ACT-I-VATRIX ...
BIOGRAPHY
ACT-I-VATRIX serves up exclusive previews, specials, and guest comix.
THOMAS BAEHR
BIOGRAPHY
Born and raised in Germany, Thomas Baehr currently lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife. Working in advertising and social management, he has also become a published comic artist, illustrator and cartoonist who’s work has appeared in both Europe and the US. In addition to art Thomas has created his own Punk Rock with various bands, but most recently with his solo project “deus le volt!”.
“The End is Here” is Thomas’ first graphic novel and is based on his comic strip “Pole”, which he created in 2005 and published regularly since in various magazines.
"The End is Here" is now available as a tradeback.
NICK BERTOZZI
BIOGRAPHY
Nick Bertozzi grew up in and around Providence, Rhode Island, has lived in Philadelphia and Madrid and currently lives in Queens, NY with his wife and daughters. He received a Xeric Grant and multiple Harvey Awards and Ignatz Awards for his smart and human cartooning. He is the author of THE SALON, a graphic novel about Picasso, the discovery of Cubism, and magical absinthe from St. Martin's Press. He collaborated with Jason Lutes on the graphic novel HOUDINI: THE HANDCUFF KING, the first of Hyperion/CCS's cartoon-biographies. He's hard at work on a cartoon biography of LENNY BRUCE for Houghton-Mifflin, written by Harvey Pekar as well as drawing Glen (the Colbert Report) Eichler's STUFFED! for First/Second. For the past several years he has been teaching cartooning at NYC's School of Visual Arts and taught at RISD in 2008.
PEDRO CAMARGO
BIOGRAPHY
After graduating from the School of Visual Arts in New York with a cartooning degree, I was invited to join ACT-I-VATE, despite the lack of any published works or awards...so what you see here is pretty much all you'll be able to find of my work.
That's about it for me...
Except for of course, I also totally fight dinosaurs and wizards on a daily basis, cause I'm just that awesome.
Also, I'm part robot.
...from space.
MIKE CAVALLARO
BIOGRAPHY
Brooklyn by way of New Jersey. I studied at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon Art, and then worked in comics and animation at DC Comics, Valiant Comics, Milestone, Image, BOOM! Studios, MTV Animation, Cartoon Network and others.
I'm currently working on various projects, including a graphic novel entitled "FOILED" with author Jane Yolen for FIRST SECOND BOOKS.
KEVIN COLDEN
BIOGRAPHY
Kevin Colden is the Xeric-winning author of Fishtown, to be released in book form from IDW Publishing in late 2008. He is a founding member of The Chemistry Set webcomics collective. His work has appeared on DC Comics’ ZudaComics.com and is also on display in the permanent collection at MoCCA.
He lives in New York City with his wife (cartoonist Miss Lasko-Gross) where he works in comics, music, film and video.
MOLLY CRABAPPLE
BIOGRAPHY
Professional draw-er with entrepreneurial tendencies and a big yap. Likes caffeine, money, audacious plans, DIY Imperialism, people who study arabic.
DARRYL CUNNINGHAM
BIOGRAPHY
British Artist Darryl Cunningham is the creator of the web-comics, 'Super-Sam and John-of-the-Night' and 'The Streets of San Diablo'. A prolific Cartoonist, sculptor and photographer. Darryl's work can also be found at his blog and flickr page.
MIKE DAWSON
BIOGRAPHY
Mike Dawson is the author of FREDDIE & ME: A COMING-OF-AFE (BOHEMIAN) RHAPSODY, a memoir about his lifelong obsession with the band Queen, which Entertainment Weekly called "Rawkin'" and "Undeniably contagious".
His second book, a collection of short stories called ACE-FACE: THE MOD WITH THE METAL ARMS, is published by AdHouse books.
ANDREW DIMITT
BIOGRAPHY
Andrew Dimitt lives in Madison, Wisconsin, where he writes and draws when he's not puffing the magic dragon.
JIM DOUGAN
BIOGRAPHY
Jim is a comic writer hailing from the Hudson Valley hamlet of Millbrook, NY, and currently lives in Washington, DC. His best-known work in comics is the comedy graphic novella CRAZY PAPERS, drawn by Danielle Corsetto. Jim is a founding member of the comics collective The Chemistry Set, and the editor of the first ChemSet anthology collection "NO FORMULA", coming in August 2008 from Desperado Publishing. In whatever time he has left over from creating comics, he works as an economics consultant, hangs out with his awesome wife Rachel, and cheers for DC United.
