Curated category
Inkpot Award winners
- Steven SpielbergSteven Spielberg was born on the 18th of December 1946, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and by the time he was twelve years old, he had already staged and filmed a…
- George LucasGeorge Lucas was nearly killed before he ever made a film. On the 12th of June 1962, a few days before his high school graduation in Modesto, California…
- Kevin SmithKevin Smith walked out of a cinema on his 21st birthday with a decision made. The film was Richard Linklater's Slacker, shot in Austin, Texas without a…
- Hayao MiyazakiHayao Miyazaki was born on the 5th of January 1941 in Akebono-cho, Hongō, Tokyo City, the second of four sons in a family that manufactured rudders for…
- Dr. SeussTheodor Seuss Geisel was born on the 2nd of March, 1904, on Fairfield Street in Springfield, Massachusetts, within walking distance of a road called Mulberry…
- Jim HensonJim Henson made his first Kermit the Frog from a halved table tennis ball and fabric cut from an old coat that belonged to his mother.
- Vernor VingeVernor Steffen Vinge spent decades asking one question that made both scientists and storytellers uncomfortable: what happens when machines become smarter…
- Neil GaimanNeil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman was born on the 10th of November 1960 in Portchester, Hampshire, into a family whose name had been changed from Chaiman to…
- Kevin FeigeKevin Feige was born on the 2nd of June, 1973, in Boston, Massachusetts, into a family with a quiet thread connecting him to Hollywood before he ever set…
- Ralph BakshiRalph Bakshi was born on the 29th of October 1938 in Haifa, Mandatory Palestine, into a Krymchak Jewish family, and by the time he was a teenager in Brooklyn…
- Francis Ford CoppolaFrancis Ford Coppola illegally hired a grave robber to supply real human corpses as props, and oversaw the ritualistic killing of a water buffalo.
- Poul AndersonPoul William Anderson was born on the 25th of November 1926 in Bristol, Pennsylvania, to Danish parents who would soon uproot the family and carry it across…
- Stan LeeStan Lee signed off his monthly column with a single word: "Excelsior!" It is also the New York state motto, which suited a man born Stanley Martin Lieber on…
- Edgar Rice BurroughsEdgar Rice Burroughs was born on the 1st of September, 1875, in Chicago, Illinois, the fourth son of Major George Tyler Burroughs, a Civil War veteran and…
- John LasseterJohn Lasseter was fired from the Walt Disney Company for believing too hard in the future. The year was 1984, the project was a test film blending…
- Larry LieberLawrence D. Lieber arrived in Manhattan on the 26th of October 1931 to parents Celia and Jack Lieber, Romanian-Jewish immigrants who had built a life in New…
- Jack KirbyJack Kirby drew at least 20,318 pages of published art and another 1,385 covers across his career. In 1962 alone he published 1,158 pages.
- Steve DitkoSteve Ditko drew the first costume for Spider-Man because he worried the character's face looked too young. Covering it entirely, he reasoned, would add…
- Arnold SchwarzeneggerArnold Alois Schwarzenegger arrived in the United States in October 1968 at age 21, speaking little English and carrying little money.
- Howard KazanjianHoward Kazanjian is nowhere in the credits of The Empire Strikes Back. He took over that production partway through, after original producer Gary Kurtz…
- Clive BarkerClive Barker was three years old when he saw a man fall out of the sky. At an air show in Liverpool, the French skydiver Leo Valentin plummeted to the ground…
- George R. R. MartinGeorge Raymond Richard Martin was born on the 20th of September, 1948, in Bayonne, New Jersey, the son of a longshoreman.
- Joe ShusterJoe Shuster was born in Toronto in 1914, too poor to afford drawing paper, so he wandered from store to store collecting whatever scraps merchants threw out.
- Osamu TezukaOsamu Tezuka spent his final hours in a Tokyo hospital bed, drawing. When a nurse tried to take his equipment away, his last words were: "I'm begging you…
- Roger ZelaznyRoger Zelazny spent his evenings writing science fiction while working a day job at the U.S. Social Security Administration.
- David BrinGlen David Brin was born on the 6th of October 1950 in Glendale, California. His parents were Selma and Herb Brin, who raised him as a Jewish child.
- Mark HamillMark Richard Hamill was born on the 25th of September 1951, in Oakland, California, the son of a U.S. Navy captain who dismissed his son's passion for movies…
- Brian Michael BendisBrian Michael Bendis was thirteen years old when he decided he wanted to work in comics. Not read them. Make them. He was already revising his own Punisher…
- Yoshitaka AmanoYoshitaka Amano was born in Shizuoka, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, in 1952, the youngest of four children. His father, Yoshio Amano, was a lacquer artist who…
- Donald F. GlutDonald Frank Glut began making films in 1953 at the age of nine. He continued this hobby until 1969, creating a total of 41 amateur movies during that span.
- Jim ShooterJim Shooter was born on the 27th of September 1951, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He grew up with parents Ken and Eleanor Shooter who were of Polish descent.
- Byron PreissByron Preiss was buried with a secret that nine people are still trying to find. In 1982, he published a puzzle book called The Secret, hiding twelve…
- Moto HagioMoto Hagio was born on the 12th of May 1949 in Ōmuta, Fukuoka, the second of four siblings, to a father who worked the docks and a mother who kept the home.