Hilary Barta

Infobox comics creator
name = Hilary Barta

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birthdate = birth date and age|1957|06|17
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nationality = American
area = Writer, artist
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Hilary Barta is an American comic book writer and artist.

Biography

Barta was born on June 17, 1957. His first comics work came in June 1982, when he helped legendary Marvel inkers Al Milgrom, Joe Sinnott and Sal Trapani provide inks for the pencils of Don Perlin on "The Defenders" #108. He inked #115 solo and then inked Dave Cockrum's artwork for a backup feature to the "Giant Size X-Men" #1-reprint "X-Men Special Edition" #1 in February 1983.comicbookdb|type=creator|id=1013|title=Hilary Barta. Accessed March 20, 2008]

Marvel & First

Barta was the regular inker for most of the first 10 issues of John Byrne's "The Thing" during 1983-84, during-and-after which he moved from Marvel to First Comics to ink a couple of stories for their "Warp" comic (including some of the earliest work from Bill Willingham). Other inking work for First slowly saw Barta graduate from inks to pencils over a dozen issues of the Peter B. Gillis and John Ostrander-written "Starslayer", while he also inked a couple of issues of Howard Chaykin's "American Flagg!" and drew back-ups for Steve Rude's "Nexus".

Eclipse & "Plastic Man"

Towards the end of 1986, Barta inked a couple of comics for Eclipse, including an issue of "Airboy" (#11), before heading back to Marvel to ink "Power Pack" and various issues of other titles for Eclipse, Marvel and First, notable among them Marvel's adaptation of the horror film "" (Oct 1987). Late 1988 saw Barta launch two series - Marvel's "What The--?!" and DC's 4-issue mini-series revival of Jack Cole's "Plastic Man", on both as penciler rather than inker. His work has a distinctive cartoon-like feel, erring on the surreal and exaggerated side more than the often-realistic work found in other superhero comics. As a result, Barta's art style is very well suited to humor, and it is no surprise that his major non-inking art credits are on humor titles.

"What Th--?!" & Urban Legends

In 1989, Barta returned mostly to inking duties on Marvel's "Alpha Flight" and "Power Pack", but was also one of several pencillers in their "Marvel: Year in Review" - 1989 (1990), alongside Bryan Hitch, Dale Keown, Bob McLeod, Mike Mignola, Herb Trimpe and Lee Weeks. From April to October 1990, he inked Rob Liefeld's art on Louise Simonson's "The New Mutants", and over the next couple of years flitted between companies as penciller and inker, as well as writer and cover artist (in particular on "What The--?!"). He wrote, penciled, inked and lettered "The Winning Ticket" in Dark Horse Comics' June 1993 offering "Urban Legends", and also contributed "The Wonder of Gas" to DC/Paradox Press's "Big Book of Urban Legends" in 1994. He inked for Malibu Comics and Image Comics (including Image-branded issues of Jim Lee's WildStorm title "StormWatch") and provided stories for further volumes of Paradox Press' "Big Book of" series in 1996/7/8.

Elseworlds & America's Best

Also in 1998, he inked penciller Kieron Dwyer's artwork on two Elseworlds titles, both written by John Francis Moore: "Elseworld's Finest" #1-2 (set in the 1920s) and "Superman: The Dark Side" #1-3 (Superman as raised on Apokalips by Darkseid). In March 2000 he fully illustrated the first of several Splash Brannigan story in Alan Moore's America's Best Comics anthology title "Tomorrow Stories", and later contributed to Moore's "Tom Strong" #14 and the "ABC Sketchbook" (Dec 2001). Around this time, Barta also wrote and/or illustrated short stories for Bongo Comics' "Simpsons Comics" and "Treehouse of Horror" titles, before moving back largely to inking duties for Rick Remender and Dark Horse Comics on Bruce Campbell's "The Man with the Screaming Brain".

Current work

June 2006 saw him work with Remender again, writing back-ups for the latter's "Fear Agent" comic, and since then he has mostly contributed in various ways to the many different "Simpsons" titles, and on "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" comics/magazines for Mirage Comics and Titan Magazines.

Bibliography

Comics work includes:

*"New Mutants" vol. 1 #88-91, 93-94 (inker)
*"New Mutants Annual" #5, 7 (inker)
*"The Thing" (1983-86 series) #3-8 (inker)
*"Radioactive Man" #100 (penciller)

References