RAMI EFAL
BIOGRAPHY
The Israeli born artist studied at Bezalel, Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem and at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. His previous credits include storyboards on Speed Racer: The Next generation, Three Delivery and Kappa Mikey on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, 24/Seven for Image Comics and Styx Taxi for FWD Press. His paintings were exhibited in galleries in New York and Europe and featured in numerous international magazines. Rami is a member of the web-comic collective Act-i-vate, a board member of The Ink Well, Non-profit organization of artists for children in hospitals, and a member of The Dialog Project of Jews and Palestinians. He lives and works in New York City.
ULISES FARINAS
BIOGRAPHY
Ulises was born in NJ, but now lives in NY. He is a college drop-out of the School of Visual Arts, loves hip-hop, and writing encyclopedic fiction.
MICHEL FIFFE
BIOGRAPHY
Michel Fiffe is the creator of "ZEGAS", "PANORAMA" and "FUT MISO". He has worked on the mini-series "BRAWL", frequent issues of "Negative Burn", "Fall of Cthulhu" for Boom! Studios, and was a contributor to Smith Magazine's "Next Door Neighbor" Project.
MAURICE FONTENOT
BIOGRAPHY
Born and raised in Southern California, I moved to the east coast to attend the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon Art. After graduating, I went on to Write, Color and Edit at Valiant Comics. Storyboarding and Design work was my next stop at places like Disney, MTV, Cartoon Network, 4Kids, World Leaders, Scholastic and PSYOP. I currently pencil Cartoon Network Action Pack for DC Comics. live in Brooklyn.
SIMON FRASER
BIOGRAPHY
Simon Fraser is a Scottish Comics Artist living in Brooklyn NY.
Best known as the Co-Creator of "Nikolai Dante" with Writer Robbie Morrison , for "2000AD". For whome he also drew 'Judge Dredd','Shimura' and 'The Family'.He drew "Lux & Alby" for Writer Martin Millar, 'Richard Matheson's HELLHOUSE' for IDW and many other things for many other people.
Simon likes searching for his own work on Amazon.
DAN GOLDMAN
BIOGRAPHY
Dan is a writer/artist whose work has appeared in Time, GQ, New York Magazine, Forbes and Wired.
Known for his Eisner-nominated web-to-print comic SHOOTING WAR, he is a frequent speaker on both digital comic processes and online distribution.
His latest graphic novel, the nonfiction 08: A GRAPHIC DIARY OF THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL was recently archived in the New York Historical Society's permanent collection.
He lives in New York City.
TIM HALL
BIOGRAPHY
Multimedia writer and journalist Tim Hall has been a champion of indie and DIY comics since 1995, when he first began publishing such future stars as Dean Haspiel, Josh Neufeld, Nick Bertozzi, and Sam Henderson (and many others) as part of the New York Hangover newspaper. His stories have since been put into comics form by Rami Efal, Josh Simmons, Michel Fiffe, and as part of Nick Bertozzi's award-winning Rubber Necker series. He is excited to take his writing to a new level at ACT-I-VATE with "Uplift The Positivicals," a freeform column of stories rendered as text images. His most recent novel, FULL OF IT: The Birth, Death, and Life of an Underground Newspaper was called a "Best of 2008" by literary journal decomP and features wicked cool cover art by ACT-I-VATE co-founder Dean Haspiel. Tim lives in a small town in northern Illinois with his wife and son.
TIM HAMILTON
BIOGRAPHY
Tim Hamilton has been drawing comics since the 80's when he teamed with Gerard Jones on,"The Trouble with Girls." Since then he's produced comics such as Aliens, Comic's Greatest World, Justice league Europe and Green Lantern." Clients have included Marvel, DC Comics, BOOM, Darkhorse, Malibu and Defiant comics. He regularly writes and illustrates humorous comics for Nickelodeon Magazine, recently adapted "Treasure Island" into a graphic novel for Puffin and is now busy illustrating a Ray Bradbury GN for Hill & Wang.
TOM HART
BIOGRAPHY
Tom Hart is creator of Hutch Owen graphic novels and comic strips, critically acclaimed by The Comics Journal, Time.com, Publishers Weekly and the Library Journal.
He has taught for 8 years at School of Visual Arts, and in that time has taught at Parsons, Education Alliance, Young Audiences, the 92nd St Y and numerous places across the country and all over New York City.
Read more about the Barney Banks project here: http://hutchowen.blogspot.com/search/label/barney%20banks
DEAN HASPIEL
BIOGRAPHY
Dean Haspiel is the creator of the Eisner Award nominated, BILLY DOGMA, and the webcomix collective, ACT-I-VATE, and the creator/editor of Smith Magazine's NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR anthology. He has drawn superheroes for Marvel and DC Comics and Pulitzer Prize winning, Michael Chabon's THE ESCAPIST. Best known for his collaborations with Harvey Pekar on AMERICAN SPLENDOR and THE QUITTER, the Fall of 2008 saw the release of THE ALCOHOLIC [Vertigo], his original graphic novel collaboration with author Jonathan Ames, and MO & JO, a children's comic book collaboration with underground legend, Jay Lynch, for Francoise Mouly's TOON BOOKS series from Raw Jr. In the summer of 2008, Dean launched STREET CODE, a new, semi-autobio webcomic series for Zuda. Dean also wrote/drew SNOW DOPE for The NY Times "Proof" blog and "Bzzt" for SMITH Magazine's NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR.
