John Arcudi
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John Arcudi is an American comic book writer, best known for his work on The Mask and B.P.R.D., and his series Major Bummer.
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[edit] Background
The son of a renowned professor of Italian literature, Arcudi grew up in Buffalo, New York during the turbulent 1970s. He attended Columbia University, where he majored in English and devoured the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs and William Faulkner with equal enthusiasm.
After serving various apprenticeships on the fringes of the comic industry, including a stint at the New York branch of Forbidden Planet and the United Features comic syndicate, Arcudi joined Malibu Comics upon its founding in 1986, working on its Eternity line. At the same time he started writing for comics, making his first sales to Savage Tales and Savage Sword of Conan in 1986, and becoming a regular contributor to the humor magazine Cracked.
[edit] The Mask
Arcudi joined the stable of writers at Dark Horse Comics soon after the company was founded and it was there that he developed the mordant comic vision that characterizes his early work, notable for its unique blend of madcap humor stirred with unremitting mayhem and seasoned with generous dollops of carnage. Developing the character the Mask first in Mayhem #1-4, and then in a highly successful series of books illustrated by Doug Mahnke, Arcudi perfected a harmonious level of horror and hilarity matched perhaps only by the Chiodo Brothers’s 1988 film, Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Arcudi’s work formed the basis of the feature film starring Jim Carrey.
[edit] Major Bummer
Arcudi and Mahnke teamed up for several projects besides the Mask. Most notable among these was the series Major Bummer published by DC Comics, a hilarious pastiche featuring the most unlikely band of superheroes ever slapped between two covers, a cantankerous assemblage of slackers, nerds, hippies, and senile geriatrics. Although the title was cancelled after only 15 issues, the series retains a loyal fan base, and rumors of a graphic novel and a movie adaptation have circulated for years. Arcudi brought a similar sensibility to a stint on Gen13, illustrated by Gary Frank and Cam Smith, and a memorable run on Doom Patrol, illustrated by Tan Eng Huat.
[edit] Early Work
Arcudi’s work on The Mask was preceded by a number of effective graphic novels based on films, including RoboCop, Terminator, Predator, Alien, and The Thing. Two of these graphic works were subsequently adapted as full-length novels published by Bantam Books. His most recent work in this line, Aliens: Alchemy, was illustrated by Richard Corben. Arcudi’s series Barb Wire, featuring bounty hunter and bartendress Barbara Kopetski, was adapted into a film starring Pamela Anderson.
A lifelong aficionado of hardboiled crime novels, Arcudi also scripted several highly effective stories published in Dark Horse Presents, a series called “The Creep,” and a police procedural called “Homicide”. The protagonist of the latter, Detective Will Ford, was named in homage to one of Arcudi’s literary heroes, Charles Willeford. He has returned to the form recently with several scripts for Batman: The Dark Knight and Batman: Black and White.
[edit] Themes: Arcudi as Noir Humanist
A sensibility inherited from romans noir but leavened by a sensitive humanism characterizes many of Arcudi’s forays into the standard superhero universe. His Justice League of America mini-series, JLA: Destiny, a contribution to DC’s Elseworlds line, gave us a radically reimagined Thomas Wayne and Lex Luthor. Another series, JLA: Superpower was inventive within the confines of the genre. In other titles, however, Arcudi’s deviations from expectations have excited some controversy. A run on Aquaman, for example, was heralded by some readers and decried by others for his exploration of the dark side of a character generally portrayed cartoonishly. And his script for the Marvel series Thunderbolts, a brutal tale of an ex-supervillain trying to reform himself in the world of extreme sports, has been alternately lauded as the best story ever published in that title, and damned as the worst.
Arcudi’s humanism is evident also in his portrayal of women and minorities, who have featured prominently in his work from the beginning. In addition to Daniel Axum, “The Battler” in Thunderbolts, one thinks of such characters as Nakai (Predator: Big Game), Dr. Nordling (Aliens: Stronghold), Fever (Doom Patrol), and Captain Ben Daimio (B.P.R.D. ).
[edit] B.P.R.D.
Captain Daimio is one of the innovative characters Arcudi has introduced to the series B.P.R.D., which he writes with Mike Mignola. Arcudi had contributed a B.P.R.D. story to the Hellboy comic issued in conjunction with the film as a premium from Wizard Entertainment. As B.P.R.D. developed into a separate series, Mignola tapped Arcudi to write the scripts. Three complexly plotted tales have been published to date, with a fourth (Killing Ground) currently in production.
