Darkness that Appeals: ‘Wytches’ Author Scott Snyder

Who’s the best writer in comics? Of course it’s a ridiculous question to ask. Writing is one of the most purely subjective art forms there is, so anyone trying to make a case for the top scribe in the funny book business is going to have a difficult time.

Although when this conversation comes up (and it does, in every comic book store in America on a daily basis–believe me) the names that inevitably get thrown into the battle royale of wordsmiths are quite an elite group of heavyweight contenders: Millar. Waid. Morrison. Moore. And of course, Scott Snyder.

Snyder’s resume is as diverse as it is impressive: Vertigo’s The Wake, a horror series about creatures from the sea who rise from the deepest undiscovered depths of the ocean, ultimately changing the course of human history. Superman Unchained, DC’s New 52 take on the Man of Steel that has been both a critical and financial smash. And Batman, one of the highest-selling ongoing series of the last several years, and arguably the best version of Batman we’ve seen in decades.

Now he’s returning to Image to take on a creator-owned title called Wytches (and just in time for Halloween!) I read it. I loved it. it scared the living crap out of me. And then I had a chance to speak with the writer himself to tell him so.

Blake Northcott: I was lucky enough to read an advance review copy of Wytches, and wow – it was disturbing! It was very thrilling and fast-paced, but I think readers who are primarily familiar with your work on Batman might see this as a big gear-shift. Was this a conscious effort on your part, to do something a little darker and edgier than the mainstream DC titles, and even a little more subversive than your work on Vertigo’s The Wake?

Scott Snyder: I think for me, my roots are in horror. I did a book for Image a few years ago called Severed in the same vein as Wytches, in some ways with the darker notes. But it was about a cannibal that rides the rails back in the days of hobos in the early ’10s. Horror has always been in my DNA of what I love to do and I try to bring that to Batman and American Vampire certainly, but the most important thing for me honestly is doing stories that you’re passionate about and that speak to your personal interests and that also challenge you each time.

My goal is to constantly try things that I haven’t before with the tone, in terms of the size or scope of a story so I’m surprising myself. So less concerned about keeping readers on their toes in terms of what I’m putting out than myself. So for me this was really about coming off something like The Wake, which was meant to be exuberant and bright, even though it had elements of horror it was also sort of expansive and adventure and over the top, that spoke to some of the same interests about the same sorts of fears, but that this would be something claustrophobic and dark and cruel, and would come at these things from a much sharper kind of meaner angle, to be able to get at some of the scarier material underneath that are the same ideas that are in some of the other books I’ve done.

BN: Image Comics has become this lightning rod for accolades recently; comics like Saga, Sex Criminals and Rat Queens are receiving awards and getting praise from not just the comic book community, but the mainstream media. Do you feel like Image affords you an opportunity to have your work seen in a different light, and does it give you any creative freedom to step outside of DC and Vertigo?

SS: Yeah it does, I’m a huge fan of Image. I think because I was brand new, people sometime forget that I did that book Severed with Image when I was first starting out! For me, there [are] people that work there, and people that I’ve been fond of for a long time, and I’ve been hoping to get back and do stuff with them for a bit. I guess the challenge, to speak completely frankly, the differences are that at a place like Vertigo–and I love working there–there’s a big infrastructure for you at DC where there’s a lot of machinery around putting the book together, there’s a publicity machine, editorial infrastructure so you have a lot of help! Which is a great thing, you work as a team on a book.

The great thing is Image has those things, we have a great publicist and an editor on the book I love, but it’s a little bit more hands off in other ways. So you’re really putting the book together how you want to. You decide how long it will be, who the colorist or letterer will be. So it really is taking full control of the book.

RELATED: Review: Batman #29 Is Immersive, Amazing

So for a project like this, where I’m working with Jock, who’s one of my close friends, and someone I really enjoy bouncing ideas off…it was something where we would prefer to have full control of since we had ideas for all of these things. Who to use for letterer, colorist, how big the first issue would be, how to market it, etcetera. It’s a huge wonderful I think seismic shift that Image has become as popular as it has, and that if affords creators outside of “the big two” to do work that is theirs. I love super hero work. I adore working on Batman and Superman Unchained and those characters. But having a place to go that is completely outside of that realm, where you put together your book and you own the rights to your book outright, there’s something incredibly liberating about that. For me I understand people that want to go full-on superhero or other people that go full on Image. I love having the balance. If I didn’t have a creator owned outlet then I think I’d get really depressed!

That’s one thing I learned two years ago when I was only working on Batman and Superman for a bit…before The Wake and when American Vampire was on a break. I didn’t expect it, but I got so depressed! And I didn’t know why at first? I just realized that I didn’t have a place to go that was completely mine. So it’s a great landscape right now for that kind of balance if you’re into it.

BN: I felt like in Wytches there was an interesting blend of both the horrors we fear on the supernatural side of things, and the real-life horrors that kids have to deal with – like bullying and fitting in at a new school.