Dean is currently illustrating, CUBA - MY REVOLUTION, his next Vertigo collaboration with painter/writer, Inverna Lockpez, while providing original cartoons and illustrations to Jonathan Ames' HBO series, BORED TO DEATH.
Dean is also a founding member of DEEP6 Studios in Gowanus, Brooklyn. You can contact Dean: dean.haspiel[at]verizon.net
JENNIFER HAYDEN
BIOGRAPHY
Jennifer is a politically incorrect mother of two. She lives in a barn in New Jersey with her husband, two kids, four cats and the dog. As a child, she spent every summer sprawled on the couch, reading the Archies. Now that wise investment is paying off. She is working on a graphic novel about her life and her encounter with breast cancer, to be published by Top Shelf. You can read a preview at the link below.
JOE INFURNARI
BIOGRAPHY
Joe Infurnari was born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. After completing his Honours BFA at McMaster University, he was seduced south of the border to pursue graduate study at Yale University's Painting and Printmaking Program.
Now living in Brooklyn, he delights in spitting in the eyes of his professors by pursuing a career in the funny books. His first published work garnered him a slot in Comic Book Idol 2 and in 2005 he won Oni Press's Talent Search. Since then, he has published with Marvel Comics Online, Oni Press, Ape Entertainment and Tetragrammatron Press . Joe has upcoming stories in the Next-Door Neighbor series on Smith Magazine as well as an upcoming Three Rivers/Random House anthology. Most recently, he has been honored with an Eisner Award nomination for his webcomic, 'the Process'.
KEVIN KOBASIC
BIOGRAPHY
Kevin Kobasic started life as a Marvel hack in the early 90's, and managed to singlehandedly bury DEATHLOK, RAI, and MAGNUS ROBOT FIGHTER all in the space of a few years. Since then he's done animation design for Cartoon Network and a ton of storyboards for Madison Avenue. With BEANBOTS he hopes to prove conclusively that kids really do say the darndest things. He lives in New York with his wife and two daughters, who really need to stop feeding him so much material so he can get back to his paying work.
SETH KUSHNER
BIOGRAPHY
Seth Kushner’s photography work has appeared in such magazines as The New York Times Magazine, BusinessWeek, Newsweek, Time, L’Uomo Vogue, and in galleries around the world. His book, The Brooklynites, (powerHouse Books, 2007) was considered ”a terrific coffee table photo/interview book” by The New York Times. Aside from living out his dream of writing a graphic novel based on his Schmucky past, he is working on Leaping Tall Buildings, a book profiling NYC cartoonists. Seth also co-created and co-edits the comics journalism website, GRAPHIC NYC (www.NYCGraphicNovelists.com). Recently, Seth co-directed the “promo-mentary” film, (with Carlos Molina) The ACT-I-VATE Experience.
Seth was born, bred and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY, with his wife Terra, his newborn son, Jackson, and way too many comics.
Read Seth's ACT-I-VATE webcomic, SCHMUCK - http://activatecomix.com/97.comic
ROGER LANGRIDGE
BIOGRAPHY
Roger Langridge grew up in New Zealand and started drawing comics at the age of six. Along the way he got better at it, and moved to London in 1990 to try and convince people to give him good money for doing it. He's still waiting.
Roger lives in London with his wife Sylvie and their children Thomas and Tamsin, who have only the vaguest idea what their father does for a living.
MISS LASKO-GROSS
BIOGRAPHY
Miss Lasko-Gross is the author and illustrator of Fantagraphics Books: A Mess Of Everything (the follow up to Escape From "Special" which was nominated for YALSA's 2008 Great Graphic Novels) Her art was recently featured in Smith Magazine's Next Door Neighbor series. She is a proud member of House Of Twelve and a regular contributor to all their endeavors. Say hi to her on facebook or visit misslaskogross.com
JOHN LEAVITT
BIOGRAPHY
John Leavitt is a cartoonist, writer, illustrator, the co-creator and author of BACKSTAGE [with artist Molly Crabapple]*. His cartoons and illustrations have appeared in: The New Yorker, The Chronicle Review, The New York Press, The Common Review, The Journal Of Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many other really, really impressive places.
