| Kazu Kibuishi | |
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Born |
1978 |
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Ethnicity |
4th-generation Japanese-American |
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Area(s) |
Animator, Writer, Artist |
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First credit |
Clive and Cabbage |
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Link(s) |
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Kazu Kibuishi, born 1978 in Tokyo, Japan, is an American graphic novel author and illustrator. He is the author of the ongoing Amulet series and is also best known as the creator and editor of the Flight and Explorer comic anthologies. Kazu has also illustrated the 15th anniversary covers of the Harry Potter books.
Early life[]
Kazu moved to the United States at an early age. He has stated in an interview that upon moving, he began to miss "cool robot TV shows like Ultraman", and much of his earlier artwork was inspired by memories of Japan and its culture.
Career[]
Kazu Kibuishi Interview (Part 1 of 3)
Video interview with Kazu Kibuishi.
While pursuing a career in film studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Kibuishi drew a comic strip entitled Clive and Cabbage for the student newspaper. After graduation, Kazu worked as an animator for Shaded Box, a Los Angeles-based commercials and video game studio. Eventually, he left animation and decided to pursue comics, where he could focus more on writing and drawing stories. In 2002, he started his first webcomic series Copper, which was later published by Graphix.
In 2004, He began the Flight anthology series, in which he and fellow artists could showcase their works. The first two volumes were published by Image Comics, and attracted many other artists soon after. The following volumes were published by Ballantine Books. He went on to publish Daisy Kutter: The Last Train.
Kibuishi's hit series is none other than Amulet, a project he started in the early 2000s. The first book in the series was published by Scholastic Graphix in 2008, and is a New York Times Best Seller. The latest Amulet novel was published in 2018.
In 2013, Kibuishi drew the cover art for the 15th anniversary re-releases for the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling.