Chuck Dixon

Biography

Chuck Dixon's earliest comics work was writing Evangeline for Comico Comics in 1984 and then for First Comics. Editor Larry Hama hired him to write back-up stories for Marvel Comics' Savage Sword of Conan. Writing under the name "Charles Dixon", he would eventually take over the lead feature of Conan on a semi-regular basis. He contributed stories to the Larry Hama edited re-boot of Savage Tales highlighted by a number of western stories illustrated by John Severin.

In 1986, he began working for Eclipse Comics, writing Airboy which was edited by Timothy Truman followed by cat yronwode for the bulk of its 50 issue run. Continuing to write for both Marvel and Eclipse on these titles, as well as launching Strike! with artist Tom Lyle in August 1987 and Valkyrie with artist Paul Gulacy in October 1987, he began work on Carl Potts' Alien Legion series for Marvel's Epic Comics imprint, under editor Archie Goodwin. He produced a three-issue adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit for Eclipse with artist David Wenzel between 1989 and 1990, and began writing Marc Spector: Moon Knight in June 1989 for editor Carl Potts.

Batman and Punisher

The Punisher Kingdom Gone graphic novel (August 1990) led to him working on the monthly The Punisher War Journal and later other Punisher titles, and brought him to the attention of DC Comics editor Dennis O'Neil, who asked him and Tom Lyle to produce a Robin mini-series featuring the Tim Drake incarnation. The series proved popular enough to spawn two sequels – The Joker's Wild (1991) and Cry of the Huntress (1992). This led to both an ongoing monthly series which Dixon wrote for 100 issues before leaving to work with CrossGen Comics, and to Dixon working on Detective Comics from #644 (May 1992) to #738 (Nov. 1999) through the major Batman stories "KnightFall'" and "KnightsEnd" for which he helped create the key character of Bane, "Contagion", "Legacy", "Cataclysm", and "No Man's Land". Dixon and Lyle co-created the Electrocutioner in Detective Comics #644 (May 1992) and Stephanie Brown in Detective Comics #647 (August 1992). Much of his later run was illustrated by Graham Nolan.

He was DC's most prolific Batman writer in the 1990s in addition to writing Detective Comics he pioneered the individual series for Robin, Nightwing (which he wrote for 70 issues, and returned to briefly with 2005's #101) and Batgirl, as well as creating the team and book Birds of Prey.

While writing multiple Punisher and Batman comics and October 1994's Punisher/Batman crossover, he launched Team 7 for Jim Lee's WildStorm/Image and Prophet for Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios. He wrote many issues of Catwoman and Green Arrow, regularly having about seven titles out each month between 1993 and 1998. In 1994, Dixon co-wrote the Batman-Spawn: War Devil intercompany crossover with Doug Moench and Alan Grant. Dixon and Tom Grummett crafted a Secret Six one-shot (Dec. 1997) as part of the Tangent Comics imprint.

CrossGen

In March 2002, Dixon turned his attention to CrossGen's output, slowly leaving Robin, Nightwing, Birds of Prey and Batgirl over the next year although he co-wrote with Scott Beatty the origin of Barbara Gordon's Batgirl in 2003's Batgirl: Year One. For CrossGen he took over some of the comics of the departing Mark Waid, taking over Sigil from #21, and Crux with #13. He launched Way of the Rat in June 2002, Brath (March 2003), The Silken Ghost (June 2003) and the pirate comic El Cazador (Oct 2003), as well as editing Robert Rodi's non-Sigilverse The Crossovers. He wrote the Ruse spin-off Archard's Agents one-shots in January and November 2003 and April 2004, the last released shortly before CrossGen's cancellation of all of its series. Dixon wrote a single issue of Sojourn (May 2004). Dixon's Way of the Rat #24, Brath #14 and El Cazador #6 were among the last comics released from the then-bankrupt publisher.

Other publishers

In mid-2004, he wrote a number of issues and series' for smaller publishers Devil's Due Publishing and Moonstone Books during this period, returning briefly to DC, but mostly diversifying with comics at several publishers, including several issues of Simpsons Comics for Bongo Comics, for whom he has worked quite regularly from September 1998 to the present, and a couple of projects with Image Comics. In May 2006, he contributed to IDW Publishing's Free Comic Book Day Transformers giveaway, leading to Dixon writing the Transformers: Evolutions miniseries.

Return to DC

In July 2004, Dixon began his return to the DC Universe with Richard Dragon, a revival of the 1970s kung-fu character, which ran for 12 issues. In March of the following year, he returned briefly to Nightwing before shifting his efforts to the Wildstorm imprint, writing the stand-alone Claw the Unconquered (Aug 2006 – Jan 2007); the movie-adaptation of Snakes on a Plane, the movie-spin-off Nightmare on Elm Street, and the Wildstorm Universe title Grifter/Midnighter from May 2007.

In January 2007, he wrote the Connor Hawke: Dragon's Blood mini-series featuring Green Arrow's son Connor Hawke, and in March 2008, Dixon returned to writing Robin. He wrote Batman and the Outsiders, a project he was signed to at the last minute, after original writer Tony Bedard dropped out due to being occupied with Final Crisis-related work. On June 10, 2008, Dixon announced on his forum that he was no longer "employed by DC Comics in any capacity."

After DC

It was announced in August 2008 that he would write Dynamite Entertainment's series The Man with No Name based on the western character. He wrote a G.I. Joe series for IDW Publishing. In March 2009 Moonstone Books published a new Airboy one-shot written by Dixon entitled Airboy 1942: The Best of Enemies. In 2011, Dixon says he was offered a chance to do a rewrite on The Expendables 2 screenplay by Sylvester Stallone. He eventually declined, explaining, "I submitted a treatment. I had a couple of meetings. I got a phone call from out of the blue from Sylvester Stallone, He had seen my comic work and wanted me involved in the movie. I went out there and had a couple of meetings. I met Stallone and the producers didn't want to pony up the money, they thought they were gonna get me cheap cause I work in comics." Dixon returned to DC Comics in 2017 to write the Bane: Conquest limited series.

Awards

Chuck Dixon received an Inkpot Award in 2014.