MIKE REISS has won four Emmys and a Peabody Award during his twenty-eight years writing for The Simpsons. With Al Jean, he ran the show in season 4, which Entertainment Weekly called “the greatest season of the greatest show in history.” In 2006, Reiss received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Animation Writers Caucus.
He has written jokes for such comedy legends as Johnny Carson, Joan Rivers, Garry Shandling . . . and Pope Francis! For his comedic contributions to the charitable group Joke with the Pope, in 2015 Pope Francis declared Reiss “a Missionary of Joy.”
Reiss cocreated the animated series The Critic and created Showtime’s hit cartoon Queer Duck (about a gay duck), which was named one of “The 100 Greatest Cartoons of All Time” by Britain’s Channel 4 viewers. Queer Duck: The Movie was released to rave reviews in July 2006, winning awards in New York, Chicago, San Diego, Sweden, Germany, and Wales.
He has been a contributing writer to two dozen animated films, including Ice Age and its four sequels, Despicable Me and Despicable Me 2, The Lorax, Rio, Kung Fu Panda 3, and The Simpsons Movie—with a worldwide gross of $11 billion.
Reiss’s first full-length play, I’m Connecticut, set box-office records for Connecticut Repertory Theatre. The Hartford Courant called it “sweet” and “hysterically funny” and named it one of the year’s ten best plays. BroadwayWorld Connecticut voted it Best Play of 2012. He’s had five plays produced in the United States and Britain, most recently I Hate Musicals: The Musical.
His caveman detective story, “Cro-Magnon P.I.,” won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America.
He has published eighteen children’s books, including the bestseller How Murray Saved Christmas and the award-winning Late for School. Reiss also composes puzzles for NPR and Games World of Puzzles.
He has been happily married for thirty years. Like most children’s book authors, he has no children.
MATHEW KLICKSTEIN is a writer/filmmaker whose eclectic oeuvre includes penning Sony Pictures’ Against the Dark (Steven Seagal’s only horror film to date, for good or ill), cocreating a comedic travelogue series for National Lampoon’s short-lived television network called CollegeTown, USA, and cowriting/producing a gender-bending reimagining of Lord of the Flies as an immersive theatrical experience called Ladies of the Fly.
His last book, Slimed! An Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age, was included in such “Best Of” lists as those by Entertainment Weekly, Parade, and Publishers Weekly. His most recent film, On Your Marc, chronicles the “life and slimes” of TV icon Marc Summers.
As a longtime journalist, he’s contributed to numerous regional, national, and online news outlets, including Wired, New York Daily News, and Splitsider. And he coproduces/hosts a podcast about soi-disant “nerd/geek culture” called NERTZ (based on his book Nerding Out, recently released in China), with such varied guests as Academy Award–winning screenwriter Diablo Cody, SuicideGirls founder Missy Suicide, and John Park, cocreator of the “Flo” Progressive Insurance spokeswoman.
Mathew’s nationwide travels over the years have also allowed him to pursue his passion of arts therapy, working closely with persons with disabilities on filmmaking, poetry, journalism, and creative writing. These unique projects have led to partnerships with such groups as “disabled rock band” the Kids of Widney High and Denver’s Phamaly, the only theater company in the country that works exclusively with actors with disabilities.
As with the vast majority of people on the planet, he has rarely, if ever, fiddled around much within the social media community. But if you’d like to keep up to date on his past, current, and future cartoonishly crackpot shenanigans, he does begrudgingly maintain a website at www.MathewKlickstein.com.
A few of his favorite things are The Larry Sanders Show; Calvin and Hobbes; the Velvet Underground; combination fried rice; his puckish wife, Becky; and highfalutin words such as “oeuvre.” In fifth grade, he once got in trouble for wearing an “I’m Bart Simpson, Who the Hell Are You?” shirt to class.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.