11 Facts About Al Columbia

At the age of 18 Columbia was hired to assist Bill Sienkiewicz in illustrating Alan Moore's ambitious Big Numbers series.

When Sienkiewicz withdrew from the series in 1990 after the release of the first two issues, Moore and his backers at Tundra Publishing asked Al Columbia to become its sole artist.

Al Columbia's first published works appeared in the horror anthology From Beyonde in 1991, initially under the pseudonym "Lucien" and then under his real name.

Also in 1995, "I Was Killing When Killing Wasn't Cool" became the first of a series of two color short stories by Al Columbia to appear in the Fantagraphics anthology Zero Zero.

In later stories such as "Amnesia" and "Alfred the Great" Al Columbia combined these stylized character drawings with minutely detailed chiaroscuro backgrounds created using mixed media and digital tools.

Al Columbia contributed solely as a writer to 2003's The Pogostick, a series about a mentally disturbed office worker illustrated by Ethan Persoff.

Al Columbia returned to a degree of public visibility in 2007 with an exhibition of original artwork at Portland, Oregon's Floating World Comics, an interview on Robin McConnell's Inkstuds radio show, and the first of six appearances in the comics quarterly Mome.

Al Columbia continued to contribute short pieces for publication through the 2010s, mostly to small press anthologies.

In 2018 Columbia returned with Amnesia: The Lost Films of Francis D Longfellow, a collection of posters for the imaginary cartoons of a fictional Golden Age animation studio.

In July 2021 Al Columbia launched an Instagram account featuring his artwork and photographs.

Al Columbia has directed short films and music videos, including one in 2009 for the song "These Wounds Never Heal" by the American heavy metal band Unholy.