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Michael Kaluta

Michael William Kaluta, sometimes credited as Mike Kaluta or '''Michael Wm. Kaluta' (born August 25, 1947), is an American comics artist and writer best known for his acclaimed 1970s adaptation of the pulp magazine hero The Shadow'' with writer Dennis O'Neil. He is the godfather of comedian and gamemaster Brennan Lee Mulligan.

Early life
Born in Guatemala to U.S. citizens, Kaluta studied at the Richmond Professional Institute (now Virginia Commonwealth University).

Career

Kaluta's early work included a three-page adventure story, "The Battle of Shiraz", in Charlton Comics Flash Gordon #18 (Jan. 1970) and an adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Carson of Venus novels for DC Comics.

Kaluta's influences and style are drawn from pulp illustrations of the 1930s and the turn-of-the-century poster work of Alphonse Mucha – his signature motif is elaborate decorative panel designs – rather than the comic books of the Silver Age. He has rarely worked with the superhero genre, although one of his early contributions for DC was a "World of Krypton" backup story in Superman #240 (July 1971).

His first cover for a comic book was House of Mystery #200 (March 1972). Associated during the 1970s with Bernie Wrightson and Jeffrey Jones, he contributed illustrations to Ted White's Fantastic and Amazing. Kaluta co-created Eve in Secrets of Sinister House #6 (Aug.–Sept. 1972), a horror comics "host" character later turned into a supporting character in The Sandman. He and writer Dennis O'Neil produced a comics adaptation of The Shadow for DC in 1973–1974. Comics historian Les Daniels noted that "Kaluta's style [on The Shadow] is an homage to Graves Gladney, master of the pulp magazine covers of the 1930s." Kaluta left the series after drawing five of the first six issues.

Kaluta was one of the four comic book artists/fine illustrator/painters (along with Jeffrey Jones, Barry Windsor-Smith, and Bernie Wrightson) who formed the artists' commune The Studio in a loft in Manhattan's Chelsea district in 1975 and continuing to 1979. In addition to many comic book stories and covers, Kaluta has done a wide variety of book illustrations.

Kaluta drew the cover for the Madame Xanadu one-shot in 1981 which was DC's second direct sales only comic. He and writer Elaine Lee crafted Marvel Graphic Novel #13 "Starstruck: The Luckless, the Abandoned and Forsaked" which led to an ongoing series which ran for six issues. Kaluta and O'Neil reunited on The Shadow: 1941 – Hitler's Astrologer graphic novel published in 1988. In 2006, Kaluta was one of the artists on the 1001 Nights of Snowfall graphic novel written by Bill Willingham.

In 1984 he drew the illustrations for and directed the music video of "Don't Answer Me" by The Alan Parsons Project, which became one of the most requested videos of the year on the cable video channel MTV.

Among music fans, Kaluta is known as the cover artist of Glenn Danzig's instrumental album Black Aria and for the interior illustration of Danzig's fourth album, the latter of which appeared in 1994 and 1995 as a pendant sold at Danzig concerts, and on Danzig T-shirts and sweaters produced in the same period. Kaluta created the CD covers and interior booklet illustrations for Nativity in Black I and II, tribute albums to the music of Black Sabbath. Kaluta drew the cover art for the Bobby Pickett album The Original Monster Mash when it was reissued in 1973.

Kaluta has worked for role-playing game companies such as White Wolf Publishing. He has done artwork for collectible card games companies, including a comic book for Wizards of the Coast's Magic: The Gathering and illustrating cards on Last Unicorn Games' Heresy: Kingdom Come.

In the early 1990s, he was active in Compuserve's Macintosh Gaming Forum, in the flight simulator enthusiast group which called itself VFA-13 Shadow Riders. He contributed a number of designs for airplane nose art and flight suit unit patches.

Awards
Kaluta's work has won him a good deal of recognition, including the Shazam Award for Outstanding New Talent in 1971, the Inkpot Award in 1977, and the 2003 Spectrum Award for Grand Master.

