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Alan Brennert

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Alan Brennert
Born (1954-05-30) May 30, 1954 (age 70)
New Jersey, U.S.[1]
Alma materUniversity of California, Los Angeles
Notable worksL.A. Law
The Twilight Zone
Notable awards1975 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
1991 Nebula Award for Best Short Story

Alan Brennert (born May 30, 1954) is an American author, television producer, and screenwriter. Brennert has lived in Southern California since 1973 and completed graduate work in screenwriting at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Career

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Television

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Alan Brennert's earliest television work was in 1978 when he wrote several scripts for the Wonder Woman series. He was story editor for the NBC series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and wrote seven scripts for that series. He won an Emmy Award as a producer and writer for L.A. Law in 1991. For fans of science fiction and fantasy, he might be best known as a writer for the revival series The Twilight Zone[2] and The Outer Limits. One of his best regarded episodes was for The Twilight Zone, "Her Pilgrim Soul", which became a play. Brennert said that writing "Her Pilgrim Soul" was a deeply cathartic experience which allowed him to get past the death of a woman he had loved.[3] He also wrote two The Twilight Zone teleplays based on stories by Harlan Ellison, who later said that Brennert was the only writer he would ever allow to adapt his works.[4] Since 2001 Brennert has written episodes of the television series Stargate Atlantis and Star Trek: Enterprise under the name of Michael Bryant.

Prose

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Brennert also writes short stories and novels. His first story, "City of Masques", was published in 1973. In 1975 he was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in Science Fiction.[5] He won a Nebula Award for Best Short Story in 1991 and had stories in Gardner Dozois's Year's Best volumes. His 2003 book Moloka'i is a historical novel that focuses on life in Honolulu and the leper colony at Kalaupapa in Hawaii made famous by Father Damien, Mother Marianne Cope, and Lawrence M. Judd, historical people who appear in the novel set in the early 1900s. It received mostly favorable reviews. The decision to write Moloka'i came after a four-hour miniseries Brennert wrote for NBC was not picked up. According to his website, Brennert wanted to "write something that people would get to see."[6] In 2009, Brennert returned to Hawai'i in Honolulu,[7] a historical novel centering on a Korean picture bride in the early 1900s. The story told in Honolulu came out of Brennert's research from Moloka'i.[6]

Comic books

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Brennert's first work in the comics industry was conducting interviews with A. E. van Vogt, Larry Niven, and Theodore Sturgeon which were published in Marvel Comics' Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction comics magazine.[8] His first comics story was plotting DC Comics' Wonder Woman #231 (May 1977) and #232 (June 1977) which were scripted by Martin Pasko. Brennert and Pasko collaborated again on Star Trek #12 (March 1981) for Marvel.[9] That same month, he and artist Dick Giordano crafted the lead Batman story for Detective Comics #500.[10][11] This story, "To Kill a Legend", was included in DC's "Year's Best Comics Stories" of 1981 collection.[12] Brennert then wrote four issues of The Brave and the Bold featuring Batman team-ups with the Creeper, the Hawk and Dove,[13] the Robin of Earth Two,[14][15] and the Catwoman.[16] Editor Dennis O'Neil had him write Daredevil #192 (March 1983), which followed Frank Miller's run on that title.[17] Due to his television schedule, Brennert did not have the time to write any additional comic books for several years.[18] A Deadman story in Christmas with the Super-Heroes #2 (1989) was his next work in the comics industry, followed by a Black Canary tale in Secret Origins vol. 2 #50 (Aug. 1990).[19] He wrote Batman: Holy Terror, the first DC comic book to feature the Elseworlds logo.[20] His final comics story was a "Batman Black and White" backup feature in Batman: Gotham Knights #10 (Dec. 2000) drawn by José Luis García-López.[21]

In 2014, Brennert "requested equity in the [Barbara Kean Gordon] character and compensation for her use" in the Gotham television series due to having introduced the character in Detective Comics #500.[22] DC Comics and parent company Warner Bros. denied the request claiming that the character was "derivative" of an already existing DC character.[23]

Tales of the Batman: Alan Brennert, a hardcover collection of Brennert's work for DC Comics, was published in 2016.[24] He has named "The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne" from The Brave and the Bold #197 (April 1983) as his personal favorite of his DC stories.[25]

Bibliography

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Novels and short story collections

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  • City of Masques (1978) ISBN 978-0872164567
  • Kindred Spirits (1984) ISBN 978-0312872625
  • Time and Chance (1990) ISBN 978-0312931926
  • Her Pilgrim Soul: And Other Stories (1990) ISBN 978-0312851019
  • Moloka'i (2001) ISBN 978-1435291065
  • Honolulu (2009) ISBN 978-0312360405
  • Palisades Park (2013) ISBN 978-0312643720
  • Daughter of Moloka'i (2019) ISBN 9781250137661

