Angel Gabriele

Angel Gabriele (March 21, 1956 – February 23, 2016 Gabriele learned the basics of the art trade in the early 1970s from Freas in his Virginia Beach studio.

In 1974 Gabriele's professional comic book art career started when he left his parents' home in Tidewater, Virginia, and sojourned to New York City, assisting Rich Buckler at Marvel Comics on uncredited work involving the Fantastic Four, Deathlok, and other assignments. By 1975 Gabriele had graduated to producing covers and splash pages for Marvel's British department while still working with Buckler. Gabriele's first credited work was DC Comics' Kobra #4 in 1976, a comic which was already four weeks late when it was assigned to him for "layouts & pacing." In 1977 Gabriele became acquainted with lifelong friend and fellow artist Denys Cowan.

In 1978, having relocated to Wabash, Indiana (and after a stint as a T-shirt artist) Gabriele acquired merchandising rights to the Space Giants, a U.S. adaptation of Osamu Tezuka's Japanese comic, Magma Taishi ("Ambassador Magma"). In 1979 Gabriele's company, FBN (Fantasy Book Novels) Publications, published a comic book adaptation of the first four episodes of Space Giants.

In 1981, after a stint with Merrillville, Indiana-based fledgling multicultural comic book company Leader Comics, Gabriele returned to New York City. There he worked again for a very short period with Rich Buckler, and met Mark Texeira, with whom he later shared a studio and produced the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents revival for JC Productions. Eventually, Gabriele, Denys Cowan, and fellow artist Trevor Von Eeden shared an apartment in New York's Chelsea Hotel. There Gabriele designed the original "Beast Machine" characters for Strongen-Mayhiem's Power Lords (the action figures would be released by Revell).

Dark Angel and professional wrestling It was during this period in the mid-1980s after the birth of his daughter that Gabriele's stylized alter-ego the Dark Angel was born. After a 1988 disagreement with Dick the Bruiser, Grabiele began operating his own wrestling promotion and television show, Powerslam Professional Wrestling,

He collaborated with his friend Richard "Grass" Green, producing Green's 2002 Xal-Kor comic book, released by TwoMorrows Publishing, only months before Green's untimely passing due to lung cancer. Gabriele also contributed an article on hidden messages in Bill Everett's inking of Jack Kirby's art for Thor (Marvel Comics) in The Jack Kirby Collector #49.

Selected bibliography Kobra #4 (DC, 1976) Space Giants NN# (FBN, 1979) JCP Features: T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 (JC Publications, 1981) Dark Adventures #1-4 (Darkline, 1986) Alphawave #1 (Darkline, 1986) Darkside #1 (Darkline, 1986) Calypso Jim Souvenir Album (Wehner, 1986) Elfinwild #1 (Wehner, 1987) Astonish #1 (Wehner, 1988) RIP #5 (TSR, 1991) Frank (Frankenstein) #3 & #4 (Nemesis/Harvey, 1992) The Web #6, 7, 8 (DC/Impact, 1992) Ox Baker Souvenir Coloring Book (Hypergraphics, 1993) KlownShock #1 (Northstar, 1993) True Gein: The Story Of Ed (Boneyard, 1993) The Space Giants (Boneyard, 1994) Billy The Kid (Boneyard, 1994) Static #17 (DC/Milestone, 1994) The Long Hot Summer #3 (DC/Milestone, 1995) Hardware #34, 35, 36 (DC/Milestone, 1995) Xal-Kor, The Human Cat (TwoMorrows, 2002)