Bridwell's early childhood interest in mythology and folklore stayed with him throughout his professional life and permeated much of his work. He credited his fame to his third grade teacher, Ryan Samuel, for interesting him in comics. Bridwell "was one of the first 'comics fans' hired in the industry after the long, bleak 1950's,". Although his first published work consisted of text pages in comics published by the American Comics Group in the late 1940s, he had since he "was still a kid" created various characters who would later evolve into those used in comics such as
The Inferior Five.
In 1962, while still residing in Oklahoma City, Bridwell submitted to the
Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction his first idea for a Feghoot adventure, a specific type of shaggy dog story that ends in a humorous and unexpected play on words. His story was promptly accepted by the feature's pseudonymous author, Grendel Briarton (Reginald Bretnor) and shortly followed by yet another submission from Bridwell which was also accepted ("Dr. Jacqueline Missed Her Hide" and "Nude Rally Tea Pact," respectively.) Besides
F&SF, both stories would appear in the various Feghoot anthologies to follow.
After writing a few stories for
Mad and for
Katy Keene, Bridwell began working for DC Comics in 1965 as an assistant to editor Mort Weisinger, "on the Superman titles, eventually becoming an editor himself (
Lois Lane, and later
Superman Family)." Jim Shooter (who also worked with Weisinger) recalls that Weisinger did not always treat his assistant well, saying that his "assistant was Nelson Bridwell and boy, he tortured Nelson. He just was awful to Nelson." Bridwell, however, recalled in 1980 an important lesson learned from Weisinger, that:
- "You've got to keep in mind that while there are a lot of people who've read about the characters before, there are always new people coming along, and you've got to realize that you can't count on them to know the whole legend of the character."
This lesson set him in good stead both when he helped DC produce three 1970s anthologies ...
Superman,
Batman, and
Shazam! From the Thirties to the Seventies. ... and when he wrote for the comic book series based on "one of the best rated TV shows on Saturday morning,"
Super Friends.
Concurrent with his duties for DC, Bridwell "was submitting material as a freelancer to Mad," some of which was illustrated by Joe Orlando, who would later be suggested by Bridwell as artist for
The Inferior Five.
Continuity
Recalling an early interest in comic book continuity, Bridwell "remembered getting a bit perturbed at times when I was a kid by having things that didn't fit," particularly over the wide range of Martian races in evidence in the adventures of DC's Atom, Wonder Woman, and Superman characters. Bridwell was also an early advocate of the theory that the Marvel and DC characters "exist in the same universe," citing early intercompany crossovers such as
Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man and a cross-company inter-locking storyline (with real-world crossover characters) between
Justice League of America #103,
Thor #207 and
Amazing Adventures #16.
Bridwell's love and knowledge of old comics led to his becoming editor on numerous reprint books, including digests, giant-size comics, and hardcover anthologies. He also worked as assistant editor to Julius Schwartz, keeping track of continuity between the numerous Superman titles published. Part of his job was to manage the letter columns for all the Superman titles, and in response to constant reader questions, Bridwell standardized the Kryptonian language and alphabet. Dubbed "Kryptonese," Bridwell established the 118-character alphabet, which was used by DC until John Byrne's 1986 "reboot" of the Superman universe.
The Inferior Five
Talking about the humorous super-hero series, Bridwell recalls that:
- "Jack Miller came up with the idea of a group of incompetent heroes, and at first he came up with the title The Inferior Four. When I created five heroes, he changed it to The Inferior Five. I completely created the heroes as a clown set, and Joe Orlando created the costumes."
Other comics
Bridwell wrote for several other DC titles, including
Action Comics,
Adventure Comics,
Super Friends,
The Secret Six,
Shazam!,
Superman,
Superman Family,
World's Finest Comics and
The Legion of Super-Heroes.
He wrote
Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew,
The Oz/Wonderland War trilogy, as well as occasional stories for the black-and-white horror comics
Creepy and
Eerie, published by Warren Publications. His last freelance writing work was for
Cracked magazine.
He co-created a number of characters, including the Justice League members Fire and Ice, and as editor compiled a number of "100-Page Super-Spectaculars," collecting out-of-print stories from the DC archive, often under new covers featuring a Bridwell-created character key.
Papers
Following his death on January 23, 1987, his papers were acquired by the McFarlin Library at the University of Tulsa in 1989.
