Here’s another insanely useful thing when writing: a cast list. You’ve seen these before, right? Probably when reading Shakespeare. In Romeo and Juliet, the cast list includes entries like: Montague, head of one house, at odds with Capulets Capulet, head of one house, at odds with Montagues Romeo, son to Montague Mercutio, kinsman to the…
Outlines are important, don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. They can keep you from making silly mistakes. Like having an article about outlining near the end of a writing month. Seriously, an outline can keep you out of all kinds of trouble. If you have even a basic outline beforehand, you can get a clearer…
For those of you who haven’t read the three-issue comic book miniseries Red, by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner, don’t worry. The movie version is to the comic book as [[[Blade Runner]]] was to Philip K. Dick’s novel [[[Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?]]] That is, Red takes the comic book’s basic concept—a retired CIA…
Born in the Bronx in 1921, Warren Kremer had art in his blood—his father was a sign painter. After graduating from the High School of Music and Art and the School of Industrial Arts, Kremer got work with various pulp and aviation magazines. His first comic book work was on Hap Hazard for Ace Publications….
Born in 1910 in Zumbrota, Minnesota, Charles Clarence “C.C.” Beck started learning art via correspondence course before studying at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and the University of Minnesota. Fawcett Publications hired him as a staff artist in 1933. Initially Beck worked on pulp magazines, but when Fawcett started producing comic books in 1939…
Born in Minnesota in 1905, Wayne Boring attended the Minnesota School of Art and then the Chicago Art Institute. He started working in the comic book industry in 1937, ghost-drawing for Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s studio. When the studio created a Superman comic strip Boring was tapped to ghost-draw that, though later he was…
I’m a writer. It’s what I do. More than that, though, it’s who I am. I can’t not write—I actually get something similar to withdrawal symptoms if I go too long without writing. Writing is an essential part of my nature. So what do I write? Almost anything, really. I’ve written over a dozen novels…
Often when I talk to new people the topic of roleplaying games comes up (particularly after I’m asked “so what do you do?”), at which point I learn whether they’re gamers or not. If they’re not I usually get the classic question, “What’s a roleplaying game?” Then I explain about tabletop gaming—most often I define…
Born in Sangley Point, Cavite City, Philippines in 1963, Whilce Portacio joined Marvel Comics as an inker in 1985 but soon began penciling for them as well. He worked on The Punisher, X-Factor, and The Uncanny X-Men before leaving in 1992 to found Image Comics with several other well-known comic book artists. Portacio soon withdrew…
Born in Philadelphia in 1930, Al Wiesner loved comic books as a boy but noticed a curious thing—there were plenty of Jewish writers and artists but no Jewish main characters. At the tender age of 48 he decided to correct this deficiency, and released Mark 1 Comics, starring the mighty Shaloman! He has been writing…
Born in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1958, Shawn McManus got his comic book start in the early 1980s, working for Heavy Metal. He illustrated two issues of the Alan Moore run on Swamp Thing, then went on to draw most of the “A Game of You” storyline in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman. McManus also drew issues…
Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1961, Jackson “Butch” Guice started out drawing for fanzines and designing patches and emblems for a company in North Carolina. In 1982 he ghosted some artwork for Pat Broderick on the Rom annual, and drew the first two issues of the independent comic book Southern Knights. Then Marvel editor Al…
