About

Who the Heck is Mat Nastos?

by Alex Waxman

Mat Nastos was born at the end of 1972 in Wilmington, Delaware. His father, Nick Masters, was about to go on a tour of Europe with Bill Haley & the Comets and even as a premature baby, Mat just couldn’t stomach the idea of being born outside of the United States.

Spending his first few years living in rural Ireland, Mat Nastos returned to the US when he was three and quickly discovered that comic books were quite a bit more fun than real life. He still remembers the day, a few months before his fourth birthday, when his older brother brought him copies of Warlock #14 and Marvel Two-In-One #18 to help him through a rather painful case of the mumps. In fact, Mat Nastos may be the only person I’ve ever known who actually had the mumps.

From that point on, Mat collected every comic book he could get his hands on. While he began life as a Marvel Zombie, he soon moved on to embraced DC Comics and just about everything else published in the late 70s through the mid-1990s. His earliest, and most long-standing, loves were the X-men by Chris Claremont, the Teen Titans by Wolfman-Perez, the Legion of Superheroes by Paul Levits and Elfquest by Wendy Pini. In particular, the beautiful artwork of Wendy Pini on Elfquest caught the attention of a young Nastos and was a book he always dreamed of working on.

As he grew into his teens, Mat  organized and ran the very first comic book conventions in the state of Hawaii, where his parents had moved in 1977. Running the conventions and meeting professional comic creators, such as Mike Zeck, Walt Simonson, Bill Sienkewicz, Steve Leialoha, Dennis Fujitake and Stan Sakai, fueled Mat’s passion even more and led him to purse comic book art as a profession. With encouragement from his parents, Nastos enrolled in the Joe Kubert School for Comic Book Art in Dover, New Jersey.

From the Kubert School to the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, Mat buried himself in what has been called one of the only uniquely American artforms, comic books. It was during this period, while working for various independent comic publishers, that Nastos began to work as a storyboard artist on a number of films for Roger Corman. For the next 15 years, Nastos would bounce back and forth between working in film/television to creating comics books.

In 1994, before his final year at the School of Visual Arts, Nastos found himself thrust head-first into his dream job after a telephone call from Barry Blair. It seems the Pinis had been blown away by Mat’s work when he briefly met with them at a comic book store signing in Kileen, Texas, a few months earlier, and the couple had tasked Barry Blair to find the young artist. Over the next year, Nastos’ pencils and inks would appear in nearly every title produced by Warp Graphics — Blood of Ten Chiefs, New Blood and Hidden Years.

Mat Nastos would eventually part ways with the Pinis in 1995 when he moved to Texas to help take care of his ailing father. In April of 1995, Mat’s dad, Nick Master, passed away of complications from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

Back in New York City in 1996, Mat began working again with his mentor, Joe Orlando, first on various “special projects” for DC Comics and then for Mad Magazine when Orlando took the magazine over. It was during this time when Nastos would return to doing freelance artwork for Marvel and DC both, and regularly hung out in the famous Marvel Bullpen.

Also in 1996, Mat published the original Cadre comic book mini series through his self-publishing company, Nifty Comics.

Since that time, Mat has worked on over 75 films, more than 200 television episodes, numerous comic books, and for clients as varied as American Greetings, Highlights Magazine for Kids and Playboy. He even ventured into the realm of video games with Click Entertainment, Sierra Games and EA.com. In 2001, Nastos produced his first low budget film, the fan favorite “Bite Me, Fanboy.” His next feature would follow in 2005 with “Stinger” from Shoreline Entertainment.

In 2002, Mat realized something was missing in his career. While he had been an artistic force for most of his life, he came to the conclusion that he enjoyed the business side of things as much as the creative side. He enrolled in the MBA program at UCLA and received his masters degree in 2004. He turned his attention to marketing on the web and was soon a founder of one of the most popular fitness review websites on the internet, TreadmillSensei.com.

With the end of the first decade of the 21st century fast approaching, Mat turned his attention and internet marketing experience back to the world of comic books. The latest incarnation of the Cadre has gone on to sell over 150,000 issues, opening up new outlets previously untapped by the comic book industry.

Mat Nastos on IMDB
Mat Nastos on Facebook
Mat Nastos on Twitter
Mat Nastos on YouTube
Comic Book Heroes interview with Mat Nastos