Martin Wagner (artist)

While a student at the University of Texas at Austin, Wagner began Hepcats as a comic strip in the college newspaper The Daily Texan in 1987.^[2] Starting in 1989, he self-published it as a black-and-white comic book series and it gained more exposure with the assistance of Dave Sim, who allowed Wagner to submit a page to his bi-weekly reprints of Cerebus.^[2] To help support the comics financially, Wagner also offered sketches to fans who sent him cash in the mail.^[3] Although the series received critical praise,^[2] the combination of poor sales, Wagner's lack of business experience, and his divorce in 1991 contributed to financial difficulties.^[4] Along with Jeff Smith (Bone), Colleen Doran (A Distant Soil), James Owen (Starchild), Larry Marder (Beanworld) and Sim, Wagner was one of the prominent self-publishers of the 1990s, but a hectic schedule eventually led him to cease publishing the series altogether following issue No. 12 in 1994.^[5] In 1996 he made a deal with Antarctic Press to republish the existing material, to be followed by new issues, but the only new material published was a special "#0" color issue. Wagner also developed the Snowblind story-line as part of the Hepcats series which would be re-printed into a novel, but it never continued past part one.^[6]

Following his departure from the comics industry, Wagner illustrated children's books and began a new career working in Austin-area film and television commercial productions. In 1999, Wagner produced some early conceptual drawings for director Robert Rodriguez (who was also a cartoonist at the University of Texas at the same time as Wagner) for his film Spy Kids,^{[citation needed]} though he did not work on the film during production or any of its sequels.

In 2005, Wagner was slated to direct a 24p high-definition short film, Tremendous Risk for Mr. Ferdico, but when the producers failed to secure funding, he shifted his attentions to a documentary, Bloody Work, which was successfully funded on Kickstarter in the summer of 2013,^[7] but was never released, with updates to the campaign ceasing in 2016.

Wagner was a rotating co-host on the webcast and public access show The Atheist Experience from 2000 to 2016.^[8]

• Martin Wagner at IMDb
• Listing for The Comics Journal No. 173, including interviews with Wagner and Jeff Smith