Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Netzer

Our special series about our esteemed judges for The Art of Xero Error Competition concludes with Michael Netzer. While we get ready to announce the winners for the competition, let us acquaint you with these fantastic and notable personalities who graciously accepted to take time out of their busy schedules to support our project. Michael has never shied away from showing support for Xero Error right from our early days and we are happy to see our union grow.

Michael Netzer

Michael Netzer was born in  1955 in Detroit, Michigan, to parents of Lebanese origin. After studying at Wayne State University in Michigan, Netzer met Neal Adams at a comics convention in Detroit and was informally offered a job with Continuity Studios. Upon relocating to New York City in 1975, he quickly gained recognition as an artist for illustrating a variety of characters at DC Comics, including, Superboy, the Martian Manhunter, Green Arrow, and Black Lightning, and Marvel Comics, including Spider Man.

In the early 80s, Netzer disappeared from the American comics scene, extending his travels back to his childhood home in Lebanon. He escaped the war-ridden country in August 1983.

In 1991, Netzer returned to New York to work again with Neal Adams at Continuity Comics. The two fell into a dispute over the intellectual property rights to Ms. Mystic, a character they had worked on jointly in 1977, which Adams had published under the Pacific Comics and Continuity Comics imprints.

Netzer produced a series of comic book projects during this period, including, Legends of the Dark Knight Annual #2, Detective Comics, The Huntress, Babylon 5 and Neil Gaiman’s Lady Justice for Tekno Comix. His art in this period demonstrated a notable shift into a darker and moodier art style, such as in The Huntress mini-series, which merged his high-contrast style in the 1978 Hot Stuff with the dark noir art of the popular Frank Miller’s Sin City series.

In January 2004, Netzer launched his first web site, “The New Comic Book of Life”, outlining his theories on superhero mythology and the role it plays in cultural evolution. On the site, Netzer revealed unpublished material espousing this manifesto from 1977-1981, which had never seen publication. He also apologized to colleague Neal Adams for his law suit against him in the previous decade. In November 2004, he launched a second web site, “The Comic Book Creator’s Party”, calling on comics creators to form a political union for participating in the 2008 U.S. Presidential elections, and quoting notable comics creators’ references to the socio-political climate in America and abroad. Netzer has since launched several other web sites, including “The Comic Book Creators’ Guild”, “Growing Earth Consortium” and “Michael Netzer Online”, the site-complex portal.

Netzer maintains an active web presence, speaking on comics community issues, including a campaign to bolster comic fandom’s support for J’onn J’onzz The Martian Manhunter, facing a rumored demise in DC Comics Final Crisis crossover series. In early 2009, Netzer founded and launched Facebook Comic Con, an ongoing virtual convention for the comics community registered at the social network.