Born on Feb. 16, 1958 in Erie, PA, I've lived here most of my life. My wife Michelle and I have been married for fifteen years now and we have a two year old daughter named Brianna Grace.

I graduated in 1976 from Technical Memorial High school, a unique vocational trade school, where I took comprehensive art classes for three years. In 1977, I began attending the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Arts in Dover, NJ. I stayed for one year, the second in the school's existence, and it was here that I met fellow future comic art professionals Rick Veitch, Steve Bissette, Tom Yeates and Tim Truman, among many others.

In 1978, I started my first professional gig working as an illustrator for Harry "A" Chesler. Over a two year period I produced more than 100 full-color illustrations to accompany the verses of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam for Mr. Chesler's private collection. It was also during this time that my first professionally published work appeared in Heavy Metal magazine. Since then, I've worked for numerous comicbook publishers, including DC, Eclipse, Dark Horse, First and Marvel comics, as well as a few others.

Although I've drawn and painted many different comic books and covers over the years, my main claim to fame is still undoubtedly the work I produced (mainly inking) on the title "The Saga of the Swamp Thing" with creative co-conspirators Steve Bissette (penciling) and Alan Moore (scripting) for DC Comics in the mid-80's. Now a hallmark series in the annals of comics history, the Moore/Bissette/Totleben Swamp Thing run was my first regular professional comics gig, For the most part, I remember the experience fondly as an extremely exciting time of highly intense creative energy and output generated by the potent chemistry of our rather unique three-man collaboration.

After about three years of working on Swamp Thing, I went over to Eclipse Comics to do the artwork on the revisionist superhero title, Miracleman, also scripted by Alan Moore. Miracleman: Book III was the first series on which I regularly handled the art chores solo, penciling and inking six issues over a way-too-long three year period. I was a happy soul when I finally finished this book as it took a lot out of me, although I enjoyed doing it and still consider some of this work to be among the best I've done in comics.

In 1985, Steve Bissette and I co-created the horror anthology TABOO. I produced one painted cover (#2's notorious "snapper" cover) and co-edited the first two issues with Steve before handing my share of the editing reins over to him.

Somewhere between working on Swamp Thing and Miracleman, I was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a progressive degenerative disease of the eye. Symptoms of this chronic condition are profound nightblindness and loss of peripheral vision. Fortunately, even though this disease has rendered me legally blind in recent years, I'm still able to see well enough to continue drawing and painting in pretty much the same manner as I always have.

As "Jaunty" John Totleben, the sightless and imperturbable "inker without fear", I joined up with "Affable" Alan Moore, "Roarin'" Rick Veitch and "Sturdy" Steve Bissette for a bit of retro-rabblerousing on the series 1963 for Image Comics. 1963 was written and drawn in a style deliberately meant to imitate mid-60's Marvel Comics. I did the sonar-inking on Book 4 featuring The Unbelievable N-MAN (Sturdy Steve penciling) and Book 5 featuring HORUS (Roarin' Rick penciling). Of course, Affable Al did all the pulse-pounding scriptwork.

More recently, I did the artwork for Vermillion (DC/Helix) #8 (penciling and inking) and #12 (penciling and inking 7 pages). This sci-fi series, created and written by Lucius Shepard, was very well written and more than a little bizarre. Of course, this is no surprise to those who've read Shepard's novels Green Eyes and Life During Wartime. If you didn't pick up any issues when it was coming out you might want to grab some back issues and give it a try.

Over the years I've done numerous covers, many of them paintings, for such titles as Swamp Thing, Miracleman, Hellblazer, The Children's Crusade, The Spectre and others, including the recent cover paintings for The Return of Tarzan and Tarzan Versus the Moonmen for Dark Horse. I've also done several pin-ups, including characters such as Sandman, Death, and Swamp Thing. Many of the Swamp Thing paintings that I did can be seen at the Words and Pictures Museum in Northampton, MA, along with other examples of my work.

Initially, my hope for COMICON.com was that I'd be able to do some of the things I'd normally do at conventions without the obvious drawbacks of the flea market atmosphere and mentality that most, if not all, cons seem to have degenerated into. I now see this as an opportunity to do a lot of things that could never be done at any convention due to the typical time and space limitations. In other words, the tablespace here at COMICON.com is greatly expandable and organic in the sense that it can grow and be modified in ways that are not possible at normal conventions (at least not without getting your ass kicked by the dealers next to you). The information that can be posted here could not be made available in any one place otherwise without, at the very least, costing a great deal of money for everyone involved. So, in the very near future and beyond, I will be adding a lot of bits and pieces to this site. I plan to include in-depth info on the various comics I've worked on, biographical material, sordid exposes on a few of the unsavory accomplices I've allowed myself to be associated with, art materials and technique oriented stuff, a checklist, and more. All of which will hopefully be of interest to aspiring artists, fellow pros, fans, collectors and those non-comics oriented folks (i.e. normal, well-balanced people) with a penchant for cruising around in strange places like COMICON.com. I hope this gives some idea of what I've done and will be doing in comics and here at COMICON.com.

I'm looking forward to hearing from fans, friends and fellow artists. Although I don't have the time to be a pen pal or write long, detailed missives dripping with rumors and innuendos, I'll do my best to send short replies and answer your questions ASAP. Thank you very much for your interest in my work and please be sure to check out my original art portfolio, as well as some of the other goodies that will show up on the table now and again.. Anyway, hang out, enjoy and be cool.

Best, JTT.