Thursday, April 26, 2007

NICK CARDY!!!


Mr. Cardy is one of the greatest comic book _and_ comic strip artists of our time, having illustrated for both of these ends of the comic art field, as well as having a long career designing movie posters.
Born with the name Nicholas Viscardi, Nick has drawn his comic book material under the name Cardy, and his non-comics work as Cardi.
(continues after legal business)
AQUAMAN BY NICK CARDY
(C) COPYRIGHT DC COMICS
THANKS TO DC HISTORY @
YAHOOGROUPS.COM

Cardy's syndicated strip work includes assisting the great Will Eisner in his studio, and producing LADY LUCK as a companion feature for Eisner's "The Spirit Section, as well as producing art for the series TARZAN and CASEY RUGGLES, and writer Sean Menard and Mr. Cardy have recently released a book with a generous, annotated compilation of these and other strips, that is now available. I will be posting the title of that book once I can doublecheck it.
Cardy's work for comic books includes drawing the series DANIEL BOONE, AQUAMAN, BAT LASH, TEEN TITANS,
THE BRAVE & THE BOLD, and literally _hundreds_ of covers for DC COMICS, as well as drawing material for MARVEL COMICS' CRAZY Magazine, and other pieces for that company.
Recent years have seen continuous interest in the work of this master illustrator, and his career has been covered in depth in a number of places, but I want to give you my own spin on Mr. Cardy's work.
I first encountered Nick Cardy's work in the pages of both TEEN TITANS and AQUAMAN, but I am not sure which came first for me.
I was so taken with the "accessibility" of the characters Nick drew, they were so real to me, at about the age of eight, and I knew that I would follow Nick's career as long as I could.
My young eyes saw Aquaman's teen ally, Aqualad, as a symbol for what I could be, under the right circumstances, and I even had the vague notion at my tender age, that I could some day become a hero like Aquaman, of course, that was a silly notion of childhood, but childhood hopes are what make us the adults we later become, and allow us to establish our own identities and our character, and virtues.
It was easy, then, to let the escapist fare of the comic book world mold what would become both my vocation and avocation in later years, and I owe Mr. Cardy a great debt for that, even though he'd never know it.
I met Mr. Cardy's former agent, the late Walter Lawrence, at a comic book convention in Boston, MA. a number of years ago, and was disappointed that Nick was not with him. I was able to purchase several items from Mr. Lawrence, some TEEN TITANS, BAT LASH, and AQUAMAN pages, all wonderful elements of my small, private, comic book museum. I may also have picked up a page from THE BRAVE & THE BOLD then, but that may have been bought at another time.
In any case, Cardy's work, then, and now, "spoke" to me in a very special way.

additions and edits and much more to follow!!!

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