November 13, 2017
Chuck Dixon is now the most prolific comic book writer of all time.
Yes, as hard as it may be for some to believe, the Philly native has now written more comic book pages than anyone in the history of the medium.
"My stats show that I beat Paul S. Newman, Gabriel DuBois, Robert Kanigher and Gardner Fox, who were my nearest competitors. Jared Mitchell, who did the breakdown, painstakingly researched every other writer's output and determined that I passed Newman's page count with 'Bane: Conquest #5,' which came out in September," he said.
Dixon passed the late Newman – best known for an incredible, 26-year run on the "Turok" comic book and a 108-issue run on the classic "Lone Ranger" comic – as well as Marvel Comics legends Roy Thomas (36,486) and Stan Lee (34,039) and the above-mentioned authors for the crown of Comic Book Writing King.
Dixon said in an exclusive interview with PhillyVoice that his ability to write quickly the meat and potatoes action stories that are his trademark has a lot to do with his output.
"The fact that I wrote over 40,000 pages of comics comes as a surprise to me because it never felt like work. I just love what I do," he said.
Dixon said he had a strong work ethic from a young age.
"I was born on Irving Street in West Philadelphia. Then we moved to Upper Darby. I worked lots of dead-end jobs in the city," he said.
"A lot of them were night jobs, so I'd just wake up and go into the city, spend my days there at the movies, the library or just walking around until it was time to go to work."
As a comic book writer, Dixon's historic career includes long, memorable runs on down-to-Earth hero titles like "Robin," "Detective Comics," "Nightwing," "Airboy," "G.I. Joe," "Green Arrow," "Birds of Prey," "Punisher War Journal," "Moon Knight," and "Way of the Rat."
As many times as Dixon has been told the industry woukd pass him by, he is still getting the last laugh telling fun, exciting stories – and he is far from done telling action-packed tales in the comics medium.
"I have a 120-page graphic novel for the U.S. Navy coming out next year, and two, six-issue miniseries for Zenescope, plus a five-issue miniseries for Black Box. This is in addition to some comics I wrote for Bonelli in Italy – and I just made a deal for a 12-issue maxi series today," he concluded.
We are unlikely to see the likes of Chuck Dixon – who looks to put the record as far out of reach as he can – again.