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Contributions to Comics
- Aliens: Alchemy #1-3
- Aliens: Genocide #1-4
- Aliens: Stronghold #1-4
- Aquaman #25-39
- Batman: Gotham Nights #4, 7
- Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #162-63
- B.P.R.D.: The Black Flame #1-6 (with Mike Mignola)
- B.P.R.D.: The Dead #1-5 (with Mike Mignola)
- B.P.R.D.: The Universal Machine #1-4 (with Mike Mignola)
- B.P.R.D.: Killing Ground #1-4 (with Mike Mignola)
- Barb Wire #1-8
- Baseball Greats #1: The Jimmy Piersall Story
- Brass #1-6
- Dark Horse Comics #1-7, 19
- Dark Horse Presents #19, 23-24, 46, 48-49, 53-58, 60-61, 63-64, 115, 122-23, 147-49
- Dark Horse Presents Annual 1997
- Dark Horse Presents: Aliens #1
- Doom Patrol, vol. 3, #1-22
- Excaliber #104, 105
- Flinch #12
- Gen 13, #25-40
- Gen 13: Carny Folk #1
- The Goon: Noir #2
- Hellboy: Premiere Edition #1 (with Mike Mignola)
- Hellboy: Weird Tales #4
- Homicide #1
- Justice League of America: Destiny #1-4
- Justice League of America: Superpower #1
- Lobo/Mask #1-2 (with Alan Grant)
- The Machine #1-4
- Major Bummer #1-15
- Martian Manhunter, vol. 2 #5
- Mayhem #1-4
- The Mask #0-4
- The Mask Returns #1-4
- The Mask Strikes Back #1-5
- Motorhead #1
- Predator: Big Game #1-4
- RoboCop: Prime Suspect #1-4
- RoboCop: Roulette #1-4
- Savage Sword of Conan #150-52, 158, 165, 182
- Savage Tales, second series, #5, 7-8
- Silver Sable #26
- Solo #2, 6
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #38 (cover image only)
- Terminator #1-4
- The Thing from Another World: Climate of Fear #1-4
- Thunderbolts #76-81
- Total Carnage #1-4, 6-10
- Walter: Campaign of Terror #1-4
- Warlock and the Infinity Watch #34-35, 37-40, 42
- What if...? Vol. 2, #50
[edit] Graphic Novels
- Terminator: Tempest (Dark Horse, 1991)
- Predator: Big Game (Dark Horse, 1991)
- Aliens: Genocide (Dark Horse, 1992)
- The Thing from Another World: Climate of fear (Dark Horse, 1992)
- RoboCop: Prime Suspect (Dark Horse, 1993)
- RoboCop: Roulette (Dark Horse, 1993)
- The Mask (Dark Horse, 1993)
- The Mask Returns (Dark Horse, 1994)
- The Mask Strikes Back (Dark Horse, 1996)
- Barb Wire (Dark Horse, 1996)
- Gen 13: I Love New York (Wildstorm/DC Comics, 1996)
- Aliens: Stronghold (Dark Horse, 1996)
- Justice League of America: Destiny (DC Comics, 2002)
- Thunderbolts: How to Lose (Marvel Comics, 2003)
- B.P.R.D.: The Dead (Dark Horse, 2005)
- B.P.R.D.: The Black Flame (Dark Horse, 2006)
- B.P.R.D.: The Universal Machine (Dark Horse 2007)
[edit] Contributions to Collections
- Best of Dark Horse Presents, volume 1 (Dark Horse, 1990)
- Best of Dark Horse Presents, volume 2 (Dark Horse, 1993)
- Decade #1 (Dark Horse, 1996)
- Decade of Dark Horse #3 (Dark Horse, 1996)
- Hellboy: Weird Tales (Dark Horse, 2003)
- Batman: Black and White, volume 2 (DC Comics, 2003)
- The Goon: Noir (Dark Horse, 2007)
[edit] Contributions to Magazines
- Cracked (1987)
- Monsters Attack! (1989)
- The Comics Journal (Winter 2003 Special Edition)
[edit] Novelizations
- Predator: Big Game, adapted as a novel by Sandy Schofield (Bantam, 1999)
- Aliens: Genocide, adapted as a novel by David Bischoff (Bantam, 1994)
