Christopher James Priest

Christopher James Priest, 56, is a critically acclaimed novelist and Eisner Award-nominated comic book writer. Priest is the first African-American writer and editor to work in the comic book industry, with over 39 years of writing, editing, and publishing experience. His groundbreaking Black Panther series was lauded by Entertainment Weekly and The Village Voice and served as the platform for the 2018 major motion picture. Static Shock, which Priest co-created with Milestone Media, Inc., was the first nationally syndicated African American super-hero animated series, and the first act of 2005’s Batman Begins was largely based upon Priest’s Batman comic book work, as are the 2016 film Captain America: Civil War and the 2018 major motion picture release Black Panther. Quantum & Woody, which Priest co-created with artist M.D. Bright, is currently being developed for television.

Priest has also written and recorded numerous songs and served as producer and sideman for various bands and choirs, and has developed numerous properties for Hollywood including projects with former BET President (and Milestone Media principal) Reginald Hudlin (producer of DJango Unchained), Hamm & Kitchens, Inc. (Tim Burton Batman films), Edward R. Pressman Productions Inc. and Eddie Murphy Productions.

He has previously served as a Baptist pastor in Colorado Springs, where he founded PraiseNet Electronic Media in 2001. Priest is a 4-time American Advertising Federation Addy award winner for graphic and web design.

His publishing catalog includes a trio of Green Lantern novels from iBooks/Simon & Schuster, the procedural crime novels ‘Dual’ and ‘Zion,’ ‘1999,’ a serialized superhero-science fiction novel, ‘PraiseNet Essentials,’ a nine-book ecumenical series of theological criticism, and hundreds of comic book stories, among them the collected editions Black Panther by Christopher Priest: The Complete Collection and Captain America and The Falcon by Christopher Priest: The Complete Collection.