Kazu Kibuishi facts for kids
Quick facts for kids カズ・キブイシ |
|
|---|---|
Kibuishi at the 2018 Texas Book Festival
|
|
| Born | Kazuhiro Kibuishi April 8, 1978 Tokyo, Japan |
| Nationality | Japanese American |
|
Notable works
|
Flight, Amulet |
Kazuhiro "Kazu" Kibuishi (born April 8, 1978) is a super talented author and artist. He creates amazing graphic novels and comics. Kazu was born in Tokyo, Japan, but grew up in the United States. He is best known for his popular Amulet series. He also created and edited the comic book collection Flight and the webcomic Copper.
Contents
Kazu Kibuishi's Early Life and School
Kazu Kibuishi was born on April 8, 1978, in Tokyo, Japan. When he was four years old, in 1982, he moved to the United States with his mom and brother.
In 1996, Kazu started college at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He wanted to study film. While he was there, he began drawing for the school newspaper, the Daily Nexus. He had drawn for his high school newspaper too. Kazu said that his career really started when he made comics for the Nexus. He even became the Art Director for the newspaper for over three years. He created a comic called Clive and Cabbage during that time. Kazu finished college in 2000 with a degree in film studies.
Kazu Kibuishi's Creative Career
Kazu Kibuishi started drawing when he was only five years old. He shared that he missed cool robot TV shows like Ultraman after moving to the U.S. This sadness made him want to draw and create his own stories. He also loved Garfield comics and magazines like Mad and CARtoons. These helped him fall in love with comic books.
After college, Kazu worked as an animator for two years. But he decided to leave animation to focus on comics. He wanted to spend more time writing his own stories. He then started his monthly webcomic called Copper on his website. This comic ran for seven years, ending in 2009.
The Flight Comic Series
Kazu Kibuishi came up with the idea for Flight as a collection of comics. He invited his friends to contribute their stories. He showed the project at a special event called the Alternative Press Expo. There, a publisher named Erik Larsen from Image Comics noticed it. This made the project very popular, and many talented artists and writers joined in. Image Comics published the first Flight book in 2004. The series finished with its eighth book in 2011.
The Explorer Anthology Books
After Flight ended, Kazu Kibuishi created the Explorer series. These were also collections of comics, but they were made especially for children. Many of the same artists who worked on Flight also contributed to Explorer. This series is seen as a follow-up to Flight. There were three books in the Explorer series, and the last one was called Explorer: The Hidden Doors.
The Amulet Graphic Novels
Kazu Kibuishi is the amazing creator of Amulet. This is a very popular series of graphic novels. The first book, The Stonekeeper, came out in 2008. A big publisher called Scholastic won the rights to publish the series after a lot of competition.
Besides The Stonekeeper, other books in the Amulet series include:
- The Stonekeeper's Curse
- The Cloud Searchers
- The Last Council
- Prince of the Elves
- Escape From Lucien
- Firelight
- Supernova
- Waverider
The Amulet series finished with its ninth and final book, Waverider, which was released on February 6, 2024.
Other Creative Works
While he was working on the first Flight book, Kazu also created a four-part steampunk graphic novel. It was called Daisy Kutter: The Last Train. This book was published by Viper Comics.
Because of his work with Scholastic, Kazu Kibuishi was asked to draw new covers for the Harry Potter novels. These new covers were part of a special 15th anniversary box set. He also drew the story "?" for a collection of short stories called Machine of Death. Kazu also illustrated a children's book by Brandon Sanderson called The Most Boring Book Ever.
Awards and Recognitions
Kazu Kibuishi's Flight Volume 2 was nominated for a big award in 2006. It was for the Eisner Award for Best Anthology. His graphic novel Daisy Kutter: The Last Train was also named one of the Best Books for Young Adults in 2006. This award came from the Young Adult Library Services Association.
His Amulet series has been on The New York Times' Best Seller list many times. This shows how popular the books are!
Kazu Kibuishi's Personal Life
Kazu Kibuishi is married to another talented illustrator, Amy Kim Ganter. They often work together. Kazu and Amy have two children, Juni and Sophie. They live in Bellevue, Washington. In 2012, after his book Escape From Lucien came out, Kazu became very sick. He had a serious infection called bacterial meningitis. He had to stay in the hospital for weeks and was in a coma for treatment.
