John Cassaday (; born 1971) is an American comic book artist, writer, and television director. He is best known for his work on the critically acclaimed Planetary with writer Warren Ellis, Astonishing X-Men with Joss Whedon, Captain America with John Ney Rieber, and Star Wars with Jason Aaron. Both Marvel Comics and DC Comics include many of Cassaday's iconic images in their marketing, and in their art and poster book collections. Marvel Comics-based animated films have made extensive use of his art. He has received multiple Eagle and Eisner Awards and nominations for his work. Early career A self-taught illustrator, Cassaday has listed his influences as, among others, NC Wyeth, classic pulp magazine-culture iconography, and popular music. He first attended film school and directed television news for five years. He spent one summer working a construction job while working on his portfolio. Cassaday's first published work appeared in 1994–1995 in comics published by independent publishers Boneyard Press and Caliber Comics. He showed his portfolio to popular comic book writer and editor Mark Waid at San Diego Comic-Con International 1996. Soon after, Cassaday began receiving job offers from bigger publishers. He quit his construction job and left Texas for New York. In December 1996 he produced art for Dark Horse Comics' Ghost. Within a year, he was hired to be the regular artist on Homage Comics' Desperadoes. Comics In late 1997 Cassay was hired by DC and Marvel as artist on the Teen Titans and Flash annuals, X-Men/Alpha Flight, and Union Jack. His work on X-Men made him one of its most popular artists. Cassady quickly became an in-demand artist working on many top titles, including Gen¹³, Superman/Batman, The Hulk, and The Avengers. Cassaday worked on multiple Captain America projects, including an issue of Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America written by Jeph Loeb, "Captain America Lives Again" and "Captain America: The New Deal". He based his cover art on World War II propaganda posters. The art was popular with fans and critics alike and Marvel released the works in a series of poster art books. He has also created covers for comic books featuring The Phantom, for US publisher Moonstone Books and the European Egmont, as well as covers for Joss Whedon's Firefly spinoff comic Serenity: Those Left Behind, and Guy Ritchie's Gamekeeper. He handled covers and art direction on Dynamite Entertainment's The Lone Ranger comic-book series. Books featuring