Mindy Newell: Take A Deep Breath

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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2 Responses

  1. Steve Chaput says:

    Yes, well I don’t know that I’m buying it. I really don’t think that THIS Doctor does need Clara. His earlier regeneration may have had an obsession with this ‘impossible girl’, but I don’t feel that this new incarnation does or should have. In fact, I think the series would work better if Capaldi had his own identifiable companion, as other Doctors before him have. The story arc involving the Matt Smith Doctor and Clara really has run its course, IMO. Go back to being a nanny, Clara. Those annoying and spoiled kids are waiting for you, I’m sure.

    • Mindy Newell says:

      To each his own, Steve. :-) And I must admit that it took me quite a while to warm up to her–but at the least, Clara serves as a bridge between Eleven and Twelve. And there has been some speculation that she’s “not long for this world,” although of course it could be just the tabloids across the pond doing their usual “let’s muck it up.”

      Btw, Clara’s no longer a nanny. She’s a teacher in middle school.