ICv2: RIP John Cassaday

Comedian artist John Cassaday, recognized for his work on Planetary, Astonishing X-Males, and I Am Legion, died on September 9 on the age of 52.

Cassaday was born on December 14, 1971, in Fort Price, Texas.  A self-taught artist, he went to movie faculty and was a tv information director in Texas for nearly 5 years, then moved to New York in 1997 and took a building job so he may spend his evenings engaged on his portfolio. He introduced his portfolio to Comedian-Con Worldwide in San Diego that yr, and after that started getting calls from editors.

His early work included penciling the story “Justin” within the 1994 Boneyard Press title Invoice the Bull: One Shot, One Bourbon, One Beer #1 and “Juju Eyes” in Caliber Press’ Adverse Burn #28, printed in 1995.  In a tribute on Fb, Mark Waid remembers that Cassaday confirmed him his portfolio on the Massive Apple Comedian Con round 1996. “John was nice, he was well mannered and well-mannered, and when he confirmed me his portfolio, I additionally knew he was tremendously proficient for a newcomer,” Waid wrote.  “The following morning, I used to be having breakfast with author Jeff Mariotte, who talked about he was in search of an illustrator for his subsequent collection, Desperadoes.  Boy, did he say that to the appropriate man, as a result of I had simply the artist in thoughts.”  The “bizarre west” collection was Cassaday’s first ongoing collection.  Shortly after that, he and author Warren Ellis co-created the Wildstorm collection Planetary, which ran from 1998 to 2009.

Cassaday’s Marvel work included Captain America (2002) #1-6, Astonishing X-Males (2004) #1-24, Star Wars (2015) #1-6, and Uncanny Avengers (2012) #1-4.  He collaborated with French author Fabien Nury on the supernatural World Conflict II graphic novel I Am Legion, printed in English by Humanoids.  (The ebook was optioned in 2011 (see “‘I Am Legion’ Optioned”) however the movie was apparently by no means produced.)  In his Fb submit, Waid famous that Cassaday was engaged on an unannounced mission: “[A]s his writer for a short time at Humanoids, I had the nice and now melancholy pleasure of watching magnificent pages, his finest ever, are available slowly on his dream mission, an unannounced creator-owned multimedia collection that can now be his unfinished symphony.”

Along with ongoing work, Cassaday was a prolific cowl artist and infrequently contributed to anthologies.  In 2018, he grew to become Chief Artistic Officer at Humanoids (see “Humanoids Hires John Cassidy”). Dynamite printed a set of his work, The Dynamite Artwork of John Cassaday, in 2021 (see “Preview: ‘The Dynamite Artwork of John Cassaday’ TP”).

Cassaday received the 2005 and 2006 Eisner Awards for Finest Penciller/Inker, and Astonishing X-Males received the 2006 Eisner for Finest Ongoing Sequence.

Along with his comics work, Cassaday was an idea artist for the movie adaptation of Watchmen and directed an episode of Dollhouse, which was created by his Astonishing X-Males collaborator Joss Whedon.