iFanboy Upstarts: Martin Morazzo

Argentenian artist Martin Morazzo has been circling the comics industry for going on five years now, working with various writers on pitches for comic series and competing in not one, but two, major talent searches. In 2012 it seems Morazzo is finally getting his chance as he’s drawing the new Image series The Great Pacific, but it was a long journey to get here.

Martin Morazzo first popped up on the comics radar as an entrant in ComicBookResources.com‘s 2007 Comic Book Idol 3 competition, and although he didn’t win that competition he did hook up with full fledged comics creator and writer, Jay Busbee, and drew a graphic novel named The Network which Arcana published in 2008. While Morazzo’s art has grown by leaps and bounds since this book, the concept of an ESPN for superhero phenomenon gives him a chance to really do some dynamic storytelling. After that, Martin hooked up with writer Robert Burke Richardson and submitted a comic called Absolute Magnitude to DC’s online imprint Zuda back in 2009. The series won Zuda’s August 2009 and went on to produce twenty nine pages, but ended prematurely when DC closed the entire Zuda imprint.

Between 2009 and 2012 Morazzo remained relatively quiet; he drew a Wolverine submission for Marvel, and participated in a few other creator-owned comics pitches that didn’t get picked up. Morazzo’s luck started to change, however, when he hooked up with comics writer Joe Harris. Harris, who has been in and out of the comics industry since writing Marvel’s Slingers back in the 1990s, enlisted Martin to draw his environmental apocalyptic series The Great Pacific. Early 2012 they tried to get funded via Kickstarter, and despite failing to reach their goal still secured a publishing deal with Image which was announced at Comic-Con. Scheduled to launch in October, The Great Pacific is an ongoing series and the preview pages released so far see Morazzo’s really worked to hone his skills since his previous outings in comics.

Here’s a sample of Morazzo’s work to date, going from his earliest The Network through to 2009’s Absolute Magnitude and on to previews of the forthcoming The Great Pacific. Do you think he has what it takes to make it in comics?

Comments

  1. Some really nice stuff here. I’m interested in the Great Pacific. Also – what are the “parachute” scenes from and the girl with the Ankh?

  2. really great stuff a little bit reminiscent of Frank Quitely too

  3. Wow this guy might be a really good artist! I kid…just awesome stuff! And yea, it does have a Quitely vibe to it.