Creator Spotlight: Marco Santucci

My name is Marco Santucci, and I’m an Italian comic artist. I live and work in Italy. What first drew me to drawing was the fascination of being able to tell stories through it. Even as a kid, I wasn’t just drawing single images, I was always drawing sequences. I’ve always loved continuity: the storytelling, not just a “nice picture” that exists for its own sake. I enjoy building a world that feels believable and solid, so that what I’m telling on the page has weight and credibility.

During the first part of my career I worked mainly for the Italian market, and later I had the opportunity to work for Marvel in the U.S., as well as DC Comics and other independent American publishers. I’ve also worked on a French project, so my professional path has crossed different markets and editorial cultures. That experience taught me a lot, and I try to bring what I’ve learned into every project I do.

Even if you might not guess it from the way I draw today, one of my earliest inspirations was definitely the American artist Todd McFarlane. In the early ’90s I completely fell in love with his very distinctive approach, dynamic, fluid, and full of character.

Later on, I learned to look toward masters with a more classic line and storytelling sense, like John Buscema, Neal Adams, José Luis García-López, Alan Davis (who is still one of my biggest style influences), and Claudio Castellini.

A lot of that growth also comes from my real-life mentor, the Italian artist Fabio Civitelli, one of the most important Italian comic artists, and still a leading name on Tex, one of the most popular long-running series in Italy. Fabio didn’t just help me on the technical side (and point me toward the right artists to study); he also passed on the passion for this wonderful job.

The projects I’ve enjoyed working on the most are definitely the ones connected to the U.S. market. While my Italian projects are the ones that truly taught me how this job works, day by day, and helped me build my professional foundation.

Honestly, every project has taught me something, so they all carry value for me in different ways. But if I had to pick favorites, they’d probably be my American work, like my first Spider-Man miniseries, Secret Invasion: Spider-Man, and then my experiences with DC Comics, including working on Injustice and Green Lantern. Each of these projects left something meaningful and valuable in my career, and they also enriched my emotional “toolbox” as an artist.

Without a doubt, ever since I started reading comics, one of my all-time favorite characters has always been Spider-Man. Getting the chance to work on him later on was truly a dream come true.

But maybe it’s an age thing. Over the last few years I’ve found myself relating more and more to characters like Batman or Superman. They’re icons for a reason, and I’d absolutely love to work on either of them someday, ideally on an ongoing series or a long, substantial story arc.

Lately I’ve been working mostly on cover art for several publishers, DC, Mad Cave, Zenescope, Ignition Press, and others. Covers allow me to push the quality and my personal visual “signature” as far as possible, because I’m not only creating the drawing, but also the colors, which is something I’ve been focusing on and specializing in more and more over the last few years.

Of course, I couldn’t approach interiors the same way, schedule-wise. But interiors are still the real heart of what I do, and probably my favorite part, because as I said earlier, storytelling is the most important thing for me in this job. In a way, I try to bring that mindset into cover work too. A cover should never be just a pretty image. I want it to tell a story and communicate something to the reader the moment they see it.