Upon seeing Mr. Gianni's work, you feel pulled into the past. There is an air about his
work, and you feel that you are looking at a student of such masters as Gustave Dore, J.
Allen St. John, N.C. Wyeth, or Roy Krenkel. But Gary Gianni did not study with these great
artists, he graduated from the Chicago Academy of Fine Art in 1976. Yet, there is
something about his work that reminds the viewer of these great artists, while we
acknowledge this very talented, gifted artist.
He worked for the Chicago Tribune as an illustrator and network television, magazines,
children's books and paperbacks.
1990 marked his debut in the comics field with adaptations of "The Tales of
O'Henry" and "20,000.00 Leagues Under the Sea" for First Comics, Classic
Illustrated series.
At Dark Horse Comics, he wrote and drew "Indiana Jones and the Shrine of the Sea
Devil", collaborated with such major writers as Harlan Ellison and Andrew Vachss and
teamed up with Michael Kaluta on the highly acclaimed Shadow series. He is the creator of
"Corpus Monstrum Mysteries" (also known as "Gary Gianni's Monster
Men") running as a back-up feature in Mike Mignola's "Hellboy".
In 1997, he and Archie Goodwin won the Eisner Award for their short story
"Heroes" in the "Batman: Black and White" book, for DC Comics.
He completed close to 200 ink drawings and seven oil paintings for Wandering Star's
limited edition book, "The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane", which was published in
1998, and won much acclaim. The cover art won Gary Spectrum's "Silver Award" for
books. This appeared in "Spectrum 6: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art".
Dark Horse Comics, in 1998, released a color one shot of "Gary Gianni's Monster
Men", for which Gary was nominated for an Eisner Award.
In 1999, Gary illustrated a cover and a story for issue #10 of Alan Moore's "Tom
Strong" comic, from ABC Comics.
Gary recently completed 45 ink illustrations and 12 oils for Wandering Star's third volume
in their Robert E. Howard Classic Library series "Bran Mak Morn, The Last King".
This is due out in March 2001, and is available with an extra tipped in black and white
plate from Endurant Book Distribution (see ordering information
elsewhere on this site).
Gary has two works from "Bran Mak Morn, the Last King" and the cover to
"Gary Gianni's Monster Men" in the latest edition of "Spectrum: 7 The Best
in Contemporary Fantastic Art", currently available.
He's currently working on an illustration for the new Michael Moorcock novel "The
Dreamthief's Daughter", to be published by Limited Edition, due out in February 2001.
In January of 2001, Gary starts on his third book for Wandering Star, Robert E. Howard's
immortal hero, Conan! This will be volume 2. Mark Schultz is currently working on volume 1
and may also be illustrating volume 3. Look for volume 1 in late 2001. Gary and Mark will
not be illustrating Conan as the body builder type that has been overdone. Their take on
him will be as Howard wrote him. More news and information about this series as it becomes
available.