Was this drawn from your experiences growing up, or your feelings as a parent?

SS: Very much so as a parent. I mean I wasn’t terribly bullied as a kid, I mean I had my moments…but for me it’s more about the fears of being a parent. The terrible things you worry that will happen to your kids! Being the father of two young boys, I worry about that all the time. What the book is deeply about, and I know it’s dark and brutal…it’s a brutal book…and it gets worse! It gets darker!

The reason I feel comfortable with that [is] it’s an extremely personal book. What it’s really about is the kind of wonder and terror of being a parent in some ways. They don’t come after the children. The ideas of the witches as I imagined them, is that they are these ancient creatures that wait there in the woods for someone to come to them and pledge someone to them..cause they are kind of ballistic. If they get what they want from you, then they will give you something you want. Meaning they have this incredible knowledge of their ancient natural science , and they can cure ailments modern medicine can’t, they can extend your life. It’s not magic, it’s their own science. The fear of the book deep down, is the terrors that are out there for children…making them seem real in the woods.

But making the real scary thing human nature. The book is much more about human terror, human cruelty and the capacity for evil in people.

BN: I read that you were influenced heavily by Stephen King. What other authors influenced you in the horror genre, and did anyone or any particular work inspire you while working on Wytches?

SS: Yeah, I’m a big horror fan from everyone from Robert Bloch to Peter Straub, from literature to movies. For me some of the biggest influences honestly were from the horror movies I saw as a kid. There was a video store near us when I was growing up in New York City…that wouldn’t rent horror movies to kids, but you could call and order them over the phone and get delivered to your house. It was a secret that all the kids knew! There were a couple that I didn’t expect to be scary like Night of the Living Dead! When it came I was so disappointed, it was in black and white I was like, “This isn’t going to be scary.” But deep down, it was horrifying.

Those are the things that to this day, really resonate…the movies and books that you encounter as a kid that don’t necessarily shock you cause they’re gross or they’re slasher, but they get under your skin. The thing that got me so worked up, was that there was no hope. The monsters were a reflection of the ugliness in human nature. And that’s doubly scary.

I think that is what Stephen King does so well, in his best stuff. Works like that are my favorite horror–where the monster winds up being a darker twisted funhouse mirror of the things you’re are afraid are true about yourself somehow.

RELATED: Review: ‘Batman Eternal’ #1

BN: Do you feel like as a medium, comics lend themselves to horror better than movies or novels – or are there different aspects of the medium that have certain advantages?

SS: I think there are a lot of advantages to comics. I think the advantage to comics is it’s an incredibly intimate experience. It’s like reading prose, you have cues from the visuals, but ultimately you’re filling in the gaps with your imagination, what’s happening off panel, the characters voices, who they are, etcetera. It creates an incredibly intimate bond, between the characters that populate the world and the world itself.

When you can create that sense of creeping dread, when you can create a sense of suspense or emotional peril, I really believe it is more powerful than what you experience when you’re watching something on television or seeing it in a movie theatre. Because you have such an intense connection with a character that you’ve half created, by filling in all those blanks. And you know you have that to work within your toolbox as a writer in comics.

BN: Finally I just want to say that I’m a big wimp when it comes to horror and often times I’m just turned off by the genre because I feel like it’s a little exploitative, and kind of gruesome just for the sake of being gross and disturbing.

But I really found that Wytches had a lot of intrigue, and mystery, and a lot of heart.

What would you tell traditional comic book fans like me who might not initially be into a horror comic, and why we should read Wytches?

SS: That’s a good question! It does have its share of brutality, physical brutality, and it’s is a tough comic in that regard, there’s blood and violence. But ultimately I hope readers to give it a chance, knowing that its built from a place that is very personal to me and Jock.

The horrors are deeply rooted from our fears that come from being parents, and from things we remember from growing up from our childhood…like getting lost in the woods! All those primal things you still think you’re over, until you go there and then all of a sudden it comes rushing back. We would never build a book that was sensational or gross or anything like that. I hope we both have track records that speaks to that. Hopefully it’s the kind of darkness that appeals to people who don’t like horror right off the bat.

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Wytches #1 ($2.99, Image Comics) is available on October 8th in comic stores everywhere, and you can catch up with Scott on Twitter.

And of course go read The Wake, Batman, Superman Unchained, and all his other stuff because it’s hella-awesome. Don’t believe us? Shame on you; our last interview with Snyder proved it in “Batman Eternal: Everyone Else is Boned.”

Batman does what Batman wants.

Whoa…we had this exact dream last night.

Blake Northcott is an author, Twitter-er, and occasional Slayer of Vampires (only the ones that sparkle).You can follow her on Twitter or pick up her best-selling sci-Fi/superhero book Arena Mode over at Amazon.com.

Robots? Comics? Punk babes? …is this heaven?