iFanboy Upstarts: Emanuela Lupacchino

We might all say that we were following Jim Lee’s career even before he made his big splash on Uncanny X-Men, but most of us would be lying. Likewise, how many people can claim to be following Civil War artist Steve McNiven before he made his Marvel debut? It’s with those sorts of situations in mind that we turn out attention to this week’s iFanboy Upstart: Emanuela Lupacchino.

Italian artist Emanuela Lupacchino made her way into American comics at IDW in 2009 doing work on licensed titles Angel: Only Human and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Fool’s Gold.During that time she also worked on her native continent of Europe on the Italian series L’Insonne as well as some sort stories in anthologies, but her goals were one thing: super-heroes. After openly campaigning and sending in submissions to both Marvel and DC, she was put to work on Marvel’s X-Factor beginning with #211 in 2010. She quickly enamored herself with that title’s fanbase and the comics pros involved, leading to her being one of the regular artists on the book. During that time she also snuck in work on the 2011 JLA 80-Page Giant anthology, but where she’s really earning fans is with commissions — she’s become an in-demand artists for fans wanting renditions of their favorite character, and Lupacchino excels.

Lupacchino says her work is inspired by five key comics artists, called her “five stars” in comic books: Dave Stevens, Steve Rude, Kevin Nowlan, Adam Hughes and Ryan Sook. You can’t go wrong with heroes like that, and Emanuela could easily transition into becoming an A-list artist given time and the right title and writer to work with.

Comments

  1. Excellent addition to the Hall of Upstarts. I’ve been blown away by her work in X-Factor and the sketches you’ve highlighted show how great she’d be on just about any book.

  2. This REALLY makes me want to start picking up X-Factor.

  3. Nice choice. X-Factor had some rough patches on art for a while. It was a book I read for the writing as long as the art was passable. Since Emanuela came on the art has matched the writing. Not only does she keep improving, they had Leonard Kirk on an arc as well.

  4. Wow, her pencils are beautiful. I can definitely see the Adam Hughes influence, and I like it. How did I miss her?

  5. I didn’t know she did Sketches. I will have to check those out.

  6. Mee-ow

  7. Miss Lupacchino is a great talent, I 1st heard of her when she was announced back in Oct/Nov time to be coming to the London Super Comic Convention. I believe she is moving on to better and brighter things….

  8. Really love that Batgirl sketch.

    Also, I’m really enjoying her variety of facial expressions. Very nice.

  9. So who are the furries in X-Factor?

  10. I hope they can keep her on this book. X-Factor has always had good artists but they never stay around

  11. Been a fan of Emanuela’s work for some time now. Glad to see her getting some recognition!