Lucio Parrillo began his career some 15 years ago in his native Italy, where work within magazines such as Città,Color, and Lanciostory or the newspaper Il Cavatore may be unknown to Anglophiles, although they may have come across his work without quite being aware of it, for in the last decade he has painted, and produced interior art and character designs for video and role playing games such asForgotten Realms and Magic the Gathering, the latter also being one of the companies he illustrated trading cards for while also producing interior work for Dungeons & Dragonsbooks.
Meanwhile, his comics work began appearing across Europe in Germany, France, Italy and Sweden as he crafted graphic novels such as L’Empire Eternel and One Shot for Soleil Productions and produced art for pan-continental publishers such as Panini.
More recently his work has begun causing a sensation among the English speaking peoples, with Lucio being sought by major USA publishers including Marvel Comics to produce art for The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Dead Pool, Death’s Head,
The Siege, What if? and Thor, an extensive range of covers for Dynamite featuring Red Sonja, Vampirella, Tarzan andJohn Carter: Warlord of Mars among others, as well as work for Heavy Metal Magazine and SKP Art Books.
The Birmingham Comics Festival on Saturday 18th April 2015 will mark the debut appearance of the acclaimed artist Lucio Parrillo at a UK comics related event.
In 1976 Keith Page signed on with the prestigious London-based Temple Art Agency and began illustrating for Fleetway/IPC and DC Thomson’s weekly titles as well as annuals as diverse as 2000AD and Supergran in a Britain where reading comics was a natural part of daily life for most kids.
He was to illustrate sci-fi epics for Starblazer pocket books and the aviation-adventure serial Tales of the Gold Monkeyin Polystyle’s TV Comic, both wrote and drew Martello 112 for Revolver and become Dan Dare’s artist on The Eagle. In 1992 he would begin an extensive run illustrating Thunderbirds for both the comic and The Sunday Times, then in 1996 he commenced his even longer run producing material for Commando, notably the famous Ramsey's Raiders series and more recently themed books.
There are children now reading newsstand comics whose grandparents may also been brought up engrossed in Keith Page’s work between the pagesof The Beano, MASK, Wildcat, Supernaturals, Scream, Stingray the Comic, Joe 90, Football Picture Story Monthly, Bunty, The Dandy, Sonic the Comic, Mighty Max and others. And yet, since his artistic debut within the pages of the Denis Gifford produced AllySloper, there has also been something of the free spirit to Keith Page. Recent years have found him exploring these possibilities, writing and drawing the Dan Dare-related Rocket Pilot for Spaceship Away, collaborating with screenwriter Stephen Walsh on their critically popular graphic novels about the French secret agent Charlotte Corday in The Iron Moon (from Print Media), London Calling and Squadron of the Screaming Damned (from Time Bomb) that are also becoming available digitally via ROK Comics, and similarly developing The Casebook of Bryant & May into graphic form with the author of this uncanny detectives series Christopher Fowler, and their first collaboration out via PS Art Books as The Soho Devil.
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Growing up in a tough Philadelphia neighbourhood had some bearing on Jonathan Maberry’s future development: taught martial art from the age of six he went on to became an instructor himself, similarly he worked in the security industry (combining both as the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office expert witness for murder cases involving martial arts). A part-time freelance writer since the late seventies, he contributed articles and educational material on such related matters and wrote a series of books on the martial arts during the nineties, then wrote several books on folklore, and belief in the occult and paranormal.
Those latter books proved the catalyst for him to turn novelist, winning the 2007 Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel withGhost Road Blues, and his novelisation of The Wolfman received far more critical accolades than did its silver screen equivalent, reaching number 35 on The New York TimesBest Seller List. His various novels now appear in some 24 different countries.
Writing for comics, Marvel Zombies Return also proved to be a New York Times bestseller with Marvel Universe Vs The Punisher, Marvel Universe Vs Wolverine and Marvel Universe Vs The Avengers establishing a theme for his work that was broadened with Captain America: Hail Hydra,Black Panther: Power, Doomwar and others. He also wrote the vampire miniseries Bad Blood for Dark Horse and is now writing V-Wars for IDW Publishing that is also scheduled to be a television series debuting in 2015.
Lew Stringer began contributing gag cartoons to Marvel UK back in 1983. This soon led to full-blown strips like Combat Colin where his work offered comic relief within such adventure titles as The Transformers and Spider-Man. Concurrent with this, he assisted veteran cartoonist Mike Higgs on his Moonbird children’s books and then began contributing to Fleetway/IPC’s humour line -For which he holds the distinction of his own Tom Thug creation barging successfully from the anarchic youth anthology Oink! into the pages of the venerable giggle-fix that was Buster and appearing regularly each week until the comic was finally retired.
During the 90s’ British adult comedy comics boom he began working for Sweet FA alongside the still enduring Vizmagazine. His art has graced the pages of The Daily Star andSunday Sport newspapers, while his work as a scriptwriter has featured in the pre-school Lego Adventures and CiTV Tellytots and also for the highly successful Sonic the Comic.
Lew Stringer has been a regular writer and artist for Toxic, Britain’s bestselling boys’ magazine, since its conception and joined Great Britain’s longest established comic publisher, D.C. Thomson, to draw classic characters like Ivy the Terrible,Lord Snooty and The Smasher for The Beano and The Dandyline, while more recently he took on The Daft Dimension forDoctor Who Magazine. Elsewhere, his Brickman creation is a supporting strip across the Atlantic in Elephantmen, whileSuburban Satanists has featured in Herman Hedning and Nemi Magazine over in Scandinavia, and rumour has it could feature elsewhere in the near future too; as no doubt may many of the other characters he seems able to endlessly create for our amusement.
For details on the Birmingham Comics Festival visit their website here:
