Nate Powell

Last updated
Nate Powell
Nate Powell at Stumptown Comics Fest 2012 (7123337613) (cropped).jpg
Powell at the 2012 Stumptown Comics Fest
Born (1978-07-31) July 31, 1978 (age 44)
Little Rock, Arkansas
NationalityAmerican
Area(s) Cartoonist, Writer, Penciller, Inker, Publisher, Letterer, Colourist
Notable works
March
Any Empire
Swallow Me Whole
The Silence Of Our Friends
Awards Ignatz Award, 2008 & 2009
Eisner Award, 2009
National Book Award, 2016
Inkpot Award, 2017 [1]
http://seemybrotherdance.org

Nathan Lee Powell (born 1978) is an American graphic novelist and musician. His 2008 graphic novel Swallow Me Whole won an Ignatz Award and Eisner Award for Best Original Graphic Novel. He illustrated the March trilogy, an autobiographical series written by U.S. Congressman John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, which received the 2016 National Book Award, making Powell the first cartoonist to receive the award. [2]

Contents

Early life

Powell was born July 31, 1978 in Little Rock, Arkansas. [3] The child of an Air Force officer, Powell's family moved often, living in Montana and Alabama before returning to Little Rock. Powell attended North Little Rock High School and began self-publishing comics in 1992. That same year he founded the punk rock band Soophie Nun Squad with high school friends. [2]

He graduated from 1996, and briefly attended George Washington University in Washington, DC. He transferred to the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City, where he majored in Cartooning. Beginning in 2005, while at SVA, he would send Chris Staros and Brett Warnock, the founders of Top Shelf Productions, copies of every book he made. [4] He graduated in 2000 after receiving the Outstanding Cartooning Student award and the Shakespeare & Company Books Self-Publishing Grant, with which he funded the first issue of Walkie Talkie.[ citation needed ]

Career

Powell owned DIY punk record label Harlan Records and performed in several punk bands including Universe, Divorce Chord, WAIT, and Soophie Nun Squad.[ citation needed ]

From 1999 to 2009, he worked as a caregiver for adults with developmental disabilities. [5]

His 2008 graphic novel Swallow Me Whole won the Ignatz Award for Outstanding Debut and Outstanding Artist, and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the Young Adult Fiction category. It received the 2009 Eisner Award for Best Original Graphic Novel, and was also nominated for Best Writer/Artist and Best Lettering.[ citation needed ]

In the early 2010s, Powell learned that Top Shelf would be publishing March , an autobiographical graphic novel trilogy about the life of civil rights leader and United States Congressman John Lewis, which had already been written by Lewis and his colleague, Andrew Aydin. A few weeks later, Powell was contacted by Chris Staros, who suggested he try out for the assignment. Although he already had other projects lined up, Powell sent some demo pages to Lewis and Aydin, who over the course of their subsequent correspondence realized that Powell would be well-suited for the job. Although Powell had illustrated stories that were "true to life," such as the 2012 graphic Silence of our Friends, this would be the first time he would depict real-life historical figures, 300 of which Powell estimates are rendered in total in the trilogy. The scene in which Lewis meets Martin Luther King Jr. for the first time was the first page Powell drew for March, and although he found approaching that page difficult, says it made subsequent depictions of real-life people easier. Powell's approach was to develop a visual shorthand for each real person he had to draw, in the form of a "master drawing" to act as a reference template for that person's features, one that emphasized the person's skull structure, in lieu of referring constantly to photo reference in the course of the project, so that the characters would not look "too stale or photo-derived." He employed lifestyle and illustration books from the 1950s and 1960s, as well as Google searches, to depict fashion and automobiles of given time periods accurately. Lewis says he found Powell's renditions of scenes from his early life "very moving." [4] Top Shelf published March Book One in November 2013.

Powell has worked on the graphic novel adaptation of Rick Riordan's The Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Hero , while working on his own next book, entitled Cover and the short comics collection You Don't Say.[ citation needed ]

On May 15, 2014, Powell was present at that year's commencement ceremony for his alma mater, the School of Visual Arts, when the school presented an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts to Powell's March collaborator, John Lewis. The second volume of March was scheduled for January 2015 release. [6]

Personal life

Powell lived intermittently in central Arkansas, while calling East Lansing, Michigan; South Hadley Falls, Massachusetts; and Providence, Rhode Island, home from 2001 to 2003.[ citation needed ] He married Rachel Lee Bormann, a social worker, in 2010, and the couple lives in Bloomington, Indiana, with their two daughters. [7] [8]

Awards

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eddie Campbell</span> British comics artist and cartoonist

Eddie Campbell is a British comics artist and cartoonist who now lives in Chicago. Probably best known as the illustrator and publisher of From Hell, Campbell is also the creator of the semi-autobiographical Alec stories collected in Alec: The Years Have Pants, and Bacchus, a wry adventure series about the few Greek gods who have survived to the present day.

An autobiographical comic is an autobiography in the form of comic books or comic strips. The form first became popular in the underground comix movement and has since become more widespread. It is currently most popular in Canadian, American and French comics; all artists listed below are from the U.S. unless otherwise specified.

The Ignatz Awards recognize outstanding achievements in comics and cartooning by small press creators or creator-owned projects published by larger publishers. They have been awarded each year at the Small Press Expo since 1997, only skipping a year in 2001 due to the show's cancellation after the September 11 attacks. As of 2014 SPX has been held in either Bethesda, North Bethesda, or Silver Spring, Maryland.

<i>Blankets</i> (comics) 2003 graphic novel

Blankets is an autobiographical graphic novel by Craig Thompson, published in 2003 by Top Shelf Productions. As a coming-of-age autobiography, the book tells the story of Thompson's childhood in an Evangelical Christian family, his first love, and his early adulthood. The book was widely acclaimed, with Time magazine ranking it #1 in its 2003 Best Comics list, and #8 in its Best Comics of the Decade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Craig Thompson</span> American graphic novelist

Craig Matthew Thompson is an American graphic novelist best known for his books Good-bye, Chunky Rice (1999), Blankets (2003), Carnet de Voyage (2004), Habibi (2011), and Space Dumplins (2015). Thompson has received four Harvey Awards, three Eisner Awards, and two Ignatz Awards. In 2007, his cover design for the Menomena album Friend and Foe received a Grammy nomination for Best Recording Package.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alex Robinson</span> American cartoonist and podcaster

Alex Robinson is an American comic book writer and artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Top Shelf Productions</span> American comic publishing company

Top Shelf Productions is an American publishing company founded in 1997, originally owned and operated by Chris Staros and Brett Warnock and a small staff. Now an imprint of IDW Publishing, Top Shelf is based in Marietta, Georgia.

Scott Morse is an American animator, filmmaker, and comic book artist/writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Renée French</span> American comics writer and illustrator

Renée French is an American comics writer and illustrator and, under the pen name Rainy Dohaney, a children's book author, and exhibiting artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dean Haspiel</span> American comics writer/artist

Dean Edmund Haspiel is an American comic book artist, writer, and playwright. He is known for creating Billy Dogma, The Red Hook, and for his collaborations with writer Harvey Pekar on his American Splendor series as well as the graphic novel The Quitter, and for his collaborations with Jonathan Ames on The Alcoholic and HBO's Bored to Death. He has been nominated for numerous Eisner Awards, and won a 2010 Emmy Award for TV design work.

<i>Owly</i> American childrens graphic novel series

Owly is an American children's graphic novel series created since 2004 by Andy Runton and published by Top Shelf Productions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Staros</span>

Chris Staros is the Editor-in-Chief of the graphic novel publishing company Top Shelf Productions, and also does comics mentoring for aspiring comics professionals at www.chrisstaros.com. He is also the author of Yearbook Stories, 1976–1978, published by Top Shelf.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mike Dawson (cartoonist)</span> British-American cartoonist

Mike Dawson is a British-American cartoonist, known for his work on books such as Freddie & Me, Ace-Face and Gabagool!

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liz Prince</span> American comics creator

Liz Prince is an American comics creator, noted for her sketchbook-style autobiographical comics. Prince initially started publishing on her own on the internet and later became a published author with Top Shelf Comics. She currently lives in Maine.

Bighead is a graphic novel written and illustrated by Jeffrey Brown and published by Top Shelf Productions. The title character is a superhero named Khari whose main power seems to be that he has a giant head. Unlike many of Brown's other graphic novels, Bighead is not an autobiographical work, but rather a parody of classic superhero stories. Bighead fights villains like Heartbroke, who built a doomsday machine after a bad breakup so that he could make the entire world as miserable as he was.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Noah Van Sciver</span> American cartoonist

Noah Van Sciver is an independent American cartoonist. He currently resides in Columbia, South Carolina.

<i>March</i> (comics) Graphic novel trilogy

The March trilogy is an autobiographical black and white graphic novel trilogy about the Civil rights movement, told through the perspective of civil rights leader and U.S. Congressman John Lewis. The series is written by Lewis and Andrew Aydin, and illustrated and lettered by Nate Powell. The first volume, March: Book One, was published in August 2013, by Top Shelf Productions. and the second volume, March: Book Two, was published in January 2015, with both volumes receiving positive reviews. March: Book Three was published in August 2016 along with a slipcase edition of the March trilogy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Aydin</span> American comics writer (born 1983)

Andrew Aydin is an American comics writer, known as the Digital Director & Policy Advisor to Georgia congressman John Lewis, and co-author, with Lewis, of Lewis' #1 New York Times bestselling autobiographical graphic novel trilogy March—with Representative John Lewis, which debuted in 2013 by Top Shelf Productions.

<i>Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story</i>

Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story is a 16-page comic book about Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and the Montgomery bus boycott published in 1957 by the Fellowship of Reconciliation. It advocates the principles of nonviolence and provides a primer on nonviolent resistance.

References

  1. Inkpot Award
  2. 1 2 Koon, David (January 5, 2017). "The incredible adventures of Nate Powell". Arkansas Times.
  3. Duncan, Randy (July 10, 2018). "Nathan Lee (Nate) Powell (1978–)". Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Retrieved February 3, 2019.
  4. 1 2 Herbowy, Greg (Fall 2014). "Q+A: Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin & Nate Powell". Visual Arts Journal . pp. 48 - 51
  5. Powell, Nate (November 10, 2008). "Fluorescent Misfunction". PowellsBooks.Blog.
  6. Rhodes, David (Fall 2014). "From the President". Visual Arts Journal. p. 3
  7. "Rachel Lee Borman, Nathan Lee Powell". Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. 2010-10-10. Retrieved 2019-02-03.
  8. Clancy, Sean (July 8, 2018). "Drawn to Arkansas: Graphic novelist, North Little Rock native sets latest story in Ozarks". Arkansas Online. Retrieved 2019-02-03.
  9. "Coretta Scott King Book Awards - All Recipients, 1970-Present". American Library Association. Retrieved December 4, 2014.
  10. MacDonald, Heidi (May 21, 2014). "March Book One is first graphic novel to win the RFK Book Award". Comics Beat.
  11. "March: Book Three, by Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, 2016 National Book Award Winner, Young People's Literature". www.nationalbook.org. Retrieved 2016-12-12.