Bullied to blockbuster: the worlds of Jeff Gomez
A fantasy world builder and colleague of James Cameron details his journey of healing from a childhood riddled with bullying and OCD.
A little more Jeff Gomez
Jeff Gomez, CEO of Starlight Runner, learned early on to befriend his bullies, and that skill allowed the writer, speaker, and successful transmedia producer (who had monocular vision for the majority of his career) to create worlds and backstories for some of the biggest video game franchises, comic books, and blockbuster movies.
Born in Staten Island General Hospital under adverse conditions, Gomez’s birth required forceps, which left one side of his face paralyzed, and partially detached his optic nerve, leaving him with monocular vision.
Growing up in the sixties, Gomez yearned to escape his own world, one of poverty, violence, and the personal challenges of being disfigured, legally blind in one eye, and struggling with obsessive compulsive disorder. “My escape was fantasy and science fiction, Japanese anime, and a movie series like Godzilla and Planet of the Apes,” says Gomez.
Jeff Gomez in his Manhattan Studio.
Family photos and fantasy novels decorate the shelves of Gomez's apartment.
Gomez lived in two worlds. In one, he was teased, and he navigated life as an almost ghostly cautious observer, on the receiving end of darkness. And in the other, imaginary world, he led a life filled with spectacular battles between good and evil.
This dichotomy created a sense of empathy for Gomez. “I wasn't always the hero of my stories, and that's because my stories were meaningless to me unless I understood why the antagonist was doing what they were doing,” says Gomez, who worked to understand where the bully was coming from.
Gomez became an asker of questions, climbing into peoples’ stories, a lesson he learned from Gandalf. “What I realized early on was that very few people asked legit real questions, [and were] genuinely curious,” says Gomez. “There'll always be these barriers that are around us, but with the power of your will and your imagination, you can move into greater and greater realities.”
