Mindy Newell: Of Corsets And Kilts

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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4 Responses

  1. Jen in Oz says:

    So happy to see you’re enjoying the series, but darn it, Mindy, I *know* you haven’t read the books yet when you misspell “Fraser”! If I lived anywhere near you I’d buy you copies of the books and give them to you!

    • Mindy Newell says:

      Shit, I knew that, Jen. Blame it on the baby shower I went to before I sat down to write the column…I was, uh, “overimbibed.”

      By the way, I purposely didn’t include any spoilers for the latest episode in the column. Didn’t want to ruin it for those who haven’t seen it yet.

  2. Fred Herman says:

    Moore remained on TNG throughout its run, then moved to DS9 and remained throughout *its* run. Also, Enterprise-D.

    • Mindy Newell says:

      Wow, my BAD! BAD! BAD!, Fred. I could’ve sworn that he left after “Best of Both Worlds Part 1.” (Explaining why “BOBW Part 2” kinda sucked.)

      In my (very small) defense, he does speak about the “chains” the writing staff had on all the Star Trek shows regarding conflict and its related character growth/changes.

      Though DS9 was INCREDIBLE! And I can definitely see Moore’s hand in it.

      Also, as I told Jen in Oz above, I was seriously feeling no pain from that damn baby shower!