Bruce W. Timm
From Pop-Cult Guides
| Brice W. Timm | |
| |
| Birth name | Bruce Walter Timm |
| Born | February 8, 1961 |
| Occupation | Animated series producer Artist Writer |
| Years active | 80s, 90s, 00s |
Bruce Walter Timm is an American Emmy Award winner animation and Comics artist, character designer, director writer and producer. He is best known for his contributions building the modern DC Comics animated franchise and continuity coined by fans as the DC animated universe or the Timmverse.
Among his most well works are series like Tiny Toon Adventures, Batman and Superman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond and Justice League and movies like the upcomming Justice League: The New Frontier and Superman: Doomsday. He basically designed most of the look, characters and atmosphere of those shows and co-created fan-favorite characters like Harley Quinn, the Joker's insane lover and assistant.
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[edit] Animation
Before starting his professional career in animation, growing up, Bruce Timm wanted to be a comic book artist but after an initial rejection from DC Comics, realizing he quite good enough to get into comics, succesfully tryied to rather become an animator, considering he could do more contributions to that media, which he didn't think much of at the time.
He began in 1981 at Filmation, working on the layout and background designs of Blackstar, Flash Gordon, He-Man and The Masters of the Universe, and The Lone Ranger, and bounced to work on other studios like Sunbow Productions (where he worked on G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero), Ralph Bakshi, Don Bluth Productions, until in 1989, Timm joined Warner Bros. Animation, where he has been producing, designing and leading several acclaimed animated series up to this day.
He started at Warner as a character designer on Tiny Toon Adventures, working with writers Paul Dini and Alan Burnett and background designer Eric Radomski, and after the success of the Tim Burton's Batman movie, the studio asked the team to produce Batman: The Animated Series, an animated series based on the comic book character and loosely tied to the movie franchise. Based on works such as Fleischer's Superman shorts, The Spaceghost, Disney's Sleeping Beauty and Jack Kirby's comics, Timm designed a stylized and sophisticated yet relatively easier to animate graphic style for the series that not only became its trademark but the tredemark of all the series the team would produce in the same continuity to the current works and most of the shows produced by Warner Bros. Animation after that point.
Batman: The Animated Series started airing on Fox Network in 1992 and the success of the series was such that it lasted a total 109 episodes (including a revival season in 1998) and spawned several related series and movies set in the same continuty (labeled the DC animated universe by fans), and Timm would be involved in most of them. The first movie, Batman: Mask of the Pahntasm, initially planned as a direct-to-video film, was designer, produced, co-directed by Timm after the first season.
After the success of the series, at request of Kids' WB!, Timm and most members of the original team went on to create and produce several animated shows with a similar style. Steven Spielberg asked Bruce Timm and Paul Dini, who previously worked for him in Tiny Toons, to develope Freakazoid! and Timm designed the overall appearance of the show, but bailed on the project as its concept went from superhero-like adventure to comedy and parody. Timm rather focused on further DC Comics related shows set in the same continuity, that the network requested such as Superman: The Animated Series (1996-2000), for which he simplified even more the his style, The New Batman Adventures (1997-1999), and extension of Batman: The Aniamted Series with the visual style of the Superman series, and Batman Beyond (1999-2002), in which after the network's insistense of having a more youthful approach at the Batman character, he and Dini explore the universe of the hero 40 years foward into the future, when he is training and working with a young replacement. The success of Batman Beyond alouded him to produce the feature-length, direct-to-DVD movie Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.
His next work as producer, Justice League, was created at request of Cartoon Network and premied in November 2001, when this series continued in the form of Justice League Unlimited, Bruce got to redesign and introduce an amazing number of DC Comics characters into the DC animated universe continuity. Less involved, Timm was also the executive producer of the Teen Titans animated series, which is vaguely tied to the continuity of the previous and has a variant, "anime"-influenced visual style designed by Glen Murakami, former co-worker at the animation department of some of the lates series.
Along with Paul Dini and other writers, Timm co-created popular characters for the DC animated universe like Harley Quinn, Officer Renee Montoya, Live Wire, Lock-Up, Mercy Graves, Baby-Doll, Volcana, Calendar Girl, Luminus and Roxy Rocket, the first four were introduced to the mainstream DC Comics continuity. Several of Bruce Timm's character redesigns like Catwoman, Robin II, Mr. Freeze, the Parasite, Metallo Mxyzptlk and even Batman were also translated to the comics.
