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Wikipedia / Kevin Nowlan

Kevin Nowlan (born 1958) is an American comics artist who works as a penciler, inker, colorist, and letterer. He has been called "one of the few artists who can be called 'artists's artist'", a master of the various disciplines of comic production, from "design to draftsmanship to dramatics".

Early life

Nowlan was born in 1958 in Nebraska. He has four older brothers and sisters. His brother read comic books, particularly DC Comics titles, and Nowlan has had comics around him since he can remember. As an illustrator, Nowlan is mostly self-taught, but did attend a trade school for approximately a year and a half to learn design and layout.

Career

Nowlan first came to the industry's attention in the early 1980s via illustrations in the fan press, most notably The Comics Journal and Amazing Heroes.

Nowlan's first published work for Marvel Comics was Doctor Strange #57 (Feb. 1983). He has worked for DC Comics and other comics publishers. He contributed to the adult Penthouse Comix. In 1992, he inked the Batman: Sword of Azrael miniseries which introduced the character Azrael. He drew the short story "The Castle" in Vertigo Jam #1 (Aug. 1993) which featured the Sandman and was part of "The Kindly Ones" story arc. One of Nowlan's prominent contribution to comics is the creation of Jack B. Quick with writer Alan Moore. This character appeared several times in Tomorrow Stories under the America's Best Comics imprint.

Although the majority of his work is as an inker, he has provided both pencils and lettering for various comics. He is a noted cover illustrator. Nowlan contributed character designs to Batman: The Animated Series, most notably The Penguin, the Mad Hatter, and Man-Bat.

Nowlan has described himself as a "finisher" rather than an inker, although only in specific reference to work "where you see too much of me", and has expressed an ambivalence towards this role, saying "it's not the right way to ink someone else's pencils".

His style gives a strong emphasis towards both facial expression and posture, and in neither case is he constrained by the conventions of the comic-book hero, and his protagonists are often depicted with awkward expressions or body postures.

Steve Gerber's posthumous Man-Thing story The Screenplay of the Living Dead Man, with art by Nowlan, originally planned as a 1980s graphic novel before being left uncompleted by the artist, was revived in the 2010s and appeared as a three-issue miniseries cover-titled The Infernal Man-Thing (Early Sept.-Oct. 2012). The story was a sequel to Gerber's “Song-Cry of the Living Dead Man” in Man-Thing #12 (Dec. 1974).

Nowlan inked the 1990s variant cover penciled by Dan Jurgens for Action Comics #1000 (June 2018) and inked the "Actionland!" chapter drawn by José Luis García-López in that same issue.

Awards

Bibliography

Interior work

Doctor Strange (Marvel):

Moon Knight (with colors by Christie Scheele, Marvel):

Penthouse Comix (anthology, Penthouse):

Tomorrow Stories (anthology, America's Best Comics):

  • "Smalltown Stardom" (with Alan Moore and colors separations by Wildstorm FX, in #1, 1999)

  • "The Unbearableness of Being Light" (with Alan Moore and color separations by Ben Dimagmaliw, in #2, 1999)

  • "Pet Theory" (with Alan Moore and color separations by Alex Bleyaert, in #3, 1999)

  • "A Brief Geography of Time"" (with Alan Moore and colors by Wildstorm FX, in #4, 2000)

  • "Jack B. Quick's Amazing World of Science!" (with Alan Moore, in ABC Special one-shot, 2001)

  • "Why the Long Face?" (with Alan Moore, in #10, 2001)

  • "The Facts of Life!" (with Alan Moore, in #12, 2002)

  • "Jack B. Quick" (with Peter Hogan and colors by Michelle Madsen, in ABC: A to Z #1, co-feature, 2005)

  • "I, Robert" (with Alan Moore and colors by Michelle Madsen, in Tomorrow Stories Special #1, co-feature, 2006)

  • Green Lantern/Superman: Legend of the Green Flame: "Chapter Four" (with Neil Gaiman, one-shot, DC Comics, 2000)

  • 9-11 Volume 1: "Untitled" (with an anonymous writer, two pages in anthology graphic novel, Dark Horse, 2002)

  • 52 #13, 20 (with Mark Waid, "Origins" co-features, DC Comics, 2006)

  • The Goon: Noir #2: "Man of the Hour" (with John Arcudi, anthology, Dark Horse, 2006)

  • X-Men: First Class Special: "The Museum of Oddities" (with Jeff Parker, co-feature, Marvel, 2007)

  • Hellboy: Buster Oakley Gets His Wish (with Mike Mignola, one-shot, Dark Horse, 2011)

  • The Infernal Man-Thing #1–3: "The Screenplay of the Living Dead Man" (with Steve Gerber, Marvel, 2012)

The Graveyard Book (with P. Craig Russell and colors by Lovern Kindzierski, graphic novels, HarperCollins):

  • "1: How Nobody Came to the Graveyard" (in Volume 1, 2013)

  • "8: Leavings and Partings" (with additional inks by Galen Showman, in Volume 2, 2014)

Lobster Johnson (with Mike Mignola and John Arcudi, one-shots, Dark Horse):

Covers only

As an inker

As a letterer

Notes

References