Comic books

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DC Comics

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Marvel Comics

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Television and film

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Awards and nominations

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Year Awarding body Category Result Work Notes
1992 Emmy Award Outstanding Drama Series Nominated L.A. Law Shared with fellow producers Rick Wallace, Steven Bochco, Patricia Green, Carol Flint, Elodie Keene, James C. Hart, Robert Breech, Don Behrns
1991 Emmy Award Outstanding Drama Series Won L.A. Law Shared with fellow producers Rick Wallace, David E. Kelley, John Hill, Robert Breech, James C. Hart, Elodie Keene, Patricia Green, Alice West
Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series Nominated L.A. Law episode "Mutinies On The Banzai" Shared with co-writers Patricia Green and David E. Kelley
Nebula Award Best Short Story Won Ma Qui[26]

References

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  1. ^ Lamb, Cathy (March 18, 2014). "Author to Author Interview Alan Brennert". Cathylamb.org. Archived from the original on August 10, 2015. I was born in New Jersey in 1954 and raised near the legendary amusement park I write about in Palisades Park.
  2. ^ Clute, John (2011). "Brennert, Alan". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. London, United Kingdom: Orbit Books. ISBN 978-1-85723-897-6.
  3. ^ Brennert, Alan; Crocker, James; Craven, Wes (2020). The Twilight Zone: The Complete '80s Series: Audio Commentary - "Her Pilgrim Soul" (DVD). CBS DVD.
  4. ^ Ellison, Harlan (2020). The Twilight Zone: The Complete '80s Series: Audio Commentary - "Shatterday" (DVD). CBS DVD.
  5. ^ "Campbell Award". World Science Fiction Society. 2011. Archived from the original on June 5, 2013. Retrieved April 21, 2012.
  6. ^ a b Brennert, Alan (2013). "Biography". AlanBrennert.com. Archived from the original on July 24, 2013.
  7. ^ "Honolulu". London, United Kingdom: Macmillan Publishers. 2009. Archived from the original on September 24, 2012. Retrieved September 22, 2013.
  8. ^ Alan Brennert at the Grand Comics Database
  9. ^ Kelly, Rob (October 2015). "The Alan Brennert Interview". Back Issue! (84). Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows Publishing: 53.
  10. ^ Manning, Matthew K. (2010). "1980s". In Dolan, Hannah (ed.). DC Comics Year By Year A Visual Chronicle. London, United Kingdom: Dorling Kindersley. p. 193. ISBN 978-0-7566-6742-9. In a dimension-spanning story by writer Alan Brennert and fan-favorite artist Dick Giordano, Batman traveled to an alternate Earth to save the parents of a young Bruce Wayne.
  11. ^ Greenberger, Robert (December 2013). "Memories of Detective Comics #500". Back Issue! (69). Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows Publishing: 54–57.
  12. ^ "The Best of DC #23 (April 1982)". Grand Comics Database.
  13. ^ Kelly pp. 54-58
  14. ^ Manning, Matthew K. (2014). "1980s". In Dougall, Alastair (ed.). Batman: A Visual History. London, United Kingdom: Dorling Kindersley. p. 140. ISBN 978-1465424563. Alan Brennert and artist Jim Aparo pulled out all the stops to please fans of the Golden Age in this memorable tale.
  15. ^ Smith, Colin (January 10, 2012). "On Alan Brennert and Jim Aparo's Batman story, 'Interlude on Earth-Two'". Edwardsville, Illinois: Sequart Organization. Archived from the original on March 22, 2015.
  16. ^ Manning "1980s" in Dougall, p. 144: "The romance between the Earth-Two Batman and Catwoman was examined in this tale by writer Alan Brennert and penciller Joe Staton."
  17. ^ Mithra, Kuljit (December 2014). "Interview With Alan Brennert". Manwithoutfear.com. Archived from the original on September 10, 2015.
  18. ^ Kelly pp. 58-59
  19. ^ Kelly pp. 59-61
  20. ^ Manning "1990s" in Dougall, p. 193: Batman: Holy Terror became the first Elseworlds special. This tale by writer Alan Brennert and artist Norm Breyfogle featured a Gotham City ruled by the church and Batman as a vigilante man of the cloth."
  21. ^ Kelly pp. 63-64
  22. ^ Asselin, Janelle (July 9, 2014). "Batman Writer Alan Brennert, Gotham, And The Truth About DC Comics Media Royalties". ComicsAlliance. Archived from the original on September 7, 2015.
  23. ^ Armitage, Hugh (July 9, 2014). "Veteran Batman writer Alan Brennert denied Gotham royalties". Digital Spy. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015.
  24. ^ Brennert, Alan (2016). Tales of the Batman: Alan Brennert. Burbank, California: DC Comics. p. 208. ISBN 978-1401263492.
  25. ^ Dueben, Alex (June 28, 2016). "Alan Brennert Recalls the Origins of His Fan-Favorite Tales of the Batman". Comic Book Resources. Archived from the original on October 28, 2017. My personal favorite, by a whisker (pun intended), is the Batman/Catwoman story 'The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne'.
  26. ^ "Nebula Awards from the 1990s". SFWA Nebula Awards. Archived from the original on June 3, 2013. Retrieved September 22, 2013.
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