John Cassaday

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John Cassaday

Born 1971
Fort Worth, Texas
Nationality American
Area(s) Penciller
Notable works Planetary
Astonishing X-Men
Captain America
Awards 2006 Eisner Award for Best Penciller/Inker

John Cassaday (born 1971) is an American comic book artist and writer. He was born in Fort Worth, Texas and currently lives in New York City. His style is cinematic, highly detailed and uses relatively realistically-proportioned human characters.

As an illustrator, Cassaday is self-taught; however, he studied filmmaking before leaving Texas to pursue his career in comics. His influences include NC Wyeth[1], classic pulp magazine-culture iconography, and popular music[2].

Cassaday bears a physical resemblance to the character known as The Drummer from the Planetary comic-book series[3].

Contents

[edit] Biography

Cassaday's professional career commenced in 1995 with a story in Caliber Comics' Negative Burn. However, he wasn't really 'discovered' until the following year, when he showed his portfolio to Mark Waid at Comic-Con International: San Diego; soon after the convention, Cassaday began to receive job offers. In December 1996 he began to provide art for Dark Horse Comics's Ghost. Less than 12 months later, he became the main artist on Desperadoes. He started getting work with DC and Marvel at the end of 1997, on publications such as theTeen Titans and Flash annuals, X-Men: Alpha Flight, and Union Jack.

He is best known for his work on the critically acclaimed[4] Planetary with writer Warren Ellis, Astonishing X-Men with Joss Whedon and Captain America with John Ney Rieber. The Captain America series was a re-launch under the Marvel Knights banner. Cassaday based the covers on World War II propaganda posters; they were popular with fans and critics alike. He revisited Captain America in 2007, illustrating an issue of Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America, written by Jeph Loeb. He has also created several covers for comic books featuring The Phantom, both for US publisher Moonstone Books and the European Egmont, as well as covers for Joss Whedon's Firefly spinoff comic Serenity: Those Left Behind, and Guy Ritchie's Gamekeeper.

From 2004 to 2008, Cassaday illustrated the graphic novel trilogy Je suis légion by Fabien Nury from Les Humanoïdes Associés. [5] In July 2006, Humanoïdes announced a co-production deal with Pierre Spengler which includes a screen adaptation of I am Legion AKA Je Suis Legion [6][7]. Cassaday is slated to direct the feature film. The project is in development.

In 2008, he is handling covers and art direction on Dynamite Entertainment's The Lone Ranger comic-book series.

Renowned as a perfectionist, Cassaday personally inks his own work manually, it is then often colored by Laura Martin. Despite the fact that he has one of the fastest page-completion rates in the industry, the titles he illustrates often run late due to the involvement of high-profile writers and the necessity of co-ordinating the timetables of all the creative professionals involved.

[edit] Bibliography

Cover art from Absolute Planetary
Cover art from Absolute Planetary

[edit] Awards

  • 2000: Nominated for "Best Cover Artist" Eisner Award for Planetary
  • 2004:
    • Won Best Penciller/Inker Eisner Award for Planetary and stories in Hellboy: Weird Tales
    • Nominated Favourite Comics Artist: Pencils Eagle Award
  • 2005: Won Best Penciller/Inker Eisner Award for Astonishing X-Men, Planetary, and I Am Legion: The Dancing Faun in a tie with illustrator Frank Quitely
  • 2006:
    • Won Best Penciller/Inker Eisner Award for Astonishing X-Men and Planetary
    • Won Best Ongoing Series Eisner Award for Astonishing X-Men with Joss Whedon
    • Won Favourite Comics Artist: Pencils Eagle Award
  • 2007: Won Best Comic-Book Artist in the Spike TV Scream Awards
  • 2008: Nominated for "Best Cover Artist" Eisner Award for Astonishing X-Men and Lone Ranger.[8]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Coville's Clubhouse - Aug. '02
  2. ^ *[1]
  3. ^ The Drummer's Gallery: 'The Drummer Gallery'
  4. ^ # ^ Kreiner, Rich (February 2004). "Firing Line:Planetary/Batman". The Comics Journal 1 (258): 50-51. ISSN 0194-7869. 
  5. ^ http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Je_suis_l%C3%A9gion
  6. ^ THE BEAT » Blog Archive » Humanoids production deal, Cassaday to direct
  7. ^ Spengler back in swing with comic-book lineup
  8. ^ 2008 Eisner Award Nominees Named (press release), Newsarama, April 14, 2008

[edit] References

[edit] External links

[edit] Interviews

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