Chuck Dixon

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Chuck Dixon

Chuck Dixon
Born April 14, 1954
Nationality American
Area(s) Writer
Notable works Batman, Robin
Birds of Prey

Charles "Chuck" Dixon (b. 1954) is an American comic book writer, perhaps best-known for long runs on Batman titles in the 1990s.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Chuck Dixon was born on April 14, 1954 and grew up in the Philadelphia area, reading comics of all genres. He has stated that Steve Ditko was perhaps his favorite comic book creator growing up, and that he looked up to the artwork of artists such as Alex Toth and Russ Heath. His earliest comics work was writing Evangeline for Comico Comics in 1984, on which he worked with his then-wife, the artist Judith Hunt. His big break came one year later, when editor Larry Hama hired him to write back-up stories for Marvel Comics' The Savage Sword of Conan.

In 1986, he began working for Eclipse Comics, writing stories in their Tales of Terror anthology, before starting work on Airboy with artist Tim Truman in July of that year. Continuing to write for both Marvel and (mainly) Eclipse on these titles, as well as launching Valkyrie with artist Paul Gulacy, in October 1987 he began work on Carl Potts' Alien Legion series for Marvel's Epic Comics imprint, under editor Archie Goodwin. He also produced a three-issue adaptation of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit for Eclipse with artist David Wenzel between 1989 and 1990, and began writing Marc Spector: Moon Knight in June 1989.

[edit] Batman and Punisher

His Punisher OGN Kingdom Gone (August, 1990) led to him working on the monthly The Punisher War Journal (and later, more monthly and occasional Punisher titles), and also brought him to the attention of DC Comics editor Denny O'Neil, who asked him to produce a Robin mini-series. The mini proved popular enough to spawn two sequels - The Joker's Wild (1991) and Cry of the Huntress (1992) - which led to both an on-going monthly series (which Dixon wrote for 100 issues before leaving to work with CrossGen Comics), and to Dixon working on Detective Comics from #644-738 through the major Batman stories KnightFall & KnightsEnd (for which he helped create the key character of Bane), DC One Million, Contagion, Legacy, Cataclysm and No Man's Land. Much of his run was illustrated by Graham Nolan.

He was DC's most prolific Batman-writer in the mid-1990s (rivalled perhaps by Bill Finger and Dennis O'Neil) - in addition to writing Detective Comics he pioneered the individual series for Robin, Nightwing (which he wrote for 70 issues, and returned to briefly with 2005's #101) and Batgirl, as well as creating the team and book Birds of Prey.

While writing multiple Punisher and Batman comics (and October 1994's Punisher/Batman crossover), he also found time to launch Team 7 for Jim Lee's WildStorm/Image and Prophet for Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios. He also wrote many issues of Catwoman and Green Arrow, regularly having around seven titles out each and every month between the years 1993 and 1997/8.[1]

[edit] CrossGen

In March, 2002, Dixon turned his prolific talents to CrossGen's output, slowly leaving Robin, Nightwing, Birds of Prey and Batgirl over the next year (although he co-wrote with Scott Beatty the origin of Barbara Gordon's Batgirl in 2003's Batgirl: Year One). For CrossGen he revitalised the comics of the out-going Mark Waid, taking over Sigil from #21, and Crux with #13. He launched Way of the Rat in June 2002, Brath (March '03), The Silken Ghost (June '03) and the Pirate comic El Cazador (Oct '03), as well as editing Robert Rodi's non-Sigilverse The Crossovers. He also wrote the Ruse spin-off Archard's Agents oneshots in January and November '03 and April '04, the last released shortly before CrossGen's complete collapse forced the cancellation of all of its comics, before which Dixon wrote a single issue of Sojourn (May '04). Dixon's Way of the Rat #24, Brath #14 and El Cazador #6 were among the last comics released from the then-bankrupt publisher.

[edit] Other publishers

In mid-2004, he wrote a number of issues and series' for smaller publishers Devil's Due Publishing and Moonstone Books during this period, returning briefly to DC, but mostly diversifying with comics at several publishers, including several issues of Simpsons Comics for Bongo Comics (for whom he has worked quite regularly from September 1998 to the present) and a couple of projets with Image. In May 2006, he contributed to IDW's Free Comic Book Day Transformers giveaway, leading to Dixon writing the Tranformers: Evolutions miniseries.

In July 2004, Dixon also began his return to the DC Universe with Richard Dragon, a revival of the Dennis O'Neil and Jim Berry-created 1970s Kung-Fu character, which ran for 12 issues. In March of the following year, he returned briefly to Nightwing before shifting his efforts to the Wildstorm imprint, writing the stand-alone Claw: The Unconquered (Aug '06 - Jan '07); the movie-adaptation of Snakes on a Plane, movie-spin-off Nightmare on Elm Street and the Wildstorm Universe title Grifter/Midnighter from May 2007.

In January 2007, he wrote the mini-series featuring Green Arrow's former sidekick Connor Hawke, (who had assumed the Green Arrow mantle under Dixon's tenure on that title in the late 1990s) called Connor Hawke: Dragon's Blood, and in March 2008, Dixon returned to writing Robin. He is currently also writing Batman and the Outsiders (from Dec '07), a project he was signed to at the last minute, after original writer Tony Bedard dropped out due to being occupied with Final Crisis-related work. On June 10, 2008, Dixon announced on his forum that he was no longer "employed by DC Comics in any capacity."[2] The reason for this sudden announcement is currently unknown.

Recent work includes Big Badz for Platinum Studios with artist Enrique Villagran, who he'd previously worked with on Wyatt Earp. [3]

[edit] Bibliography

His work includes:

[edit] Bongo Comics

[edit] CrossGen Comics

    • American Power (solicited, but cancelled before release)

[edit] Dark Horse Comics

[edit] DC Comics

[edit] Eclipse Comics

  • Airboy
  • Alien Encounters
  • The Hobbit
  • Swords of Texas
  • Tales of Terror
  • Winterworld
  • Skywolf
  • Valkyrie
  • Radio Boy

[edit] First Comics

[edit] Marvel Comics

[edit] Moonstone Books

  • The Phantom #9, 10
  • The Phantom Annual #1
  • Wyatt Earp
  • Kolchak the Night Stalker

[edit] Wildstorm Productions

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Chuck Dixon (chronologically) at the Comic Book DB Accessed March 19, 2008
  2. ^ [http://dixonverse.net/board/read.php?2,6361,6384#msg-6384 Chuck Dixon writing on the Dixonverse Message Board, June 10, 2008
  3. ^ Chuck Dixon: Profiles in Prolifics, Comics Bulletin, April 10, 2008

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Preceded by
Alan Grant		 Detective Comics writer
1992–1999		 Succeeded by
Greg Rucka
Preceded by
none		 Robin writer
1993–2002		 Succeeded by
Jon Lewis
Preceded by
Jo Duffy		 Catwoman writer
1994–1996		 Succeeded by
Doug Moench
Preceded by
none		 Nightwing writer
1996–2002		 Succeeded by
Devin Grayson
Preceded by
none		 Birds of Prey writer
1999–2002		 Succeeded by
Terry Moore
Preceded by
Judd Winick		 Batman and the Outsiders writer
2007–		 Succeeded by
Current Writer
Preceded by
Peter Milligan		 Robin writer
2008–		 Succeeded by
Current Writer
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