Rick Parker is a Legend. Well, maybe not to you but to people like me, who began reading comics in the 70s, every creator involved in each comic book story was a Legend. The credits weren’t that complicated at this time, and you could actually remember the name of each and everyone of the creators: Writer, Penciler, Inker, Colorist, Letterer, Editor. That was all. And when I was younger, I could recognize the style and remember the names of everyone, because at the time, it was a lot more simple. Even the letterers. Which is why I still remember Rick Parker, Tom Orzechowski, Lois Buhalis, Janice Chiang, and many others, who worked on many of my old comics. So needless to say that when I had the occasion to work with Rick on the new Rage Logo, I jumped on it! You can see the results on each cover of the Rage Series! I am still thinking about a comic or graphic novel project which would be entirely hand-lettered by Rick, and it might come to life someday. In the meantime, who better to write Rick’s Bio than the guys at Comic Vine? Here is the bio that I shamelessly cut and pasted from their site, followed by a little gallery:
Rick Parker first became involved in comic books in the late 1970s when he began lettering comics for Marvel, with his first credit in 1978. The following year he began working on the Amazing Spider-Man, which would prove to be his longest-running work, culminating in 1994. Throughout the 1980s he worked almost exclusively for Marvel, lettering for a number of titles. In the early 1990s, as computer-generated lettering began to take hold, he began to dial back his involvement professional lettering, instead beginning to focus on drawing comics and producing more traditional art. Between 1994 and 1996 he did all the art for Marvel’s Beavis and Butt-head series of comics. In 1997 he began working as a letterer for DC comics, lettering only a few comics before ceasing work for DC in 2001. He began to develop his interest in traditional art into the 2000s, working especially with found art. In the mid-2000s he began lecturing about cartooning at a number of schools in New York and New Jersey. Over the years he has also has work featured in a variety of publications including the New York Times, the Village Voice and the Chicago Tribune, among others.
I’m trying to keep tracks of all the Rage Artists, but it’s not always easy. Luckily, publishers like Marvel & DC are updating regularly their Author Pages. Here they are in a little gallery: