Mike Manley

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Michael "Mike" Manley is a comic book artist, inker and penciller. He is best known for co-creating (with writers Danny Fingeroth and Tom DeFalco) the Marvel Comics character Darkhawk in 1991. He would go on to serve as the regular penciller of the Darkhawk series for the first half of its run.

He has also contributed to titles such as Batman, Quasar, Captain America, Marvel Universe, and The Power of Shazam!.

[edit] Biography

Manley was born in Detroit, Michigan. His powerful and expressive drawings, dynamic inks and strong story telling skills, have made him an in-demand artist for some of comic's top titles for all of the major publishers from Marvel, DC to Dark Horse. Working in animation as a storyboard and background designer from his home in Philadelphia, Mike's worked as part of the Emmy Award winning team of artists who produced the highly successful Kids WB shows The New Batman/Superman Adventures and Batman Beyond receiving an Emmy Award Certificate.

He has also worked on Spy Groove for MTV, Spawn for HBO, and ABC's One Saturday Morning, and Clerks: The Animated Series, based on the Kevin Smith movie. Manley is currently working for Warner Brothers as a character designer.

In 1995, Manley formed Action Planet Inc. as a home to publish his own comics and ideas, starting with the anthology Action Planet Comics, featuring his character Monsterman. Manley has been on the web since early 1996 with his web site Action Planet.com, which has grown to include Mike's award winning on-line web comic, G.I.R.L. Patrol.

In 1996 Manley moved into the animation field, first working as a storyboard artist on the Superman cartoon for Kids WB. His first episode featured Lobo, titled, "The Main Man". Manley went on to do storyboards for Batman, background designs on Batman Beyond. Jumping back and forth between comics and animation Manley created and edited Draw! Magazine, the twice Eisner nominated "How-to" magazine PUBLISHED MY TWOMORROWS Publishing. The magazine feature step-by-step demos and articles on artist working in comics, catooning and animation. Draw! has been reprinted in a series of "Best of" volumes, currently on it's third volume. Manley also co-produced a how-to DVD along with Danny Fingeroth "How to Creat Comics from Script to Print" distributed by Twomorrows.

Manleye continued to freelance storyboard on TV cartoons such as Samurai Jack, (receiving a writing credit) Kim Possible, Tarzan, Fairly Odd Parents, The Venture Brothers, Growing up Creepie and recently The Secret Saturdays.

IN 2000 Manley started a new career as an art teacher and currently teaches in the animation dept at DCAD (Delaware College of Art and Design) and is a senior lecturer at Uarts in Philadelphia. 1n 2007 Manley illustrated a new Secret Agent Corrigan story for the publisher Egmont in Finland. Manley is currently enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts finishing his BFA in Painting.