Jason Lutes is an Americancomics creator. His work is mainly historical fiction, but he also works in traditional fiction. He is best-known for his Berlin series, which he wrote over 22 years. He has also written a handful of other graphic novels, as well as many short pieces for anthologies and compilations. He now teaches comics at the Center for Cartoon Studies.
Biography
Lutes was born in New Jersey, but his family soon relocated to Missoula, Montana. In his early years, Lutes liked superhero comics, but a trip to France exposed him to European comics like The Adventures of Tintin and Asterix, which he says greatly affected his style of drawing. Lutes went to college at the Rhode Island School of Design, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1991. He moved to Seattle after graduation, where he found work for the alternative comics publisher Fantagraphics, and eventually became art director of the alternative weekly The Stranger. During this period, Lutes began writing and self-publishing his own comic work with Penny Dreadful Press. In 1993 Lutes began serializing a strip for The Stranger, which was collected in 1996 in the critically acclaimed graphic novelJar of Fools. After two years of research, in 1996 Lutes embarked on the ambitious comic book seriesBerlin, an ongoing 22-chapter story set in the twilight years of Germany's Weimar Republic. When Berlin's original publisher Black Eye Productions closed in 1998, Drawn & Quarterly took over the series. Lutes subsequently moved to Asheville, North Carolina, in October 2002; this move forms the subject of his autobiographical Rules to Live By, collected in AutobioGraphix by Dark Horse Comics. In 2007, Hyperion published the graphic novel Houdini: The Handcuff King, written by Lutes and illustrated by Nick Bertozzi. Starting in the spring of 2008, he became part of the faculty of the Center for Cartoon Studies; he is now an adjunct professor there.
Personal life
Lutes has two children, Clementine and Max, with his partner Becka Warren.
Lutes has done some game work, such as unit portraits for the open-source video gameBattle for Wesnoth, a map for , and website illustration for City of Heroes.
