R.I.P. Nicola Cuti
Ol' Groove is sure you've heard the sad news by now that Groovy Age Great Nick Cuti passed away Friday, February 21, 2020, after a battle with cancer. Here's the official word from Nick's own Facebook page:
Legendary comic creator Nicola Cuti, whose career has spanned over fifty years, has died.
Sources close to the family have reported that Cuti passed in Tampa on Friday, February 21, 2020, after a battle with cancer. He was surrounded by family and close friends, including his daughter, Jaymee, brother, Emil, and his business partner and friend, Nakoma DeMitro.
Known to everyone as “Nick”, Cuti was born October 29, 1944. He served in the United States Air Force for four years. It was during this time that his first works were published.
An artist and comic and science-fiction writer and editor, he is best known as a co-creator of Moonchild the Starbabe and superhero E-Man, a series he worked on with his dear friend, Joe Staton. Other creations of his included Captain Cosmos, Brightstar, and Starflake the Cosmic Sprite. During his career, he worked alongside legends such as Wally Wood, Stan Lee, and Bill Black, founder of AC Comics. His works were featured in Charlton Comics, Warren Publishing, DC Comics, and Marvel Comics. He contributed to famous franchises such as Vampirella, Popeye, and Creepy Magazine.
In addition to his work in the comic industry, Cuti also worked in many productions for Disney, Universal Studios, and Sony Pictures as an animation background designer. Some of the shows he worked on included Gargoyles, 101 Dalmatians, and The Critic.
He was twice awarded the Warren’s Ray Bradbury Award and was also awarded the Inkpot Award at the San Diego Comic Con for his career achievements. He was a fixture at many conventions including the Tampa Bay Comic Con and Spooky Empire in Orlando. He has been a special guest at the San Diego Comic Con and Infinity Comic Con, where he was asked to create the badge. He was scheduled to be a guest at Sci-Fy Bartow in Tampa and Mega Con in Orlando this year.
Cuti’s hobbies included being an amateur magician, an avid reader, and a huge space exploration supporter.
Cuti’s hobbies included being an amateur magician, an avid reader, and a huge space exploration supporter.
Cuti was a loyal and devoted father, son, brother and friend. He is survived by his daughter Jaymee Cuti, of Portland, Ore., brother, Emil Cuti of New Port Richey, Fla, Great-Aunt Lee Sica of Holiday, Fla, and many cousins. He will be deeply missed by family, friends, colleagues and fans.
He was 75.
We've lost a terrific creator and a great person. Thank goodness his volumes of work live on to inspire us! Here's just a small sampling of some of my own favorite Cuti collaborations...
What are some of yours, Groove-ophiles? Please share them in the comments section!
Hey, Kids! Comics from 50 Years Ago!
February 24 & 26, 1970
I remember Nick Cuti's poetic script for "A Martian Saga," drawn by Wrightson for Creepy in 1977. It was so much like the sort of thing Bruce Jones wrote in those days that I did a double take when I saw it wasn't his.
ReplyDeleteAs for E-Man I certainly recall it, but never read it. If only Cuti and Staton had trademarked the lettercol: E-mail! And it was the mid '70s no less.
Regards,
Chris A.
Do yourself a huge favor and try some 70s E-Man. There's nothing like it!
ReplyDeleteCouldn't agree more. Those 10 Charlton issues are some of best comics in my collection.
DeleteLots of memories in this post!
ReplyDeleteKubert's Our Army at War cover nicely incorporates the Sgt. Rock logo as part of the artwork a la Will Eisner's The Spirit.
Seminal O'Neil-Adams-Giordano work on GL/GA 76. I own the entire run, including the four bsckup stories in the Flash. Many completists forget that Neal Adams also drew the cover for Green Lantern 63, besides a few early '80s reprints.
The cover for Tower of Shadows 5 is okay, but inside are good Barry Smith and Syd Shores stories and one by Wally Wood with an opening panel which is probably his most-reprinted artwork of the 1970s:
http://bronzeageofblogs.blogspot.com/2009/04/flight-into-fear.html?m=1
Gene Poole
P.S. Aquaman no. 51 has great Jim Aparo art with classic Neal Adams work on the concluding Deadman three-parter. Neal's covers on B&B, Batman, and Tomahawk are also terrific. Marvel Tales was already reprinting the Amazing Spider-Man no. 33 in 1970 when the original came out in 1966! But it is Spidey's definitive moment of the Ditko era, lifting that impossibly heavy object off of him before the underground room completely floods. What a great era for comics!
ReplyDeleteGene Poole
That is some BIG head of hair the fella has on Romita's My Love #5! The girl has nothing on him! Hilariously groovy, baby!
ReplyDelete- Neil
I'm so glad DC canned the powerless Wonder Woman in a white outfit once Gloria Steinem complained. The desire to try something different is understandable, but it was a bad choice. The only good things that came out of it were two Jeff Jones covers (199 & 200) & an improbable introduction to Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd the Barbarian & the Grey Mouser to the world of comics.
ReplyDeleteRegards,
Chris A.
I loved the Emma Peel phase of Wonder Woman and was sorry to see it go. Sekowsky really cut loose, both as writer and artist (in tandem with Denny O'Neill). Initially it saved the title from cancellation and offered a unique 60s perspective on our Amazon (and loved her mentor/sidekick I Ching).
DeleteThe cover for Jimmy Olsen 128 looks like pretty standard fare, but who would have guessed that only five issues later that Jack Kirby would leave Marvel and the Fantastic Four to helm this book?
ReplyDeleteApparently Jimmy Olsen was DC's worst seller and on the brink of cancellation until Kirby took it over, added the Newsboy Legion, Fourth World concepts, photo collage effects, and Don Rickles (!), suddenly making it DC's best selling comic.
I suspect it was a nightmare come true for Stan Lee!
- Neil
JO didn't become DCs best selling comic under Kirby. Let's keep our history rooted in reality
DeleteJIMMY OLSEN certainly wasn't DC's worst-selling comic book in 1970, nor did it become DC's best seller once Kirby took over. But it certainly became a must-read comic book during the Kirby years!
ReplyDeleteHere's how Mark Evanier tells it in his KIRBY: KING OF COMICS: :
DeleteQuote
In his first year , Kirby started as writer/artist of Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen. The story that circulated was he'd said, 'Give me your worst-selling book, and I'll make it your best-selling book.' Jack did talk like that, but Jimmy Olsen wasn't their worst selling book.
What did happen what that he was invited to pick up any current comic and do whatever he wanted to it. That was how little the company was committed to anything it was then publishing. Jack gave the line the once-over and didn't see a one he wanted. But then Jack was never comfortable taking over someone else's characters, displacing another voice with his own.
DC insisted, so he said, 'Give me whatever book doesn't currently have someone assigned to it.' He hated the thought of kicking a fellow professional off an assignment, especially if the guy's income might suffer for it...
Evanier also recounts that the larger issue for Kirby at the time was directly related to some of the reasons why he left Marvel: he wanted to avoid the "Marvel Method" working relationship he'd developed with Stan Lee, wherein Jack plotted the book and told the story visually, but the actual dialogue and narrative text blocks were out of his hands. His precondition for coming to DC was that he would only work with a writer who provided a completed -script to work from (i.e., full plot and all the text, including dialogue), or he'd write and draw the book himself. The bottom line is that he wanted his stories to be his, and not corrupted or "inverted", as Evanier puts it, by someone else interpreting the content of his panels.
This was a great time to collect comics. Like many, I was traumatized when Kirby jumped from Marvel to DC.
ReplyDelete