Mark Schultz (comics)


Mark Schultz is an American writer and illustrator of books and comics. His most widely recognized work is the creator-owned comic book series Xenozoic Tales, which describes a post-apocalyptic world where dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures coexist with humans. In 1993, Xenozoic Tales was adapted into an animated series titled Cadillacs and Dinosaurs and a video game of the same name. Schultz's other notable works include various Aliens comic book mini-series published by Dark Horse and a four-year run on the DC Comics series Superman: The Man of Steel. In 2004, Schultz took over the scripting duties of the Prince Valiant comic strip.

Early life

Schultz was born just outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but raised near Pittsburgh. At the age of six, he discovered both comics and classic adventure films, with early favorites being Tarzan and King Kong. As a teenager he was further inspired by such fantasy authors as Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard and the artists who had illustrated their work, including Frank Frazetta, Roy Krenkel, Al Williamson, Wally Wood, Howard Pyle and Joseph Clement Coll.
In 1973, Schultz enrolled in Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. Four years later, after graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting, he embarked upon a career in advertising illustration, bolstered by such odd jobs as working as a security guard, which he ultimately found unsatisfying. In the early 1980s, Schultz became interested in the burgeoning underground comics scene, which allowed creators to publish stories outside the traditional assembly-line approach of the mainstream comics industry. He also became attracted to the art of the classic stories published by EC Comics in the 1950s. At one point, he took the few boxes of 1960s and early 1970s Marvel and DC comic books he owned to a local comic book store and traded them for a large collection of EC Comics. From then on, Schultz began to hone his illustration style to emulate that of classic EC artists.

Career

Schultz's first published comics work was on a story called "The Sea King", featuring Robert E. Howard's character King Kull, which appeared in Savage Sword of Conan #132, published by Marvel Comics. Schultz inked over pencils by Val Semeiks. Schultz did not actively pursue further work from Marvel, as he was more interested in developing and publishing comics based on his own concepts. Throughout the early 1980s, Schultz would germinate the ideas which would eventually bear fruit as Xenozoic Tales. The characters and stories he created were set in a future time period he dubbed the "Xenozoic Age", in which an unspecified cataclysm had all but wiped out modern human society. The survivors emerged from their underground bunkers to find a world transformed, where prehistoric creatures had once again become the dominant life forms on Earth. The first story set in the Xenozoic Age that Schultz completed was "Mammoth Pitfall", but it would not see publication until Xenozoic Tales #2. The first to be published was "Xenozoic!", which ran in the anthology title Death Rattle #8, published in December 1986 by Kitchen Sink Press.
Since Xenozoic Tales, Schultz has written comics series for a number of publishers, including Dark Horse and DC. Typically these are stories based on company-owned or licensed characters, rather than his own original work.
Schultz created the underwater adventure comics series SubHuman, published by Dark Horse comics.
In 2002, Schultz contributed a number of illustrations to Conan the Cimmerian: Volume 1, a new reprinting of the Conan stories of Robert E. Howard, published by Wandering Star Books. The book has since been reprinted in paperback by Del Rey as The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian. He was also interviewed by Durwin Talon for Panel Discussions, a nonfiction book about the developing movement in sequential art and narrative literature, along with, Will Eisner, Walter Simonson and Mike Mignola.
Since November 1, 2004, he has been the writer for the long-running comic strip, Prince Valiant originally created by Hal Foster. He also wrote the two-issue intercompany crossover Aliens & Predator.
From 2005 to 2013, Schultz released a series of sketchbooks of his studies and finished works through [|Flesk] Publications, starting with Mark Schultz: Various Drawings in 5 volumes released from 2005 to 2011, followed by Mark Schultz: Carbon in 2013. Also with the publisher, he contributed with other artists to the graphic novel Flesk Prime in 2011, and in 2015 Schultz released an illustrated pulp noir/science fantasy adventure novella Storms at Sea.
In 2010, he wrote three issues of the series The Spirit, spinning-off of the First Wave limited series, intended to create a new universe of non-superpowered characters like Doc Savage, Batman, Black Canary, the Blackhawks, Wildcat, The Avenger, Rima the Jungle Girl and others.
In 2015, Schultz contributed, among other artists, to bring inner illustrations to the tabletop role-playing game Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of, first published in 2016 by British company Modiphius Entertainment.

Awards

Schultz has been awarded five Harvey Awards, two Eisners, an Inkpot, a Spectrum, and three Haxturs.

Kitchen Sink Press

  • Xenozoic Tales #1–14
  • * A short preview story titled "Xenozoic!" was published in Death Rattle #8
  • * All issues consisted of two to three short stories; starting with Xenozoic Tales #3, one of the stories in each issue featured art by Steve Stiles.
  • * The colorized versions of the first six issues of Xenozoic Tales were published under Marvel's Epic imprint as Cadillacs and Dinosaurs #1–6
  • * Kitchen Sink reprinted two short stories with added 3D effect as Cadillacs and Dinosaurs in 3-D
  • * A spin-off series, written by Roy Thomas and drawn by various artists — with Schultz acting as the consultant — was published by Topps as Cadillacs and Dinosaurs vol. 2 #1–9
  • * The original 14 issues of Xenozoic Tales and the short story from Death Rattle were collected by Flesk as Xenozoic
  • * The original artwork of Schultz-drawn stories from issues #9–14 was reproduced in a single volume as Xenozoic Tales: Artist's Edition
  • Melody #5
  • Images of Omaha #1: "Some Cats"
  • Death Rattle vol. 2 #1: "The Probability Chamber"
  • The Spirit: The New Adventures #4: "Dr. Broca Von Bitelbaum"
  • * Collected in Will Eisner's The Spirit Archives Volume 27
  • * Collected in ''Will Eisner's The Spirit: The New Adventures''

DC Comics

Dark Horse Comics

Flesk Publications

  • Mark Schultz: Various Drawings :
  • *Volume 1
  • *Volume 2
  • *Volume 3
  • *Volume 4
  • *Volume 5
  • *Portfolio: The Complete Various Drawings
  • Mark Schultz: Blue Book
  • Flesk Prime
  • Mark Schultz: Carbon :
  • *Volume 1
  • *Volume 2
  • *Volume 3
  • *Volume 4
  • *Volume 5
  • ''Storms at Sea''

Other publishers