Marty Nozzarella, local comic-book writer/artist

July 28, 6:20 PMVirginia Beach Comic Books ExaminerGabriel Gregoire

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  Marty Nozzarella gets a hand from a budding artist.

 What follows is a quick Q&A with Marty Nozzarella (soft Z, not like the cheese), Virginia Beach comic-book writer and artist and partner in Duck and Cover Studios.

 Examiner: Marty, usually I ask an interview subject to tell me a little bit about their background with comics.

MN: I started out watching “Super Friends” when I was about two years old. I always enjoyed superheroes, and my grandparents gave me my first comic book when I was two or three. It was an old issue of Fantastic Four. I was hooked from there.

Examiner: Gotta love the grandparents.

MN: Oh yeah, they spoiled me pretty good. Old Fantastic Four, old Iron Man comics. I thought they were great. My parents kept feeding the addiction.

Examiner: You had a supportive family.

MN: I think they just wanted me to shut up and read, as opposed to tormenting them. My dad taught me how to draw a little bit on a chalkboard. He wasn’t really into comics and all that, but he built a chalkboard/desk that I still have. It was like, “What do I do with this?” so he drew a picture from the comics and cartoons, and I somehow started drawing superheroes.

Examiner: You’re a prolific writer. You have two webcomics, an online series of prose stories, and now a mystery on Twitter. How do you balance your creative efforts with a career as a carpenter, family responsibilities and the other demands of life?

MN: Not very well. There’s been quite a few times where I’m sitting there drawing a page and had to put the pen down, get up, and tend to [my two-year-old twin daughters]. A lot of the work gets done at night, so I’m usually not in bed until midnight. I get done with one thing, and it’s like, okay, I gotta write this, I have to draw this, I have to do the other. Fortunately, I can write pretty fast. Most of the ideas are already formed; I just have to go through the effort of putting them down on paper.

Examiner: That’s the time-consuming part.

MN: Yes, it is. You would think I would type a lot faster by now, but I don’t.

Examiner: I’m at forty words per minute, myself.

MN: You’ve got me beat. By double, probably. I peck away. Very fierce is my hunting and pecking.

Examiner: Fierce. I like it. Now, in your webcomic, “Mere Mortal,” your protagonist is the only person in the world without super-powers. How did you come up with the concept, and what else should readers know about the series?

MN: I came up with the concept back in 2002, long before I started writing anything about it. I made some notes about it, shelved it for a little while, and brought it back out when I was looking to do something different. I thought it was a decent idea. I thought it had some legs to it, so I fleshed it out a little bit. At the time I was really into the TV show “Iron Chef” on Food Network, so it seemed like kind of the way to go to make him a cook and just kind of build on it from there. It’s like, “Okay, he’s a cook. Where would a guy with no powers work in a place where everybody has powers?” He’d go work in the one restaurant where nobody goes for the cooking, so he’s a chef at a go-go bar. His parents are two of the most powerful people on the planet, in terms of their powers. So it was this giant disappointment. He’s not ostracized, but people don’t really like talking about him. Most of society wishes that he and the people of low level… It’s almost like a caste system. The better power you get, the better job you’re going to get, and the more favorably you’re looked upon. The lower power you get… They end up getting menial jobs.

Examiner: Luck of the draw.

MN: Pretty much. And imagine getting a date. It’s like, “I don’t know about getting into a long-term relationship with this guy because he doesn’t have a very good power, and what would the kids have?”

Examiner: So he was kind of an anomaly in that both of his parents were very powerful, and yet he ended up with nothing.

MN: Absolutely. They still haven’t figured that out. He spent his whole life, growing up, he’d get tested once a year to see if there was some power that just hadn’t activated. It’s been a constant thing.

Examiner: The other comic you have on your website, “Night Life,” features a guy who’s carrying on a crime-fighting mission started by his great-grandfather. Talk about how you developed the character’s background and how you think it translates to a graphic medium.

MN: I created that one in college, and it initially started as a throwaway idea. It seems like every idea I end up pursuing was a throwaway at first. When I got to college, I wanted to do a college-newspaper strip, so I’m like, “All right, let’s try this.” I had it as two brothers. One of them had powers, the other didn’t. And the family dynamic ended up building from their father, and it went on from there. And it got some pretty decent reviews in the college paper. People seemed to follow it. I’m a lifelong martial artist, and so is my dad, and so is my brother, so I identify with that character. It’s something his dad started, and he loves it, but he has to finish it. The characters like Nightwing, Wally West, Kid Flash, I identify a lot with those types of characters. Those are the characters I really like. They have a family obligation. They’re carrying on something that’s bigger than them, but how do they cope with that? I have a lot of fun with that. And the prose fiction, the Twitter story, they all wrap around because I like blending a little bit of science fiction, I love horror literature, horror stories, so I’m eventually going to have it where the prose and all the webcomics and everything intermingle with all the characters and it’ll bust out into one story. I might do it as prose, I might do it as a comic, I might do it as a video game if I get the chance.

Examiner: Do it as a comic. That’s what everyone likes.

MN: I love comics. I love writing, and people say, “Okay, if you love writing so much, why comics? Why not make it as a novelist?” Because that’s the medium I love to work with. It’s the one I love reading, it’s the one I love writing, it’s the one I love drawing, and I’m just a big old sucker for it.

Examiner: What software do you use to write comic scripts?

MN: Microsoft Word. I keep it nice and basic. You really can do it with anything. I’ve written them out on pieces of paper and handed them off to artists. The artist for the Twitter event is in Texas, so it’s like, “Okay, do it online.” Little things I’ve been doing with the “Tales of the Night Life” story, I’ve had artists from Hawaii to Spain. So you have to be online nowadays to get stuff out there.

Examiner: So you get to know some people.

MN: I actually got very lucky. Before I started the “Tales of the Night Life” project, I knew almost every artist I ended up working with, from talking comics online. It’s all these really, really talented people out there, and they either don’t know where to get started, or they’re nervous about taking their shot at it, so it’s like, “All right, just do this, get your feet wet.”

Examiner: Is there anything else you want our readers to know about your comics, your prose, anything like that?

MN: All I want to do is tell some entertaining stories. It’s not about critical acclaim or anything else. If people are enjoying it, that’s the best reward ever. I’m here to have fun, and I hope everybody else has fun with it.

Examiner: Thank you, Marty, it’s been a pleasure.

MN: Thank you.