Rick Norwood is an American publisher, mathematician, comics historian and short story author.

Born in Franklin, Louisiana

Franklin, Louisiana

Franklin is a city in and the parish seat of St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 8,354 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Morgan City Micropolitan Statistical Area.-History:...

, Norwood attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

, where he was one of four writer-editors of the early underground comic God Comics, along with Bill Osten, Durk Pearson

Durk Pearson

Durk Pearson, born in 1943 in Illinois, is best known for coauthoring a series of books on longevity, beginning with Life Extension: A Practical Scientific Approach.- Early life :...

 and Al Kuhfeld. He published many letters in silver age DC

DC Comics

DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...

 and Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics

Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...

 and, with the permission of DC editor Julius Schwartz

Julius Schwartz

Julius "Julie" Schwartz was a comic book and pulp magazine editor, and a science fiction agent and prominent fan. He was born in the Bronx, New York...

, wrote and published a fanzine story about the DC superhero Doctor Midnight.

In 1979, Norwood received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Southwestern Louisiana. He was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study

Institute for Advanced Study

The Institute for Advanced Study, located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, is an independent postgraduate center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It was founded in 1930 by Abraham Flexner...

 in Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...

 in 1980-81 and is currently a professor of mathematics at East Tennessee State University

East Tennessee State University

East Tennessee State University is an accredited American university located in Johnson City, Tennessee. It is part of the Tennessee Board of Regents system of colleges and universities, the nation's sixth largest system of public education, and is the fourth largest university in the state...

 in Johnson City, Tennessee

Johnson City, Tennessee

Johnson City is a city in Carter, Sullivan, and Washington counties in the U.S. state of Tennessee, with most of the city being in Washington County...

.

Manuscript Press

Norwood is the founder and editor of the small press

Small press

Small press is a term often used to describe publishers with annual sales below a certain level. Commonly, in the United States, this is set at $50 million, after returns and discounts...

 publishing house Manuscript Press

Manuscript Press

Manuscript Press is a small press publisher started by Rick Norwood in 1976 and currently located in Mountain Home, Tennessee. It specializes in previously unpublished novels by science fiction authors such as Hal Clement and R. A. Lafferty and also in reprints of comic strips such as Prince...

, launched in 1979 to make available a previously unpublished Hal Clement

Hal Clement

Harry Clement Stubbs better known by the pen name Hal Clement, was an American science fiction writer and a leader of the hard science fiction subgenre.-Biography:...

 novel, Left of Africa. For Manuscript Press, he has edited comic strip

Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 reprints, including Prince Valiant: An American Epic

Prince Valiant

Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur, or simply Prince Valiant, is a long-run comic strip created by Hal Foster in 1937. It is an epic adventure that has told a continuous story during its entire history, and the full stretch of that story now totals more than 3700 Sunday strips...

and Buz Sawyer: The War in the Pacific

Buz Sawyer

Buz Sawyer was a popular comic strip created by Roy Crane and highly regarded by comic strip historians. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, it had a long run from November 1, 1943 to 1989. The last strip signed by Crane was dated 21 April 1979....

. He is currently editor of the long-running independent comic book

Comic book

A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

 Comics Revue

Comics Revue

Comics Revue is a bi-monthly small press comic book published by Manuscript Press and edited by Rick Norwood. Don Markstein edited the publication from 1984 to 1987 and 1992 to 1996....

. For Fantagraphics Books

Fantagraphics Books

Fantagraphics Books is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, magazines, graphic novels, and the adult-oriented Eros Comix imprint...

, he edits the series of complete Captain Easy

Captain Easy

Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune was an action/adventure comic strip created by Roy Crane that was syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Association beginning on Sunday, July 30, 1933...

Sunday comic strip

Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

s.

As a mathematician, Norwood has contributed to a number of publications in algebraic topology

Algebraic topology

Algebraic topology is a branch of mathematics which uses tools from abstract algebra to study topological spaces. The basic goal is to find algebraic invariants that classify topological spaces up to homeomorphism, though usually most classify up to homotopy equivalence.Although algebraic topology...

. He has also written articles, stories and verse. He is the film/TV reviewer for SF Site, a webzine, and he provided commentary for the Filmation Flash Gordon

Flash Gordon

Flash Gordon is the hero of a science fiction adventure comic strip originally drawn by Alex Raymond. First published January 7, 1934, the strip was inspired by and created to compete with the already established Buck Rogers adventure strip. Also inspired by these series were comics such as Dash...

, Prince Valiant

Prince Valiant

Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur, or simply Prince Valiant, is a long-run comic strip created by Hal Foster in 1937. It is an epic adventure that has told a continuous story during its entire history, and the full stretch of that story now totals more than 3700 Sunday strips...

and Defenders of the Earth

Defenders of the Earth

Defenders of the Earth is an animated television series produced in 1986, narrated by Corey Burton and featuring characters from three comic strips distributed by King Features Syndicate—Flash Gordon, the Phantom, and Mandrake the Magician—battling the Flash Gordon villain Ming the Merciless in the...

DVDs.

Fiction

His science fiction stories have appeared in Twilight Zone Magazine, Black Gate

Black Gate (magazine)

Black Gate is a glossy, quarterly fantasy magazine founded in 2000 and published by New Epoch Press. Using the slogan "Adventures in Fantasy Literature," Black Gate primarily features original short fiction up to novella length....

, Analog Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is a digest-size American fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House and then by Fantasy House. Both were subsidiaries of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Publications, which took over as publisher in 1958. Spilogale, Inc...

.

Books edited by Rick Norwood

• Left of Africa, by Hal Clement
• Archipelago, by R. A. Lafferty
• Prince Valiant, an American Epic, by Hal Foster
• A Steve Canyon Companion, by Carl Horak
• The Magic Talisman, a Rick Brant Science Adventure, by John Blaine
• A Prince Valiant Companion, by Hal Foster, Carl Horak, Todd Goldberg; production design by Don Markstein
  Don Markstein's Toonopedia
  Don Markstein's Toonopedia was a web encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation. Don D...
  
  
• Alley Oop, Book #4, by V. T. Hamlin
  V. T. Hamlin
  Vincent Trout Hamlin , who preferred the name V. T. Hamlin, created the popular, long-run comic strip Alley Oop, syndicated by the Newspaper Enterprise Association....
  
  
• Buz Sawyer: The War in the Pacific
• Buz Sawyer: Sultry's Tiger
• Flash Gordon: Star over Atlantis
• Roy Crane's Captain Easy

External links