John Ostrander: Music To Write Comics By

John Ostrander

John Ostrander started his career as a professional writer as a playwright. His best known effort, Bloody Bess, was directed by Stuart Gordon, and starred Dennis Franz, Joe Mantegna, William J. Norris, Meshach Taylor and Joe Mantegna. He has written some of the most important influential comic books of the past 25 years, including Batman, The Spectre, Manhunter, Firestorm, Hawkman, Suicide Squad, Wasteland, X-Men, and The Punisher, as well as Star Wars comics for Dark Horse. New episodes of his creator-owned series, GrimJack, which was first published by First Comics in the 1980s, appear every week on ComicMix.

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3 Responses

  1. Mindy Newell says:

    Ah, music to write by. I wrote a column on that sometime in my first year here, too, John.

    You named many of my favorites, too, including TWELVE O’CLOCK HIGH, one of the best war movies ever, im-not-so-ho. And one of my favorite Randy Newman themes is for MONK.

    And you’re right about trying to write while you’re watching TV. Right now I am in the midst of a BATTLESTAR GALACTICA binge, and I keep getting distracted by what’s happening on the screen as I try to write.

  2. Danny says:

    Do you ever listen to source material for a given license while writing? e.g., listening to John Williams Star Wars while establishing atmosphere for Legacy, Elfman or Zimmer for a Batman appearance?

    • Mindy Newell says:

      I’m not John (obviously!), Danny, but I absolutely have listened to John Williams scores while writing. Not only STAR WARS, but THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK–im-not-so-ho, the best of all of them!–, ET, RAIDERS, SUPERMAN THE MOVIE, etc. He’s absolutely wonderful to write to!