Interview by Max Delgado

Let’s be honest: Marv Wolfman might be the reason you love comics.

While a statement this bold might seem debatable from a distance, if your love of the medium is tethered to anything mainstream then it gets real hard, real quick, to tease out Wolfman’s individual impact from the genre as a whole. Wolfman has, afterall, been toiling in the industry since the late ‘60s -- his first writing credit appeared about a decade after the creation of the Fantastic Four, and he’s been credited with creating dozens of beloved characters since he first bent over a typewriter and began plucking at the keys (Bullseye, Cyborg and Tim Drake just to name a few).

Simply put, he’s had his creative fingers in a lot of pies. And while some of his creations have gone on to be memorialized in television and film (Blade and Deathstroke) most geeks associate Wolfman less with the characters he created, and more with the franchise that he built -- The New Teen Titans.

Yes, back in 1980 Marv Wolfman and George Pérez re-imagined the retired team book and created what continues to be one of the defining runs of that decade --and helped established a new expectation for readers. After Titans action simply wasn’t good enough; we wanted character development and drama. We wanted stories where heroes like Dick Grayson and were finally allowed to grow up. So, if you’re a fan of any of the meaty emotion-driven mega-arcs that the industry has put out in the last twenty years, then you have to accept the fact you’re also a de facto Wolfman fan. Because he’s one of the writers that set that bar.

Just recently, Wolfman chatted with LBP about his career, and memories associated with his comic book collection.

LBP: Tell me about the comics you read when you were growing up, specifically any titles that you felt passionate about.

Basically I read almost everything. Superman, Batman & Wonder Woman were the only super-hero books published back then, so I also read Harvey Comics, Archie, and more. When DC started adding super-hero comics, I followed all of them, too. Of course I'd been reading their science fiction and mystery line, too. Marvel came about a bit later but then I became a fan of theirs. My favorite was Superman followed by Spider-Man.

LBP: It seems that you locked onto a career in the arts pretty early in life -- you attended New York's famous High School of Art and Design and began your professional career shortly after that. How did this love of art eventually segue into a passion for writing?

I always drew and I always wrote the stories for me to draw, so when I realized my art would never be as good as my writing, I easily switched over to it. I can make my words do what I want but I could never get my art to do so. But having an art background is vital; to this day I can see the visuals of each scene and strive to make them as important as I can.

LBP: In your post Origin of The New Teen Titans you share that when considering how to relaunch Haney/Cardy’s classic title you and George Pérez decided it was essential to not imitate what had come before. The result of your approach was, of course, remarkable. As to how you got there, you write, “Our characters reflected our interests. Our stories came out of our personalities.” How might Teen Titans helps us better understand Marv Wolfman?