Kyle Baker

Kyle Baker (born 1965 in Queens, New York City, United States) is an American writer and illustrator of comic books as well as an animator. He is also an award-winning publisher of two anthologies, Cartoonist and Cartoonist Vol. 2: Now with More Bakers.

1998 graphic novel by writer-artist Kyle Baker

Background

As a high school intern at Marvel Comics, Baker came into contact with such artists as John Romita, Jr., Al Milgrom and Walter Simonson. He eventually became an assistant inker, working on backgrounds. He got further inking work at Marvel while attending the School of Visual Arts, from which he eventually dropped out. His inking style was very loose, and even at this early stage his art stood out from the standard Marvel fare.

The Dolphin imprint of the publishing house Doubleday expressed interest in his Cowboy Wally comic strips, which he expanded into a 128-page, graphic novel published in 1988. Baker went on to draw The Shadow for DC Comics, and as well as . Through the Looking Glass and Cyrano for Classics Illustrated. In 1990, Baker released two graphic novels, one an adaptation of the film Dick Tracy, the other an original story, Why I Hate Saturn. He next spent three years illustrating the weekly strip "Bad Publicity" for New York Magazine. in 1994, Baker directed an animated video featuring the hip hop singer KRS-ONE, called "Break The Chain".

Baker's other graphic novels as writer-artist include You Are Here, King David, and I Die At Midnight. He has also illustrated the graphic novel Birth of a Nation, no relation to the famous, slightly differently-named D.W. Griffith movie, The Birth of a Nation.

For mainstream comics in the 2000s, he drew the miniseries Truth, a Captain America storyline with parallels to the infamous Tuskegee experiment, later collected as a trade paperback. He also wrote and drew the comedic adventures of the DC Comics superhero Plastic Man, and was one of contributors to the Dark Horse Comics series Michael Chabon Presents...The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist, a spin-off of Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.

His work is known for its sense of whimsy and wit, often veering into caricature. Some of the motifs to which he often returns include satires of the dating game, gender roles, and hipster culture. His characters often throw each other into high relief, with thoughtful cynics playing off guileless straight men.

Baker's cartoons and caricatures have appeared in Details, Entertainment Weekly, ESPN, Esquire, Guitar World, MAD Magazine, National Lampoon, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Spin magazine, Us, Vibe and The Village Voice. His animation has appeared on BET, MTV, and in Looney Tunes.

As of 2005, his company, Kyle Baker Publishing, released a four-part comic book series about Nat Turner, as well the series The Bakers, based on his family life.

Awards

Baker in 2000 won two Eisner Awards for the controversial story "Letitia Lerner, Superman's Babysitter". He won a Harvey Award and two Eisners in 2005.

Quotes

Publishers Weekly on Birth of a Nation [1]: "The Boondocks creator [Aaron] McGruder, filmmaker [Reginald] Hudlin and Why I Hate Saturn cartoonist Baker are a kind of dream team, and this work (drawn in Baker's animation-storyboard style) has a fairly hilarious premise. When the virtually all-black population of East St. Louis, Ill., is disenfranchised en masse in electoral shenanigans that result in a George W. Bush–like Texan governor being elected president, the impoverished city decides to secede from the U.S. Renaming itself "Blackland," the city becomes a wildly rich money-laundering capital."

Bibliography

• Through the Looking-Glass (Classics International Entertainment; year n.a.; reprinted Berkley Publishing, 1990; illustrator)) ISBN 1572090022 (orig.); ISBN 0425120228 (rep.)
• Why I Hate Saturn (Piranha Press, 1990; reprinted Vertigo, Dec. 1998; writer, illustrator) ISBN 0930289722
• The Residents: Freak Show (Dark Horse Comics, collected 1992; illustrator) ISBN 1569710015
• The Cowboy Wally Show (Marlowe & Company, 1996; writer, illustrator) ISBN 1569248346
• You Are Here (DC Comics, Nov. 1998; writer, illustrator) ISBN 1563894424
• I Die at Midnight (Vertigo, 2000; writer, illustrator) ISBNB0006RONA0
• King David (DC Comics, 2002; writer, illustrator) ISBN 1563898667
• Undercover Genie: The Irreverent Conjurings of an Illustrative Aladdin (DC Comics, collected ephemera 2003; writer, illustrator) ISBN 1401201040
• Truth: Red, White and Black (Marvel Comics, collected Feb. 2004; co-creator with Robert Morales, illustrator) ISBN 0785110720
• Cartoonist (Kyle Baker Publishing, May 2004; writer, illustrator, publisher) ISBN 0974721409
• Birth of a Nation: A Comic Novel (Crown; July 2004; illustrator) ISBN 1400048591
• Plastic Man: On the Lam (DC Comics, collected 2005; writer, illustrator) ISBN 1401203434
• Plastic Man: Rubber Bandits (DC Comics, collected 2006; writer, illustrator) ISBN 1401207294
• Cartoonist, Volume 2: Now With More Bakers (writer, illustrator, publisher)

Other works

• Bad Publicity (1990s comic strip, New York magazine, illustrator)

References

• The Grand Comic-Book Database: Kyle Baker search results
• Comic Book Awards Almanac
• Ultrazine: Kyle Baker interview
• PopImage: Kyle Baker interview
• The Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators: Break the Chain

External links

Kyle Baker's official site

I Make People Laugh, an exclusive 1999 interview with Kyle Baker from Jitterbug Fantasia webzine