Marder was working with the people who had secured the rights to adapt The Hobbit to comics, and he knew firsthand that Wenzel had devoted his senior year in college to drawing Tolkien's characters.

Another graphic novel project in a similar vein was Wenzel and writer Douglas Wheeler's adaptation of some of the Brothers Grimm's fairytales for NBM in 1995.

Other notable projects Wenzel has done include Robert L. May's Christmas bestseller Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (Grosset and Dunlap, 2001); Max Lucado's A Hat For Ivan (Crossway Books, 2004); and several books in the Little Bear series which were art-directed by Maurice Sendak (HarperFestival, 2003–2004).

Wenzel's non-book related projects include puzzles, greeting cards, and two entire miniature kingdoms of collectible figurines.

[2] Wenzel cites illustrators like Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, N.C. Wyeth, and Howard Pyle as influences; as well as the Dutch painters Pieter Bruegel and Jan Steen.