Main Page: List of WritersBio:
Dan Abnett (born October 12, 1965) is a British writer, mainly of comic books and gaming fiction.
Primarily Abnett has worked for
2000 AD and Marvel Comics (including their UK imprint) since the early 1990s, although he has also contributed to DC Comics titles. His Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 novels and graphic novels for Games Workshop's Black Library now run to several dozen titles.
As one of the more prolific 2000AD writers, Abnett was responsible for the creation of one of the comic's better known, and longest-running, strips of the last decade,
Sinister Dexter. Other original stories include
Black Light,
Badlands,
Atavar,
Downlode Tales,
Sancho Panzer,
Roadkill and
Wardog, based on the game of the same name. Abnett has also contributed to some of the comic's major ongoing series, including
Judge Dredd,
Durham Red and
Rogue Trooper.
His work for Marvel includes runs on
Death's Head 2,
Battletide,
Knights of Pendragon (all of which he co-created),
The Punisher,
War Machine,
Annihilation: Nova and various
X-Men titles.
At DC he is probably best-known for his 2000 relaunch of
Legion of Super-Heroes. His work for DC is usually co-written with Andy Lanning and they are often referred to as DnA.
For Dark Horse Comics he co-wrote
Planet of the Apes: Blood Lines with Ian Edginton, as well a penning
Lords of Misrule and
HyperSonic. He has written novels set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe (Military science fiction genre). They include the Gaunt's Ghosts series, the Eisenhorn trilogy and Ravenor spin-off and more recently, the first book of the Horus Heresy series, the SF bestseller "Horus Rising". He has also written three Warhammer Fantasy novels. He also wrote a novel for the
Doctor Who spin-off
Torchwood called
Border Princes in 2007. In 1994, he wrote a promotional comic to promote the opening of the Nemesis roller coaster at Alton Towers.
More recently he has finished the final book of
The V.C.s and started
Black Atlantic in the
Judge Dredd Megazine, which was be drawn by Steve Roberts (seen working on
Bec & Kawl) in black and white.
Most recently it has been announced that he will be writing
The Authority with co-author Andy Lanning, as part of the World's End relaunch of the core Wildstorm titles.
In addition DnA have done a lot of work on Marvel's "cosmic" characters. They expanded on their work in
Annihilation: Nova and
Nova, and piloted the next big event
Annihilation: Conquest. They said "we were approached by Andy Schmidt, who edited the first 'Annihilation' event, and asked to pilot the next event, which Bill Rosemann is editing." They ended up writing the Prologue, the
Nova series crossover and the main
Annihilation: Conquest limited series. The characters then became the core of a new Guardians of the Galaxy.
It was announced at Wizard World Chicago in June 2008, that Abnett and Lanning had signed an exclusive deal with Marvel, which they hope will give them time to work on the "cosmic" characters they have been dealing with, as well as more earth-based ones. The contract allows them to finish existing commitments, so they will be able to finish their fifteen issue run on
The Authority. In addition Marvel has allowed the contract to include "a couple of exceptions that are not direct competition, for example, Dan's 2000AD work in the UK and his GamesWorkshop novels." The first major work to emerge after this deal will be
War of Kings, a crossover storyline, emerging from Secret Invasion, that will pitch Black Bolt (and the Inhumans) against Gabriel Summers (and the Shi’ar Empire) but will also draw in other teams and characters, including Nova, the Guardians of the Galaxy and the Starjammers.
WildStorm Credits:- The Authority Vol 5: World's End
- Gen-Active
- Jet: Midnight to Midnight
- Majestic Ongoing Series
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