More About the Author
Ric Meyers started acting professionally at eight, was directing plays by thirteen, and has worked in every entertainment medium since. He ushered, worked on the stage crew, and acted at the Tony Award-winning Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, toured New England in a traveling musical company, and has performed throughout the country and even the Caribbean.
After theater and cinema courses at Emerson College, Boston University, and the University of Bridgeport, Meyers collaborated with cult film maker Jeff Lieberman (Squirm, Blue Sunshine) on the horror thriller Just Before Dawn before becoming Assistant Editor for Atlas Comics and Seaboard Periodicals. His comic book work also includes the 60th anniversary issue of Detective and the Jackie Chan's Spartan X: The Armour of Heaven mini-series from Topps and Image Comics. He then served as associate editor of Starlog, head writer for Fangoria, and consulting editor for Famous Monsters of Filmland before deciding to write books full-time.
His first non-fiction books were TV Super Stars, Movies on Movies, and even The Illustrated Soap Opera Companion while his first novels were three collaborations with the great Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy on their best-selling Destroyer series. Meyers went on to write two dozen series books for a variety of publishers before working exclusively under variations of his own name. He become only the second writer chosen to adapt a Marvel comics character to books (The Incredible Hulk: Cry of the Beast) before creating science-fiction (Doomstar and Return to Doomstar), horror (Fear Itself, Living Hell, and Worst Nightmare for Dell), and fantasy mystery (Murder in Halruaa for Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms).
His subsequent non-fiction includes the Edgar-nominated TV Detectives and Murder on the Air, as well as Martial Arts Movies: From Bruce Lee to the Ninja, Martial Arts Movies: From Bruce Lee to Jackie Chan and More, For One Week Only: The World of Exploitation Films (which inspired a British TV miniseries), The World of Fantasy Films, and The Great Science Fiction Films.
Meyers became the "Special Media Consultant" (a title devised by Harlan Ellison) for the new Twilight Zone series. Resettling in Los Angeles, Meyers also contributed to Columbo and Murder, She Wrote. Upon his return to the New York area, he was thrice featured on both A&E's Biography and The Discovery Channel's Incredibly Strange Film Show. He soon became WELI radio's "Captain Showbiz," and head writer for leading fine art and book publisher The Greenwich Workshop while writing review columns for The Armchair Detective, Asian Cult Cinema, and Inside Kung-Fu. His work also appeared in Playboy, TV Guide, Entertainment Weekly, Total Movie, Millimeter, Vibe, Variety, and Connecticut magazines.
In 1998, he was inducted into the World Martial Arts Hall of Fame -- the first non-martial artist ever to be so honored. He was subsequently inducted into four more international Martial Art Hall of Fame as well. He also began hosting his annual San Diego Comic Con Superhero Kung Fu Extravaganza. Termed "America's foremost expert on Asian action films" by the Boston Globe, Meyers was hired as consultant for a 2001 Bravo Profile of Jackie Chan, and the 2002 Starz Encore documentary, The Art of Action: Martial Arts in the Movies. Meanwhile, he also supplied audio commentaries, liner notes, interviews, and cover copy for more than two hundred international DVDs.
In 2003, he attended the World International Taichi Championships where he started practicing taichi and qigong - leading to guest lecturing at the City College of New York, Brigham Young University, and the University of Bridgeport. Since then he has also led seminars at studios like DreamWorks and networks like Nickelodeon. In 2008, he was asked to script Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Movie, which had its premiere in 2011. That led to his magnum opus on the genre he pioneered in America, Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Book (which he enjoyed so much he decided to rewrite and remaster For One Week Only: The World of Exploitation Films as well).
"Donald E. Westlake, one of my idols, once told me that he wanted to do one of everything," Ric says. "I second that emotion ... only now, there's so much more everything to do." In that spirit, he was contributing editor at Weekly World News, king at Medieval Times in New Jersey, and finally unveiled his website ricmeyers.com, among other things.