*He is also a Libra
JASON LITTLE
BIOGRAPHY
Jason Little was born in 1970 and raised in Binghamton, New York. He studied photography at Oberlin College, and now resides in Brooklyn with writer Myla Goldberg and their two daughters. He has been drawing cartoons since he was a child. In addition to Shutterbug Follies and Motel Art Improvement Service, he has also written and illustrated the Xeric Award-winning Jack's Luck Runs Out, as well as a number of short works for various cartoon anthologies.
PAUL MAYBURY
BIOGRAPHY
Paul Maybury is an Award winning artist living in Austin Texas. His work can be seen in various top selling Image anthologies, and he is the co creator and artist of Aqua Leung.
JOSH NEUFELD
BIOGRAPHY
Josh Neufeld's comics about his travel experiences in Southeast Asia and Central Europe are told in the Xeric Award-winning graphic novel A Few Perfect Hours. Pantheon will be releasing A.D: New Orleans After the Deluge, a true story about Hurricane Katrina (originally serialized on SMITH Magazine), this summer.
He is the creator of the comic book The Vagabonds, and co-creator of both Keyhole and Titans of Finance: True Tales of Money and Business. Josh is a long-time artist for Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor and has contributed to many comics anthologies.
JEFF NEWELT
BIOGRAPHY
Jeff Newelt AKA JahFurry is ACT-I-VATE's Minister of Hype,SMITH Magazine's comics editor, HEEB Magazine comics editor, and a social media / PR consultant for The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, Paul Pope, Rick Veitch, Larry Marder, David Lloyd, DKNY Jeans, Cut&Paste + other comics / cultural / new media superheroes. JahFurry also regularly performs freestyle dancehall reggae dittinanigans with various uberkiller dub, jazz, klezmer and blues ensembles.
HYEONDO PARK
BIOGRAPHY
Hyeondo Park born January 4th,1982. He holds a bachelors degree in Cartooning from the School of Visual Arts and his biography is a work in progress.
-biography inspired by Wonderfalls.
PAUL PEART-SMITH
BIOGRAPHY
London based artist/writer Paul Peart-Smith has been drawing for the last 16 years and couldn't imagine life any other way. His first published work appeared in the top selling UK anthology 2000ad. He's created character design for clients such as Jim Henson's workshop and Sony Entertainment among others. Comics however have an unnatural hold on his soul.
Paul is married to costume designer Yolanda and together they spawned a small monster named Jet. Oh, and they've all been adopted by Minxy the cat. Never forget The Minxy.
WARREN PLEECE
BIOGRAPHY
Born to scribble, co-creator with brother Gary of British underground comic Velocity and artist for numerous DC Vertigo titles including True Faith, Hellblazer and Deadenders. Latest books include the graphic novels Life Sucks (First Second Books) and Incognegro (DC Vertigo). Montague Terrace is a new, ongoing monster of a series and what you're seeing here is just the tip of the iceberg.
I live in Brighton by the English seaside.
LELAND PURVIS
BIOGRAPHY
In recent history major works include VOX, a black-and-white anthology for which he received a Xeric Grant, a creator-owned limited series published through Dark Horse called PUBO, and the rendering of a 240 page comics biography of the physicist Niels Bohr called SUPSPENDED IN LANGUAGE, written and published by Jim Ottaviani. Current projects include graphic novels for First Second and Simon&Schuster/Alladin due out in 2008 and 2009.
KAT ROBERTS
BIOGRAPHY
Kat Roberts, originally from North Carolina, now lives happily in Brooklyn. Her comics have appeared in Roctober, SMITH Magazine and the comix anthology Negative Burn, where she's a frequent contributor. Kat is also member of XOXO Studios in Gowanus, Brooklyn.
Aside from lots of drawing and painting, Kat spends her time working as a handbag designer, teaching footwear at FIT and repetitively watching Beat Street with her dance crazed daughter, Ophelia.
RYAN ROMAN
BIOGRAPHY
Ryan Roman is the creator behind such great failed works as The Lil' Racists, Kid Zero, Sleazy Pizza, and is currently enjoying working on his greatest failing, Love & Zombies.
Ryan lives in Jersey City with his boyfriend of 8 years, Jonathan, their dogs Brody and Max, and their two kids, Dave and Mike Z..
Ryan also works as a photographer. He's pretty damn good at it.
NATHAN SCHREIBER
BIOGRAPHY
Hailing from Clocktown, U.S.A., Nathan has worked for both Cartoon Network and Tiger Toys, designed hundreds of pairs of women's underwear, and run a gallery in the South Bronx. Power Out is his first full-length graphic novel.
JENNIFER TONG
BIOGRAPHY
SHANNON WHEELER
BIOGRAPHY
Running wild with an unused degree in Architecture, Shannon Wheeler lives in Portland OR where he cartoons for magazines such as the New Yorker and the Onion. He's best known for his creation Too Much Coffee Man.
