MINDY NEWELL: SuperGod – Thus Spake Zarathustra

Mindy Newell

These days Mindy Newell knows that if she could do it all over again she’d have gone to college for screenwriting and film editing. Instead she became a nurse to please her parents and pleasing your parents was what it was all about for nice Jewish girls who graduated from high school in 1971. But the creative larva was in her soul, and when the cocoon broke and the butterfly emerged, it flew to DC’s New Talent Showcase program. Under the auspices of legendary editors Karen Berger, Len Wein, Julius Schwartz, Paul Levitz, and ComicMix’s own Robert Greenberger, Mindy learned the craft and art of writing comics, including Tales Of The Legion, V, Legionnaires 3, Amethyst, Lois Lane: When It Rains God Is Crying, and numerous other comics, including a Superman story based on a dream Mindy had as a child. She also worked on Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg! and other independent comics. All this time Mindy continued to work as a nurse while being a single mom to her daughter Alixandra, until the late and dear Mark Gruenwald hired her as an assistant editor at Marvel, while writing stories of the Black Widow and Daredevil. She edited NFL Pro Action, a licensed kid’s magazine about football with the NFL until Marvel imploded in 1996. Returning to full-time nursing, she she also co-wrote a story for 2000 A.D. with her then-husband, British artist John Higgins. A few years ago Mike Gold called and asked her to join the team of columnists here at ComicMix, where her topics freely range from comics to pop culture to politics; she even wrote a piece about the great American thoroughbred Secretariat, which caused editor Mike to tell her that she had won the prize for the most off-topic column ever written ComicMix.

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6 Responses

  1. George Haberberger says:

    Mindy,

    Asking pointed questions of religious authorities apparently crosses all denominations and faiths. In Catholic school, trying to come up with a scenario that would stump the priest was a weekly activity. George Carlin had a routine about it, “Can God make a rock so heavy that he himself can’t lift it?”

    When the priest couldn’t come up with an answer, the fall back position was “It’s mystery and you’ll find your answer in the next life.” In my experience however, no one was ever kicked out of class for asking embarrassing questions.

    • mike weber says:

      Carlin’s best routine along those lines involved the International Date line and several other things – not being Catholic myself, i’m not sure at this remove, but i think it was about the obligation to go to Mass regularly.

  2. mike weber says:

    Also, while i mighthave a similar dream, i would never find myself in an (Andrew) Wyeth painting (N.C., maybe) – more likely i’d be in Van Gogh’s “Cornfield”.

  3. Mindy Newell says:

    Mike, I’m actually not a fan of “Christine,” although I am a big fan of Wyeth. (He’s done so many other paintings that are more beautiful and thought-provoking.) Did you know his father (Newell Wyeth) did the illustrations for LAST OF THE MOHICANS?

    I had a friend who had “Christine” hanging on her wall in her bedroom. Probably that’s why I dreamed it.

    Mindy

  4. mike weber says:

    Note that i said “N.C., maybe”? As in N.C.Wyeth.

    I’m pretty much unimpressed with Andrew, but i love NC with a passion.

    about thirty-five years ago, the Greenville Art Museum in my hometown, Greenville SC had the largest Wyeth exhibition ever assembled.

    Literally.

    One of the main benefactors of the Museum is (or “was”, quite likely, at this remove) probably the world’s foremost collector of Andrew Wyeth.

    And he provided pieces of his own, and arranged for piedes by ANdrew and by NC and (i think) by someone else whose name escapes me, who was closely associated with NC.

    Have you ever seen NC Wyeth’s “The Giant”? (http://www.comicbookbrain.com/z003_wyeth_the_giant.php) I have never seen a reproduction, no matter how spectacular, that does it justice – not even the one in the book on NC that the museum store was selling.

    That painting is like six feet highj – and the blues in ths sky are so incredible …

    (Oh – and i think the kid with the white hat is Andrew Wyeth – i know one of the kids in the painting is.)

  5. Mindy Newell says:

    Yes, Mike, I know THE GIANT. Incredible, isn’t it?

    I discovered both Wyeths through my parents. N.C. through my dad’s copy of LAST OF THE MOHICANS, and Andrew because my parents loved him and took me to an exhibit in NYC very early on.

    As for the “N.C.”… DUH! Blame it on my menopausal mind! :-)