Both Marvel Comics and DC Comics include many of Cassaday's iconic images in their marketing, and in their art and poster book collections. Marvel Comics-based animated films have made extensive use of his art. He received multiple Eagle and Eisner Awards and nominations for his work.
Early life
Johnny Mac Cassaday was born on December 14, 1971, in Fort Worth, Texas.[4] A self-taught illustrator, Cassaday listed his influences as, among others, NC Wyeth,[5][6] classic pulp magazine-culture iconography, and popular music.[7] Cassaday studied film in school, calling it "an equal passion to comics."[4]
Career
Comics
Cassaday directed television news in Texas for five years before moving to New York. He spent one summer working a construction job while working on his portfolio in prepration for San Diego Comic-Con.[8][9]
In 1994 Cassaday broke into the comic book industry with a one-page illustration and a short story for Boneyard Press.[4]
In 1996, at San Diego Comic-Con, Cassaday showed his portfolio to popular comic book writer and editor Mark Waid, who recommended him to writer Jeff Mariotte, with whom Cassaday would create the series Desperadoes, a Weird West series that was published from 1997 - 2002. Waid recalled, "I refuse to take any real credit for 'discovering' John Cassaday. I can't take credit for having functioning eyeballs."[4] Soon after, Cassaday began receiving job offers from bigger publishers. He quit his construction job and left Texas for New York.[4][10]
In 1999, Cassaday and writer Warren Ellis created Planetary for WildStorm Productions. Relating the manner in which the episodic series would feature different settings in each issue, Ellis, recalled in 2024, "John said he'd love to try a monthly series, but hated the idea of having to draw the same thing every issue." To this end, the stories revolved around concepts as diverse as Doc Savage analogues, an island of monsters reminiscent of Japanese kaiju films, the ghost of a murdered Chinese police officer, and a doppelgänger of Marilyn Monroe who was subjected to scientific experiments by the government. Cassaday's covers for the series were designed like movie posters, with the book's logo reimaginzed for each issue. He also modeled the character Drummer after himself.[4]
He based his cover art on World War II propaganda posters. Marvel released the covers in a series of poster art books. He has also created covers for comic books featuring The Phantom, for US publisher Moonstone Books and the European Egmont, as well as covers for Joss Whedon's Firefly spinoff comic Serenity: Those Left Behind, and Guy Ritchie's Gamekeeper. He handled covers and art direction on Dynamite Entertainment's The Lone Ranger comic-book series. Books featuring his art include Wizard's PosterMania!, Women of Marvel Poster Book, Wolverine Poster Book, New Avengers Poster Book, three editions of the Captain America Poster Book, and DC Comics Covergirls. In 1999, he provided black-and-white interior illustrations for the novel Gen13: Netherwar, by Christopher Golden and Jeff Mariotte, published by Ace Books.
From 2004 to 2008, Cassaday illustrated the graphic novel trilogy Je suis légion by Fabien Nury from Les Humanoïdes Associés. The English language edition was published as an eight issue comic series I Am Legion by Devil's Due Publishing.[12] In July 2006, Humanoïdes announced a co-production deal with Pierre Spengler for a screen adaptation of the work.[13] At the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, it was announced that the three picture series would be directed by Nacho Cerda with a screenplay by Richard Stanley.[14]
Cassaday wrote stories for Hellboy: Weird Tales, Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream, Rocketeer Adventures, X-Men: Alpha Flight, Bela Lugosi: Takes from the Grave, and Union Jack. He also wrote drawing instruction articles for Wizard Magazine's Wizard: How to Draw.
John Cassaday appeared in the Captain America 75th Anniversary television special on ABC in January 2016.[15] That same year he provided the art on the Captain America special anniversary issue.[16] and re-teamed with Joss Whedon on a story featuring Sam Wilson in Captain America: Sam Wilson #7.[17]
Cassaday headlined the highly successful 2015 Star Wars revival at Marvel Comics.[18] The book became the #1 selling comic for 2015. According to Forbes magazine, it was the top-selling comic of the last 20 years,[19] having sold approximately one million copies.[4][20]
Film and television
Work
Cassaday's art appeared in an episode of HBO First Look, a 2003 documentary about the making of the Daredevil film.[21]
In 2009, the Astonishing X-Men animated DVD series was adapted as a motion comic from Cassaday's art for the comic book series written by Joss Whedon.[23]
Cassaday directed "The Attic", the December 18, 2009 episode of the television series Dollhouse, which aired as the tenth episode of that series' second season.[24][25]
Cassaday himself appeared in a Wizard World-sponsored documentary in 2002. He also appeared in Generation X: The Comic Book History of the X-Men, a 2006 DVD documentary about the X-Men franchise.
In addition to penciling and inking his interior comics pages, Cassaday did his cover work in ink and charcoal, working with frequent collaborator Laura Martin, who digitally colored most of his covers. He credited the challenges of working on complicated books like Planetary with making him a better artist.[27]
Cassaday died from cardiac arrest in a Manhattan hospital on September 9, 2024, at the age of 52.[4][2] He was survived by his mother and a sister, Robin Cassaday, his father having died of cancer in 1990.[4]
Awards
Wins
2005Eisner Award for Best Penciller/Inker for Astonishing X-Men, Planetary, and I Am Legion: The Dancing Faun (tied with illustrator Frank Quitely)
