Rocky Ray Hartberg is an American underground comic and commercial artist residing in Langford, South Dakota. He graduated from Northern State University in (Aberdeen, South Dakota) in 1975 with an art degree. In 2003, Hartberg received a second art degree from Northern.
Langford is a town in Marshall County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 313 at the 2010 census.
Northern State University (NSU) is a public university in Aberdeen, South Dakota. NSU is governed by the South Dakota Board of Regents and offers 38 majors and 42 minors, as well as six associate, eight pre-professional and nine graduate degrees.
Aberdeen is a city in and the county seat of Brown County, South Dakota, United States, about 125 miles (201 km) northeast of Pierre. The city population was 26,091 at the 2010 census, making it the third most populous city in the state after Sioux Falls and Rapid City. Aberdeen is the principal city of the Aberdeen Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Brown and Edmunds counties and has a population of 40,602 in 2010. Aberdeen is considered a college town, being the home of both Northern State University and Presentation College.
He is best known for his hard-boiled detective, Cole Black, featured in a variety of comix between 1976 and 2006. These comics include Cole Black Comix (1976), Cole Black Comics (1980–1984), Cole Black (1985–1986), Cole Black: the Missing Issue (2006), and Cole Black Comics (born 2006). Other comic books by Hartberg include Lonesome Cowboy Comix (1977) and White Knight Comics (1978). His work can also be found in a number of fanzines, mostly in the late-1970s and early-1980s.
Cole Black is an alternative comic book hard-boiled detective created by Rocky Hartberg in 1976. The detective first appeared in the self-published full-sheet newspaper-sized Cole Black Comix #1 (1976) which had a print run of only 200 copies, all distributed in the Aberdeen, South Dakota area. Hartberg submitted Cole Black to Marvel Comics for inclusion in Epic Magazine in the late-1970s. Although Marvel initially like the concept and accepted the submission, changes in editorial direction at Epic Illustrated scrapped the project.
In the early-1980s, the market for small independent comics flourished driven by the success of Cerebus the Aardvark and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Investors hoping to cash in on the next black and white success were quick to purchase new issues, and new black and white titles flooded the comic shop market. However, this craze was short lived and the resulting black and white comics implosion in the mid-1980s damaged the circulation of Cole Black. Distribution problems forced the cancellation of the comic with issue #3 of the 1985 series. Three additional issues of Cole Black were finished but remained unpublished for 20 years.
Cerebus is a comic book series created by Canadian cartoonist Dave Sim, which ran from December 1977 until March 2004. The title character of the 300-issue series is an anthropomorphic aardvark who takes on a number of roles throughout the series—barbarian, prime minister and Pope among them. The series stands out for its experimentation in form and content, and for the dexterity of its artwork, especially after background artist Gerhard joined with the 65th issue. As the series progressed, it increasingly became a platform for Sim's controversial beliefs.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are four fictional teenaged anthropomorphic turtles named after Italian Renaissance artists. They were trained by their anthropomorphic rat sensei in the art of ninjutsu. From their home in the sewers of New York City, they battle petty criminals, evil overlords, mutated creatures, and alien invaders while attempting to remain hidden from society. They were created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.
In the mid 1980s, Rocky owned and operated a comic book store Aberdeen's Super City Shopping Mall. Through this business, Rocky was able to share his love of comic and graphic art and storytelling. Some of the stories that were being published during this time include: Frank Miller's initial Daredevil run, John Byrne's Alpha Flight and Fantastic Four, Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, and George Pérez's Teen Titans.
Frank Miller is an American comic book writer, novelist, inker, screenwriter, film director, and producer best known for his comic book stories and graphic novels such as Ronin, Daredevil: Born Again, The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One, Sin City, and 300.
Daredevil is the name of several comic book titles featuring the character Daredevil and published by Marvel Comics, beginning with the original Daredevil comic book series which debuted in 1964.
Alpha Flight is a fictional team of Canadian superheroes appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The characters premiered in The Uncanny X-Men #120. Marvel published an Alpha Flight comic book series from 1983 to 1994. They are also the team that Wolverine was with before he joined the The Uncanny X-Men.
Hartberg continued to work in independent comics for several years but in 1991 turned to commercial art and "colorful and action-packed acrylic paintings." In 2006, Boardman Books in Tennessee published one of the abandoned stories as Cole Black volume 1, number 6: the Missing Issue
Tennessee is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th largest and the 16th most populous of the 50 United States. Tennessee is bordered by eight states, with Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina to the east, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south, Arkansas to the west, and Missouri to the northwest. The Appalachian Mountains dominate the eastern part of the state, and the Mississippi River forms the state's western border. Nashville is the state's capital and largest city, with a 2017 population of 667,560 and a 2017 metro population of 1,903,045. Tennessee's second largest city is Memphis, which had a population of 652,236 in 2017.
