Dan Abnett

Daniel P. Abnett ( ; born 12 October 1965) is an English comic book writer and novelist. He has been a frequent collaborator with fellow writer Andy Lanning, and has worked on books for both Marvel Comics, and their UK imprint, Marvel UK, since the 1990s, and also '' 2000 AD''. He has also contributed to DC Comics titles, and his ''Warhammer Fantasy'' and ''Warhammer 40,000'' novels and graphic novels for Games Workshop's Black Library now run to several dozen titles and have sold over two million copies. In 2009 he released his first original fiction novels through Angry Robot books.

Early life

Daniel P. Abnett was born in Rochester, Kent, on 12 October 1965. Abnett read English and matriculated at St Edmund Hall, Oxford in 1984, and graduated from there in 1987.

Career

As one of the more prolific ''2000 AD'' writers, Abnett was responsible for the creation of one of the comic's better known and longest-running strips, ''Sinister Dexter''. Other original stories include ''Black Light'', ''Badlands'', '' Atavar'', ''Downlode Tales'', '' Sancho Panzer'', ''Roadkill'', ''Wardog'' based on the game of the same name, '' Kingdom'' and ''Brink''.Barney: droid zone
/ref> Abnett has also contributed to some of the comic's major ongoing series, including ''Judge Dredd'', '' Durham Red'' and ''Rogue Trooper''.

His work for Marvel includes runs on ''Guardians of the Galaxy'', '' Death's Head 2'', ''Battletide'', ''Knights of Pendragon'' (all of which he co-created), ''The Punisher'', ''War Machine'', ''Annihilation: Nova'' and various ''X-Men'' titles, as well as several stories for the ''Doctor Who Magazine'' comic strip.

At DC he is probably best known for his 2000 relaunch of ''Legion of Super-Heroes'' as the limited series ''Legion Lost'' and then the ongoing series '' The Legion''. His work for DC is usually co-written with Andy Lanning and they are often referred to as DnA. The two co-created the Resurrection Man character with artist Jackson Guice in 1997.

For Dark Horse Comics he co-wrote '' Planet of the Apes: Blood Lines'' with Ian Edginton, as well a penning ''Lords of Misrule'' and ''HyperSonic''.

Abnett's ''First & Only'' was one of the first novels published by Games Workshop's Black Library. His other novels set in Games Workshop's Military science fiction-themed ''Warhammer 40,000'' universe include the Gaunt's Ghosts series, the Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies, and more recently, as part of the Horus Heresy series, the SF best-sellers ''Horus Rising'', ''Legion'', ''Prospero Burns'', ''Know No Fear'' and ''The End and the Death Volumes I, II & III''. He has also authored four comic strip series, collected as graphic novels, for Games Workshop's Black Library imprint in the volumes ''Damnation Crusade'', ''Lone Wolves'', ''Inquisitor Ascendant'' and ''Titan''.

Having written the ''Doctor Who'' audio dramas '' The Harvest'' and ''Nocturne'' for Big Finish's series. He also authored '' Everyone Says Hello'', an audio drama based on ''Torchwood. He authored a 'Border Princes'', a ''Torchwood'' novel, and the framing device of the ''Doctor Who'' anthology '' The Story of Martha''.

In 1994, he wrote a promotional comic to promote the opening of the Nemesis roller coaster at Alton Towers.

2000s work

At '' 2000 AD'' he finished the final book of '' The V.C.s'' and started '' Black Atlantic'' in the ''Judge Dredd Megazine'', which was drawn by Steve Roberts (seen working on '' Bec & Kawl'') in black and white.

In 2008 Abnett and Lanning took over '' The Authority'' as part of the World's End relaunch of the core Wildstorm titles.

In addition, Abnett has done a lot of work on Marvel's "cosmic" characters. They expanded on their work in ''Annihilation: Nova'' and ''Nova'', and piloted the next big event '' Annihilation: Conquest''. They said "we were approached by Andy Schmidt, who edited the first 'Annihilation' event, and asked to pilot the next event, which Bill Rosemann is editing." They ended up writing the Prologue, the ''Nova'' series crossover and the main ''Annihilation: Conquest'' limited series. The characters then became the core of a new Guardians of the Galaxy.

