Никола Кути: Жизнь и творчество американского художника комиксов

American comic artist (1944–2020)

Nicola Cuti (October 29, 1944 – February 21, 2020), known as Nick Cuti, was an American artist and comic book writer/editor, science fiction novelist; he was the co creator of E Man (with artist Joe Staton) and Moonchild, Captain Cosmos, and Starflake the Cosmic Sprite. He also worked as an animation background designer, magazine illustrator and screenwriter.

Nicola Cuti was born on October 29, 1944, in Brooklyn, New York, the first of two sons of Alphonso Gitano Cuti, a darkroom technician, and Laura Antoinette Sica, a housewife. His grandparents had emigrated from Italy in the 1930s to make a home in America. His brother, Emil, was a medical technician and later sold medical supplies to hospitals. He served in the United States Air Force as an Air Policeman from 1966 to 1972, stationed at Toul Rossieres Air Base, France; Cigli, Turkey; and Bangor, Maine. His first published work, a comic strip, was published in a French magazine, Singular Plural, and his first published story, “Grub” was published in Creepy Magazine while he was on active status in Bangor, Maine. After leaving the service, his first employment was at Krantz Animation Studio in New York City, which was under the direction of the legendary filmmaker, Ralph Bakshi. In 1972, while visiting his parents in Florida, he met a pretty[?] young blonde girl on the flight, Charlene Veselsky, and they were married six months later. Together they had a daughter, Jaymee, who worked as a journalist and is presently[?] in the publicity department of the Portland, Oregon Water Department. Nick and Charlene were divorced in 1995.

Starting in 1968, he self published three underground comix featuring his first original character, Moonchild, a big eyed, buxom innocent waif who had the ability to live in outer space without any life support systems. (Issue #2 of Moonchild was published in conjunction with Gary Arlington's San Francisco Comic Book Company.) She was also featured in Mark Estren's book A History of the Underground Comics, in the first underground comic in full color, Weird Fantasies and in several issues of Cheri magazine. She was then published as a three issue miniseries, under the name Moonie, Moonchild the Starbabe, by MU Press with covers, writing, editing, pencils by Cuti and inks and lettering by Dave Simons. Cuti had long admired the work of comic artist Wally Wood and asked if Wood would look at his portfolio. Cuti did a single page comic strip featuring Moonchild but it was never published in Wood's magazine Witzend; however, Cuti eventually became Wood's studio assistant at the Wood Studio in Valley Stream, Long Island. He worked on the strips Cannon and Sally Forth for Wood. at DC Comics, handling various superhero and children's titles and scripting his own six part space opera, Spanner's Galaxy, illustrated by Tom Mandrake. He also scripted the final two Creeper back up stories that appeared in The Flash. Cuti moved to California in 1986 to begin work for animated TV series, producing background and prop designs for a dozen different studios, including Disney, Sony Pictures and Universal Studios. At the same time, he continued to write comic book scripts and create magazine and book art in both scratchboard and paint. Captain Cosmos, Cuti's homage to the TV space operas of his childhood, appeared in a series of comic books created in collaboration with Staton and also in Cuti's novel, Spin a Web of Death, three radio dramas and three short TV films. Moonchild returned to print in a three part comic series in 1992 as Moonie, Moonchild the Starbabe and as novels in 2003. At a convention, his friend, partner, and actress for Moonie, Nakoma DeMitro, suggested he write a series for young girls since there wasn’t much out there for them in the science fiction field and Starflake the Cosmic Sprite was born. Like Moonie, she could live in outer space without any life support.

In 2003, Cuti moved to Florida, where he scripted for independent films—some adapted from his Charlton and Warren scripts—and consolidated his Captain Cosmos TV series into a full length feature film, Captain Cosmos and the Gray Ghosts. Films produced and written by Cuti include Grub, Shock House, Tagged!, The Lady Without Substance and Moonie and the Spider Queen.

Cuti wrote and illustrated text novels with his character "Moonie" as the heroine, Moonie and the Spider Queen (2009) (inks by Dave Simons), Moonie in the Slave Market of Opuul (2010) (inks by Mark Stegbauer), Moonie in Too Many Moons (2010) (inks by Mark Stegbauer) and Moonie Moonie Goes to War. A fifth novel Moonie and the Space Pirates was written by a friend of Cuti's, Vic Stonecypher. Eventually, Cuti decided he had done all he could with Moonie, the Starbabe, and sold the series to DeMitro in order to concentrate on his newest creation, Starflake, the Cosmic Sprite. A contest was initiated to find a model for Starflake and Alicia Sage won the title. He wrote seven Starflake novels including, Starflake rides with the Galactic Bikers, Starflake hunts the Power Beast, and Starflake picks the Junkyard Planet. A Starflake Comic series was also created and published by his good friend, Kevin Glover. He was working on a young adult series of Starflake titled Starflake, Deep Space Ranger.

Cuti was twice awarded Warren’s Ray Bradbury Award for writing. In 2009, Cuti was awarded the Inkpot Award for career achievement and was given the award at the San Diego Comic Con International. In 2020 he posthumously was awarded the Bill Finger Award.