Nick Cuti
Encyclopedia
Nicola Cuti known as Nick Cuti, is an artist and comic book writer-editor, notable for his creation of E-Man
and Moonchild. He has also worked as an animation background designer, magazine illustrator and screenwriter.
comic books of the pre-Comics Code era and the early space opera
TV series, Tom Corbett, Space Cadet
and Captain Video
.
In the mid-1960s, while serving with the Air Force in Europe, Cuti encountered the Warren
horror and science-fiction magazines, which prompted him to write and submit a script, "Grub", which was published in Warren's Creepy
. Cuti also drew a simple six-panel comic strip for a French friend's fledgling art magazine.
Returning home, Cuti began attending the New York Comic Art Convention
, initiated by Phil Seuling
, and determined to make his future in comics. He associated with other young comics artists, such as Vaughn Bodé
, Trina Robbins
and Bill Pearson. While employed at the Ralph Bakshi
animation studio, he continued to produce scripts for the Warren magazines.
featuring his first original character, Moonchild, a big-eyed, buxom innocent waif of outer space. Moonchild Comics sold well in the head shop
s of that era, and are now collectors’ items.
Cuti had long admired the work of legendary comic artist Wally Wood
and phoned him asking permission to show him his portfolio. Wood saw promise in the naive drawings, and Cuti eventually became Wood's studio assistant at the Wood Studio in Valley Stream, Long Island
. He worked on the strips Cannon and Sally Forth
for Wood.
, editor of the Charlton Comics
in Derby, Connecticut. Charlton was a low-paying outfit that nonetheless produced a variety of comic book genres from 1946 until its demise in 1986, even after most publishers had long since turned to a steady diet of superhero titles.
Cuti began turning out scripts for Charlton's horror and fantasy titles, working with artists such as Steve Ditko
, Don Newton
, Wayne Howard
and Tom Sutton
. He recruited younger artists such as John Byrne and Mike Zeck
, who began freelancing for Charlton and illustrated some of Cuti's stories. In less than three years, Cuti produced well over 200 story scripts and text features for Charlton.
In 1973, he teamed with Joe Staton
, who collaborated with him in the creation of E-Man, a naive alien superhero who became a cult favorite. The character epitomized Cuti's disdain for the melodramatic, cape-wearing superheroes of other publishers. Cuti and Staton also co-created Michael Mauser, a grubby and uncouth private investigator, who began as an extra in E-Man but was quickly spun off into a series of his own. Both characters survived the implosion of Charlton and continue to the present, with Cuti and Staton collaborating on one-shots and series of new E-Man and Michael Mauser comics and stories.
During the same period, he taught himself the medium of scratchboard
, emulating an artist he admired, Frank Kelly Freas
. Cuti developed a realistic scratchboard style in contrast to his inked cartoon style and began selling illustrations to mainstream magazines such as Amazing Stories and Heavy Metal.
After he left Warren, Cuti became an assistant editor and then digest
editor at DC Comics
, handling various superhero and children's titles and scripting his own six-part space opera, Spanner's Galaxy, illustrated by Tom Mandrake.
Cuti moved to California in 1986 to begin work for animated TV series, producing background and prop designs for a dozen different studios, including Disney and Universal Studios
. At the same time, he continued write comic book scripts and create magazine and book art in both scratchboard and paint.
Captain Cosmos, Cuti's homage to the TV space operas of his childhood, appeared in a series of comic books created in collaboration with Staton and also in Cuti's novel, Spin a Web of Death, three radio dramas and three short TV films. Moonchild returned to print in two three-part comic series in 1992 and as Moonie in 2003.
for career achievement at the San Diego Comic-Con International.
E-Man
E-Man is a fictional comic book superhero created by writer Nicola Cuti and artist Joe Staton for Charlton Comics in 1973. Though the character's original series was short-lived, the lightly humorous hero has become a cult-classic sporadically revived by various independent comics...
and Moonchild. He has also worked as an animation background designer, magazine illustrator and screenwriter.
Early life
Cuti grew up in Brooklyn, where he immersed himself in Golden AgeGolden Age of Comic Books
The Golden Age of Comic Books was a period in the history of American comic books, generally thought of as lasting from the late 1930s until the late 1940s or early 1950s...
comic books of the pre-Comics Code era and the early space opera
Space opera
Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes romantic, often melodramatic adventure, set mainly or entirely in outer space, generally involving conflict between opponents possessing advanced technologies and abilities. The term has no relation to music and it is analogous to "soap...
TV series, Tom Corbett, Space Cadet
Tom Corbett, Space Cadet
Tom Corbett is the main character in a series of Tom Corbett — Space Cadet stories that were depicted in television, radio, books, comic books, comic strips, coloring books, punch-out books and View-Master reels in the 1950s....
and Captain Video
Captain Video
Captain Video and His Video Rangers is an American science fiction television series. It was broadcast on the DuMont Television Network, and was the first series of its kind on American television...
.
