Michael Kaluta

Early life

Born in Guatemala to U.S. citizens, Kaluta studied at the Richmond Professional Institute (now Virginia Commonwealth University).

Career

Kaluta's early work included a three-page adventure story, "The Battle of Shiraz", in Charlton Comics Flash Gordon #18 (Jan. 1970) and an adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Venus novels for DC Comics. Kaluta's influences and style are drawn from pulp illustrations of the 1930s and the turn of the century poster work of Alphonse Mucha – his signature motif is elaborate decorative panel designs – rather than the comic books of the Silver Age. Kaluta has worked rarely with the superhero genre although one of his early contributions for DC was a "World of Krypton" backup story in Superman #240 (July 1971). His first cover for a comic book was House of Mystery #200 (March 1972). Associated during the 1970s with Bernie Wrightson and Jeffrey Jones, he contributed illustrations to Ted White's Fantastic and Amazing. Kaluta co-created Eve in Secrets of Sinister House #6 (Aug.–Sept. 1972), a horror comics "host" character turned into a supporting character in The Sandman. He and writer Dennis O'Neil produced a comics adaptation of The Shadow for DC in 1973–1974. Comics historian Les Daniels noted that "Kaluta's style [on The Shadow] is an homage to Graves Gladney, master of the pulp magazine covers of the 1930s." Kaluta left the series after drawing five of the first six issues.

Kaluta was one of the four comic book artists/fine illustrator/painters (the others being Jeffrey Jones, Barry Windsor-Smith, and Bernie Wrightson) who formed the artists' commune The Studio in a loft in Manhattan's Chelsea district from 1975 to 1979. Aside from many comic books and covers Kaluta has done a wide variety of book illustrations.

Kaluta drew the cover for the Madame Xanadu one-shot in 1981 which was DC's second direct sales only comic. He and writer Elaine Lee crafted Marvel Graphic Novel #13 "Starstruck: The Luckless, the Abandoned and Forsaked" which led to an ongoing series which ran for six issues. Kaluta and O'Neil reunited on The Shadow: 1941 – Hitler's Astrologer graphic novel published in 1988. In 2006, Kaluta was one of the artists on the 1001 Nights of Snowfall graphic novel written by Bill Willingham.

In 1984 he drew the illustrations for and directed the music video of "Don't Answer Me" by The Alan Parsons Project, which became one of the most requested videos of the year on the cable video channel MTV.

Among music fans, Kaluta is known as the cover artist of Glenn Danzig's instrumental album Black Aria and for the interior illustration of Danzig's fourth album, the latter of which appeared in 1994 and 1995 as a pendant sold at Danzig concerts, and on Danzig T-shirts and sweaters produced in the same period. Kaluta created the CD covers and interior booklet illustrations for Nativity in Black I and II, tribute albums to the music of Black Sabbath. Kaluta drew the cover art for the Bobby Pickett album The Original Monster Mash when it was reissued in 1973.

Kaluta has worked for role-playing game companies such as White Wolf Publishing. He has done artwork for collectible card games companies, including a comic book for Wizards of the Coast's Magic: The Gathering and illustrating cards on Last Unicorn Games' Heresy: Kingdom Come.

In the early 1990s, he was active in Compuserve's Macintosh Gaming Forum, in the flight simulator enthusiast group which called itself VFA-13 Shadow Riders. He contributed a number of designs for airplane nose art and flight suit unit patches.

Awards

Kaluta's work has won him a good deal of recognition, including the Shazam Award for Outstanding New Talent in 1971, the Inkpot Award in 1977, and the 2003 Spectrum Award for Grand Master.