Nick Cuti

Nicola Cuti (October 29, 1944 – February 21, 2020), known as Nick Cuti, was an American artist and comic book writer/editor, science-fiction novelist; he was the co-creator of E-Man (with artist Joe Staton) and Moonchild, Captain Cosmos, and Starflake the Cosmic Sprite. He also worked as an animation background designer, magazine illustrator, and screenwriter.

Biography

Early life Nicola Cuti was born on October 29, 1944, in Brooklyn, New York, the first of two sons of Alphonso Gitano Cuti, a darkroom technician, and Laura Antoinette Sica, a housewife. His grandparents had emigrated from Italy in the 1930s to make a home in America. His brother, Emil, was a medical technician and later sold medical supplies to hospitals.

He served in the United States Air Force as an air policeman from 1966 to 1972, stationed at Toul-Rosières Air Base, France; Çiğli, Turkey; and Bangor, Maine. His first published work, a comic strip, was published in a French magazine, Singular-Plural, and his first published story, “Grub” was published in Creepy magazine while he was on active status in Bangor.

After leaving the service, his first employment was at Krantz Animation Studio in New York City, which was under the direction of the legendary filmmaker Ralph Bakshi. She was also featured in Mark Estren's book A History of the Underground Comics, in the first underground comic in full color, Weird Fantasies and in several issues of Cheri magazine. The character was then published as a three issue limited series, under the name Moonie, Moonchild the Starbabe, by MU Press with covers, writing, editing, pencils by Cuti and inks and lettering by Dave Simons.

Cuti had long admired the work of comic artist Wally Wood and asked if Wood would look at his portfolio. Cuti did a single-page comic strip featuring Moonchild but it was never published in Wood's magazine Witzend; however, Cuti eventually became Wood's studio assistant at the Wood Studio in Valley Stream, Long Island. He worked on the strips Cannon and Sally Forth for Wood. at DC Comics, handling various superhero and children's titles and scripting his own six-part space opera, Spanner's Galaxy, illustrated by Tom Mandrake. He also scripted the final two Creeper back-up stories that appeared in The Flash.

Cuti moved to California in 1986 to begin work for animated TV series, producing background and prop designs for a dozen different studios, including Disney, Sony Pictures and Universal Studios. At the same time, he continued to write comic book scripts and create magazine and book art in both scratchboard and paint. (2009) (inks by Dave Simons), Moonie in the Slave Market of Opuul (2010) (inks by Mark Stegbauer), Moonie in Too Many Moons (2010) (inks by Mark Stegbauer) and Moonie Moonie Goes to War. A fifth novel, Moonie and the Space Pirates, was written by a friend of Cuti's, Vic Stonecypher.

Eventually, Cuti decided he had done all he could with Moonie, the Starbabe, and sold the series to DeMitro in order to concentrate on his newest creation, Starflake, the Cosmic Sprite. A contest was initiated to find a model for Starflake and Alicia Sage won the title. He wrote seven Starflake novels including, Starflake rides with the Galactic Bikers, Starflake hunts the Power Beast, and Starflake picks the Junkyard Planet. A Starflake Comic series was also created and published by his good friend Kevin Glover. In 2020 he posthumously was awarded the Bill Finger Award along with fellow honorees Virginia Hubbell, Leo Dorfman, Gaylord DuBois, Joe Gill, and France Herron.

Death Cuti died of cancer on February 21, 2020, in Tampa, Florida; survived by his daughter Jayme Rose and his brother Emil.