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Klaus Janson (born January 23, 1952,^[1] in Coburg, Germany)^[2] is a German-born American comic book artist, working regularly for Marvel Comics and DC Comics and sporadically for independent companies. While he is best-known as an inker, Janson has frequently worked as a penciller and colorist.

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Born in Coburg, German, Janson emigrated to the United States in 1957, settling with his family in Connecticut.^[2]

[edit] Artist

After a short stint as assistant to Dick Giordano in the early 1970s,^[3] Janson came to prominence as the inker over Sal Buscema's pencils on The Defenders. Since then he has freelanced on most of the major titles at Marvel and DC. He is probably most famous for his collaboration with writer-artist Frank Miller on an early 1980s run on Daredevil; another celebrated collaboration with Miller, on DC's Batman story Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, followed in 1986. Janson's long-time association with Miller broke down over scheduling and inking disputes during the production of Dark Knight,^{[citation needed]} and the two have not worked together since. Janson has frequently pencilled and inked (notably over Gene Colan's pencils) for various Batman titles, including Gothic with Grant Morrison.

Janson's work as an inker and occasional penciler at Marvel Comics includes collaborations with John Romita, Jr. on Wolverine, Amazing Spider-Man and Black Panther. His other work includes Batman: Death and the Maidens, World War Hulk, The Dark Knight Returns, Battlestar Galactica, Superman, Logan's Run, Legends of the Dark Knight and Terminator II.

Janson's current projects include penciling a five-part Daredevil limited series written by Brian Michael Bendis and David Mack (with inks by Bill Sienkiewicz), and penciling and inking a two-part Spider-Man story written by David Morrell.^[3]

[edit] Writer

Janson wrote a short story in the anthology miniseries Batman: Black and White.

[edit] Teacher

Janson has taught sequential storytelling for over ten years at the School of Visual Arts in New York City,^[4] and has written both The DC Comics Guide to Pencilling Comics and The DC Comics Guide to Inking Comics. Janson also holds annual seminars at Marvel for the editorial staff and their up-and-coming artists,^[3] and teaches short courses on comics storytelling for the New York-based Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art.^[3]

[edit] Notes