Louise Simonson

Mary Louise Simonson , née Mary Louise Alexander , formerly Louise Jones (born September 26, 1946 in Atlanta , Georgia) is an American comic book writer and editor.

Louise Simonson (2012)

Life

Simonson was born as Mary Louise Alexander. She took the name Simonson after her marriage to the author Walter “Walt” Simonson, after having been called Louise Jones during her marriage to the artist Jeff Jones.

Simonson came into the comic industry in 1971 when she modeled a character on the cover of the comic book House of Secrets # 92 for the illustrator Bernie Wrightson . Said booklet later became particularly famous as the comic book with the first story about the well-known horror figure of the Swamp Things , the thing from the swamps.

In 1974 Simonson began working as an editor for Warren Publishing , for whom she was responsible for series such as Creepy , Eerie and Vampirella , before leaving the publisher in 1979 and starting to work for Marvel Comics in 1980. In the same year she married the author Walt Simonson, whom she had met in 1973.

At Marvel, she was editor of the hit series Uncanny X-Men (# 137-182) and the X-Men spin-off series The New Mutants for almost four years before she began working as a writer under her married name, Simonson. She also occasionally worked as a colorist for the comic novel Star Slammers , written by her husband and published in 1983.

In 1984 Simonson co-created the Power Pack series with cartoonist June Brigman, which is about four superpowered children, and which was both commercially and critically successful. Simonson remained loyal to the series for almost four years. In 1986, while still working on Power Pack , she began writing the series X-Factor , which she worked on until 1991 and for which she wrote 58 issues (issues # 6-64). Artists such as Jackson Guice, Jon Bogdanove or her husband Walt Simonson were made available as draftsmen. For the series, she created the characters of Archangel, a superhero who achieved great popularity not least through the X-Men movie, and Apocalypse, one of the most popular opponents of the X-Men.

In 1991 Simonson began to write the series Superman: Man of Steel , which was created especially for her , which, alongside the series Superman , Superman in Action Comics and Adventures of Superman, was the fourth monthly series with the adventures of the oldest and most famous of all superheroes, and which she stayed true to until 1998/1999, until issue # 86. The impressionist artist Jon Bogdanove was put at her side as a draftsman . Together they both created a number of new opponents and supporting characters for the superhero, also known as the "man of steel". For example, the nuclear radiation-contaminated Atomic Skull, the lively thief Riot, the diabolical Cerberus or the strong giant Armstrong on the side of the opponent and the orphan boy Keith or the smart technician Natasha Irons on the side of the secondary characters.

In issue # 19 of the Man of Steel series, Simonson and Bogdanove also created the character of the hammer-wielding Afro-American superhero Steel , who became so popular that a comic series running from 1994 to 1998 was dedicated to him, the first three years of which (up to issue # 31 ) Simonson also wrote. Warner Brothers also produced a feature film based on Simonson's Steel idea: Despite some variations in content, but retaining the title Steel , the film, in which basketball player Shaquille O'Neal played the lead role, adapted Simonson's idea for the big screen.

In 1999 Simonson returned to Marvel as the writer of the Warlock series and the miniseries Galactus the Devourer .

In 2002 and 2003, Simonson wrote two books based on the Justice League animated series , Wonder Woman and Wild at Heart, which were published by Bantam Books. At the same time she wrote several stories for the Magnus - Robot Fighter series for the ibooks publishing house .

Web links

Commons : Louise Simonson  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Louise Simonson in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Literature by and about Louise Simonson in the catalog of the German National Library