Tony Isabella is an American comic book writer, editor, artist and critic, known as the creator and writer of Marvel Comics' Black Goliath; DC Comics' first major African-American superhero, Black Lightning; and as a columnist and critic for the Comics Buyer's Guide. Contents

DONALD F. GLUT has been professionally active in both the entertainment and publishing industries since 1966. Born in Pecos, Texas, Don grew up in Chicago, IL. At age nine, already bitten by the film-making “bug,” he made Diplodocus at Large, the first of 41 amateur movies featuring dinosaurs, human monsters (Frankenstein’s Monster, Teenage Werewolf, etc.) and superheroes (Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, etc.) Some of these films made during the late 1960s (e.g., Spy Smasher vs. the Purple Monster) were eventually shown in theatres and on TV. Moving to Los Angeles to attend the University of Southern California, Don professionally entered show business as an “extra” (a POW) in the movie Von Ryan’s Express (1965), the first of several such “roles.” He began his professional writing career in 1966, writing articles for and finally editing the magazine Modern Monsters. In 1967, after graduating from the University of Southern California with a BA degree (for Cinema) in Letters, Arts and Sciences, Don worked as a musician, singer and songwriter in The Penny Arkade, a rock band produced by “Monkee” Michael Nesmith. Shortly after that he briefly furthered his acting career, having a speaking role in a national television commercial starring Dick Clark. However, most of Don’s professional life has been as a freelance writer. To date he has authored numerous motion picture and television scripts (Shazam!, Land of the Lost, and animation, e.g., Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends, Transformers, G.I.Joe, Duck Tales, Jonny Quest, X-Men, others), comic-book scripts (Captain America, Tarzan, etc., including creating for Gold Key Dagar the Invincible, The Occult Files of Dr. Spektor and Tragg and the Sky Gods), more than 35 novels and nonfiction books, also numerous short stories, articles, songs, album-liner notes, etc. The Dinosaur Dictionary (1972) and Dinosaurs: The Encyclopedia (1997), two of Don’s many non-fiction books about dinosaurs, both were listed by the American Library Association among the best reference books of their years of publication. With The Dinosaur Dictionary Don created the much-imitated book format based upon an alphabetical listing of dinosaur names. Perhaps Don is best known for his novelization of the movie The Empire Strikes Back (1980), the nation’s No. 1 bestseller for almost two months, which to date (still in print) has sold over 3.5 million copies. In 1982 he created characters and back story for Mattel’s “Masters of the Universe” toy line. Among his more recent books is Chomper, an entry in the popular “Dinotopia” series. Don produced, wrote and directed various videos (including the documentaries Dinosaur Movies and Hollywood Goes Ape! and the music-video compilation Dinosaur Tracks®), theatre and movie projects. He has worked as a consultant on numerous other video, film and TV projects, and was “Dinosaur Consultant” on Roger Corman’s movie Carnosaur (1993). In 1990, Don and Pete Von Sholly founded Fossil Records, which has already produced a half dozen albums. These include Dinosaur Tracks®, More Dinosaur Tracks® and Dinosaur Tracks® Again, featuring paleontology-related rock music written mostly by Don (Dinodon Music/BMI), performed by Don and Pete (as the Iridium Band). More recently, Don became president of Frontline Entertainment (www.frontlinefilms.com), for which he wrote, directed and co-produced the comedy/fantasy motion picture Dinosaur Valley Girls™, which has already achieved “cult movie” status, and Before La Brea, a documentary commissioned by the George C. Page Museum of La Brea Discoveries in Los Angeles. In 2000, he was commissioned by Irena Belle Productions to direct the movie The Vampire Hunters Club, featuring an all-star genre cast.

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name John Lindley Byrne is a British-born Canadian-American author and artist of comic books. Since the mid-1970s, Byrne has worked on nearly every major American superhero. Byrne's better-known work has been on Marvel Comics' X-Men and Fantastic Four and the 1986 relaunch of DC Comics’ Superman franchise. Coming into the comics profession exclusively as a penciler, Byrne began co-plotting the X-Men comics during his tenure on them, and launched his writing career in earnest with Fantastic Four (where he also started inking his own pencils). During the 1990s he produced a number of creator-owned works, including Next Men and Danger Unlimited. He also wrote the first issues of Mike Mignola's Hellboy series and produced a number of Star Trek comics for IDW Publishing.

