Bill Willingham
Willingham at the 2012New York Comic Con
Born	William Willingham 1956 (age 68–69) Fort Belvoir, Virginia, U.S.
Area	Writer,Penciller,Inker
Notable works	Elementals Fables

William Willingham (born 1956) is an American writer and artist of comics, known for his work on the seriesElementals andFables.

William Willingham was born inFort Belvoir, Virginia.^[1] During his father's military career the family also lived in Alaska, California, and finally three years in Germany.^[2] Willingham got his start from the late 1970s to early 1980s as a staff artist forTSR, Inc., where he illustrated a number of theirrole-playing game products. He was the cover artist for theAD&D Player Character Record Sheets,Against the Giants,Secret of Bone Hill, theGamma World bookLegion of Gold, and provided the back cover forIn the Dungeons of the Slave Lords. He was an interior artist onWhite Plume Mountain,Slave Pits of the Undercity,Ghost Tower of Inverness,Secret of the Slavers Stockade,Secret of Bone Hill,Palace of the Silver Princess,Isle of Dread,The Mansion of Mad Professor Ludlow,^[3]Food Fight,^[4]In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords, the originalFiend Folio,Descent into the Depths of the Earth,Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords,Against the Giants,Queen of the Spiders,Realms of Horror, and the second and third editions of theTop Secret role-playing game. He also wrote and illustrated a couple of 1982 adventures for the gameVillains & Vigilantes forFantasy Games Unlimited,Death Duel with the Destroyers andThe Island of Doctor Apocalypse.^[5] Willingham also produced the alien race design artwork for the originalMaster of Orion video game.^[6]

He first gained attention for his 1980s comic book seriesElementals published byComico, which he both wrote and illustrated; this series featured the Destroyers characters from hisVillains & Vigilantes adventures as guest-stars.^[5] He contributed stories toGreen Lantern and started his own independent, black-and-white comic book seriesCoventry which lasted only 3 issues.^[7] He also produced thepornographic seriesIronwood forEros Comix.

In the late 1990s, Willingham produced the 13-issuePantheon forLone Star Press and wrote a pair of short novels about the modern adventures of the heroBeowulf, and a fantasy novelDown the Mysterly River published by theAustin, Texas writer's collective,Clockwork Storybook, of which Willingham was a founding member. In the early 2000s, he began writing forDC Comics, including thelimited seriesProposition Player, a pair of limited series about the GreekwitchThessaly fromThe Sandman, and the seriesFables.^[8] In 2003,Fables won the Will Eisner Comic Industry awards for best serialized story and best new series.^[9]

He describes himself as "rabidly pro-Israel" and says thatFables "was intended from the beginning" as a metaphor for theIsraeli–Palestinian conflict, although he argues thatFables is not "a political tract. It never will be, but at the same time, it's not going to shy away from the fact that there are characters who have real moral and ethical centers, and we're not going to apologize for it."^[10]

Willingham worked on theRobin series from 2004 to 2006, and establishedShadowpact, a title spun off hisDay of Vengeance limited series. He also wroteJack of Fables, an ongoing spin-off of his Fables series, co-written byLilah Sturges.^[11] At the 2007Comic Con International, he announced that he would be writingSalvation Run, a mini-series about supervillains who are banished to an inhospitable prison planet.^[12][13] He handed over the writing to Sturges after two issues because of illness.^[14] He worked onDCU: Decisions, a four-issue mini-series that deals withGreen Arrow's endorsement of a political candidate.^[15] Again with Sturges, he began writing the Vertigo seriesHouse of Mystery,^[16] and DC'sJustice Society of America with issue #29.^[17][18]

In 2009, Willingham agreed to write forAngel byIDW Publishing, initiated a new storyline titled "Immortality for Dummies".^[19]

In late 2010 (with cover dates January–April 2011), Willingham wrote the four-issue mini-seriesWarriors Three forMarvel Comics, illustrated by Neil Edwards.^[20]

At 2013New York Comic Con it was announced that Willingham would be writing a seven-part mini series forDynamite Entertainment (with art bySergio Fernandez Davila).^[21] The series isLegenderry: A Steampunk Adventure and includes some of Dynamite's licensed and public domain characters in asteampunk setting. The series was released in January 2014, and a collected edition was published in January 2015.^[22]

In September 2023, Willingham put hisFables series into thepublic domain after a dispute with DC Comics over publishing and media rights forFables.^[23] DC has since responded thatFables is wholly owned by them and the company will take appropriate action to protect its intellectual property.^[24]

The issues listed include those where writing credits are for at least one story included in the issue.

• "Bill Willingham at Pen & Paper RPG Database". Archived fromthe original on October 16, 2007.

• Official website
• Bill Willingham at the Comic Book DB (archived fromthe original)
• Bill Willingham at theInternet Speculative Fiction Database
• Bill Willingam atLibrary of Congress, with 62 library catalog records

• 1956 births
• 20th-century American artists
• 20th-century American writers
• 21st-century American artists
• 21st-century American writers
• American comics artists
• American comics writers
• American fabulists
• American fantasy artists
• American fantasy writers
• American role-playing game artists
• Artists from Virginia
• Eisner Award winners for Best Writer
• Fables (comics)
• Inkpot Award winners
• Living people
• People from Fort Belvoir, Virginia
• Writers from Virginia

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from December 2013
• Comics infobox image less alt text
• Comics creator pop
• Comics creator BLP pop
• Track variant DoB
• Date of birth missing (living people)