Though Timm is not a professional actor, he has provided various voices for some minor roles in most of the animated series he has been involved in at Warner Bros. Animation. His voiced cameos include the episode of Batman: The Animated Series, Beware the Gray Ghost, playing the Mad Bomber (a character designed after himself), as himself singing Christmas Carols along with other crew members in the episode of The New Batman Adventures, Holiday Knights, and also as the leader of the Jokerz gang in various episodes of Batman Beyond. However, he and the crew had a tradition of making cameos in the background of the series as if they were extras in the background.
[edit] Comics
Although Bruce Timm is primarily known for his work in animation, starting in the mid 1990s, he has also worked in comics, a lifelong passion for him. He began doing some special of The Batman Adventures the comic book for kids based on the series, but has also been partially or totally involved on few unreleated projects for DC comics, Marvel Comics, Harris Publications, Oni Press and Dark Horse Comics, including several covers for various titles.
In 1994, Timm and Paul Dini made The Batman Adventures: Mad Love a graphic novel about Harley Quinn, their favorite cration, and won the Eisner Award for Best Single Story, which would gain again next year for Batman Adventures Holiday Special.
In 2005 contributed artwork for two comics. One was a short story in Conan #18, called "Conan's Favorite Joke". The other was a Black Canary short story in Birds of Prey #86.
[edit] Filmography
| Episode | Credit | Writers | Director | Original Airdate | Number | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| He-Man and the Masters of the Universe | ||||||||||
| Background artist | ||||||||||
| G.I. Joe | ||||||||||
| Layout and backgroud artist | 1986 | |||||||||
| Beany and Cecil' | ||||||||||
| Layout artist | - | 1988 | ||||||||
| "Mighty Mouse, the New Adventures | ||||||||||
| Layout artist and supervisor | ||||||||||
| Tiny Toon Adventures | ||||||||||
| Character designer | - | 1990 | ||||||||
| Batman: The Animated Series | Producer | |||||||||
| Trial | Story and teleplay writer | Paul Dini | 16 May 1994 | |||||||
| Deep Freeze | Story co-writer, teleplay | Paul Dini | 26 November 1994 | |||||||
| Showdown | Story co-writer | Paul Dini Kevin Altieri | 12 September 1995 | |||||||
| Freakazoid! | Character designer | |||||||||
| Character designer | - | |||||||||
| Superman: The Animated Series | Producer | |||||||||
| The Last Son of Krypton, Part I | Director | - | 6 September 1996 | |||||||
| The Last Son of Krypton, Part II | Director | - | 6 September 1996 | |||||||
| The Last Son of Krypton, Part III | Director | - | 6 September 1996 | |||||||
| Character designer | - | |||||||||
| The New Batman Adventures | Producer | |||||||||
| Mad Love | Co-writer | - | 16 January 1999 | |||||||
| Legends of the Dark Knigt | Writer | - | 16 January 1999 | |||||||
| Batman Beyond' | Producer | |||||||||
| Character designer | - | |||||||||
| Justice League (TV series) | Producer | |||||||||
| Twilight | Story | Rich Fogel and Dwayne McDuffie | Dan Riba | July 2003 | 13 | |||||
| Wake the Dead | Co-writer | Dwayne McDuffie | Joaquim dos Santos | December 18, 2004 | 11 | |||||
| Epilogue | Story | Story by Dwayne McDuffie | Dan Riba | July 2005 | 26 | |||||
| Teen Titans (TV series) | Producer | 2003 - 2005 | Seasons 1 - 4 | |||||||
| Films | ||||||||||
| Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation | Co-writer | N/A | ||||||||
| Batman: Mask of the Phantasm | Producer, co-writer, director | Alan Burnett Martin Pasko Michael Reaves | 1993 | N/A | ||||||
| Batman Beyond - Return of the Joker | Co-writer | N/A | ||||||||
| Superman: Doomsday | Producer, co-writer | 1992-1999 | N/A | |||||||
| Justice League: The New Frontier | Producer | Stan Berkowitz and Darwyn Cooke | 1992-1999 | N/A | ||||||
| Teen Titans: The Judas Contract | Producer | Tom DeSanto | 1992-1999 | N/A | ||||||
[edit] Awards
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Awards
| Institution | Award | Category | Title | Issue | Year | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Will Eisner Comic Industry Award | Eisner Award | Best Single Issue / Single Story | The Batman Adventures: Mad Love | N/A | 1994 | Won |
| The Will Eisner Comic Industry Award | Eisner Award | Best Single Issue / Single Story | The Batman Adventures: Holiday Special | N/A | Won | |
| The Will Eisner Comic Industry Award | Eisner Award | Best Title for Younger Readers / Best Comics Publication for a Younger Audience | The Batman and Robin Adventures | 1-12 | 1996 | Won |
| The Will Eisner Comic Industry Award | Eisner Award | Best Graphic Album: New | Batman & Superman Adventures: World's Finest | N/A | 1998 | Won |
| The Will Eisner Comic Industry Award | Eisner Award | Best Graphic Album: Reprint | Batman Adventures: Dangerous Dames and Demons | N/A | 2004 | Won |
| Harvey Kurtzman Awards | Harvey | Best Single Issue or Story | The Batman Adventures: Mad Love | N/A | 1994 | Won |
[edit] Characteristic artwork
Since the mid 1990s a great deal of his drawings, published and unpublished work, started being exposed on a number Internet sites.