Dark Horse Comics

 * Conan #22 (with Cary Nord) (2005)
 * The Shadow #1–2 (1994)
 * The Shadow: In the Coils of Leviathan #1–4 (1993–94)
 * Starstruck #1–4 (miniseries) (1990)

DC Comics

 * Action Comics Weekly (cover) #613 (1988)
 * Adventure Comics (cover) #425 (1972)
 * Aquaman, vol. 3 (covers) #63–75 (2000–01)
 * Aquaman, vol. 4 (covers) #51 (2007)
 * Batman (covers) #242, 248, 253 (1972–73); #400 (one page interior art); Annual #12, 24 (1988–2000)
 * The Batman Chronicles (cover) #6 (1996)
 * Batman Family (covers) #17, 19 (1978)
 * Batman: Gotham Knights (Batman Black and White) #32 (2002)
 * The Brave and the Bold (cover) #176 (1981)
 * The Brave and the Bold, vol. 3 (cover) #26 (2009)
 * Detective Comics (covers) #423–424, 426–429, 431, 434, 438 (1972–74); #572 (1987)
 * Doorway to Nightmare (covers) #2–5 (1978)
 * Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion (covers) #7–8, 13 (1972–73)
 * From Beyond the Unknown (covers) #18–19 (1972)
 * Ghosts (covers) #7, 93, 101 (1972–81)
 * House of Mystery (interiors): #195, 200; (covers): #201–202, 210, 212, 233, 260–261, 263, 265, 267–268, 273, 276, 284, 287–288, 293–295, 300, 302, 304–305, 309–321 (1971–83)
 * House of Secrets (interiors): #87, 98; (covers): #101–102, 149, 151, 154 (1970–78)
 * Just Imagine Stan Lee with Joe Kubert creating Batman (four pages) (2001)
 * Justice League of America (cover) #154 (1978)
 * Korak, Son of Tarzan #46–53 ("Carson of Venus" series) (1972–74)
 * Madame Xanadu (cover) #1 (1981)
 * Mystery in Space vol. 4 #1 (2012)
 * Phantom Stranger, vol. 2 ("Spawn of Frankenstein") #23–25; (cover) #26 (1973)
 * Private Files of the Shadow HC (cover and new 15 page story) (1989)
 * Secrets of Haunted House (covers) #8, 10–11, 14, 16, 29 (1977–80)
 * The Shadow (interiors): #1–4, 6; (covers): #10–12 (1973–75)
 * Spectre, vol. 2 (covers) #1–3 (1987)
 * Spectre, vol. 3 (covers) #10, 44 (1993–96)
 * The Spirit, vol. 2, #5 (2010)
 * Superman ("Fabulous World of Krypton") #240 (1972); (Superman) #400 (six pages, among other artists, 1984)
 * Tarzan #230 ("Carson of Venus" series) (1974)
 * Time Warp (covers) #1–5 (1979–80)
 * Weird Mystery Tales #24 (1975)
 * Weird War Tales #12 (cover) (1973)
 * Weird Worlds (interiors): #4; (covers): #5–6, 10 (1972–74)
 * Wonder Woman (cover) #297, (pinup page) #300 (1982–83)

America's Best Comics

 * Tom Strong's Terrific Tales #9 (2004)

Vertigo

 * The Books of Magic vol. 2 (covers) #22, 27–40, 42–65, 67–75 (1996–2000)
 * House of Mystery vol. 2 #20 (2010)
 * Madame Xanadu, vol. 2 #11–15 (2008–09)
 * The Unwritten #31.5 (2012)
 * Weird War Tales #2 (cover) (1997)

Marvel Comics

 * Chaos War: Chaos King (2010)
 * Conan the Barbarian (cover) #167 (1985)
 * Conan the King, then King Conan (covers) #20–27, 31 (1984–85)
 * Fearsome Four, miniseries, #1 (among other artists) (2011)
 * Epic Illustrated #17, 21, 24, 25–26, 28 (1983–85)
 * The Shadow 1941: Hitler's Astrologer, graphic novel (1988)
 * Thor vol. 2 #57 (two pages only, among other artists) (2003)

Other publishers

 * Memorial #1–6 (covers) (2011–12) (IDW Publishing)
 * Rocketeer Adventure Magazine #1–2 (1988) (Comico)
 * Dangerous Times #1 (cover) (1989) Evolution Comics, New York

Books and compilations

 * Michael Wm. Kaluta Sketchbook 180 pages, Kitchen Sink Press, May 1998, ISBN 978-0-87816-115-7
 * Echoes Drawing of Michael Wm Kaluta 112 pages, Vanguard Productions, March 2007, ISBN 978-1-887591-13-3
 * Wings of Twilight: The Art of Michael Kaluta 80 pages, NBM Publishing, March 2001, ISBN 978-1-56163-276-3
 * The Michael Kaluta Treasury Glimmer Graphics, December 1988, ISBN 978-0-9621421-0-9
 * Michael Wm. Kaluta: Sketchbook Series
 * Volume 1 48 pages, IDW Publishing, April 2012, ISBN 978-1-61377-136-5
 * Volume 2 48 pages, IDW Publishing, August 2012, ISBN 978-1-61377-355-0
 * Volume 3 48 pages, IDW Publishing, December 2012, ISBN 978-1-61377-536-3
 * Volume 4 48 pages, IDW Publishing, May 2013, ISBN 978-1-61377-638-4
 * Michael Wm. Kaluta: The Big Book 304 pages, IDW Publishing, January 2014, ISBN 978-1-61377-682-7

title: Michael Kaluta


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Macmillan Publishers

Macmillan Publishers (occasionally known as the Macmillan Group; formally Macmillan Publishers Ltd in the UK and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC in the US) is a British publishing company traditionally considered to be one of the 'Big Five' English language publishers (along with Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster). Founded in London in 1843 by Scottish brothers Daniel and Alexander MacMillan, the firm would soon establish itself as a leading publisher in Britain. It published two of the best-known works of Victorian era children's literature, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book (1894).

Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Harold Macmillan, grandson of co-founder Daniel, was chairman of the company from 1964 until his death in December 1986. Since 1999, Macmillan has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group with offices in 41 countries worldwide and operations in more than thirty others.

History
Macmillan was founded in London in 1843 by Daniel and Alexander MacMillan, two brothers from the Isle of Arran, Scotland. Daniel was the business brain, while Alexander laid the literary foundations, publishing such notable authors as Charles Kingsley (1855), Thomas Hughes (1859), Francis Turner Palgrave (1861), Christina Rossetti (1862), Matthew Arnold (1865) and Lewis Carroll (1865), with the latter first meeting Alexander in London on 19 October 1863. Alfred, Lord Tennyson joined the list in 1884, Thomas Hardy in 1886 and Rudyard Kipling in 1890.

Other major writers published by Macmillan included W. B. Yeats, Rabindranath Tagore, Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Seán O'Casey, John Maynard Keynes, Charles Morgan, Hugh Walpole, Margaret Mitchell, C. P. Snow, Rumer Godden and Ram Sharan Sharma.

Beyond literature, the company created such enduring titles as Nature (1869), the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1877) and Sir Robert Harry Inglis Palgrave's Dictionary of Political Economy (1894–99).

George Edward Brett opened the first Macmillan office in the United States in 1869 and Macmillan sold its U.S. operations to the Brett family, George Platt Brett, Sr. and George Platt Brett, Jr. in 1896, resulting in the creation of an American company, Macmillan Publishing, also called The Macmillan Company (later known as Macmillan Inc.). Even with the split of the American company from its parent company in England, George Brett, Jr. and Harold Macmillan remained close personal friends. Macmillan Publishers held stake in the American company before divested it in 1951 and later re-entered the American market in 1952 under the name St. Martin's Press.

Macmillan of Canada was founded in 1905; Maclean-Hunter acquired the company in 1973. Following numerous mergers, Macmillan Canada dissolved in 2002 after John Wiley & Co. acquired it.

After retiring from politics in 1964, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Harold Macmillan, grandson of co-founder Daniel, became chairman of the company, serving until 1974 when he handed on the chairmanship to his son Maurice Macmillan (who in turn left the government, having been Paymaster General in the defeated government of Edward Heath) and took on the more honorific position of President until his death in December 1986. He had been with the family firm as a junior partner from 1920 to 1940 (when he became a junior minister), and from 1945 to 1951 while he was in the opposition in Parliament.

The German Holtzbrinck Publishing Group purchased the company in 1999.

21st century
Pearson acquired the Macmillan name in America in 1998, following its purchase of the Simon & Schuster educational and professional group (which included various Macmillan Inc. properties and trademarks). Holtzbrinck purchased it from them in 2001. McGraw-Hill continues to market its pre-kindergarten through elementary school titles under its Macmillan/McGraw-Hill brand. The US operations of Holtzbrinck Publishing changed its name to Macmillan in October 2007. Its audio publishing imprint changed its name from Audio Renaissance to Macmillan Audio, while its distribution arm was renamed from Von Holtzbrinck Publishers Services to Macmillan Publishers Services. Pan Macmillan purchased Kingfisher, a British children's publisher, from Houghton Mifflin in October 2007. Roaring Brook Press publisher Simon Boughton would oversee Kingfisher's US business.

