The Speakers

A DVD of the inaugural Julius Schwartz Lecture featuring Neil Gaiman is now available, exclusively through New England Comics.

2009 Speaker: J. Michael Straczynski

This year's speaker is transmedia creator J. Michael Straczynski, who has most recently entered the motion picture arena, writing the period drama Changeling for Clint Eastwood and Angelina Jolie, adapting such books as Lensman for Ron Howard, World War Z for Brad Pitt’s company, and They Marched Into Sunlight for Tom Hanks and Paul Greengrass, as well as reviving Forbidden Planet for Warner Bros. and selling two new original movies, The Flickering Light and Proving Ground to Universal and Tom Cruise's United Artists, respetively. He has also begun work on Last Words, a pilot for a new TV series for the TNT network.

Previously known best for his role as the creator of the cult science fiction series Babylon 5 and its various spin-off films and series. Straczynski wrote 92 out of the 110 Babylon 5 episodes, notably including an unbroken 59-episode run through all of the third and fourth seasons, and all but one episode of the fifth season.

His early television writing career spans from work on He-Man, She-Ra, and The Real Ghostbusters through to The New Twilight Zone and Murder She Wrote. He followed up Babylon 5 with the science fiction series Jeremiah.

Straczysnki also enjoys continued success as a comic book writer, working on established superhero franchises, such as The Amazing Spider-Man, Supreme Power and Thor, as well as his own original series, such as Rising Stars, Midnight Nation, The Twelve, and The Book of Lost Souls. He is also a journalist, publishing over 500 articles in such periodicals as the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Writer’s Digest Magazine, and TIME Inc.

He was one of the first television producers to actively engage his fan community online and has consistently explored the interface between digital media and other storytelling platforms.

2008 Inaugural Speaker: Neil Gaiman

Bestselling author Neil Gaiman has long been one of the top writers in modern comics, as well as writing books for readers of all ages. He is listed in the Dictionary of Literary Biography as one of the top ten living post-modern writers, and is a prolific creator of works of prose, poetry, film, journalism, comics, song lyrics, and drama.

His New York Times bestselling 2001 novel for adults, American Gods, was awarded the Hugo, Nebula, Bram Stoker, SFX, and Locus awards, was nominated for many other awards, including the World Fantasy Award and the Minnesota Book Award, and appeared on many best-of-year lists.

Gaiman's latest novel for adults, Anansi Boys, debuted on the New York Times Bestseller list in September, 2005. About Anansi Boys Gaiman says: "It's a scary, funny sort of a story, which isn't exactly a thriller, and isn't really horror, and doesn't quite qualify as a ghost story (although it has at least one ghost in it), or a romantic comedy (although there are several romances in there, and it's certainly a comedy, except for the scary bits)." An audio version of the entire text of Anansi Boys, as read by UK comedian Lenny Henry, has also been published by HarperAudio as both regular CDs and as MP3-CDs.

The Sundance Film Festival premiere of Mirrormask, a Jim Henson Company Production written by Neil Gaiman and directed by Dave McKean, took place in January 2005. The film was released from Goldwyn/Sony on September 30, 2005. Mirrormask, a lavishly designed book containing the complete script, black and white storyboards, full-color art from the film, and augmented by notes and observations by the creators is published by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Mirrormask, a picture book for younger readers, also written by Gaiman and illustrated with art from the movie, was published by HarperCollins Children's Books in October 2005, and The Alchemy of Mirrormask was published by CollinsDesign that same month.

With Roger Avary, Neil Gaiman wrote the script for Beowulf, which was directed by Robert Zemeckis and starred Anthony Hopkins and Angelina Jolie. It was released by Sony ImageMovers in November of 2007 and received nominations for many awards, including two Saturn Awards (Best Animated Film and Best Writing), the Annie (Best Production Design in an Animated Feature Production), and the Broadcast Film Critics Association Critics Choice Award (Best Animated Feature).

Gaiman is co-author, with Terry Pratchett, of Good Omens, a very funny novel about how the world is going to end and we're all going to die, which spent 17 consecutive weeks on the Sunday Times (London) bestseller list in 1990 and has gone on to become an international bestseller. In March 2006, Morrow will publish a new hardcover edition of the book, which will include an introduction and other ancillary material from the authors.

Gaiman was the creator/writer of monthly cult DC Comics horror-weird series, Sandman, which won nine Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, including the award for best writer four times, and three Harvey Awards. Sandman #19 took the 1991 World Fantasy Award for best short story, making it the first comic ever to be awarded a literary award. Norman Mailer said of Sandman: "Along with all else, Sandman is a comic strip for intellectuals, and I say it's about time."

His six-part fantastical TV series for the BBC, Neverwhere, aired in 1996. His novel, also called Neverwhere, set in the same strange underground world as the television series, was released in 1997. It appeared on numerous bestseller lists, including the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Locus. Film rights to Neverwhere have been bought by Jim Henson Productions; Gaiman has written a draft of the script for the film.

Gaiman's first book for children, The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish, illustrated by Dave McKean, came out in May 1997, was listed by Newsweek as one of the best children's books of the year, and was reissued to acclaim by HarperCollins in 2003.