In the mid-1960s, while serving with the Air Force in Europe, Cuti encountered the Warren
Warren Publishing
Warren Publishing was an American magazine company founded by James Warren, who published his first magazines in 1957 and continued in the business for decades...
horror and science-fiction magazines, which prompted him to write and submit a script, "Grub", which was published in Warren's Creepy
Creepy
Creepy was an American horror-comics magazine launched by Warren Publishing in 1964. Like Mad, it was a black-and-white newsstand publication in a magazine format and thus did not require the approval or seal of the Comics Code Authority. The anthology magazine was initially published quarterly but...
. Cuti also drew a simple six-panel comic strip for a French friend's fledgling art magazine.
Returning home, Cuti began attending the New York Comic Art Convention
Comic Art Convention
The Comic Art Convention was an American comic-book fan convention held annually New York City, New York, over Independence Day weekend from 1968 through 1983, except for 1977, when it was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and 1978 to 1979, when it was held concurrently in New York and Philadelphia...
, initiated by Phil Seuling
Phil Seuling
Philip Nicholas Seuling was a comic book fan convention organizer and comics distributor primarily active in the 1970s. Seuling was the organizer of the annual New York Comic Art Convention, originally held in New York City every July 4 weekend throughout the 1970s...
, and determined to make his future in comics. He associated with other young comics artists, such as Vaughn Bodé
Vaughn Bodé
Vaughn Bodē was an artist involved in underground comics, graphic design and graffiti. He is perhaps best known for his comic strip character Cheech Wizard and artwork depicting voluptuous women. His works are noted for their psychedelic look and feel...
, Trina Robbins
Trina Robbins
Trina Robbins is an American comics artist and writer. She was an early and influential participant in the underground comix movement, and one of the few female artists in underground comix when she started. Both as a cartoonist and historian, Robbins has long been involved in creating outlets for...
and Bill Pearson. While employed at the Ralph Bakshi
Ralph Bakshi
Ralph Bakshi is an Israeli-American director of animated and live-action films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatrically released feature films, five of which he wrote...
animation studio, he continued to produce scripts for the Warren magazines.
Moonchild
Starting in 1968, he self-published three underground comixUnderground comix
Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books which are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality and violence...
featuring his first original character, Moonchild, a big-eyed, buxom innocent waif of outer space. Moonchild Comics sold well in the head shop
Head shop
A head shop is a retail outlet specializing in drug paraphernalia used for consumption of cannabis, other recreational drugs, legal highs, legal party powders and New Age herbs, as well as counterculture art, magazines, music, clothing, and home decor; some head shops also sell oddities, such as...
s of that era, and are now collectors’ items.
Cuti had long admired the work of legendary comic artist Wally Wood
Wally Wood
Wallace Allan Wood was an American comic book writer, artist and independent publisher, best known for his work in EC Comics and Mad. He was one of Mads founding cartoonists in 1952. Although much of his early professional artwork is signed Wallace Wood, he became known as Wally Wood, a name he...
and phoned him asking permission to show him his portfolio. Wood saw promise in the naive drawings, and Cuti eventually became Wood's studio assistant at the Wood Studio in Valley Stream, Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
. He worked on the strips Cannon and Sally Forth
Sally Forth (Wally Wood)
Sally Forth was a comic strip created by Wally Wood for a military male readership.Wood's sexy action-adventure character, who is often seen nude, began as a recruit in a commando outfit. She first appeared in June 1968, in Military News, a 16-page tabloid from Armed Forces Diamond Sales...
for Wood.
Charlton (1972–76)
In 1972, when he was hired as the assistant to George WildmanGeorge Wildman
George Wildman , is an American cartoonist most noted for his work in the comic books industry. He was a top editor at Charlton Comics from 1971–1985, where he also became the long-time regular artist on Popeye comic books....
, editor of the Charlton Comics
Charlton Comics
Charlton Comics was an American comic book publishing company that existed from 1946 to 1985, having begun under a different name in 1944. It was based in Derby, Connecticut...
in Derby, Connecticut. Charlton was a low-paying outfit that nonetheless produced a variety of comic book genres from 1946 until its demise in 1986, even after most publishers had long since turned to a steady diet of superhero titles.
Cuti began turning out scripts for Charlton's horror and fantasy titles, working with artists such as Steve Ditko
Steve Ditko
Stephen J. "Steve" Ditko is an American comic book artist and writer best known as the artist co-creator, with Stan Lee, of the Marvel Comics heroes Spider-Man and Doctor Strange....
, Don Newton
Don Newton
Don Newton was an American comic book artist. During his career, he worked for a number of comic book publishers, including Marvel Comics, DC Comics, and Charlton Comics. He is best known for his work on The Phantom, Aquaman, and Batman...
, Wayne Howard
Wayne Howard
Wayne Wright Howard was an African-American comic book artist best known for his 1970s work at Charlton Comics, where he became American comic books' first known cover-credited series creator, with the horror anthology Midnight Tales blurbing "Created by Wayne Howard" on each issue — "a...
and Tom Sutton
Tom Sutton
Tom Sutton was an American comic book artist who sometimes used the pseudonyms Sean Todd and Dementia...
