by Deanna Destito
Scott Bryan Wilson has shared his stories with top comic companies such DC, Dynamite, Valiant, and IDW. He also recently collaborated with Cliff Chiang for Image’s Where We Live, an anthology created to benefit the victims of the 2017 Las Vegas Shooting. The Beat caught up with the accomplished writer to talk about upcoming projects and his love of all things horror.
Deanna Destito: So, what are you working on now?
Scott Bryan Wilson: I have a graphic novel for Dynamite that has not been announced yet, which is being drawn by Bob Solanovic. It’s beautiful, and it’s going to be his first American comics work. I have a story in the Elvira Halloween Special next month, drawn by Fernando Ruiz. Elvira has a car race with Satan. It’s called “The Satan 500.” She has to race Satan, and if she wins, Satan has to grant her three wishes. If she loses she has to marry Satan forever.
Destito: You’re a big horror fan. Have you been working on anything more aligned with the genre?
Wilson: I’ve been working on a series of short horror comics with various artists for a book I’m going to do called Unspeakable Monstrosity. It’s going to be all different genres within horror. There’s cosmic horror, gore, supernatural martial arts, children’s horror, which I think I’m trying to invent as a genre, teen horror, and then there’s just some standard brutality…the entire range.
Destito: What is your favorite type of horror?
Wilson: I’m such a big horror fan, but I don’t watch many horror movies and I don’t really read that many horror books. Mainly because I find that so many disappoint me. It’s never as scary as I want. And it’s never as literary as I want. And it’s never as smart as I want. I don’t like the low hanging fruit stuff. I don’t like things tied up neatly. I don’t like the protagonist always winning in the end. When I try to write horror I write something that I want to read. I recently submitted a story to a horror anthology and was told it was too disturbing for readers of the book. That was the greatest rejection I’ve ever received.
Destito: When you approach a horror story, do you try to scare yourself?
Wilson: I always think of the worst possible scenario wherever I am. What’s the worst thing that can happen right now? I think about this stuff so much that when I sit down to write a lot of it comes naturally from things I’ve already been thinking about. Or things that have bothered me so much that now I sort of memorialize them. I’m not a negative person at all but I do tend to see the bleakness in everything. Not in a depressive way. But in a removed way.
Destito: What is your dream project?
Wilson: It would be a horror crime procedural. Twelve issues. All oversized. Drawn by John Paul Leon.
Look for Dynamite’s Elvira: Mistress of the Dark Halloween Special One-Shot available October 24.