By some estimates, as of 2009, e-books account for three to five per cent of total book sales, and are the fastest growing segment of the market. According to The New York Times, Macmillan and other major publishers "fear that massive discounting [of e-books] by retailers including Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Sony could ultimately devalue what consumers are willing to pay for books." In response, the publisher introduced a new boilerplate contract for its authors that established a royalty of 20 per cent of net proceeds on e-book sales, a rate five per cent lower than most other major publishers. Following the announcement of the Apple iPad on 27 January 2010—a product that comes with access to the iBookstore—Macmillan gave Amazon.com two options: continue to sell e-books based on a price of the retailer's choice (the "wholesale model"), with the e-book edition released several months after the hardcover edition is released, or switch to the agency model introduced to the industry by Apple, in which both are released simultaneously and the price is set by the publisher. In the latter case, Amazon.com would receive a 30 per cent commission. Amazon responded by pulling all Macmillan books, both electronic and physical, from their website (although affiliates selling the books were still listed). On 31 January 2010, Amazon chose the agency model preferred by Macmillan. In April 2012, the United States Department of Justice filed United States v. Apple Inc., naming Apple, Macmillan, and four other major publishers as defendants. The suit alleged that they conspired to fix prices for e-books, and weaken Amazon.com's position in the market, in violation of antitrust law. In December 2013, a federal judge approved a settlement of the antitrust claims, in which Macmillan and the other publishers paid into a fund that provided credits to customers who had overpaid for books due to the price-fixing.

In 2010, Macmillan Education submitted to an investigation on grounds of fraudulent practices. The Macmillan division admitted to bribery in an attempt to secure a contract for an education project in southern Sudan. As a direct result of the investigation, sanctions were applied by the World Bank Group, namely a six-year debarment (reduced from eight years due to an early acknowledgment of misconduct by the company) declaring the company ineligible to be awarded Bank-financed contracts.

In December 2011, Bedford, Freeman, and Worth Publishing Group, Macmillan's higher education group, changed its name to Macmillan Higher Education while retaining the Bedford, Freeman, and Worth name for its k–12 educational unit. Also, that month, Brian Napack resigned as Macmillan president while staying on for transitional purposes.

In 2012, parent company Holtzbrinck reorganized; Macmillan's consumer publishing operations were now led by John Turner Sargent from New York City.

In May 2015, London-based Macmillan Science and Education merged with Berlin-based Springer Science+Business Media to form Springer Nature, jointly controlled by Holtzbrinck Publishing Group and BC Partners. The following month, it dissolved its British-based imprint Boxtree Limited, which Macmillan had operated since 1986.

In January 2019, Toronto, Canada-based online writing community Wattpad announced an agreement with Macmillan [sic, Springer Nature America] for handling sales and distribution in the U.S. for its new publishing division Wattpad Books, alongside rival Penguin Random House that will handle the U.K. and India market, and Raincoast Books for the Canadian market.

In November 2019, Macmillan announced that libraries would be able to buy only one copy of e-books for the first eight weeks after publication, in an effort to boost sales by creating long waits for borrowers at large library systems. This prompted complaints and some libraries boycotted the company; the policy was reversed in March 2020.

In September 2020, Macmillan announced that CEO John Sargent will be leaving at the end of the year due to "a disagreement regarding the direction of Macmillan." According to Holtzbrinck spokesperson Erin Coffey, the decision was made by Stefan von Holtzbrinck, CEO of the Holtzbrinck group.

US publishing divisions with imprints
• Celadon Books

• Farrar, Straus and Giroux

• *FSG Originals

• *Hill & Wang

• *MCD

• *North Point Press

• *Picador

• Flatiron Books

• *Flatiron Books

• *Flatiron Books: An Oprah Book

• Henry Holt and Company

• *Andy Cohen Books

• *Henry Holt and Company

• *Metropolitan Books

• Macmillan Audio – formerly Audio Renaissance

• Macmillan Children's Publishing Group

• *Farrar, Straus & Giroux Books for Young Readers

• *Feiwel and Friends

• *First Second Books – Graphic novels

• *Henry Holt Books for Young Readers

• *Imprint

• *Neon Squid Books

• *Odd Dot

• *Priddy Books

• *Roaring Brook Press

• *Square Fish

• *Swoon Reads

• St. Martin's Publishing Group

• *Castle Point Books

• *Griffin

• *Minotaur

• *St. Martin's Essentials

• *St. Martin's Press

• *Wednesday Books

• *Saturday Books

• Tom Doherty Associates

• *Bramble

• *Forge

• *Nightfire

• *Starscape

• *Tor Books

• *Tor Teen

• *Reactor (magazine) (formerly Tor.com)

Other US divisions

 * Macmillan Publishers Services, formerly Von Holtzbrinck Publishers Services, distribution unit for independent publishers:
 * Bloomsbury USA
 * Drawn & Quarterly
 * Entangled Publishing
 * Graywolf Press
 * Guinness World Records
 * Kingfisher
 * Page Street
 * Papercutz
 * Review of Reviews

Pan Macmillan UK imprints
• Bello

• Bluebird

• Campbell

• Kingfisher

• Macmillan's Children's Books

• Macmillan Collector's Library

• Mantle

• Pan Books

• Macmillan

• Picador

• Tor

• Two Hoots

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Macmillan Publishers