by Nick - 04.12.06
Joe Madureria’s story is a crazy one that comic fans saw fully played out before them in the 90’s. Joe Mad (as he became known as) burst onto the comic scene and pretty much blew everything else out of the water. His anime influence, over the top anatomy and great sense of motion were a big change from what other comic artists were doing at the time.
He took over pencilling duties of X-Men and gained a huge fan base. Mad then went on to create his own comic called Battle Chasers. This is when things went a little crazy. Battle Chasers started seeing delay after delay and reports were that Mad was too busy playing PS1 games to draw anymore.
And that is basically true. Mad ended up leaving comics and instead jumped on board with some game development studios doing concept work. Almost all of the games that he has worked on thus far have been canned.
As for Mad’s work as a comic artist, I have to say that back in the day I loved his stuff. I’m not huge of anime style in comics (I do like some manga, like Lone Wolf, Akira and other more classic styles) but I always loved Mad’s character designs and sense of action. Eventually, as with most, I fell out of favor with the man due to his seemingly lacsidasical work ethic. Regardless, I still find that some of his old work holds up pretty well.
In more recent news though, Mad is coming back to comics. Mad will be taking over the uber successful Ultimates comics for season three after Brian Hitch leaves. His character designs look great and his style looks to have matured over the years. I’m very curious to see how the dramatic shift in art styles works with the new Ultimates.
