Jason Aaron is a creator I had the pleasure of interviewing back in my SBC days. Back then, Aaron was just starting to get some well-deserved attention for his work. What struck me about that interview was just how savvy he was (and continues to be). Ghost Rider and Wolverine are two characters that typically fail to spark my interest, but not when Aaron’s writing them. Aaron is busy at Marvel writing the ongoing Ghost Rider series, the Wolverine: Manifest Destiny miniseries. We also discuss his recent stint on Black Panther and the ongoing Vertigo series, Scalped. Last but not least, just in time to spread some holiday cheer this week sees the release of Punisher MAX X-Mas Special.

Tim O’Shea: As the positive reaction to Ghost Rider has grown, how much were you surprised at the number of reactions that ran along the lines of “I’ve never found the character of interest…until now”?

Jason Aaron: It’s nice to know I’ve helped bring new readers to the fold, but Ghost Rider was already a fun character long before I came along, all the way back to when he was first written by Gary Friedrich.

O’Shea: Given how busy you are with your various writing assignments, what drives you to take on the GR letters column? (Don’t get me wrong, it makes for fun reading…)

Aaron: GHOST RIDER was my first big ongoing assignment for Marvel, and I figured a lot of the people who’d be reading the book would have never heard of me, so I thought the letters column provided a great opportunity to introduce myself to them. And yeah, it’s a blast. GHOST RIDER gets a lot of mail. In particular, we get a lot of letters from people who don’t read any comics other than GHOST RIDER. I don’t know what it is about the character, but it has a very broad appeal. From church folks to cons, we get letters from them all.

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