Bill Loebs
Bill
Messner-Loebs has been one flavor or other of cartoonist his entire
adult life. He was born in Ferndale, Michigan and moved to Alabama,
New Orleans and Florida with his parents, as his father worked on
various aspects of the space program.
Back in Michigan, Bill was
trained as an historian in college but was drawn to art and writing
and just after graduating helped to create a small radio production
company called "Those Guys in Detroit", where he wrote 57
second mysteries for the telephone.
After homesteading along the
Canadian border for a year, he returned to Michigan and began to work
for tiny local comic book and gaming companies. Those companies, A
Plus and Nucleus comics
were among the first true "Independent " comic companies.
Joining another early independent, Aardvark-Vanaheim,
he created Journey the Adventures of Wolverine
MacAlistaire, and from there was asked to script the comic
book adaptation of the classic Jonny Quest
TV show.
He worked for DC comics on
Flash, Wonder Woman,
Superman and the Batman
newspaper strip.
For Marvel he wrote
Thor and Spider-Man,
as well as a two volume history of battles of the Civil War. Along
the way, he wrote Aquaman, Green Arrow, Dr.
Fate, Hawkman, and was tapped by the State Department to
write anti-landmine comics to be distributed by several South
American governments.
He wrote pirate comics for Disney and with Sam
Kieth, created Epicurus the Sage, a
satire of Greek Philosophy and Greek myths which has been used in
university courses.
He wrote and illustrated contributions to the
psychological horror comic Wasteland.
Again with Sam Keith he created The Maxx
for Image Comics, which became an
animated series on MTV, for which he wrote the scripts and acted as a
consultant. He also wrote a comic detailing the Viking discovery of
America for the History Channel.
He
was a consultant on the Flash TV
show in the Eighties. He won a GLAAD
award for his work on the Gay superhero Pied Piper. After leaving DC
Comics, Bill joined Fantasticon
Productions, a state of the art
digital media company, founded by Arvell Jones.
While part of this
company handled internet functions for the City of Detroit water
department, the public face of Fantasticon was a digital magazine
consisting of a suite of media reviews and articles. Bill was in
charge of the television and cable departments.
Bill wrote reviews,
interviews and articles on the emerging cutting-edge of video shows
and movies. After a year comics again beckoned. Working with Boom!
Comics Bill wrote a series of Zombie and Lovecraft comic
short stories and the Macabre-award winning graphic album The
Necronomicon. Recently IDW Comics
has begun reprints of the Maxx and will shortly begin reprinting
Epicurus.
Marvel
recently reprinted his work on Thor in the graphic album, Sunlight
and Shadows. DC has just reprinted his run on Wonder Woman
with Mike Deodato and his Elseworlds Graphic novel, Amazonia with
Phil Winslade.
Bill has begun working on Yeet Comics with Publisher
Mike Jones and has begun scripting new adventures of the Black Fury.
Bill lives near Ann Arbor, Michigan with his wife, Nadine who is a
freelance editor and genealogist.