Profile
Richard Pini
by Ariel Wulff

Richard Pini was born on July 19, 1950. The eldest of three children, he was raised and educated in Orange, Connecticut, where the drive to succeed was instilled in him at a young age. Richard was an avid reader who remarkably could read the newspaper by the age of three. He cites the Hardy Boy mysteries, the Tom Swift Jr. series, and any juvenile science fiction he could get his hands on as his favorite reading while growing up. Richard's first memories of comics were of Superman and Batman titles that he received from friends and relatives, but he wasn't really "hooked" until he picked up a copy of Fantastic Four #37. That issue contained the first "continued story" that he'd ever seen in a comic book. That was the fateful beginning of roughly ten years of "Marvel mania."

Richard was a straight-A student, participated in the audio/video club at school, and was one of the custodians of the chemistry lab and stockroom – which afforded him ample time to tinker in electronics and science. His favorite classes were English and science, and Richard was happiest when he was able to combine the two, writing what he refers to as "awful" science fiction stories for class assignments. However, writing as a profession was not on his agenda as he entered Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the fall of 1968.

At MIT, Richard applied himself to the rigors of his physics major until he rediscovered his love of the stars in an astronomy class. He changed focus and switched to astronomy. By the time he had landed a job with the Hayden Planetarium in Boston at the Museum of Science, he'd already met Wendy Fletcher through the letters page of the Silver Surfer comic (see Wendy Pini's Profile from Sendings #1). It was at the Hayden that Richard started to get involved with writing scripts for the planetarium shows, and discovered that he really enjoyed it. After his college graduation in 1973, Richard went to work at the Hayden full time, where he stayed until 1975.

He was then hired as the Taunton High School planetarium director (where he ran the universe), then started teaching - in addition to his planetarium duties - until 1979, when he left to pursue a job with IBM in Poughkeepsie, New York. For the next two years Richard divided his energy between his job at IBM and trying to help a fledgling publication called Elfquest off the ground.

During those early years of Elfquest, Richard didn't do much actual writing. Instead, he contributed story elements and editorial tweaking. Wendy devised the initial plot for each chapter of the original Quest and would write a script for each issue. Richard would then give the script an editor's and storyteller's going-over – keeping in mind such things as continuity, characterization, motivation and grammar. Richard explains that you can't do this sort of thing for years and years, so closely involved with the generation of stories and characters, and avoid developing your own tales. When Richard decided to return Elfquest to a single-title series in 1996, he was finally afforded the opportunity to do some solid script writing. His work includes Fire Eye, occasional Worldpool tales, contributions to Futurequest and Rogue's Curse, and two stand-alone Windkin stories.

Sendings Issue #4, Feb. 1998
Updated Spring 2001

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