For the Karate Kid actor, click here: Ralph Macchio Ralph Macchio is an American comic book editor and writer, who has held many positions at Marvel Comics, including executive editor. Macchio is commonly associated with Daredevil, the Spider-Man line of comics and the popular Ultimate Marvel line. In Macchio's words, he "made probably the longest run on Daredevil of anyone." Macchio is not related to the actor Ralph Macchio, but is nicknamed "Karate Kid" after that actor's famous role.

Roy Thomas was the FIRST Editor-in-Chief at Marvel—After Stan Lee stepped down from the position. Roy is a longtime comic book writer and editor. Thomas has written comics for Archie, Charlton, DC, Heroic Publishing, Marvel, and Topps over the years. Thomas currently edits the fanzine Alter Ego for Twomorrow's Publishing. He was Editor for Marvel comics from 1972-1974. He wrote for several titles at Marvel, such as Avengers, Thor, Invaders, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and notably Conan the Barbarian. Thomas is also known for his championing of Golden Age comic-book heroes—particularly the 1940s superhero team the Justice Society of America—and for lengthy writing stints on Marvel's X-Men and Avengers, and DC Comics' All-Star Squadron, among other titles. Also a legendary creator. Creations include Wolverine, Carol Danvers, Ghost Rider, Vision, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Valkyrie, Morbius, Doc Samson, and Ultron. Roy has also worked for Archie, Charlton, and DC among others over the years.

Stan Lee (born Stanley Martin Lieber) was an American writer, editor, creator of comic book superheroes, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics. With several artist co-creators, most notably Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, he co-created Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Thor as a superhero, the X-Men, Iron Man, the Hulk, Daredevil, the Silver Surfer, Dr. Strange, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Scarlet Witch, The Inhumans, and many other characters, introducing complex, naturalistic characters and a thoroughly shared universe into superhero comic books. He subsequently led the expansion of Marvel Comics from a small division of a publishing house to a large multimedia corporation.

Ed Brubaker (born November 17, 1966) is an Eisner Award-winning American cartoonist and writer. He was born at the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland. Brubaker is best known for his work as a comic book writer on such titles as Batman, Daredevil, Captain America, Iron Fist, Catwoman, Gotham Central and Uncanny X-Men. In more recent years, he has focused solely on creator-owned titles for Image Comics, such as Fatale, Criminal, Velvet and Kill or Be Killed. In 2016, Brubaker ventured into television, joining the writing staff of the HBO series Westworld.

Jason Aaron grew up in a small town in Alabama. His cousin, Gustav Hasford, who wrote the semi-autobiographical novel The Short-Timers, on which the feature film Full Metal Jacket was based, was a large influence on Aaron. Aaron decided he wanted to write comics as a child, and though his father was skeptical when Aaron informed him of this aspiration, his mother took Aaron to drug stores, where he would purchase books from spinner racks, some of which he still owns today. Aaron's career in comics began in 2001 when he won a Marvel Comics talent search contest with an eight-page Wolverine back-up story script. The story, which was published in Wolverine #175 (June 2002), gave him the opportunity to pitch subsequent ideas to editors. In 2006, Aaron made a blind submission to DC/Vertigo, who published his first major work, the Vietnam War story The Other Side which was nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Miniseries, and which Aaron regards as the "second time" he broke into the industry. Following this, Vertigo asked him to pitch other ideas, which led to the series Scalped, a creator-owned series set on the fictional Prairie Rose Indian Reservation and published by DC/Vertigo. In 2007, Aaron wrote Ripclaw: Pilot Season for Top Cow Productions. Later that year, Marvel editor Axel Alonso, who was impressed by The Other Side and Scalped, hired Aaron to write issues of Wolverine, Black Panther and eventually, an extended run on Ghost Rider that began in April 2008. His continued work on Black Panther also included a tie-in to the company-wide crossover storyline along with a "Secret Invasion" with David Lapham in 2009. In January 2008, he signed an exclusive contract with Marvel, though it would not affect his work on Scalped. Later that July, he wrote the Penguin issue of The Joker's Asylum. After a 4-issue stint on Wolverine in 2007, Aaron returned to the character with the ongoing series Wolverine: Weapon X, launched to coincide with the feature film X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Aaron commented, "With Wolverine: Weapon X we'll be trying to mix things up like that from arc to arc, so the first arc is a typical sort of black ops story but the second arc will jump right into the middle of a completely different genre," In 2010, the series was relaunched once again as simply Wolverine. He followed this with his current run on Thor: God of Thunder.

