Bruce Timm

His first exposure to superhero media was the 1960s Batman television series.

Timm went to college for only one year before dropping out due to bad grades.

After dropping out, he began working full-time at Kmart until he saw a Filmation ad inviting new artists to take a layout test.

Bruce Walter Timm (born February 5, 1961) is an American artist, animator, writer, producer, and director.

Bruce Timm was born on February 5, 1961, in Oklahoma, the third of four brothers.

His father was an engineer and his mother worked for the phone company.

Timm's family first moved to Ohio when Timm was two years old, and then to California when Timm was five or six.

Timm began drawing from a young age and developed a serious interest in comics around age 12 or 13.

Timm applied in mid-1980, but wasn't offered the job and went back to working for Kmart.

The next year, Filmation began hiring again.

Timm passed the layout test on his second try and from that point on began working in animation.

Timm's early career in animation started at Filmation, working on the layout of Blackstar, Flash Gordon, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, its spin-off She-Ra: Princess of Power, and The Lone Ranger.

He also did background work on G.I. Joe.

He also worked for numerous other employers, including Ralph Bakshi and Don Bluth Productions, and attempted to find work at Marvel Comics and DC Comics, but was unsuccessful.

During an animators strike in 1982, Timm found himself out of work and went back to Kmart for about half a year, before being hired by Don Bluth to help work on The Secret of NIMH.

In 1987, he was hired by John Kricfalusi to do layouts for Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, which Timm called "artistically and creatively the most fulfilling job that I'd had in the animation business."

He worked at DIC Entertainment on The Real Ghostbusters for one season in 1988, then joined Warner Bros. in 1989.

At Warner, Timm worked on Tiny Toon Adventures.

Timm was one of the creators and producers of the animated series based on various DC Comics superheroes, known as the DC Animated Universe.

The DCAU has also named the "Timmverse" or "Diniverse", after both him and Paul Dini, a writer and producer.

Comparing the new series to Batman: The Animated Series, Timm stated, "There were certain limitations on what we could do in terms of adult content; in terms of violence and adult themes. My idea is basically to say, 'OK, it's 1990 again, I get to do what I want to do this time, and I got JJ and Matt backing me up.'"

He is best known for contributing to building the modern DC Comics animated franchise, most notably as the head producer behind Batman: The Animated Series (1992–1995), Superman: The Animated Series (1996–2000), The New Batman Adventures (1997–1999), Batman Beyond (1999–2001), Justice League (2001–2004), and Justice League Unlimited (2004–2006).

Along with his Tiny Toons partner Eric Radomski, Timm co-created and produced the Emmy Award-winning Batman: The Animated Series, which premiered on September 5, 1992, through which he and Dini co-created the character of Harley Quinn, and went on to co-create and produce Superman: The Animated Series (premiered in September 1996), The New Batman Adventures (premiered in September 1997), and Batman Beyond (premiered in January 1999), through which he and Dini co-created Terry McGinnis, the teenage Batman of the future, and his supporting cast.

Timm and Dini collaborated on The Batman Adventures: Mad Love, which won the Eisner Award for Best Single Story in 1994, which told the origin story of Harley Quinn.

He also co-created Freakazoid! (1995–1997) alongside Paul Dini and developed Green Lantern: The Animated Series (2012–2013).

Along with Dini he created the animated series Freakazoid! (premiered in September 1995).

Timm created virtually all the original character designs for Batman: The Animated Series himself, with the exceptions of Mr. Freeze and the Riddler, who were designed by Mike Mignola, and the characters Man-Bat and the Mad Hatter, who were designed by Kevin Nowlan.

He shared character designer duties on Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League with James Tucker.

Timm worked as an animator and character designer on the feature-length Genie by Mistake (1999).

He also served as producer on the feature-length Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (2000) before taking the helm as creator and producer of the animated version of Justice League, which debuted in November 2001; the series continued in the form of Justice League Unlimited in July 2004.

The 2008 project Batman: Gotham Knight is a departure from the "Timmverse" style, with Timm in a producer role collaborating with Japanese animators on a direct-to-DVD anthology that takes place between the live-action Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008) films.

Following the conclusion of the DCAU, Timm went on to produce several DC animated films under the DC Universe Animated Original Movies line, such as Wonder Woman (2009), Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010), Superman/Batman: Apocalypse (2010), Justice League Doom (2012), Superman vs The Elite (2012), The Dark Knight Returns (2013) and Justice League: Gods and Monsters (2015).

Outside of animation, Timm has also drawn and written several comic books.

Timm was also the producer and creator of Green Lantern: The Animated Series (premiered in November 2011).

In 2013, following the release of The Dark Knight Returns animated feature, Timm stepped down as DC animation supervising producer; James Tucker was named as his replacement.

Timm worked with Man of Steel director Zack Snyder in creating a 75th anniversary short of Superman in 2013.

In 2014, he released Batman: Strange Days, an animated short celebrating the 75th anniversary of Batman and an homage to one of Hugo Strange's first appearances in the comic books.

During DC FanDome 2021, Timm was announced to be executive producing a new Batman animated series titled Batman: Caped Crusader alongside J. J. Abrams and Matt Reeves.

Timm still works at Warner Brothers, and executive produced the DC Universe Original Animated Movies Justice League: Gods and Monsters (2015) and Batman: The Killing Joke (2016), and series Justice League: Gods and Monsters Chronicles (2015).

He was a writer and executive producer for Batman and Harley Quinn (2017).