Mike Ploog

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Mike Ploog bigraphy, stories - Artist

Mike Ploog : biography

1942 –

Michael G. Ploog (born 1942, Mankato, Minnesota,Mike Ploog interview, in Modern Masters Volume Nineteen: Mike Ploog (TwoMorrows Publishing, 2008), p. 6. ISBN 978-1-60549-007-6 United States) is an American storyboard and comic book artist, and a visual designer for movies.

In comics, Ploog is best known for his work on Marvel Comics’ 1970s Man-Thing and The Monster of Frankenstein series, and as the initial artist on the features Ghost Rider and Werewolf by Night. His style at the time was heavily influenced by the art of Will Eisner, at Don Markstein’s Toonopedia: "Ploog, who had previously worked in animation, was unknown in comics when ‘Werewolf’ started, but quickly made a name for himself in that medium. His artwork was strongly influenced by Will Eisner…." (January 10, 2011). under whom he apprenticed.

Biography

Early life and career

Mike Ploog, one of a family of three brothers and a sister,Ploog, Modern Masters Volume Nineteen: Mike Ploog, p. 6 was raised first on a Minnesota farm. He began drawing while a young child whose imagination was fired by such old-time radio dramas as Sergeant Preston of the Yukon and Gunsmoke, and such thriller anthologies as Inner Sanctum Mysteries and Tales of Horror. After his parents divorced and sold the farm when Ploog was about 10 or 11 years old,Ploog, Modern Masters, p. 7 his mother took the children to live with her in Burbank, California.Ploog, Modern Masters, pp. 7-8 Ploog entered the U.S. Marine Corps, leaving in 1968, after 10 years.Ploog, Modern Masters, p. 11 Toward the end of his hitch, he began working on the Corps’ Leatherneck Magazine, at the Lambiek Comiclopedia. Note: Source erroneously gives Ploog’s birthplace as the nearby St. Thomas, Minnesota. doing bits of writing, photography and art.

The following season he was promoted to layout work. "Layout," Ploog recalled in a 1998 interview, "is what happens between storyboarding and actual animation; you’re literally composing the scenes. You’re more or less designing the background, putting the characters into it so they’ll look like they’re actually walking on the surface"., Comic Book Artist #2, Summer 1998. . At Hanna-Barbera the following season, he worked on layouts for the animated series Motormouse and Autocat and Wacky Races, as well as "the first Scooby-Doo pilot; nothing spectacular, though. It was okay; it was a salary, y’know? … I had very few aspirations, because I didn’t know where anything I was doing was going to take me".

A Hanna-Barbera colleague passed along a flyer he had gotten from writer-artist Will Eisner seeking an assistant on the military instructional publication PS, The Preventive Maintenance Monthly. Ploog was familiar with it from his Marine Corps days, and knew well the art, though not the artist’s name. "I’d been copying his work for years", Ploog said, "because I was doing visual aids and training aids for the military for a long time". Additional , December 26, 2010.

Eisner in 1978 recalled that, "Mike came in working for me in 1967. I was looking for someone who could work on the PS magazine … and Mike sent me his material, or somebody sent it to me, I don’t remember which, and I found myself in California, talking Mike into coming to work for us…. We had a very happy relationship for maybe two or three years, four years.""Will Eisner Interview", The Comics Journal #46 (May 1979), p. 37. Interview conducted Oct. 13 and 17, 1978

Ploog moved to New York City and remained with Eisner for just over two years. As Ploog recalled:

Marvel Comics and Ghost Rider

Eventually, at the suggestion of Eisner letterer Ben Oda and artist Wally Wood, Ploog broke into comics at Warren Publishing, doing stories for the company’s black-and-white horror-comics magazines. A Western sample he showed Marvel got him a callback to draw Werewolf by Night, which premiered in Marvel Spotlight #2 (Feb. 1972). After three issues, the series spun off onto its own book. Ploog then helped launched the initial, Johnny Blaze version of the supernatural motorcyclist Ghost Rider, in Marvel Spotlight #5 (Aug. 1972), and drew the next three adventures.