using babies as plot devices; like do you watch that show Nip/Tuck?
No, I still haven’t gotten around to watching that.
There’s a couple of characters who are tweakers and have a baby, and there’s a montage of them getting high while the baby is crying while sitting on the couch and just screaming it’s head off, and what really disturbed me was not the images of the people getting fucked up out of their mind; but the baby screaming. And I had a really visceral reaction to that..but you know I suppose that’s,
…What they were going for?
Only natural
Yeah, definitely
I wrote an Iron Fist issue, we knew we were pregnant at the time but we didn’t know if it was a boy or girl, I wrote Iron Fist #7 because if I have a girl I want to put more powerful women in there and not have it an all boys club. So yeah It was one of the best things I’ve ever written for anything, inevitably I’ll be influenced by my son. You’ll know it’ll happen when all the characters get pregnant. When Misty Knight shows up with a baby belly that’s when you know I’ve gone off fucking deep end.
[Laughs] I’ll be sure to look out for that. So lastly what’s your favorite thing about writing all these comics? Is it the schedule? Is it the fact that you get to do what you’ve always wanted to do? What would you say is the part that people don’t normally hear about that you kinda like to say “Hey look at what I’m doing it’s better than your job?”
Well I don’t really have a real job, I get to write from home and spend time with my wife and my son. My wife also works from home so I get to spend time with my family and I get to see my son grow. I get paid to make shit up, people pay me to make stuff up and then I use that money to pay for my house and food, and then it happens all over again, it’s insane to be apart of this relay race it’s like being a relay runner where hand you like the Spider-Man baton and the Punisher baton, you know what I mean, then you hand it to somebody else.
I’m very honored by that in some weird, to be able to look at these icons of our modern idiom and determine just for a minute what direction the ship is going to head in is profound in someway that I can’t articulate, I love it and I’m super super happy and it’s fun, as voulotary of a job as it is it’s an industry full of great people, there are surely pricks in the industry don’t get me wrong, [stutters] I’m losing consistency, I’m falling over. I’m like the guy in the Gatorade commercial who didn’t stay hydrated.
[Laughs] You’re good, don’t worry man.
I also like to write scenes with men punching other men.
[Both laugh]
No it’s good I get to make shit up and I get paid for it and it’s the best thing ever.
Interview by Brian Gilmore
Transcribed by Michael Gonzales
