Saturday, February 02, 2008

Denny O'Neil To Teach Comic Writing Course At NYU

Dennis O’Neil, prize-winning comics writer and editor, will offer a 10 week course in writing comic books and graphic novels at New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies. The course will begin on February 13th and end on April 23rd. Classes start at 6:20 in the evening and end about two and a half hours later.

For more information, see the university’s home page.

For over 30 years, editor and writer Dennis O'Neil put the 'dark' in the Dark Knight and was the guiding force behind the Batman mythos. He has been called a living legend, a master of the comics form, a visionary, the thinking man’s superhero writer, the dean of American comics writers, and--his favorite--an erudite hippie. He prefers to think of himself as, simply, 'a working professional storyteller.'

Dennis, a native St. Louisan and graduate of St. Louis University, began his writing career as a newspaper reporter in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, over forty years ago. Intrigued by the creative revival of comics in the mid-60s, he came to New York as Stan Lee's editorial assistant at Marvel Comics. Next, he did freelance writing at Charlton Comics under editor Dick Giordano. When Giordano moved to DC Comics in 1967, he brought Dennis with him. There, Dennis scripted such titles as Wonder Woman, The Justice League of America and, notably, 13 issues of Superman, a run some aficionados say is a high point in the character's long history. In 1968, following the cancellation of the Batman television show, editor Julius Schwartz asked Dennis to revamp DC's Dark Knight. Dennis and artist Neal Adams took the character back to his roots and, adding sophistication and their own unique vision, created the version of Batman which has been an inspiration for the Emmy-winning Fox cartoon series, the mega-budget Warners movies and, of course, the current comics. In 1970, Dennis again collaborated with Neal Adams and Julius Schwartz to produce the Green Lantern-Green Arrow series that first brought him into national prominence. This series earned praise, awards and media attention for its ground-breaking combination of flamboyant fantasy with genuine social concerns such as racism, drug addiction, environmental dangers and Native Americans' problems.