Most of these works are either fully painted or just inked, but in some the blue pencil lines are still visible. Most of them are portraits and women are the most common theme, being Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Catwoman, Vampirella, Batgirl, Batman, Superman, Conan the Barbarian, the Hulk, Ironman, the Joker and Jean Gray the most recurrent. Most of the characters are from DC Comics, but there are also several from Marvel and some from other companies. There is also a great deal of portraits of nude females.
All his drawings after the 1980s have his characteristic minimalism and sharp corners, which he takes from influences such as Hanna-Barbera's Space Ghost, Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty, Max Fleischer's Superman, and the work of Jack Kirby and Will Eisner. Timm tends to represent men with large jaws (like Batman, from Batman: The Animated Series), very broad shoulders, slim waist and legs and prominent pectorals, and women with relatively big heads, very small waists and large buttocks and hips (he rarely represents them with large breasts). The tendencies towards sharp edges, minimalism and women with big heads reach their peaks around 1997 with the character designs for The New Batman Adventures but can be appreciated as toned down in Justice League, in which the male characters have more muscle lines defined, the female characters, such as Wonder Woman, have smaller heads than before and all have round shoulders.
 Timm's reinterpretation of his original B:TAS designs. |
 Catwoman |
 Harley Quinn and the Joker |
 Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy |
 Batgirl |
 The Penguin from a storyboard. |
 Harley Quinn |
 Conan, the Barbarian |
 The Avengers |
 Vampirella, a favorite of Timm. |
 Batman & Superman |
 Darkseid |
 Timm's Batman redesign. |
 Poison Ivy's redesign. |
 Jean Gray |
 Elektra |
 Etrigan the Demon |
 Wonder Woman |
 The Justice League |
 The Justice League Unlimited, Timm's last interpretation of the DC Comics heroes. |
[edit] Trivia
- Timm is a comics "purist", and refers to himself and his associates (including Paul Dini, Eric Radomski, Dan Riba and Alan Burnett) as "geeks".
- Timm's minimalist, angular style is heavily based in his love of 1950's and 1960's-era comics and art deco architecture style. He is also completely self-taught, having never received any formal art schooling.
- Although he shared character designer duties on Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League with James Tucker, Timm did virtually all the original character designs for Batman: The Animated Series himself.
- On several commentaries for Justice League, Timm has stated his love for Joss Whedon's cult-classic series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel (TV series)
[edit] References
- Nolen-Weathington, Eric & Timm, Bruce (2004). Modern Masters Volume 3: Bruce Timm. TwoMorrows Publishing. ISBN 1-893905-30-6.
[edit] External links
- Bruce Timm at the Internet Movie Database
- The Bruce Timm Gallery at PopCultureShock
- Timm's work
- The Bruce Timm Artwork Archive
- BruceTimm.com (Web.Archive.org)
- Bruce Timm Interviews @ The World's Finest
- An interview with Bruce Timm primarily discussing the (then yet-to-be-aired) second season of Justice League
Categories: Actor | People | American animators | American comics artists | American comics writers | Batman artists | Superman artists | Batman television series | Superman television series | 1961 births | Living people | Tiny Toon Adventures | Wonder Woman artists | Flash (comics) artists | Aquaman artists | Green Lantern artists
