Accomplished Comic Book Illustrator Now Teaching at DMAC

by Vladimir Cassel

Last year, Digital Media Arts College (DMAC) proudly welcomed Marvel and DC Comics artist Mark Sparacio as one of its latest industry-experienced adjunct professors.

DMAC's student body was instantly in awe with Mark’s impressive body of work (see gallery, right) as both a sequential and commercial artist. His long history as a sequential artist fit in with the school's already extensive curriculum perfectly; both thumbnailing and storyboarding animation benefit significantly from the skills he's here to impart on DMAC students -- or, as Mark enthuses, “It's like storyboarding a movie or cartoon without all the in-betweens!”

Growing up in Long Island, New York, Mark was an active child interested in sports. It wasn't until he blew out his knee at age 13 that he took an interest in being an artist.

“As a joke, one of my friends gave me a bunch of old comic books. I had to be inactive for six months, so I started to read them and then I wanted to draw like them. Well, one thing led to another and here we are,” he reminisces.

Mark started collecting monthlies that are still his favorites to this day -- The Hulk, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Batman; he was influenced artistically by such comic book greats as Will Eisner, Jim Steranko, Neal Adams, Marshall Rogers, and Jim Starlin. Mark would later get an opportunity to study under one of his early influences, Will Eisner, when he was accepted into the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.

“Will was the single biggest influence that I had in my four years at SVA,” Mark relates. “Not only was he an amazing artist and innovator in the field of sequential (comic book) art, he was a fantastic teacher and a great person.”

Eisner was only accepting juniors and seniors for his class at the time, but Mark begged his way in as a sophomore and took Eisner's class for three straight years. "I never missed one second of one class that Will taught. He was that good, that inspiring," Mark says. Eisner went on to offer Mark a job as his assistant when he graduated.

While still in college, Mark caught his first big break as a commercial illustrator when he was hired to draw a movie poster for the English film “The Draughtsman's Contract.” Having been inspired by notable commercial artists like Norman Rockwell, Maxfield Parrish, and J.C. Leyendecker since high school, he found more work after college with the United Way, Toys 'R' Us, and a series of toy package illustrations for “The Karate Kid.”

After 9-11, however, ad revenue across the board dried up, leaving Mark wondering what to do next. “I grabbed a stack of comic books and started to read when I realized that I had the answer to my career problems right in my hands: comics!” he recounts.

Mark's first published comic book work came to him thanks to illustrator, writer, and filmmaker Billy Tucci, whose creator-owned title, Shi, was Mark's first cover work. Mark has gone on to work for industry leaders Marvel and DC on such titles as Heroes for Hire, Green Lantern, and Jonah Hex, and is even preparing to work on his own creator-owned comic.

Mark says he is a recent transplant to South Florida thanks to his wife.

“She and I knew each other from high school and were lucky enough to reconnect after a long period of time of no communication,” he says. He heard about DMAC from a student and asked him whether DMAC had any sequential art courses.

“The rest is history,” says Mark. “I think DMAC is an excellent school. I really like the students, faculty and staff and I am honored to be teaching here. What I've seen of the student body's work bodes well for their future, as well as the future of DMAC.”