Jenette Kahn

Portrait of Jenette Kahn

Jenette Kahn (* 1948 in Pennsylvania) is an American publisher , editor and lifestyle author.

From 1981 to 2002 she was president and editor-in-chief of the American publisher DC , the largest publisher owned by the Time Warner Company , which specializes in the publication of comic books and magazines.

Life

Early Years (1950 to 1976)

Kahn grew up with a brother (Si) in Pennsylvania as the daughter of an American rabbi family . After graduating from Harvard University with honors in art history , Kahn founded Kids , Dynamite! Magazine at the age of just twenty-five ! and smash . For the latter she was able to win the designer Milton Glaser , the creator of the famous I love [heart logogram] NY campaign, as art director.

Kahn's beginnings with DC (1976)

In 1976, she began working as an editor at DC Comics, where she eventually developed into the driving force behind the until then rather small subsidiary of Time Warner: Within a few years, she transformed DC and the associated subcontractors into a billion-dollar entertainment giant. Together with her Vice President Paul Levitz and managing editor Dick Giordano, she began to revitalize the decrepit publishing program step by step in the 1970s and 1980s.

Under Kahn's aegis, DC published not only the typical American superhero comics but also numerous adventure, love, horror, western and war comics. In the 1970s she helped to give the title heroes of the superhero series, who had previously been more “authoritarian”, a more socially critical, new identity - Superman had been denigrated by the American left as a robot in the “service of power”.

President of DC Comics (1981–2002)

In the 1980s, Kahn hired authors such as Frank Miller , John Byrne and Marv Wolfman to overhaul the various characters owned by the DC publishing house such as Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman , the Swamp Thing , the Red Flash , Deadman or Green Arrow : The old series, some of which were almost fifty years old, were discontinued and new series on the various characters adapted to the new era started. The most important "revamp" of this time was certainly the restart of the Superman series, which was handled by the author and illustrator John Byrne. In addition, she established the publisher's “Vertigo” imprint, which told stories that were aimed specifically at adult readers and were devoid of the topoi of traditional American “children's comics”: For example, Watchmen , V for Vendetta or Ronin . In addition, since 1986 there were the alternative, “bolder” new approaches to various DC characters, which were later routinely published under the label “Elseworld”, such as Frank Miller's Batman variation “ The Dark Knight Returns ”, in which the former “All American Hero” was used Anarchist fights against US President Reagan.

One of Kahn's significant decisions is the 1988 readers' vote in agreement with the Batman group leader Dennis O'Neil on the future of the well-known character Robin - Batman's young assistant - which, after a narrow telephone vote , led to the character in the issue # 428 of the Batman series died.

In the 1990s, Kahn's editorial decisions, in particular, caused the hero Superman to die in issue # 75 of the Superman series, which was restarted in 1987, and the hero - after his resurrection - his "eternal flame" Lois Lane in 1996 after almost sixty years of flirtation to get married in a special edition (Wedding Album), as well as to ban the hero Batman on the occasion of the upcoming anniversary edition # 500 of his series in the number # 497 after a defeat against a South American terrorist in the wheelchair and to replace it with a successor (so-called Knightfall - Storyline), for wide public coverage in the United States.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Kahn was also responsible for the filming of numerous DC materials, such as the films Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Batman and Robin, as well as the 2nd to 4th part of the Superman film series and various TVs -Series like "Flash", "Superboy" or "The Adventures of Lois and Clark" involved.

Activity since 2002

Since her departure as president of DC, Kahn has distinguished herself as an author of lifestyle books such as " In Your Space: Personalizing Your Home and Office ". She acted as a producer in the film The Book of Henry (2017).

Honors

For her contribution to "America's cultural heritage" in this area Kahn got from the American Library of Congress the title of a "Library of Congress Living Legend" awarded in April 2000th