Mike W. Barr is an American writer of comic books, and mystery, and science fiction novels. Barr's debut as a comics professional came in DC Comics' Detective Comics #444 (Dec. 1974-Jan. 1975), for which he wrote an 8-page back-up mystery feature starring the Elongated Man. Another Elongated Man story followed in Detective Comics #453 (November 1975). He wrote text articles and editorial replies in letter columns for the next few years. By mid-1980 he was writing regularly for both DC and Marvel, including stories for Marvel Team-Up, Mystery in Space, Green Lantern, and various Batman titles. Legion of Super-Heroes #277 (July 1981) saw him take on editorial duties at DC, while writing issues of DC's Star Trek comic, for whom he created the native American character Ensign Bearclaw and a pacifist Klingon named Konom. In December 1982, he and artist Brian Bolland began Camelot 3000, a 12 issue limited series that was one of DC Comics' first direct market projects. In August 1983, Barr created what may well be his most enduring work, the monthly title Batman and the Outsiders with art by Jim Aparo. Barr wrote every issue of the original series, and its Baxter paper spinoff, The Outsiders. His other comics work includes Mantra and Maze Agency as well as the 1987 OGN hardcover book Batman: Son of the Demon (with art by Jerry Bingham), proceeds from which reputedly "restored DC Comics to first place in sales after fifteen years." This title, and Barr's work on Batman with artist Alan Davis have been cited by Grant Morrison as key inspirations for his recent (2006) run on the Batman title. In 2007, he wrote a two-part story for the pages of DC's JLA: Classified (#47-48, Jan-Feb 2008), returned to the Outsiders with Outsiders: Five of a Kind—Katana/Shazam #1 (Oct 2007), contributed to Tokyopop's Star Trek: The Manga, and relaunched Maze Agency at IDW Publishing. He has also scripted many of Bongo Comics' Simpsons titles, including a Christmas story for 2010. In May 2010, the Invisible College Press published Barr's science fiction/fantasy novel, Majician/51, about the discoveries of a scientist working at Area 51.

See also John Harkness. Steve Englehart went to Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. After a stint in the Army, he moved to New York and began to write for Marvel Comics. That led to long runs on Captain America, The Hulk, The Avengers, Dr. Strange, and a dozen other titles. Midway through that period he moved to California (where he remains), and met and married his wife Terry. He was finally hired away from Marvel by DC Comics, to be their lead writer and revamp their core characters (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern). He did, but he also wrote a solo Batman series (immediately dubbed the "definitive" version) that later became Warner Brothers' first Batman film (the good one). After that he left comics for a time, traveled in Europe for a year, wrote a novel (The Point Man™), and came back to design video games for Atari (E.T., Garfield). But he still liked comics, so he created Coyote™, which within its first year was rated one of America's ten best series. Other projects he owned (Scorpio Rose™, The Djinn™) were mixed with company series (Green Lantern [with Joe Staton], Silver Surfer, Fantastic Four). Meanwhile, he continued his game design for Activision, Electronic Arts, Sega, and Brøderbund. And once he and Terry had their two sons, Alex and Eric, he naturally told them stories. Rustle's Christmas Adventure was first devised for them. He went on to add a run of mid-grade books to his bibliography, including the DNAgers™ adventure series, and Countdown to Flight, a biography of the Wright brothers selected by NASA as the basis for their school curriculum on the invention of the airplane. In 1992 Steve was asked to co-create a comics pantheon called the Ultraverse. One of his contributions, The Night Man, became not only a successful comics series, but also a television show. That led to more Hollywood work, including animated series such as Street Fighter, GI Joe, and Team Atlantis for Disney.

Chris Claremont is a writer of American comic books, best known for his 16-year (1975-1991) stint on Uncanny X-Men, during which the series became one of the comic book industry's most successful properties. Claremont has written many stories for other publishers including the Star Trek Debt of Honor graphic novel, his creator-owned Sovereign Seven for DC Comics and Aliens vs Predator for Dark Horse Comics. He also wrote a few issues of the series WildC.A.T.s (volume 1, issues #10-13) at Image Comics, which introduced his creator-owned character, Huntsman. Outside of comics, Claremont co-wrote the Chronicles of the Shadow War trilogy, Shadow Moon (1995), Shadow Dawn (1996), and Shadow Star (1999), with George Lucas. This trilogy continues the story of Elora Danan from the movie Willow. In the 1980s, he also wrote a science fiction trilogy about female starship pilot Nicole Shea, consisting of First Flight (1987), Grounded! (1991), and Sundowner (1994). Claremont was also a contributor to the Wild Cards anthology series.