Scott Snyder

Scott Snyder
Snyder at a signing for Batman: Gates of Gotham at Midtown Comics in Manhattan.
Occupation	writer
Genres	fantasy, horror, superhero fantasy
Influences Rick Bass, Raymond Carver, Denis Johnson, Stephen King, George Saunders, Joy Williams

Scott Snyder is an American writer best known for his 2006 short story collection Voodoo Heart, and his work in comic books, including American Vampire, Detective Comics, Batman, Batman: Gates of Gotham and Swamp Thing.

Career

At the age of nine, Snyder attended a summer camp where one of the counselors read Stephen King's Eyes of the Dragon to him over the summer, an experience that Snyder says "really jump-started my love of story-telling." He was also influenced by the writing of Denis Johnson, Raymond Carver, Rick Bass, Joy Williams, and George Saunders.

Snyder graduated from Brown University in 1998 with a degree in creative writing, and then worked at Walt Disney World for about a year. Snyder's Disney World stint strongly influenced his writing; he later recalled, "it did a world of good for my writing...All the things I ended up writing about, those things that are deeply frightening to me—fear of commitment and growing up, fear of losing loved ones, the wonder and terror of falling in love—all of it was constantly being played out all around me in this weird, cartoonish, magnified way at Disney."

Snyder signing copies of American Vampire and Detective Comics at a September 21, 2011 store appearance.

Snyder received his MFA from Columbia University in 2002. His first collection of stories, Voodoo Heart, was published by the Dial Press in June 2006 to highly positive reviews. The collection received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist, and was a Kirkus Reviews "Hot Debut" of the year. The New York Times published a positive review by author Andrew Sean Greer in the Sunday Book Review.

Stephen King picked two of the included stories—"Wreck" and "Dumpster Tuesday"—for the 2007 The Best American Short Stories anthology shortlist. Voodoo Heart was shortlisted for the 2006 Story Prize.^{[citation needed]}

Snyder teaches writing at Columbia University, New York University, Sarah Lawrence College and SUNY Southampton.^{[citation needed]}

In 2009, Snyder began writing for Marvel Comics. His first foray into the genre was a one-shot focusing on the first Human Torch, part of Marvel's 70th anniversary celebrations. He later wrote the 4-issue miniseries, Iron Man: Noir, which debuted in April 2010.

Vertigo Comics began publishing American Vampire, Snyder's first creator-owned, ongoing series, in the March 2010. The first five issues feature an original storyline by Stephen King. American Vampire went on to win the 2011 Eisner Award for Best New Series, as well as the 2011 Harvey Award for Best New Series.

His run as writer of Detective Comics began with issue #871 of that title, which marked the beginning of his exclusive contract with DC Comics. He developed the story for the mini-series Batman: Gates of Gotham with writer Kyle Higgins (who scripts the series), which debuted in May 2011.

In June, 2011, it was announced that Snyder will begin writing both Batman and a new Swamp Thing ongoing series as part of DC Comics' Fall 2011 relaunch.

Bibliography

DC Comics

Titles published by DC Comics include:

• Batman:
  • Detective Comics:
    • The Black Mirror (hc, 288 pages, 2011, ISBN 1-4012-3206-X) collects:
      • "The Black Mirror" (with Jock, in #871-873, 2011)
      • "Skeleton Cases" (with Francesco Francavilla, in #871-872, 874, 2011)
      • "Lost Boys" (with Francesco Francavilla, in #875, 2011)
      • "Hungry City" (with Jock, in #876-878, 2011)
      • "Skeleton Key" (with Francesco Francavilla, in #879, 2011)
      • "My Dark Architect" (with Jock, in #880, 2011)
      • "The Face in the Glass" (with Jock and Francesco Francavilla, in #881, 2011)
  • Gates of Gotham #1-5 (with Kyle Higgins and Trevor McCarthy, 2011) collected as Batman: Gates of Gotham (tpb, 144 pages, 2012, ISBN 1-4012-3341-4)
  • Batman (with Greg Capullo, 2011-...) collected as:
    • The Court of Owls (collects #1-7, hc, 176 pages, 2012, ISBN 1-4012-3541-7)
• Flashpoint: Project Superman #1-3 (with Lowell Francis and Gene Ha, 2011) collected in Flashpoint: The World of Flashpoint Featuring Superman (tpb, 320 pages, 2012, ISBN 978-1-4012-3434-8)
• Swamp Thing (with Yanick Paquette and Marco Rudy, 2011-...) collected as:
  • Raise Them Bones (collects #1-7, tpb, 168 pages, 2012, ISBN 1-4012-3462-3)

Vertigo

Titles published by DC Comics' Vertigo imprint include:

• American Vampire (with Rafael Albuquerque, Mateus Santolouco, Danijel Žeželj, Sean Murphy and Jordi Bernet, 2010-...) collected as:
  • Volume 1 (collects #1-5, hc, 200 pages, 2010, ISBN 978-1-4012-2830-9; tpb, 2011, ISBN 978-1-4012-2974-0)
  • Volume 2 (collects #6-11, hc, 160 pages, 2011, ISBN 978-1-4012-3069-2; tpb, 2012, ISBN 978-1-4012-3070-8)
  • Volume 3 (collects #12-18 and Survival of the Fittest #1-5, hc, 288 pages, 2012, ISBN 978-1-4012-3333-4; tpb, 2012, ISBN 978-1-4012-3334-1)
  • Volume 4 (collects #19-25, hc, 208 pages, 2012, ISBN 978-1-4012-3718-9)

Other publishers

Titles published by various American publishers include:

• Marvel:
  • Human Torch Comics 70th Anniversary Special #1 (with Scott Wegener, 2009) collected in Timely 70th Anniversary Collection (hc, 280 pages, 2010, ISBN 978-0-7851-3899-0; tpb, 2010, ISBN 978-0-7851-4092-4)
  • Nation X #1: "Testament" (with David Lopez, 2010) collected in Nation X (hc, 360 pages, 2010, ISBN 0-7851-3873-0; tpb, 2010, ISBN 0-7851-4103-0)
  • Iron Man Noir #1-4 (with Manuel Garcia, 2010) collected as Iron Man Noir (hc, 112 pages, 2010, ISBN 0-7851-4727-6; tpb, 2011, ISBN 0-7851-4728-4)
• Severed #1-7 (with Scott Tuft and Attila Futaki, Image, 2011-2012) collected as Severed (hc, 192 pages, 2012, ISBN 978-1-6070-6529-6)

Awards

• 2011 Eisner Award for Best New Series (for American Vampire)
• 2011 Harvey Award for Best New Series (for American Vampire)

Nominations

• 2011 Eagle Award for Favourite Newcomer Writer
• 2011 Harvey Award for Most Promising New Talent

External links

• Scott Snyder at the Comic Book DB