. He recruited younger artists such as John Byrne and Mike Zeck
Mike Zeck
Mike Zeck is an American comic book illustrator.-Biography:Zeck was born in Greenville, Pennsylvania to Michael and Kathryn Jean Zeck...
, who began freelancing for Charlton and illustrated some of Cuti's stories. In less than three years, Cuti produced well over 200 story scripts and text features for Charlton.
In 1973, he teamed with Joe Staton
Joe Staton
Joe Staton is an American illustrator and writer of comic books.-Career:Staton started his work with Charlton Comics in 1971 and gained notability as the artist of the super-hero book E-Man...
, who collaborated with him in the creation of E-Man, a naive alien superhero who became a cult favorite. The character epitomized Cuti's disdain for the melodramatic, cape-wearing superheroes of other publishers. Cuti and Staton also co-created Michael Mauser, a grubby and uncouth private investigator, who began as an extra in E-Man but was quickly spun off into a series of his own. Both characters survived the implosion of Charlton and continue to the present, with Cuti and Staton collaborating on one-shots and series of new E-Man and Michael Mauser comics and stories.
Post-Charlton
Cuti left Charlton in 1976 and went back to work for Warren, producing more than 100 story scripts for Warren's horror and fantasy magazines, until that company's demise in the early 1980s. At various times he held the positions of contributing editor, assistant editor and consulting editor.During the same period, he taught himself the medium of scratchboard
Scratchboard
Scratchboard or scraperboard is a technique where drawings are created using sharp knives and tools for etching into a thin layer of white China clay that is coated with black India ink. Scratchboard can also be made with several layers of multi-colored clay, so the pressure exerted on the...
, emulating an artist he admired, Frank Kelly Freas
Frank Kelly Freas
Frank Kelly Freas , called the "Dean of Science Fiction Artists", was a science fiction and fantasy artist with a career spanning more than 50 years.-Early life, education, and personal life:...
. Cuti developed a realistic scratchboard style in contrast to his inked cartoon style and began selling illustrations to mainstream magazines such as Amazing Stories and Heavy Metal.
After he left Warren, Cuti became an assistant editor and then digest
Digest size
Digest size is a magazine size, smaller than a conventional or "journal size" magazine but larger than a standard paperback book, approximately 5½ x 8¼ inches, but can also be 5⅜ x 8⅜ inches and 5½ x 7½ inches. These sizes have evolved from the printing press operation end...
editor at DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
, handling various superhero and children's titles and scripting his own six-part space opera, Spanner's Galaxy, illustrated by Tom Mandrake.
Cuti moved to California in 1986 to begin work for animated TV series, producing background and prop designs for a dozen different studios, including Disney and Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
. At the same time, he continued write comic book scripts and create magazine and book art in both scratchboard and paint.
Captain Cosmos, Cuti's homage to the TV space operas of his childhood, appeared in a series of comic books created in collaboration with Staton and also in Cuti's novel, Spin a Web of Death, three radio dramas and three short TV films. Moonchild returned to print in two three-part comic series in 1992 and as Moonie in 2003.
Films
In 2003, Cuti moved to Florida, where he has scripted for independent films—some adapted from his Charlton and Warren scripts—and consolidating his Captain Cosmos TV series into a full-length feature film. Films produced by Cuti include The Spirit Inspectres: Shock House and Tagged!Novels
Cuti has written and illustrated two text novels with his character "Moonie" as the heroine, Moonie and the Spider Queen (inks by Dave Simons) and Moonie in the Slave Market of Opuul (inks by Mark Stegbauer). A third novel, Moonie in Too Many Moons (2010) has inks by Stegbauer.Awards
Cuti was twice awarded Warren’s Ray Bradbury Award for writing. In 2009, Cuti was awarded the Inkpot AwardInkpot Award
The Inkpot Award, bestowed annually since 1974 by Comic-Con International, is given to some of the professionals in comic book, comic strip, animation, science fiction, and related pop-culture fields, who are guests of that organization's yearly multigenre fan convention, commonly known as...
for career achievement at the San Diego Comic-Con International.
Sources
- Ambrose, Michael (ed.): Charlton Spotlight, issues 1–5, 2005–2007
- Cooke, Jon B. (ed.). Comic Book Artist #9, 2000
- Cooke, Jon B. (ed.). The Warren Companion, 2001
- Estren, Mark James. A History of Underground Comics, 1974, 1986, 1993
- Kennedy, Jay. The Official Underground and Newave Comix Price Guide, 1982
- Stewart, Bhob (ed.). Against the Grain: Mad Artist Wallace Wood, 2003
- Personal correspondence with Nicola Cuti, Joe Staton, Mike Zeck, Bhob Stewart, William DuBay, 2003–2007
- Nicola Cuti at the GCD
- Nick Cuti at the GCD
- Who's Who of American Comic Books, 1928–1999: Nick Cuti