Biography
After studying art at a vocational high school in Erie, Totleben attended The Kubert School for one year. He then spent several years working for comics editor Harry "A" Chesler, producing illustrations for the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam; these never saw print. His first published work appeared in Heavy Metal in January 1979.
His first success in American comics, and still his best-known work, was as the inker of pencilled art by Stephen R. Bissette for the DC Comics title Swamp Thing, when the series was being written and reinvented by Alan Moore; Totleben and Bissette joined the series in 1983, shortly before Moore. Totleben's style was unusual for the time, and is still distinctive among U.S. comics artists, for its fluid layouts and heavily detailed rendering (using a combination of stippling and hatching). He also painted covers for the series in oils and acrylic, and continues to be a popular cover painter.
Beginning in 1988, Bissette and Totleben co-created and edited the horror anthology Taboo. Taboo showcased a wide range of writers and artists, from mainstream to semi-underground, and is best known as the original venue for the acclaimed graphic novel From Hell.
Totleben's most ambitious comics project was with Moore again, on the third volume of Miracleman, which he pencilled and inked. Response to his art was so strong that Eclipse Comics retained him as the series' sole artist after changing artists several times in the previous volume despite delays caused by his newly-diagnosed eye disease, retinitis pigmentosa.
Though Totleben's eye condition has made him legally blind, it has left his central vision clear enough for him to continue working in his usual style, but much more slowly. He has illustrated a number of titles for DC and Marvel Comics, and worked on Moore's satirical Image Comics series 1963, in which he was described as "'Jaunty' John", the blind "inker without fear".
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