Mindy Newell: I’m Twisted

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. George Haberberger says:

    Sorry Mindy. I think The Sixth Sense is far above the Empire Strikes Back as plot twists go, and far above the other examples on your list. M. Night Shyamalan set the bar so high with that movie that he has been hard-pressed to match it much less exceed it with his subsequent films. The Sixth Sense demands that you go back and rewatch it to see how expertly the truth was hidden. With the possible exception of The Usual Suspects, none of the other movies require reviewing.

    • Mindy Newell says:

      Well, the thing is, George, is that EMPIRE, to my way of thinking, really solidified STAR WARS as “the” myth/legend of our times…30 (or is it 40?) years later, we have a new trilogy, plus the “sidebars” of the related movies. And think of all the related media–comics, books, YouTube vids, etd. STAR WARS has inspired millions.

      I agree with you about Shyamalan setting the bar so high that “he has been hard-pressed to match it much less exceed it with his subsequent films.” In fact, I would say that, since THE SIXTH SENSE, it’s been almost impossible for other film producers to match or exceed that film.