Charles "Chuck" Dixon (b. 1954) is an American comic book writer, perhaps best-known for long runs on
Batman titles in the 1990s.
Bio:
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.
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.
CrossGen In March, 2002, Dixon turned his attention 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 took over some of 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.
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 projects with Image. In May 2006, he contributed to IDW's Free Comic Book Day
Transformers giveaway, leading to Dixon writing the
Transformers: Evolutions miniseries.
Return to DC 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 son 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." The reason for this sudden announcement is currently unknown, although Dixon has made several bitterly cryptic comments in every internet venue available to him, blasting DC in general and Editor-in-Chief Dan DiDio in particular.
After DC It has been announced that he will take over the writing on Dynamite Entertainment's series
The Man with No Name based on the well-known western character. He is also signed on to do a G.I. Joe series for IDW Publishing.
Political Controversy Dixon, a well-known political conservative, offended large groups of the buying public by announcing his views regarding the depiction of homosexuality. Allegedly, he felt that homosexuality in any form was not appropriate for what he identified as "all-ages material."
He has since attempted to mollify the situation by insisting that he instructed his children that gay people are nothing to be afraid of, but continued to shield them from a cousin of his wife's, citing that the openly gay man "has a piano lounge act, for God's sake!"
Strangely, DC Comics continued to assign him work on titles that featured openly gay super-heroes. Dixon used his position as writer of
Batman and the Outsiders to send a message to gay readers when he published an out of context preview of his first issue on the internet. This preview appeared to paint Batman as homophobic. He then went online to announce that the preview had been intentionally misleading and that he and several other unnamed DC staffers found great humor in the outraged reactions of gay and other politically conscious readers who viewed the preview.
WildStorm Credits:
Links:
- Official Website: Dixonverse
Interviews:
Sources: