Val Semeiks

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Val Semeiks

Birth name	Valdis Semeiks
Born	February 5, 1955
Area(s)	Peniller; Inker
Notable works	Conan the Barbarian (Marvel) The Demon, Lobo (DC)

Valdis "Val" Semeiks is an American comic book artist who has mostly worked for DC Comics and Marvel Comics.

1 Biography
2 Recent work
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Biography

Val Semeiks (pronounced Semmix^[1]) was born in the USA on February 5, 1955 to Latvian parents.

Semeiks graduated from College with degrees in Chemistry and Mathematics, before pursuing a career in advertising, working as "an art director for a regional ad agency".^[2] He has been working in the comics field since 1986, mostly as a penciller although he has been known to ink his own work. His first professional credit was with Marvel, "drawing King Kull back-up stories for The Savage Sword of Conan, which ultimately led to him becoming the monthly artist on Conan the Barbarian, allowing him to leave his day job and forge a fulltime career as a comics artist.^[3]

He is perhaps best known for his next major credits, long runs on both The Demon and Lobo for DC Comics primarily working with writer Alan Grant, whose plots Semeiks calls "laugh-out-loud funny," leading him to call his time on Lobo (upon which he worked with inker John Dell) "about as much fun as anyone can have drawing comics".^[4] He also provided the artwork to Alan Grant and John Wagner's 1995 DC/2000 AD crossover title Lobo/Judge Dredd: Psycho-Bikers vs. The Mutants From Hell[1]. (As part of the 1996 DC vs. Marvel event, the DC and Marvel Universes briefly combined to form the Amalgam Universe. Alan Grant and Semeiks were reunited in 1997 to produce a comic as part of the Amalgam Comics line, when Val drew the all-too-brief adventures of "Lobo the Duck," where he demonstrated his versatility with a much more cartoon-like approach to the artwork.)

Returning briefly to Marvel, Semeiks was reunited with his first editor - Larry Hama - this time acting as writer on Wolverine, upon which Semeiks worked, alongside a number of other titles. Returning again to DC, Semeiks worked on a number of JLA projects with then-JLA-writer Grant Morrison, including JLA/WildC.A.T.S. and DC One Million.

Semeiks has also drawn stories penned by Dwayne McDuffie for Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, and has also worked on non-Superhero projects including cartoon work for MAD Magazine and DC's "Big Book" series (from Paradox Press) as well as "video game and toy design work too".^[5]

[edit] Recent work

In 2005, Val produced a fill-in issue (#3) for the hit series Villains United, in the lead-up to DC's Infinite Crisis event when artist Dale Eaglesham fell ill. In 2006, he helped wrap up the second volume of Flash, illustrating issues #227-230.

Val has also illustrated fantasy author R.A. Salvatore's Icewind Dale Trilogy in three comicbook mini-series (Crystal Shard, Streams of Silver and Halfling's Gem).