John Ney Rieber's first professional work in comics was scripting over the finished pages of the graphic novel Tell Me, Dark, conceived by his late friend and mentor Karl Edward Wagner and artist Kent Williams.
[2] Rieber and his collaborator John Van Fleet agreed, and Shadows Fall was released as a 6-issue regular format mini-series from November 1994 to April 1995.
Sometime between Tell Me, Dark and Shadows Fall, Rieber was approached by Berger to write an ongoing continuation of Neil Gaiman's The Books of Magic mini-series; despite having every proposal and outline rejected by editorial and even once trying to quit the idea,[4] Rieber was still hired and wrote the book from issue #1 (May 1994) to 50 (July 1998), including various annuals, specials and spin-offs.
According to Macan, who received the information from the outgoing Captain America editor Andrew Lis, Rieber had to back out of writing the bridging mini-series due to the September 11 attacks, supposedly, to rewrite whatever material he already had to reflect on the event.
[8] The first arc, titled "The New Deal" (February to November 2002), had Captain America questioning the American government, with the topic receiving worldwide coverage in the press.