If there's anything comic art legend Bernie Wrightson has proven, it's that the "squishy stuff" can be beautiful. Applying the same care to depicting the ghoulish and grotesque that artists like Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth and the Brandywine School used in their illustrations, Wrightson's carved out his own niche in the comic world, co-creating Swamp Thing (and illustrating the character's classic early adventures), contributing classic short tales to Creepy and Eerie, and bringing new life to Mary Shelley's monster in his defining take on Frankenstein. Wrightson's also created conceptual and design art for films like Ghostbusters and The Mist. So with renewed talk in the air of a new Swamp Thing film from producer Joel Silver – based on Wrightson's original character – I made sure to ask the artist, when I caught up with him at this weekend's Wizard World Anaheim, if he'd like to be involved with the project; and what's new with him on the comic book front. Check out our chat after the jump.

Have you been approached about conceptual art for the new Swamp Thing?

No, nobody's talked to me about it. I'm sure I'd be the last person they would come to. You know, one of the actual creators!

Despite your film work?

I don't even know if they know about it, you know? It's not what I do primarily.

You've probably heard that they look to base the next one on your original character.

I've heard that. And if anybody's interested, I'm available!

Are there any filmmakers today that you would like to see work on the project?

Not off the top of my head. I imagine the effects could be done very well these days. But I enjoyed it the first time around, with the guy in the rubber suit.

Wes Craven's original film?

Yeah! I thought it was fine and they treated it in the right spirit. They made a comic book movie and weren't trying to be pretentious or anything. I thought they made a really good B-movie.

You worked with Frank Darabont on The Mist. Has Frank talked to you about working on his new TV series Walking Dead?

No. What can you really do with zombies? He's working with KNB on that and those guys are tops in everything, particularly zombies. They've done a lot of that stuff. I would love to work on it if there was a place for me, but I don't see what I could really do unless they had some kind of effect thing. I worked on Land of the Dead with KNB and did a couple of specific things. I think there was a zombie that had his head sliced almost completely off and it was kind of hanging upside down by strings of flesh and I did some work on that because that was a CGI thing combined with physical effects.

Can you talk about your upcoming comic book projects?

I've been working with Steve Niles for a couple of years, and IDW. We did Dead, She Said and we did The Ghoul. We're working now on a three-issue miniseries called Doc Macabre, which I guess Steve has been talking about. But anyway when we're done with that we're gonna bring all the characters back together as a team. One big, hellacious comic.

When can we expect to see that?

I have no idea. I don't think Doc Macabre has been scheduled yet. We're just really getting started on it. I'm just working on the first issue. If it comes out soon at all I would think maybe later this year. And they'll announce it. I'm sure they'll let me know when they schedule it.

How would you describe Doc Macabre?

Doc Macabre is basically a boy genius. He graduated from MIT at age eleven and he finds and deals with the supernatural.