Ric Meyers

His most successful and popular works include Doomstar, Fear Itself, Murder in Halruua, TV Detectives, For One Week Only: The World of Exploitation Films, and Martial Arts Movies: From Bruce Lee to the Ninjas—as well as both the book Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Book, and the documentary Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Movie. In addition, he has made contributions to such diverse paperback book series as The Destroyer, Dirty Harry, Ninja Master, and The Incredible Hulk.

Meyers was born in Connecticut, and he is the son of Stanley Meyers, who was one of the top executives in the field that is now known as Intellectual Disability and Mental Health – having served as the Northeast Regional Advisor for the National Association of Retarded Citizens as well as Pennsylvania's first state secretary for what is now known as Intellectual and Developmental Disability Services. Ric was raised by actress Vera Johnson, best known for playing the older version of Rosie O’Donnell's character in the 1992 film, A League of Their Own.

Although pursuing theater and cinema studies at Emerson College, Boston University, and the University of Bridgeport, Meyers was already an inveterate reader and writer – leading to his being hired in 1974 as assistant editor at Seaboard Periodicals and Atlas Comics. After the company folded in 1975, Meyers decided to pursue a writing career rather than return to college, hoping, like one of his idols, Donald E. Westlake, to create work in as many genres as he enjoyed reading.

Meyers continued to promote the film genre in every medium he could, becoming a contributing editor for Inside Kung Fu magazine until it ceased publication in 2011, updating his book as Martial Arts Movies From Bruce Lee to Jackie Chan & More in 2001, appearing on Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan specials for A&E's Biography and Bravo Profiles, and contributing audio commentaries, liner notes, and cover copy for hundreds of DVDs in Asia and America.

Meyers hosted his first San Diego Comic Con Superhero Kung Fu Extravaganza in 1997, and recently prepared its 20th Anniversary Celebration for 2017. An artist seeing the Extravaganza led to Meyers being asked to present kung fu seminars to the staff of the first Kung Fu Panda film, as well as its subsequent Nickelodeon TV series.

However, Meyers has been writing, editing, and performing professionally since 1974. He is the author of more than seventy novels and non-fiction books under variations of his own name, as well as several pseudonyms, such as Dane Hartman and Wade Barker.

Although Meyers had seen Enter the Dragon and Five Fingers of Death in 1973, martial art movies held no interest for him until ex-Atlas Comics artist/writer Larry Hama introduced him to samurai and kung-fu cinema in 1978. In short order, Meyers had secured his first contract to write a book on the subject, and was soon in Hong Kong meeting Jackie Chan, which led to his inspiring Jonathan Ross to make a documentary on the kung fu star as part of his Son of the Incredibly Strange Film Show series in the UK. Upon its broadcast on the Discovery Network in the U.S., the English-speaking interest in kung-fu films was refreshed.

Richard Meyers (born 1953), is an American author, ghostwriter, screenwriter, consultant, actor, editor, and teacher, who may be best known for his contributions to the martial arts film industry (Rim Films having called him "one of the men most responsible for the acceptance of Asian action movies and stars in America").