Francis Manapul (born August 26, 1979) is a Canadian-Filipino comic book artist and writer.
Career
Manapul is known for his work on Witchblade and The Necromancer for Top Cow, working on the former for three years, off and on, returning for the tenth anniversary issue in 2005.He has provided covers for various titles, most notably for some G.I. Joe comics from Devil's Due Publishing.
In 2007, he signed an exclusive contract to work with DC Comics.[1]Manapul served as a guest judge in the fourth week round of the third season of Comic Book Idol, a comic book art competition sponsored by Comic Book Resources.[2]
In 2008 Francis became the artist for DC's Legion of Superheroes with Jim Shooter as the writer.Francis co-created the character Gazelle
with Shooter before leaving the title.
In January 2010, Newsarama named Manapul one of ten creators to watch for the coming year.[3]
In 2009, he was named to be the artist in DC's new Flash series written by Geoff Johns which stars Barry Allen in the lead role.
He was also one of the TV presenters on Beast Legends from Yap films, which currently airs Wednesday nights at 10pm EST on History Television Canada.Its premiere in the US was on September 9, Thursday at 10pm EST on SyFy.
In 2011 Manapul was awarded the Joe Shuster Award for Outstanding Artist[4] and the All-in-One Award (Favorite artist known for almost-exclusively inking his/her own interior comic book pencil work and rarely the work of others in '10) from the Inkwell Awards.That May, DC Comics announced a massive revamp and relaunch of their entire superhero line, as part of this Francis was named writer/artist on the Flash, with his longtime colorist/collaborator, Brian Buccellato co-writing with him.[5]
In April 2014, Manapul and Buccellato moved from The Flash to Detective Comics.[6]That August, Manapul created Batman poster for New York Comic Con.[7]In 2016, Manapul became the writer and artist for the DC Rebirth comic book series Trinity.[8]
On October 12, 2023, Manapul and a group of colleagues announced at the New York Comic Con that they were forming a cooperative media company called Ghost Machine which would publish creator-owned comics, and allow the participating creators to benefit from the development of their intellectual properties.The company publishes its books through Image Comics, and its founding creators include Geoff Johns, Brad Meltzer, Jason Fabok, Gary Frank, Bryan Hitch, and Peter J. Tomasi, all of whom would produce comics work exclusively through that company.[9][10] Manapul's inaugural work for Ghost Machine would be drawing The Rocketfellers, which is written by Tomasi.[11][12] The series' premise is based on the idea that Manapul explains thus: "The best place to hide when you're in the Witness Protection Program perhaps is through a different time."[13] The story depicts a 26th century dysfunctional family who when threatened, flee by traveling through time to the year 2024, where they to encounter the strange inhabitants and culture of that era, only to find that the threat they thought they had escaped has followed them.[14]
Bibliography
Interior work
Love in Tights #1 (with J. Torres, Slave Labor Graphics, 1998)
Monster Fighters, Inc. (with J. Torres, Image):
The Ghosts of Christmas (one-shot, 1999)
The Black Book (one-shot, 2000)
Fear Effect: Retro Helix (with Frank Mastromauro and David Wohl, one-shot, Top Cow, 2001)
