Michael Manning (fetish artist)

Michael Manning
Michael Manning at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA (2002)
Born	Michael Manning 1963
Nationality	American
Area(s)	Writer, Artist

Michael Manning (born 1963) is an American comic book artist and writer, fine art illustrator, and traditionally trained animator currently based in Los Angeles, California. He is best known for his graphic novel series, The Spider Garden and Tranceptor, which combine elements of pan-sexual fetishism and BDSM culture with complex characters in science fiction and fantasy settings. He is also active in the supernatural horror and fantasy genres, drawing adaptations of the work of authors such as H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, and Alexandre Dumas for the Graphic Classics comics anthology series, as well as illustrating an anachronistic version of the German folk epic, The Nibelungen.

Manning was born in Flushing in the New York City borough of Queens and raised in Beverly, Massachusetts where he exhibited an early interest in drawing and writing. Exposure to Japanese animation, fairy-tale book illustration, American and European comics, and the mythology of many cultures all contributed to the formation of his emerging style.

Manning went on to study film and animation at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. He began self-publishing art and comics in 1987 while working at Olive Jar Animation in Brookline, MA as an animator and director of short films, commercials, and music videos. Self-published titles such as Shunga, Ukiyo-X and Z/Xero brought his work to the attention of comic book artists John Bergin and James O'Barr (creator of The Crow) who in turn showed his work to Kevin Eastman of Tundra Publishing. This led to the inclusion of two of Manning's short pieces (one of which was a collaboration with Red Spider White Web author Misha Nogha) in Tundra's Bone Saw anthology - Manning's first professional comics publication.