Michael K. Moss

For illustrator and cartoonist Michael Moss, the greatest inspiration for creativity springs at the crossroads between art and life.

A native New Yorker, Michael first studied cartooning at the NYC High School of Art & Design, The New School and the Brooklyn Museum of Arts' Fine Arts Program, under the tutelage of Dan Decarlo Jr. (Archie Comics) and Ken Landgraf (Marvel and DC Comics). After graduation, he refined his skills at the Pratt Institute and, after transplanting cross-country to San Francisco, at the Academy of Art College.

Like most artists, Michael has had to balance his artistic career with practical jobs in retail management and office administration. Where many illustrators strive to keep these two worlds as separate as possible, Michael finds more joy in fusing them together with a wry sense of humor and a firm grasp of the absurd. Recent projects include "Quitting Time," a comic strip about the stranger aspects of retail life, and a series of more than 50 card designs for "Cubicle 51," an online collectible trading card game from Burning Ice Group in which office workers struggle for dominance using surreal objects like the Sniper Stapler, Nurf Samurai Armor and Man-Sized Pneumatic Tubes.

"Quitting Time" also focuses on the challenges Michael faced being a young father in New York City. In this, Michael has integrated into his art the third important aspect of his life: his family, especially his relationship with his son Sam. Now, with his son about to turn 14, Michael has begun work on a new comic book about teenage superheroes called "Freedom Watch," which he is previewing at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco.

Currently, Michael is working on a series of T-shirt designs commissioned by Cross Cultural Grace. The series, called "Techbuki," stems from Michael's love of Japanese culture and years as an student of kabuki dance. It features characters from traditional Japanese woodblock prints and paintings, transplanted and updated to modern day office settings.

Michael is the voice of Mrs. Scalzetti in "Umket Industries Presents: The Dixie Stenberg and Brassy Battalion Adventure Theater" and is the regular cover artist on "Batman: The Ace of Detectives".