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Creator / Greg Weisman

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The Weisman about to speaketh...

Greg Weisman (born September 28, 1963 in Los Angeles, California) is an American writer and producer. He was the creator of Gargoyles and a scriptwriter for series such as Kim Possible. He was also the supervising producer for the second season of W.I.T.C.H., the supervising producer for all of The Spectacular Spider-Man until its cancellation, and is a producer for Young Justice (2010) alongside Brandon Vietti (of Batman: Under the Red Hood fame). He also had a good run in the 1980s with his Comic Book revival and update of Captain Atom. His most recent project was a Star Wars animated series titled Star Wars Rebels, which he worked on with Dave Filoni, former supervising director of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Can be seen as the Western Animation equivalent of Steven Bochco and Jay Wolpert.

He has also written the first two books of his own original series, Rain of the Ghosts and Spirits of Ash and Foam, a supernatural young adult book series with heavy references to Caribbean mythology and folklore. An audiobook of the first book with a full voice cast and original music has also been produced. (The kickstarter video for this project can be found here.) As a writer for hire, he is the author of the World of Warcraft novel Traveler and its sequel, Traveler: The Spiral Path. He was also revealed to be the author of Ravnica, the conclusion to the Magic: the Gathering's "Nicol Bolas Arc" and its return to the novel format after years of online publishing.

Oh, and Rorschach's fingerprints are actually his.

Greg also does voice acting in anime and cartoons.

Had a Twitter account, but after repeated hacks, has left the site.

Writing credits:

Tropes in his works:

  • All There in the Manual:
    • Weisman has an extensive online encyclopedia of the Gargoyles universe: http://www.s8.org/gargoyles/askgreg/ It's technically owned by a user named Gorebash, Weisman just uses it.
    • And in several interviews, he's hinted at having a rather thick production bible for Young Justice (2010).
  • Author Catchphrase:
    • If someone's been reduced to just their head, expect him to be taunted "What are you going to do, bite my kneecaps off?" (Appears in Gargoyles and Spider-Man) Likewise, references to "beating up a beach" are favored when fighting sand villains (Gargoyles, Spider-Man, and W.I.T.C.H.). Also some variation on "revenge is for suckers," both as a quote and ideology, often spoken from one villain to another (Gargoyles, Spider-Man, and Young Justice).
    • When Weisman himself is asked questions on Twitter, he often responds with "#nospoilers", even in regards to shows that are a good twenty years old.
  • Bound and Gagged: The characters Lacey Chabert voice in his shows are often given this treatment. Gwen Stacy was gagged and hung from a Thanksgiving parade float by Venom in The Spectacular Spider-Man. Zatanna, whose powers are vocal, had her mouth taped and was threatened with a crossbow in Young Justice (2010).
  • Canon Discontinuity: Weisman has disowned the entire Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles season, since he was not involved in its production.note  The Gargoyles comics he wrote for Slave Labor Graphics and now the ongoing ones for Dynamite Comics replace The Goliath Chronicles in canon.
  • Crossover: He likes to cross Gargoyles with other shows he's worked on. He wrote up a non-canon one with The Spectacular Spider-Man, and also planned one for Team Atlantis before it became a Stillborn Franchise (but he's declared it still canon in Broad Strokes). W.I.T.C.H. had the yuppie couple from Gargoyles appear as well, albeit as teenagers.
  • Deadpan Snarker: An entire section of Ask Greg is called Smart-Ass Responses.
  • Executive Meddling: He does his best with it, but it just seems like everyone is determined to kill his shows. He's worked it to his advantage but most of the time the networks he's on don't know what to do with him.
  • Grey-and-Gray Morality: Frequently found in characters on many of his shows.
  • He Also Did: In addition to his writing and producing credits in animation, he was also the ADR Director for the English dub of the 3×3 Eyes anime as well as the voice of Motoko in the English dub of Ikki Tousen.
  • Hypothetical Casting: On his website, he used to reveal who he mentally imagines the voices of characters that have yet to receive one (like in Young Justice), although as of 2016 he no longer does this out of respective for the voice actors they wound up with instead if it were to happen.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: He seems to do this with the episode titles of most of his major works:
    • His personal episode titles for Gargoyles were almost always one word long.
    • Every episode of Max Steel's first season started with the letter S.
    • His W.I.T.C.H. episodes were all stylized "___ Is For ____", with blank 1 being a letter of the alphabet and the second blank being a word starting with that letter.
    • The Spectacular Spider-Man titles tended to reference academic concepts, with overall arc titles various "courses" such as Biology 101 to emphasize "The Education of Peter Parker" as a series theme.
    • Young Justice (2010) averted this for the first two seasons, but the third uses this trope in a unique way: the first letter of each episode spells out ‘Prepare the Anti-Life Equation’, hinting at the return of Darkseid after his reveal at the end of Invasion.
  • Meaningful Name: His surname is pronounced "Wise Man", which corresponds perfectly with his writing style and depths.
  • Old Shame: If he has a regret about Gargoyles (other than the third season) it's to do with how much he jerked around Brooklyn romantically.
  • Painful Transformation: If you're going to turn into something in a Greg Weisman show, particularly if you're the bad guy, odds are it won't be pleasant.
  • Race Lift: He's very big on this, with some extremely pronounced examples in The Spectacular Spider-Man and Young Justice (2010).
  • Screwed by the Network: His shows seem to have trouble with their third seasons, with fans jokingly calling this continued trend "The Weisman Curse."
    • Gargoyles third season was subject to Executive Meddling that had Weisman leave its production early on. This third season, deemed as non-canon by both Weisman and fans, would also be the show's last.
      • There were only two general DVD releases for Gargoyles. The third one that would've finished the (canonical) run was quietly ignored for eight years until finally becoming a Disney Movie Club exclusive.
      • The comic book replacement for the third season suffered from chronic Schedule Slip and ended when Disney raised the licensing fees.
    • After the lackluster first season of W.I.T.C.H., Greg Weisman was hired to head the second season. The show was widely thought to have improved under his hand, and Greg had plans for more seasons. It was not to be.
    • When Disney bought Marvel, Sony gave up the TV rights to Spider-Man in order to keep the movie rights from falling into Marvel Studios' hands, preempting any third season of The Spectacular Spider-Man.
    • Young Justice (2010)'s lackluster toy sales made it too unprofitable compared with its high costs for animation and licensing, so Cartoon Network cancelled it after two seasons. However, after rabid fan support and years of petitioning, it was Un-Canceled for a third season and has since been renewed for a fourth. Curse Escape Clause?
  • Shout-Out to Shakespeare: Gargoyles had a ton of these, some of which were not mere shout-outs but plot-relevant. The Spectacular Spider-Man also featured Shakespeare in the second season's school play subplot. Rain of the Ghosts has several references to The Tempest, the series takes place on a group of islands called the Prospero Keys and one of the characters is named Miranda.
  • What Could Have Been: He and Brandon Vietti were in charge of two series that never got off the ground. The first was a Green Lantern cartoon that would've focused on Charlie Vickers. A Green Lantern series would eventually be made, but with Hal Jordan as the lead and a different creative team. The second was a Space Ghost cartoon.

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