Richard S. Meyers

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 -- including six Dirty Harry novels, six war novels in the Mac Wingate series, and twelve best-selling Ninja Master novels -- before working exclusively under variations of his own name for the next decade or so. 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, 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 before discovering the wonders of Japanese samurai movies and Chinese kung fu films. Discovering that there were no books on Asian cinema in America, Meyers did it himself, leading to Martial Arts Movies: From Bruce Lee to the Ninja, Martial Arts Movies: From Bruce Lee to Jackie Chan and More, The Encyclopedia of Martial Arts Movies, and Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Book (which led to the script for Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Movie). That fame led him to consulting with action film companies in both Asia and America, as well as contributing audio commentaries and cover copy for hundreds of DVDs.

By this time, becoming better known for his knowledge of pop culture media, Meyers became the “Special Media Consultant” (a title devised by legendary science fiction author 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 because of his affiliation with kung fu stars like Jackie Chan and Jet Li. He then 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, he decided that to better understand those movies, he should better understand what they were based on. He searched America, finding many martial arts, but no credible kung fu.

But in 2001 he was invited to visit every kung fu school in Taiwan which led to his practicing of taichi and qigong – which, in turn, led to him guest lecturing at the City College of New York, Brigham Young University, and the University of Bridgeport's Martial Arts Studies Degree Program. Another door opened when, hearing of his teaching, DreamWorks asked him to consult on the original Kung Fu Panda movie as well as the Nickelodeon Kung Fu Panda TV series. That, in turn, led to him serving the same role for the Minions Rise of Gru film.

By the time he returned to his desk, the publishing world had changed, which unleashed him onto years of prominent ghostwriting in the many genres he had contributed to in the past. His contributions have been acknowledged in such diverse books as William Shatner's science fiction novel Zero G, The Amazing Kreskin's memoir Kreskin Confidential and several of Edward Gross' Oral History books about Star Wars, the James Bond movies, and John Wick's Gun Fu films. Most recently, as of this writing, Meyers' work has appeared on both the hardcover fiction and non-fiction best-seller lists.