Kelley Puckett (born 1961) is an American comic book writer and editor who worked on the comics Batman versus Predator and Aliens: Colonial Marines for Dark Horse Comics. Puckett wrote four of the series' ten issues, contributing the majority of its second story arc.
Biography[]
Apart from his Aliens work for Dark Horse, Puckett is primarily known in the comics field for his almost exclusive work for DC Comics over the past two decades, mostly as a writer and editor for its various Batman-related titles
In that time, Puckett has made a number of important contributions to the Batman mythos and the DC Comics Universe, including the creation of Cassandra Cain, the Batgirl who succeeded Barbara Gordon, and the second Green Arrow, Connor Hawke.
Puckett has also served as writer the individual Batgirl, Captain Atom, The Question, Supergirl, Green Arrow, Armageddon, Who's Who and Kinetic series for DC; Ninja Scroll for DC's Wildstorm imprint; and The Comet for Impact Comics, among others.
Interestingly, Puckett has only ever worked as a comic-book writer.
An English major who took creative writing classes as part of his degree at Stanford University, Puckett was reintroduced to the comics medium after not having read comics since middle school when, in his junior year at Stanford, he wandered into a comic book store in nearby Palo Alto, CA.
There he was introduced to writer Alan Moore's late 1980s revival of the British character Miracleman for Eclipse Comics. Like much of Moore's work, the series took superhero tropes and re-expressed them to explore more adult themes of power, inviduality, society, destiny and self-control. It inspired him to go into the field. Another early inspiration which quickly became one of Puckett's all-time favorites was Frank Miller's 1987 release Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.
Puckett graduated in 1990, but short weeks before commencement, he contacted DC Comics headquarters in New York to look into a job and got in touch with head Batman editor and longtime Bat-guru Denny O'Niel. O'Neil had just lost an editorial assistant and agreed to interview Puckett for the position. A day after graduation, Puckett drove across country, interviewed and got the job.
During a year-long in-house position with DC, Puckett was mentored by O'Neil on scriptwriting technique. Puckett then left the position and returned to the San Francisco Bay Area and continued to freelance for the company, contributing heavily to the Batman line. His first—and still some of his most well-respected work—was for the Batman Adventures series, spun-off from the critically acclaimed Batman: The Animated Seires TV show. This was a classic look at the Batman character and Puckett managed to breathe a life and respectability all of its own into the title.
Ten years later in 2001, Puckett was still writing Batman-related stories, but grew to new prominence as the writer of the popular new ongoing Batgirl series, creating a whole new female ward for the caped crusader in the martial arts expert Cassandra Cain. In 2007, he took on work on another successful reboot of a female side-character as writer of the ongoing Supergirl series to similarly positive reviews.
An admittedly slow and deliberate worker who finds motivation in the last minute pressure of deadlines, Puckett says he doesn't enjoy the writing process, which is somewhat torturous for him. Enjoying only the final results of his labors.
Puckett says he loves the medium and prefers it over prose. Telling the story with images instead of with tricks of language or dialogue. His comics tend to be action-packed page-turners, filled with eery silences. Not as much dialogue, prefers the instantaneous feel produced by small sentence word balloons.
Despite his imminent success in the field, Puckett says he likes to keep a degree of distance between himself and the somewhat insular comics community. A private person, he doesn't correspond with fans or attend comic book conventions.
Despite receiving consistently positive reviews and commercial success, Puckett's work has received little in the way of comics industry awards. His and artist Warren Pleece's series Kinetic (also for DC) was, however, voted #6 on TheSFSite.com's Editors Choice list for comics in 2004.
Puckett lives with his wife, corporate attorney and Stanford classmate Helen Surh; their daughter, Samantha; and their Welsh corgi Banter in a Victorian home in San Francisco's Castro district.
Credits[]
Writer[]
Editor[]
External Links[]
An in-depth interview and profile of Puckett from the Stanford University Magazine from 2001: http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2001/julaug/features/puckett.html
Kelley Puckett at the Comic Book Database: http://comicbookdb.com/creator.php?ID=1394