David Wise

Although he got his start at the age of seven as a filmmaking prodigy, David Wise abandoned that burgeoning career track in his teens for a stab at fantasy and science fiction writing, a sidelong detour that would eventually land him work on TV as an animation writer. Wise began working in experimental film as a young child, applying the scratch-on-film animation techniques of artists like Stan Vanderbeek to a series of film shorts compiled in 1963 under the title "Short Circuit." The films were hailed as a revelation in experimental film circles and Wise, at the tender age of eight, was touted as a wunderkind of animation. Despite the early acclaim, Wise gave up filmmaking in his teens and instead began studying at the Clarion Workshop for emerging science fiction writers. In the 1980s, he earned steady writing work on such popular children's animated television series as "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," "The Transformers," and "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe." Largely retired from television writing by the late 1990s, Wise moved into a third career as a publisher of Japanese manga.