Elliot S! Maggin is an American writer.
Maggin started working as a professional writer in his teens, selling historical stories about the Boer War to a boys' magazine. He wrote the comic story "What Can One Man Do?" for a class during his junior year of college.When it received a grade of B+, Maggin disagreed with the assessment and sent his script to DC Comics. It was passed around the DC offices, and Neal Adams chose to illustrate the script. Though the initial grade was not corrected, Maggin became a writer for DC, selling his stories to fund a master's degree in journalism. He became the principal writer for Superman, where his imaginative stories and innate understanding of the principles of heroism kept the Man of Steel popular for over 20 years. He also wrote for Green Arrow, where his sense of humour was allowed far more freedom in the loose dialogue of the main character.
Maggin wrote hundreds of comic stories, television scripts, stories for film, animation and journalistic pieces. He wrote two Superman novels, Last Son of Krypton and Miracle Monday. He served as an editor for DC Comics, raised horses, ran for public office in New Hampshire, taught at various high schools and colleges (as well as ski resorts), wrote stories for Atari video games, and worked on websites. He also wrote the novelization of the graphic novel Kingdom Come based on the story by Mark Waid, and a novel featuring the Marvel mutant superhero team Generation X.
Because comic book scripts tend to favor the exclamation mark as the punctuation of choice, Maggin routinely used it instead of a full stop. Out of habit, he once signed his own name Elliot S! Maggin and editor Julius Schwartz liked the distinctive rhythm of the name, insisting that Maggin write his name that way thereafter.
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Last updated: 05-07-2005 14:48:17
