June Brigman

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

June Brigman

June Brigman (born October 25, 1960, in Atlanta, Georgia) is an American comic book artist and illustrator. She is best known for creating the pre-teen superhero characters Power Pack with writer Louise Simonson in 1984. Brigman was the artist of the syndicated newspaper strip Brenda Starr from 1995 to 2011.

Biography

Growing up in Atlanta, Brigman's artistic influences included Stan Drake, Gil Kane, and Walt Simonson. She attended Georgia State University and the University of Georgia.

Brigman broke into comics with AC Comics in 1983. A sample Astron story (eventually published by AC in 1986) earned her a job with DC Comics in 1984, and when this didn't work out she moved on to Marvel Comics. From there, Brigman became part of the Power Pack team, a book she penciled through issue #17. For the next seven years, Brigman worked exclusively for Marvel, mostly on short runs; she also contributed illustrations to various editions of The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe.

Brigman pencilled DC's Supergirl mini-series in 1994, following that with 1995's Dark Horse Comics' River of Chaos Star Wars mini-series (which was written by her former Power Pack collaborator Louise Simonson).

Brigman essentially left the world of comic books in 1995 when she took over as artist for Brenda Starr. The strip ended in 2011.

In addition to her syndicated strip, she has illustrated (and colored) Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? comic strip for National Geographic World magazine. Brigman also illustrated a series of Star Wars novels and Choose Your Own Adventure books for Bantam Doubleday Dell. In 2005, Puffin Books published Brigman's Black Beauty adaptation graphic novel.

As a teacher, Brigman has worked at times as an instructor at The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in Dover, New Jersey, since 2005.

Brigman is currently working part-time as a professor of sequential art at the Atlanta branch of Savannah College of Art and Design.