Rags Morales

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Rags Morales
Morales at the 2008 New York Comic Convention.
Birth name	Ralph Morales
Born
Area(s)	Penciller, Inker
Notable works	Identity Crisis, Countdown to Infinite Crisis

Ralph "Rags" Morales is a comic book artist known for his work DC Comics' Identity Crisis, Countdown to Infinite Crisis, Batman Confidential, and Hawkman, and Magic the Gathering: Dakkon Blackblade #1 from Armada/Acclaim Comics.

Morales is the co-creator, along with Brian Augustyn, of the 1990s version of Black Condor.

1 Education and career
2 Art style
3 Personal life
4 Selected Bibliography
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Education and career

Morales attended a number of vocational art classes, and is a 1988 graduate of the Joe Kubert School. After graduating, he worked for a silkscreen company in Linden, New Jersey. After losing that job, he went to New York City, where he met writer Barbara Kesel, who got Morales his first professional work, pencilling 19 issues of Forgotten Realms with writer Jeff Grubb as part of the TSR line of books. Following Forgotten Realms, Morales pencilled Black Condor.^[1]

Morales left DC Comics to do work for Valiant Comics, including Turok, Archer & Armstrong and Shadowman. He also did some licensed work on a Sliders comic book, and work for Wizards of the Coast. After Valiant closed, Morales was unemployed for about a year and a half. He went back to his TSR roots, doing work for Dungeons and Dragons magazines and novella work for Harper Collins, such as Isaac Asimov's Robotics and pen and ink work for Margaret Weiss' Testament of the Dragon. He also taught anatomical illustration at a vo-tech school.^[2]

Morales eventually called his friend and Shadowman collaborator, writer Tony Bedard, who was now Dan Raspler's assistant editor at DC Comics. Raspler had wanted to work with Morales when Morales was exclusive with Valiant, and after a short while, Morales was given work on DC's on Hourman, and then on Hawkman with writer Geoff Johns as part of a year-long exclusivity deal with DC. As the end of that year loomed while on Hawkman, Morales, who enjoyed working at DC, lobbied for it to be renewed with a multi-year exclusivity deal in order to secure his medical insurance for his family's sake, and received a three-year exclusivity deal. After this, DC and writer Brad Meltzer, who were impressed with the quality of his work, offered Morales the miniseries Identity Crisis, which was the first time Morales felt he had been offered a project of that level of prestige. Because of the importance of Identity Crisis to DC's ongoing company-wide storyline, and because of the number of characters in it, including minor ones that had barely been seen in years, Morales used copious amounts of reference materials for character studies, including the use of famous actors' faces to give the characters unique facial features, and sometimes updating their costumes in the process.^[2] The miniseries was eventually selected by The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA)'s 2007 recommended list of Great Graphic Novels For Teens.^[3]

[edit] Art style

Regarding his figure work, Morales finds stock, poster-like standing poses difficult, preferring the more communicative movement seen among characters in narrative sequences, a forte he feels helped him attain the Identity Crisis assignment.^[1]