Archie Goodwin (Author)

Archie Goodwin (left, 1982)

Archie Goodwin (born September 8, 1937 in Kansas City , Missouri, † March 1, 1998 in New York City ) was an American comic book writer, illustrator and editor.

Life and work

Goodwin attended Will Rogers High School in Oklahoma. After the forced service in the US military, he worked as a freelance artist for magazines such as Creepy , Eerie and Blazing Combat .

Goodwin began his artistic career as a draftsman of newspaper comic strips and comic books. In the 1960s he also began working as an editor for Redbook Magazine for the first time. After moving to Warren Publishing, he began to work as a writer and editor, including for the series about the erotic bloodsucker Vampirella , whose background story he created.

As a result, Goodwin also worked for the publishers King Features Syndicate, Marvel Comics and DC Comics . In 1967, Goodwin began writing the Al Williamson- drawn newspaper comic strip Secret Agent X-9 , a task that he would do by 1980. In the early 1970s, he wrote the acclaimed Manhunter series, which was featured by Walt Simonson on DC, where it was published as a backup story in the Detective Comics series . In 1976 he took over the position of editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics as the successor to Gerry Conway , which he held until 1978 when he was replaced by Jim Shooter. He then wrote - still for Marvel - in the late 1970s Star Wars comic books and strips that - tied to the plot of the movies - told new stories. This was followed by adaptations of comics such as Alien, Blade Runner and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

In 1989, Goodwin returned to DC Comics as an editor and writer. There he presented the graphic novel Batman: Night Cries , published in 1992 and illustrated by Scott Hampton , and edited the Batman series Legends of the Dark Knight, the maxi series Batman: The Long Halloween and the series Starman, which started in 1994 . In 1998, Goodwin died of cancer.

Prizes and awards

Goodwin's awards include the Shazam Award for Best Writer (1974 for the Manhunter series), the Shazam Award for Best Short Story (1973 for "The Himalayan Incident" in Detective Comics # 437 and 1974 for "Cathedral Perilous" in Detective Comics 441) and the Shazam Award for the best story for the story "Gotterdammerung" from Detective Comics # 443. He also received several Eisner Awards : in 1993 as best editor and in 1997 together with Gary Gianni for the story "Heroes" (published in the fourth edition of the series Batman: Black & White ) the award in the category "Best Short Story" (Best Short Story).

Web links

• Archie Goodwin in the Internet Movie Database (English)