Joe Madureira

Joe Madureira (/ˈmædəˌrɛrə/; born December 1974), often called Joe Mad, is an American comic book artist and game developer, best known for his work on Darksiders, Marvel Comics' Uncanny X-Men and his creator-owned comic book Battle Chasers. He is the founder of video game development companies Vigil Games and Airship Syndicate.

Madureira's style combines Western comic book influences (most notably the influence of artist Arthur Adams) though it evolved to incorporate heavy influences from Japanese manga and video games.

Joe Madureira was born December 1974, and is of Portuguese descent. He attended the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan.

At age 16, while still in high school, Madureira started at Marvel Comics as an intern, working under editor Danny Fingeroth. Madureira's art, which was heavily influenced by Arthur Adams, was first published in an eight-page story for the anthology series Marvel Comics Presents #89 (November 1991), starring Mojo, and then a story starring Northstar in issue #92 (December 1992). Despite the order of publication, Madureira drew the Mojo story second, as the influence of Arthur Adams, who co-created Mojo, is more evident in that story, and is closer to the style for which Madureira was known in the initial part of his career. His style would later evolve as he incorporated the influence of Japanese manga.

In 1993 Madureira penciled the first Deadpool mini-series, The Circle Chase. That same year he drew Vanguard #3 for Erik Larsen's studio, which was published by Image Comics.

Madureira became the regular penciler on Uncanny X-Men in 1994. During the "Age of Apocalypse" storyline, all X-Men titles were renamed; Madureira illustrated Uncanny X-Men's replacement as the four-issue miniseries Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 1.

He left Uncanny X-Men in 1997 to work on his own sword and sorcery series Battle Chasers for Wildstorm Comics' creator-owned Cliffhanger imprint (before it was sold to DC Comics). Shortly before leaving Uncanny X-Men, he commented that he felt the series had become too "dark and depressing" for his taste.

Madureira produced a total of nine issues in four years (publishing two to three a year), a pace for which he was criticized. He canceled Battle Chasers #10, and placed the series on indefinite hiatus after forming a game development company called Tri-Lunar with Tim Donley and Greg Peterson.