Mark Bagley

Mark Bagley is an American comic book artist.

Born in Frankfurt Germany, 1957 Mark broke into comics when he won the pencilling division of a 1980sMarvel Try out Book contest,mark got to visit the offices at Marvel and the last Editor he met, gave him something to draw.

In 1991 Mark began his lengthy run on the flagship title The Amazing Spider-Man with longtime writer David Michelinie. He succeded popular artists Todd McFarlane and Erik Larsen. He originally thought he'd be given the book after Todd McFarlane, but it was given to Erik Larsen instead. In an interview with Tom DeFalco, Mark said that he met with Erik Larsen and Erik showed him what he was doing wrong. At the time, Mark wanted to clock him, but he took the advice to heart and drew the visually stunning artwork that could be seen in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man.

After his Spider-Man run, Mark moved on to collaborate with writer Kurt Busiek on the Thunderbolts book. This was a team of Supervillains turned Superhero.

After his time on the Thunderbolts, Mark was ready to leave Marvel Comics when he was called to do Ultimate Spider-Man with Brian Michael Bendis. Originally a six issue mini series,half way through the series,Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada decided to make it an ongoing series. Mark didn't really want to do the book, acknowledging the success of John Byrne's Spider-Man: Chapter One but once he saw issue one and how well it had been done, he decided to stay on. The collaboration worked well, Brian Michael Bendis thought that Mark had stolen his life though, because he had also tried to get into Marvel Comics via the tryout book, but whilst Mark got in, Bendis didn't.

To this day, Mark Bagley continues to do Ultimate Spider-Man, his work being displayed on every Spider-Man toy cup or plate.

External links

• The Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators