Born either in the New York City suburb of Eastchester or in the Eastchester neighborhood of the borough The Bronx, Carrabbotta attended Catholic elementary school, followed by Manhattan's High School of Music & Art and the Cartoonists and Illustrators School. Drawing since grade school, Carrabotta as a teen became friendly with fledgling professional comic-book artist Jerry Grandenetti, who lived near Carrabotta's home and taught him inking, the step in the comic-book process where the pencil artist's work is embellished with ink for stylistic and print-reproduction reasons. After serving in the United States Marine Corps from 1948 to 1951, where he performed with the Marine Band, Carrabotta worked in construction. Attempting to break into comic books, Carrabotta found himself turned away at several publishing houses, including by Stan Lee, editor-in-chief of Atlas Comics, the future Marvel. In a 2006 interview, Carrabotta credits Jack Kirby for his professional entrée, describing how Kirby turned him down for comics-studio work, but then upon finding Carrabotta's pregnant wife in the lobby as he was seeing Carrobotta out, gave the struggling artist a break: That five-page story, "The House on the Hill" in Astonishing #13, led to a stream of regular work as a freelance penciler for Atlas Comics, with Carrabotta initially inking himself and later being inked by Jack Abel.
Atlas Comics
Drawing primarily for horror comics, Carrabotta did work for early issues of such Atlas anthologies as Adventures into Terror, Journey into Mystery, and Strange Tales prior to the imposition of the industry's self-censorship Comics Code. He went on to do science-fiction/fantasy suspense stories for titles including Journey into Unknown Worlds, Marvel Tales, Mystic, Uncanny Tales, and others. Carrabotta was one of the few Atlas artists to regularly sign his work, aiding in compiling his bibliography. After five years, Carrabotta and his wife moved from New York City to his wife's hometown, Lone Star, South Carolina. Continuing to draw for Marvel long-distance, he expanded to such war comics as Battle, Battle Action, Battlefront, Battleground, and the aptly named War Comics; such Westerns as Apache Kid, , The Outlaw Kid, and Western Outlaws; the crime anthologies Caught and Police Action; the jungle title Jann of the Jungle; and the men's adventure anthology Rugged Action. Carrabotta also did a limited amount of work in the 1950s for Youthful Comics , Fiction House, and Lev Gleason Publications. Carrabotta's last work before leaving comics in the wake of an industry downturn was a story in Gunsmoke Western #49, though Carrobotta did return for a single Marvel comic during the period fans and historians call the Silver Age of comic books: the 17-page story "The Challenge of Cole Younger" in Two-Gun Kid #86, written by Gary Friedrich. Marvel reprinted several Carrabotta stories in the 1970s, and one additional in the reprint-anthology miniseriesCurse of the Weird #3.
Carrabotta has been married twice. He has six children. During the latter part of his advertising career, he and his family lived in Westport, Connecticut, but after remarrying, he and his new wife left the New York metropolitan area following the 9/11 terror attack of the World Trade Center and moved to Columbia, South Carolina. At some point afterward he spent three years in Los Angeles, California, where he worked on the Pirates Of The Caribbean movie posters. As of at least 2010, he lived in South Carolina.
