Jay Faerber (born 1972) is an American comic book writer. Faerber is known for his work on Generation X and New Warriors for Marvel Comics, and The Titans and Spotlight for DC Comics. He later wrote his own creator-owned title, Noble Causes, for Image Comics. Today he writes two other creator-owned books, Dynamo 5, and Gemini, which are published by Image Comics.
Faerber grew up in Pennsylvania, his early interest in superheroes sparked by TV series such as Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, the Adam West Batman series and the 1960s The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure, which featured his first exposure to the Teen Titans. This led to Faerber's interest in comic books, beginning with Marv Wolfman and George Perez's The New Teen Titans #25 in 1982, the first comic book with which he discovered that medium's more mature storylines and detailed artwork. Faerber's view of the series' ability, at the time, to stand on its own without requiring reading the related titles influenced Faerber's stated practice of keeping his own creator-owned books independent of one another, in order to avoid obligating readers of one of his titles to read the others in order to comprehend the storyline. The title also led to Faerber's interest in many other titles, such as Marvel Comics' Uncanny X-Men.
During the early part of his childhood, Faerber would buy his comics from a local pharmacy, which limited his reading to Marvel and DC Comics. For Christmas 1986, Faerber, a high school freshman, was taken by his mother to his first comic book shop, Gema Books, where he discovered books from companies other than the Big Two, such as Elementals, Miracleman and The New Wave, the latter of which impressed him with its experimental biweekly, 16-page format, its emphasis on character depth over physical combat, and the originality of the character's personalities.
Other works that Faerber has given as influences include John Byrne's work on Alpha Flight, Mark Waid's work on Captain America, Fabian Nicieza's runs on The New Warriors and Psi-Force, Mike Grell's work on Jon Sable, Freelance, Bob Harras' work on The Avengers, the mystery novels of Robert B. Parker, and the television writing and detective novels of Stephen J. Cannell, in particular his work on the TV series Wiseguy.
He has also mentioned the writing on the TV series Magnum, P.I. and Robert Kirkman's work on the comic book Invincible as serving as inspiration or influence on his own writing.
Faerber first broke into the comic book industry in the late 1990s. His first ongoing series writing assignment was Generation X, which he began with issue #45 (December 1998). Assignments on The New Warriors and The Titans would follow.
