Paul Dini

Paul Dini is a television writer. He wrote multiple episodes of the Star Wars: Ewoks, Star Wars: Droids and Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series.

Dini is best known as a producer and writer for several successful Warner Bros./DC Comics series, including Tiny Toon Adventures, Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, The New Batman/Superman Adventures, Batman Beyond and Duck Dodgers. He also developed and scripted Krypto the Superdog and contributed scripts to Animaniacs (he created Minerva Mink), Freakazoid, Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. After leaving Warner Bros. in early 2004, Dini went on to write and story edit the popular ABC adventure series Lost.

Early years
Paul Dini was born in New York City. He attended the Robert Louis Stevenson school in Pebble Beach, California on an art scholarship. He attended Emerson College in Boston, where he earned a BFA degree in creative writing. (He also took zoology classes at Harvard University.)

During college, he began doing freelance animation scripts for Filmation, and a number of other studios. In 1984, he was hired to work for George Lucas on several of his animation projects.

The episodes of the He-Man cartoon that were written by Dini have become favorites amongst the show's fans over the internet, although despite this as well as contributing to interviews on the released box sets of the series, Dini has made no secret of his distaste for Filmation and the He-Man concept. He also wrote an episode of the Generation 1 Transformers cartoon series, and contributed to various episodes of the Star Wars: Ewoks animated series, several of which included rare appearances from The Empire.

Professional career
In 1989, he was hired at Warner Brothers Animation to work on Tiny Toon Adventures. Later, he moved onto Batman: The Animated Series, where he worked as a writer, producer and editor, later working on Batman Beyond. He continued working with WB animation, working on a number of internal projects, including Krypto the Superdog and Duck Dodgers, until 2004. He has earned five Emmy awards for his animation work. In a related effort, Dini was also the author of Batman Animated, a 1998 non-fiction coffee table book about the animated Batman franchise.

Dini has also written several comics stories for DC Comics, including an acclaimed oversized graphic novel series illustrated by painter Alex Ross. (A hardcover collection of the Dini and Ross stories was published in late summer 2005 under the title The World's Greatest Superheroes.) Other books written by Dini for DC have featured his Batman Animated creation Harley Quinn as well as classic characters Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel and Zatanna.

Best known among Dini's original creations is Jingle Belle, the rebellious teen-age daughter of Santa Claus. Dini also created Sheriff Ida Red, the super-powered cowgirl star of a series of books set in Dini's mythical town of Mutant.

His series of animated cartoons starring DC Comics characters is sometimes known to fans as the Diniverse.

In 2001, Dini made a cameo appearance in Kevin Smith's film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

In 2006, Dini became the writer for Detective Comics. This is Dini's first regular comic assignment.

Dini wrote the first season Star Wars: The Clone Wars episode "Cloak of Darkness". He was asked to help with season three, but turned the offer down because of his work on another project at the time. He found his experience of writing for The Clone Wars to be less restricted than for Droids and Ewoks.

Hobbies
Paul Dini is an active cryptozoologist, hunter, and wildlife photographer. On a 1985 trip to Tasmania, he had a possible sighting of a Thylacine. He has also encountered a number of venomous snakes, a Komodo Dragon and a charging Sumatran Rhinoceros and once kept a wild coyote as a pet. Paul Dini is also an amateur stage magician, and an active member of the Academy of Magical Arts. Appropriately enough, one of his favorite DC Comics characters is Zatanna. He has also performed several minor roles in films by Kevin Smith.

Paul Dini lives in Los Angeles, California and is married to magician Misty Lee.

Awards
Dini has won five Emmy awards for his writing on Tiny Toon Adventures, Batman: The Animated Series and Batman Beyond.

He received the Writer's Guild Animation Writing award in 2000 and a second WGA award for dramatic television writing in 2006 as a member of the writing team for Lost.

Dini is also a three time winner of the animation industry's Annie Awards and has won seven comics industry Eisner Awards and three Harvey Awards. Dini has received nominations for the Comics' Buyer's Guide Award for Favorite Writer in 1999 and 2000.

Notes and references

 * Write Now! issue 4 (June 2003) and issue 5 (July 2003), TwoMorrows Publishing