Stardust, a prose novel in four parts, began to appear from DC Comics in October 1997. Illustrated by Charles Vess, it is a fairy story for adults. The collected DC version appeared in late 1998, and in January 1999 Morrow/Avon released the all-prose unillustrated version of Stardust; it received starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, appeared on a number of American bestseller lists, was listed by Publishers Weekly as one of the best books of the year, and was awarded the prestigious Mythopoeic Award as best novel for adults in August 1999.

His most recent collection of short fiction, Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions, was published in 1998. It was nominated in the UK for a MacMillan Silver Pen award as the best short story collection of the year.

Gaiman's 1999 return to Sandman, the prose book The Dream Hunters, with art by Yoshitaka Amano, won the Bram Stoker award for best illustrated work by the Horror Writers Association, and was nominated for a Hugo award.

Two Plays For Voices (2002), an audio adaptation of two of Gaiman's short stories, and starring Brian Dennehy and Bebe Neuwirth, was awarded a 2002 Audie Award by the Audio Publishers Association.

At the end of 2002 Gaiman wrote and directed his first film, in association with Ska Films: a short, dark, funny work called "A Short Film about John Bolton," which is available on DVD. In 2006, Gaiman will direct his first feature length film, based on his graphic novel "Death: The High Cost of Living" for New Line Films.

His children's novel Coraline, published in 2002, was also a New York Times and international bestseller and an enormous critical success; it won the Elizabeth Burr/ Worzalla, the BSFA, the Hugo, the Nebula, and the Bram Stoker awards. Director Henry Selick is making the film "Coraline", with music provided by the band They Might Be Giants.

In 2003 The Wolves in the Walls, illustrated by his longtime collaborator Dave McKean, was published, and it was named by the New York Times as one of the best illustrated books of the year. It is currently being made into an opera by the Scottish National Theatre. 2003 also saw the appearance of the first Sandman graphic novel in seven years, Endless Nights, which was published by DC Comics and was the first graphic novel to make the New York Times bestseller list.

In 2004, Gaiman published the first volume of a serialized story for Marvel called 1602, which was the bestselling comic of the year, and is currently a Quills Award finalist in the graphic novel category.

Gaiman's work has appeared in translation in dozens of countries around the world. His journalism has appeared in Wired, Time Out London, The London Sunday Times, Punch, The Observer Colour Supplement, and has reviewed books for the New York Times Book Review and the Washington Post Bookworld.

Tori Amos sings about Neil on her albums "Little Earthquakes", "Under the Pink", "Boys for Pele", and "Scarlet's Walk"; and he's written songs for the Minneapolis band The Flash Girls ("the find of the year and perhaps beyond" -- Utne Reader), for Chris Ewen's "The Hidden Variable", and for the band One Ring Zero.

In August 1997 the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a First Amendment organization, awarded Gaiman their Defender of Liberty Award. In 2000 he did the final series of "Guardian Angel" readings, which he began doing for the CBLDF in 1993, and replaced the retiring Frank Miller on the CBLDF Board of Directors. In September 2005 he will be one of 17 bestselling authors who, in support of the First Amendment Project, will auction off the chance to name a character in an upcoming book.

Gaiman's official website, www.neilgaiman.com, now has more than one million unique visitors each month, and his online journal is syndicated to thousands of blog readers every day. Currently, more than 2,500 websites link to www.neilgaiman.com.

Born and raised in England, Neil Gaiman now lives near Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has somehow reached his forties and still tends to need a haircut.

Host: Henry Jenkins III

Henry Jenkins is the Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities. He is the author and/or editor of nine books on various aspects of media and popular culture, including Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture, Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture and From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games. His newest books include Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide and Fans, Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture.

Until recently, Jenkins wrote a monthly column and blogged about media and cultural change for Technology Review Online. A longtime advocate of games culture, he currently co-authors a column with Kurt Squire for Computer Games magazine which seeks to promote innovation and diversity in game design. Jenkins recently developed a white paper on the future of media literacy education for the MacArthur Foundation, which is leading to a three year project to develop curricular materials to help teachers and parents better prepare young people for full participation in contemporary culture. He is one of the principal investigators for The Education Arcade, a consortium of educators and business leaders working to promote the educational use of computer and video games. He was also one of the principal investigators on collaboration with Initiative Media to monitor audience response to American Idol with an eye towards developing new approaches to audience measurement. He is one of the leaders of the Convergence Culture Consortium, which consults with leading players in the branded entertainment sector in hopes of helping them adjust to shifts in the media environment. Jenkins also plays a significant role as a public advocate for fans, gamers, and bloggers: testifying before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee investigation into "Marketing Violence to Youth" following the Columbine shootings; advocating for media literacy education before the Federal Communications Commission; calling for a more consumer-oriented approach to intellectual property at a closed door meeting of the governing body of the World Economic Forum; signing amicus briefs in opposition to games censorship; and regularly speaking to the press and other media about aspects of media change and popular culture. Jenkins has a B.A. in Political Science and Journalism from Georgia State University, a MA in Communication Studies from the University of Iowa and a PhD in Communication Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has taught at MIT for more than 16 years, where he is also housemaster of Senior House dormitory.

For more on Henry Jenkins, please visit his website and weblog, Confessions of an Aca-Fan, at www.henryjenkins.org.