Although, I was not born until 73 and alot of Kalutas seminal work, outside of Star Struck, seems to have occurred in the 70s, I find that he is an artist that ranks somewhere in my top five artists. Maybe number one even. I think for me the top five artists in no particular order include Neal Adams, Bernie Wrightson, Michael Kaluta, Todd McFarlane, and Charles Vess. Honorable mentions, for me of course, go to Alan Davis, Milo Manara, Humberto Ramos, Nic Cardy, Dave Stevens, maybe Sam Keith during his Sandman run but not so much afterwards and a few others.
I think the work that did it for me was the Vampirella, Morning in America book that came out in early 91. I was 17 at the time and that cover absolutely captivated me despite the work that was currently being put out by the likes of Lee, McFarlane, Portacio and even Liefeld (although in my defense I think it was the McFarlane inks over the top of his pencils that really attracted me on some of the covers).
The book depicts Vampirella standing in a circle of smoking candles placed in skulls fashioned as candle holders. The depiction of vampirella is beautiful and now that I have seen his depictions of Madam Xanadu and the hostess from Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion I see some similiarities. Plus, she has the awesome J-Lo trunk going on before it was really appealing. Anyway there are various other occult creatures and paraphernalia surrounding her and Kaluta makes effective use, IMHO, of all available space. It is just a really beautiful cover to me and has stayed with me for I guess a couple of decades now. While the story and internal art are unmemorable for me that cover is one of my favorites. I really wish he could have done the inside but I understand the amount of time it takes to finish the work.
A few years after, Kaluta worked on the covers for the Vertigo series, Books of Magic. That is one series that I followed from about issue 19 all the way to the end somewhere in the 60s, I think. But I found many of those covers beautiful as well, again despite the stuff that Jim Lee and other image artists were doing at the time.
Now as an older adult, I have discovered his covers on House of Mystery, Doorway into Nightmare, his work on the Shadow series and others from the seventies which are just as beautiful to me. Anyway, I plan on posting images of Kaluta covers here as I find and acquire them here. Thanks for reading.
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