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At Comic-Con International in San Diego J. Michael Straczynski announced that he
was going to leave comics and focus his talents in another medium. JMS had
written comics for about 20 years. In a piece published on Newsarama, JMS
explained his decision to change careers and revealed a health issue that he had
been dealing with for about 10 years. Straczynski started out as a reporter
before becoming a radio correspondent and then became a journalist before
becoming a writer. He worked in animation before coming up with the idea for
Babylon 5. His introduction to comics was Rising Stars before moving to Marvel
to write Amazing Spider-Man. He has worked on books for Image but gained even
more fame writing the best selling Superman: Year One graphic novels. As he was
working in comics he started falling a lot and noticed that his eyes were
getting tired faster than normal. A doctor told him that he had began to develop
cataracts and Fuchs Corneal Dystrophy, a genetic disorder that kills the cornea
cells that wick away moisture and leaves the eye cloudy. He decided against
having a full corneal transplant and decided to live with horrible vision. At
one point he was able to write three or four comics per month in addition to
whatever else I was writing but could now barely write even one comic a month
because he couldn’t see the computer screen. After dealing with the issue as
long as he could he decided to have an experimental surgery that made his vision
better than he has ever had. JMS did start planning more comics work but wanted
to try and write novels and plays and completed all of his comic commitments for
Image. |
