Kyle Baker

Kyle John Baker (born 1965) is an American cartoonist, comic book writer-artist, and animator known for his graphic novels and for a 2000s revival of the series Plastic Man.

Baker has won numerous Eisner Awards and Harvey Awards for his work in the comics field.

Biography

Early life and career

Kyle Baker was born in the Queens, New York City, the son of art director John M. Baker and high-school audiovisual-department manager Eleanor L. Baker. He has a brother and a sister. Their parents had both attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and their father, who, Baker said, "worked in advertising [and] made junk mail", would "draw pictures for us and entertain us." Aside from this exposure to art, Baker has said, his early artistic influences included comic book artist Jack Kirby, caricaturist Jack Davis, and painter and magazine illustrator Norman Rockwell. He noted:

Other influences included the Charlton Comics artwork of Jim Aparo and Steve Ditko.

Breaking into comics

In his senior year of high school, Baker became an intern at Marvel Comics, making photocopies and filing fan mail. "I sort of fell into Marvel because I happened to know somebody there," he said. "But I always thought I was going to do funny stuff" rather than superhero comics. He became background assistant to Marvel inker Josef Rubinstein, and later also assisted Vince Colletta and Andy Mushynski. He cited Marvel artists Walt Simonson, Al Milgrom and Larry Hama and writer and editor-in-chief Jim Shooter as providing him art and storytelling advice. Part of his duties involved photocopying, and he would take copies of John Buscema penciling home on which to practice inking. While working for Marvel, Baker attended the School of Visual Arts, in Manhattan, studying graphic design and printmaking, but dropped out after two years. Through that connection, however, he began freelancing with famed graphic designer Milton Glaser, an SVA instructor, assisting him on a set of children's books.