Glen Murakami

Glen Murakami is an American animator, artist, character designer, director and producer best known for his work on Teen Titans, Batman Beyond, Teen Titans Go!, Ben 10: Alien Force and Ben 10: Ultimate Alien. Murakami is the creator and producer of the Cartoon Network series Teen Titans.

Animation
Murakami originally wanted to be a comic book artist. His friend from junior high and high school, Keith Weesner, got a job working on Batman: The Animated Series as a background artist and informed Murakami when they were hiring artists at Warner Bros. Animation. Murakami was given a storyboard test, which he failed. But seeing his drawing talent, he was hired anyway.

Working closely with Bruce Timm, Murakami worked as a character designer and storyboard artist from 1991 to 1993. From 1995 to 1999, Murakami worked as Art Director on Superman: The Animated Series and The New Batman/Superman Adventures.

Batman Beyond
Murakami was promoted to producer for Batman Beyond and won an Emmy Award in 2001 for his work on the series. In addition to producing, he also was credited for story on the direct-to-video film, Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.

Teen Titans
In 2002, according to Murakami in an interview in 2012, Sam Register, Senior Vice President of development at Cartoon Network at the time, wanted a show that was based on the comics, Teen Titans, and brought Murakami, who already had a history with Batman Beyond and Superman: The Animated Series to create the new series based on the comics, the Teen Titans. "I just felt like the Teen Titans was one of the properties left in the DC Universe that hadn't been turned into a cartoon yet, but really needed to be" stated Register. After seeing Murakami's unusual anime influenced style for the show, Register thought it worked, for which he stated: "There are elements that you can totally pull from [those shows] and that's because Glen comes from that world. But one of the criteria for developing Teen Titans was I wanted a whole new look. I wanted to be completely surprised. I wanted something that kind of popped. And that anime style was going to do that." With the direction for the new show put in place, Murakami, as the show's creator, would co-develop the series with Register and television writer David Slack and serve as the show's producer. After a decade working on shows produced by his friend and mentor Bruce Timm, Murakami produced the Teen Titans without Timm, which was his first series without him.

In addition to being series creator and producer, he was also character designer on the series. Murakami approached the show with an unusual design style, setting them apart from the rest of DC Comics animated programing. The show's style was dubbed Murakanime or "Americanime".

On developing the characters from the comics to the show, Murakami made sure that they were unique and different enough from other former DC shows. He stated: "We picked the characters that we thought were the most iconic and the most symbolic." "I wanted it to be very, very clear to understand them. Robin's the leader. Starfire's the alien, but she's also the metaphor for the foreign exchange student or outsider. Cyborg's the strong man. Beast Boy's the funny one, but he's insecure. He can be all of these animals, but at the same time he's still really insecure. Early on, my whole thing was I wanted to understand their flaws because I thought that's what will make them human. I think sometimes with the Justice League, all the characters are in some ways so perfect it makes it hard to relate to them!'

The popular series ran for five seasons, 65 episodes and concluded with the film Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo in 2006.

Ben 10: Alien Force and Ben 10: Ultimate Alien
Following Teen Titans, Murakami teamed up with writer Dwayne McDuffie to revamp a series for Cartoon Network's Ben 10 franchise. Murakami served as executive producer on Ben 10: Alien Force, which ran for three seasons and 46 episodes.

Immediately following Alien Force, Murakami and McDuffie revamped the follow-up series, Ben 10: Ultimate Alien.

Beware the Batman
In 2011, Warner Bros. Animation announced that Murakami would be executive producer on an animated television series Beware the Batman.

Comics
Murakami illustrated the Star Wars comic Death Star Pirates - originally published in issues #16 through #20 of the Star Wars kids magazine in 1998 and later collected in Star Wars Tales Volume 2 by Dark Horse Comics.

He also drew a cover for Teen Titans Go!, and wrote and drew for stories in Batman Adventures and Batman: Mad Love and Other Stories, winning an Eisner Award for his work in the Batman Adventures Holiday Special.

Awards

 * Eisner Award - Best Single Issue - 1995 - 'Batman Adventures Holiday' Special (with Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, Ronnie del Carmen, and others)
 * Annie Award - Outstanding Individual Achievement for Production Design in an Animated Television Production - 1999 - Legends of the Dark Knight - 'The New Batman/Superman Adventures'/Outstanding Achievement in a Daytime Animated Television Production - 2001 - ' Batman Beyond' (with Jean MacCurdy, Alan Burnett, Paul Dini, and others)
 * Emmy Award - Outstanding Special Class Animated Program - 2001 - ' Batman Beyond' (with Jean MacCurdy, Alan Burnett, Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, Hilary Bader, Stan Berkowitz, Rich Fogel, Robert Goodman, Curt Geda, Butch Lukic, Dan Riba, James Tucker, Andrea Romano)

Influences
Murakami's influences include Jack Kirby, Alex Toth, John Byrne, Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, and Dave Stevens.