Carl Potts (born November 12, 1952 in Oakland, California) is an American comic-book writer, artist, and editor best known for creating the series Alien Legion for the Marvel Comics imprint Epic Comics.
Raised in Oakland and San Diego, California, as well as in Hawaii, Potts received an Associate's degree in commercial art from Chabot College in Hayward, California. He went on to obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree in creative writing and editing from State University of New York, Empire State College. After contributing to such comics fanzines as the anthology Venture, Potts drew backgrounds and some secondary figures for a late fill-in issue of DC Comics' Kung Fu Fighter, being drawn by Bay Area comics artists Jim Starlin and Alan Weiss. Potts began his comics career in 1975.
Relocating to New York City, he freelanced briefly until joining Neal Adams' commercial-art company and comic-book packager Continuity Studios. As he explained in a 2000 interview: "Continuity was gearing up to produce black-and-white magazines based on several TV series: The Six Million Dollar Man, 1999 and Emergency!. I got involved with storyboard and comp art for major New York ad agencies. I also produced finished-illustration for magazines and books for several years before joining Marvel's editorial staff in 1983".
Marvel Comics
At Marvel as an editor, Potts worked with such notable comics creators as Jon Bogdanove, Jim Lee, Mike Okamoto (who won the Russ Manning Award as artist on Epic's Atomic Age), Whilce Portacio, Steve Skroce, Larry Stroman, and Scott Williams early in their careers. He oversaw the development of The Punisher from guest star to franchise character, and edited such titles as The Incredible Hulk, Doctor Strange, The Defenders, The Thing, and Alpha Flight, as well as the newly created Power Pack and Morituri. Potts' editorship was humorously characterized in 1988 as "a remarkable feat considering [his] legendary spelling disability."
After hours, Potts continued to write and produce occasional art for Marvel, and in 1983 teamed with Alan Zelenetz and Frank Cirocco to co-create the series Alien Legion, conceived as "the French Foreign Legion in space." Two ongoing series and several miniseries and one-shot were produced. In the mid- to late 2000s, Alien Legion was optioned by producer Jerry Bruckheimer and The Walt Disney Company.
In 1989, Potts was named executive editor in charge of the Epic imprint, and about a third of the mainstream Marvel titles. Five years later, he became editor-in-chief of the "General Entertainment" and Epic Comics divisions.
Later career
After 13 years at Marvel, Potts left to become Creative Director at VR-1, a massively multiplayer online game company. He then worked with Gary Winnick and Cirocco's Lightsource Studios before becoming senior creative director of the New York City office of Agency.com. He also consults for publishing, entertainment and interactive clients including HarperCollins, Tokyopop, Mainframe Entertainment, The Learning Company and Funrise Toys.
In 2010, Potts' Alien Legion screenplay, based on the long-running comic book and graphic novel series, was bought by Jerry Bruckheimer Productions/Disney.
Recently,Dark Horse comics released the first two in a series of Omnibus collections of the original Epic Comics run of Alien Legion comics. A new Alien Legion series produced by Chuck Dixon, Larry Stroman and Potts is in the works.
