Bruce Timm


Bruce Walter Timm is an American artist, character designer, animator, writer, producer, and actor. He is best known for his contributions building the modern DC Comics animated franchise, the DC animated universe.

Early life

Bruce Timm was born on February 5, 1961, in Oklahoma, the third of four children. His father was an engineer and his mother worked for the phone company. Timm's family first moved to Ohio when Timm was two years old, and then to California when Timm was five or six.

Career

Animation

Timm's early career in animation was varied; he started at Filmation, working on the layout of Blackstar, ', He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, its spin-off ', and The Lone Ranger. He also worked for numerous other employers, including Ralph Bakshi, Don Bluth Productions, and attempted to find work at Marvel Comics and DC Comics, but without luck. In 1988 he worked at DiC on The Real Ghostbusters for one season, then joined Warner Bros. in 1989. At Warner, Timm worked on Tiny Toon Adventures.
However, Timm is best known for his subsequent work on the animated series based on various DC Comics superheroes, popularly referred to as the "DCAU". Along with his Tiny Toons partner Eric Radomski, Timm co-created and produced the Emmy Award-winning ', which premiered on September 5, 1992, and went on to co-create and produce ', The New Batman Adventures, and Batman Beyond. He also served as producer on the feature-length ' before taking the helm as creator and producer of the animated version of Justice League, which debuted in November 2001; the series continued in the form of Justice League Unlimited. Timm was also the producer and creator of '. Along with Paul Dini he created the animated series Freakazoid!.
Although he shared character designer duties on ' and Justice League with James Tucker, Timm did virtually all the original character designs for ' himself.
His 2008 project ' is a departure from the "Timmverse" style, with Timm in a producer role collaborating with Japanese animators on a direct-to-DVD anthology that takes place between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.
In 2013, following the release of ' animated feature, Timm stepped down as DC animation supervising producer; James Tucker was named as his replacement. Timm still works at Warner Brothers, and executive produced the DC Universe Original Animated Movies ' and ', and series '.
In 2013, he worked with Man of Steel director Zack Snyder, in creating a 75th anniversary short of Superman.
In 2014, he released ', an animated short celebrating the 75th anniversary of Batman and an homage to one of Hugo Strange's first appearances in the comic books.

Acting

Timm has played several characters in the animated series he has been involved in. His cameos include the episode of ', "Beware the Gray Ghost", playing the toy shop owner, as himself in the episode of The New Batman Adventures, "Holiday Knights", and as the leader of the Jokerz gang in Batman Beyond, which he joked he did under duress and was "Emmy Award-winning material". He appeared in animated form as Arkham Asylum patient in The Batman. He subsequently appeared in an animated form in ' episode "Legends of the Dark Mite" in a comic book convention parody scene, in which he wore Joker's costume, alongside Paul Dini in Harley Quinn's costume. He played a guard in the direct-to-video animated film '.
Timm made a cameo appearance in the 2009 film ' as Bug Boy, he played The Riddler in the 2010 film ', and appeared as Galius Zed in the 2011 film '.

Comics

While Timm is known primarily for his work in animation, his first ambition was to become a comic-book artist and has thus produced several one-shots and miniseries, mostly for DC Comics. In the 1980s, he made some mini-comics for Masters of the Universe.
In 1994, Timm and writer Paul Dini won the Eisner Award for Best Single Story for Batman Adventures: Mad Love. Timm won the same prize the next year as well, for Batman Adventures Holiday Special, with Dini, Ronnie del Carmen, and others. Later, Timm was involved with Batman Adventures and has also worked on Avengers and Vampirella. He is also a popular cover and pin-up artist.
In 2000, he did the art for an issue of DC's Vertigo imprint horror title, Flinch.
Bruce Timm co-created Harley Quinn, working from Dini's original design. Harley's popularity on television led to her inclusion in the mainstream DC Universe. In 2004, Timm and Dini released a three-issue Harley and Ivy miniseries, which was in the works for years.
Timm also drew the 1999 Avengers 1½ special for Marvel Comics, written by Roger Stern.
In 2005, Timm contributed artwork for two comics. One was a short story in Conan #18, titled "Conan's Favorite Joke". The other was a Black Canary short story in Birds of Prey #86.
In 2008, he provided the art work for a short two-page Harley Quinn origin story for Paul Dini's countdown.
Timm was featured in "Conan Gets Animated", a skit in the December 9, 2010 episode of the TBS late night talk show Conan, in which host Conan O'Brien enlisted his help in designing a new superhero, based on O'Brien's specifications. The superhero, who was designed to resemble O'Brien, included a typically muscular superhero body and costume with chest insignia, as well as idiosyncrasies such as an oven mitt, a jai alai glove, golf shoes, sock garters, and fishnet stockings. One month later, O'Brien aired a clip on his show in which the character, named "The Flaming C", appears in Young Justice.
In 2012, Timm released a book of erotic art, "Naughty and Nice: The Good Girl Art of Bruce Timm," showcasing more than 300 pencil, line, and full color drawings of women.
In 2013, Timm provided the cover artwork for Adventures of Superman #4.

Drawing style and influences

Timm's minimalist, angular style is heavily based in his love of 1950s- and 1960s-era comics and Art Deco architecture style. He is also completely self-taught, having never received any formal art schooling. He lists his artistic influences as Jack Kirby, Harvey Kurtzman, Jim Steranko, John Buscema, Wally Wood, Frank Frazetta, Dan DeCarlo, and Alex Toth.

Personal life

Timm is married and has one daughter.

Filmography

Film

Television

Dark Horse Comics