Jason Lutes was born in New Jersey in 1967 and grew up reading American superhero and western comics until a trip to France at age nine introduced him to the world of “bandes dessinées.” In the late 1970s he discovered Heavy Metal magazine and the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, both of which proved major influences on his creative development.
Lutes graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Illustration in 1991. While at RISD, among the many new comics he encountered were Art Spiegelman’s RAW magazine and Chester Brown’s Yummy Fur, which together inspired him to start publishing minicomics under the imprint “Penny Dreadful.”
Books in order of publication:
Series
Jar of Fools (1994)
Berlin (1996–2018)
Berlin Book One: City of Stones (2000)
Berlin Book Two: City of Smoke (2008)
Berlin Book Three: City of Light (2018)
Children’s series
“The Secret Three” (with Jake Austen, in Nickelodeon Magazine, 1997–1999)
“Sam Shade” (with Paul Karasik, in Nickelodeon Magazine, 2002–2005)
Graphic novels
The Fall (with Ed Brubaker) (2001)
Houdini: The Handcuff King (words; pictures by Nick Bertozzi, 2007) (2007, Hyperion), (2008, Disney–Hyperion)
Short work
(inks) Rock & Roll High School #1–2 (with Bob Fingerman and Shane Oakley) (Roger Corman’s Cosmic Comics, 1995)
“Side Trip” (in Dark Horse Presents #125, pp. 23–28, 1997)
“Late Summer Sun” (in Drawn & Quarterly: A Picture Story Book (Volume 2, number 6), pp. 31–38, 1997 June,)
“We Three Things” (pictures only, script by Peter Gross; in Vertigo, The Books of Magic, Winter’s Edge #2, pp. 35–42, 1998)
“Rules to Live By” (in AutobioGraphix, by Dark Horse Comics, 2003).
“Small Explosions” (in Rosetta #2, 2004)
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