Matt Madden

Matt Madden started self-publishing minicomics while living in Ann Arbor MI in the early 90s.  In 1996 Madden began writing reviews for The Comics Journal and other publications—more recently he reviewed comics and graphic novels for Bookforum. His first graphic novel, Black Candy, was published by Black Eye Books in 1998; his second, Odds Off, was published by Highwater Books in 2001. He also translates from French and Spanish. His translation from the French of Aristophane's The Zabîme Sisters (First Second) was published in the fall of 2010. In 2002 he was named foreign correspondent of the French avant-garde comics group, OuBaPo (the Workshop for Potential Comics). His book 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style (Penguin), a comics adaptation of Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style, which has numerous foreign editions including Japan, France, Italy, and Spain, further cemented his position as a leading figure in experimental comics. Madden is based in Brooklyn NY with his wife, Jessica Abel, and their two children. He teaches comics at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and he collaborated with his wife on a comics textbook, Drawing Words & Writing Pictures, published by First Second. The couple are also co-series editors of The Best American Comics from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Their follow-up to DW&WP, Mastering Comics, was published by First Second in the spring of 2012.