In June 2008, Abnett and Lanning signed an exclusive deal with Marvel, which they hoped would give them time to work on the "cosmic" characters they have been dealing with, as well as more earth-based ones. The contract allowed them to finish existing commitments, so they will be able to finish their fifteen issue run on ''The Authority''. In addition Marvel has allowed the contract to include "a couple of exceptions that are not direct competition, for example, Dan's 2000AD work in the UK and his Games Workshop novels." The first major work to emerge after this deal will be ''War of Kings'', a crossover storyline, emerging from Secret Invasion, that pitches Black Bolt (and the Inhumans) against Gabriel Summers (and the Shi’ar Empire) but also draws in other teams and characters, including Nova, the Guardians of the Galaxy and the Starjammers. This then led straight into "Realm of Kings" which deals with how the different groups deal with the fallout from the events in ''War of Kings'' and this, in turn, was followed by '' The Thanos Imperative''. DnA have also written an ''Iron Man/Thor'' limited series.

He and Lanning have also written ''Fusion'', a crossover series between Marvel and Top Cow.

He also started ''Insurrection'', a series in ''Judge Dredd Megazine'' that aimed "to bring to the Dredd Universe something of the epic war-in-space scale of the stuff I write for Warhammer 40K."

Abnett wrote the screenplay for Games Workshop and Codex Pictures's CGI film '' Ultramarines'' released in 2010.

2010s work

Abnett concluded ''Insurrection'' and began a new series in the same milieu, ''Lawless'', also in the ''Judge Dredd Megazine''. Meanwhile, in ''2000 AD'' he has continued ''Kingdom'', contributed ''Grey Area'' and began another new series, ''Brink''. He also began writing both the ''Aquaman'' and ''Titans'' titles for the DC Rebirth branding, including the crossover storyline "The Lazarus Contract", which he coauthored with Christopher Priest and Benjamin Percy.

Original fiction

On 19 March 2009, HarperCollins' science fiction, fantasy and horror imprint, Angry Robot, announced the acquisition of three original novels by Abnett. They were ''Triumff: Her Majesty's Hero'', a story set in the alternative history reign of Elizabeth XXX and ''Embedded'', a near future war story with a journalist protagonist, which would have a follow-up set in the same setting. Only two novels were published.

Bibliography

Dan Abnett has been writing comics and novels since the mid-1980s, producing hundreds of comic stories and dozens of novels.

References

External links

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Dan Abnett's blog
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"Dan Abnett joins our robot horde"
, Angry Robot, 19 March 2009
''Loose Cannons''
a 4-part mini-series (drawn by Mark Harrison) for Marvel which was never published but has been put online.

Interviews

New DnA
Sequential Tart, December 2001
2004 interview with 2000ADReviewInterview: Dan Abnett on ''The Real Ghostbusters''
, Proton Charging, 17 December 2005
Dan Abnett talks Boom’s "Warhammer 40K" Comic
, Comic Book Resources, 11 September 2006
Bringing The Warhammer Down: Dan Abnett on ''Warhammer 40K: The Damnation Crusade''
Newsarama, 22 December 2006

, ''Thrillpower Thursday'', Hypergeek, 31 July 2009
Comic Geek Speak Podcast (December, 2009)"Exclusive: interview with "Legion Lost" writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning!"
Legione dei Super-Eroi. 26 July 2011
"I like to play with words": Dan Abnett on 2000 AD, Warhammer, and more – The 2000 AD Thrill-Cast
April 2024

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abnett, Dan
1965 births
Living people
20th-century English novelists
21st-century English novelists
Alumni of St Edmund Hall, Oxford
Comic book editors
DC Comics people
English comics writers
English male novelists
Marvel Comics writers
Military science fiction writers
Warhammer 40,000 writers
Warhammer Fantasy writers
Writers of Doctor Who novels