John Arcudi

John Arcudi is an American comic book writer, best known for his work on The Mask and B.P.R.D. and his series Major Bummer. Arcudi grew up in Buffalo, New York. He attended Columbia University as an English major and developed an appreciation for the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs and William Faulkner. Arcudi worked for Malibu Comics upon its founding in 1986, working on its Eternity line. That same year he started writing for comics, making his first sales to Savage Tales and Savage Sword of Conan for Marvel Comics, and becoming a regular contributor to the humor magazine Cracked. Arcudi worked on a number of comic books based on films, including RoboCop, Terminator, Predator, Alien, and The Thing. Two of these graphic works were subsequently adapted as full-length novels published by Bantam Books. Arcudi's series Barb Wire, featuring bounty hunter and bartendress Barbara Kopetski, was adapted into a film of the same name starring Pamela Anderson. Arcudi also scripted several stories for Dark Horse Presents, such as the series "The Creep", and the police procedural "Homicide". Arcudi's comics crime fiction also includes several scripts for Batman: The Dark Knight and Batman: Black and White. For Dark Horse Comics, Arcudi worked on developing the second incarnation of the character The Mask first in Mayhem #1–4, and then in a series of books illustrated by Doug Mahnke. Arcudi's work formed the basis of the 1994 feature film starring Jim Carrey. He later also worked on the spin-off television series. Arcudi and later Mahnke teamed up for several projects following The Mask, including the DC Comics series Major Bummer, which focused on a group of ineffectual superheroes. Arcudi also served as writer on the Wildstorm Productions series Gen13, illustrated by Gary Frank and Cam Smith, and during a run on DC's Doom Patrol, illustrated by Tan Eng Huat. Arcudi invented the character Captain Daimio for the series B.P.R.D., which he writes with Mike Mignola. Arcudi had contributed a "B.P.R.D." story to the Hellboy comic issued in conjunction with the film as a premium from Wizard Entertainment. Arcudi later wrote a number of separate B.P.R.D. series. Arcudi contributed the Superman story to Wednesday Comics. He also created a graphic novel called A God Somewhere with Peter Snejbjerg providing the art. Aside from working in the comic media, Arcudi has also worked briefly in animation. He has written two episodes of The Mask: Animated Series, and one episode of the motion comics based on the comic Batman Black and White.