'CyberMatch.com' (from Secret Romances, 2015).
Angel Gabriele was an American comic book artist and publisher, who was also active in the professional wrestling world as the "Dark Angel". As a comic publisher, he headed the company Fantasy Book Novels (1979). Later in his career, Gabriele also worked for Marvel Comics and DC Comics.
Early life and comics career
He was born in 1956 as Pasquale Demetrio Angelo Gabriele in Brooklyn, New York, and spent part of his childhood in Tidewater, Virginia. He is also known as Pasquale D. Gabriel and Pat Gabriele. Gabriele began his career in comics through early 1970s comic fandom, and learned the finer aspects of the comics profession from Frank Kelly Freas in his Virginia Beach studio. He returned to New York City in 1974 to work for Rich Buckler at Marvel Comics. He made production art and supporting art chores, while drawing his first covers and splash pages for Marvel UK.
His first credited work was a fill-in job on 'Kobra' issue #4 by DC Comics in 1976. Gabriele then designed T-shirts in Indiana for a while, and returned to comics through his company Fantasy Book Novels in 1979. The company published a series of comic books starring the 'Space Giants', a US adaptation of Osamu Tezuka's manga 'Magma Taishi'. He worked for Marvel again in the following years, and collaborated with Mark Texeira on a revival of the 'T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents' for JC Productions.
Wrestling career
During the 1980s, Gabriele did some additional comic books work, as well as designs for Revell's action figure line 'Power Lords'. But from the mid-1980s on, his focus shifted to professional wrestling. He assumed a stylized alter-ego called the Dark Angel, and participated in the live events and TV appearances of Dick the Bruiser's World Wrestling Association in Indianapolis. The 'Dark Angel' character had also made his appearance in the indie comic book series 'Dark Adventures' by Darkline. He eventually had a show of his own, called 'Powerslam Professional Wrestling' (1988-1991), and again as 'Powerslam2000' (1998-2000).
Return to comics
Angel Gabriele returned to the comics front in the 1990s, when he and Jeff Newman worked for Denys Cowan's Milestone Comics on titles like 'Static' and 'Hardware'. He also drew several covers for DC Comics and participated in a comic book about murderer Ed Gein by Hart D. Fisher's Boneyard Press in 1993. For the same publisher, he also partiicipated in a book about Billy the Kid and a new issue of 'The Space Giants' in 1994. Together with a couple of co-workers, he headed the Pyramid Comics line in 1996-1997, but all produced titles remained unpublished due to the dubious disappearance of the mother company, LK Management. In the 2000s, Gabriele maintained a website promoting Powerslam Wrestling and Space Giants memorabilia. He collaborated with Richard "Grass" Green on Green's final comic book work 'Xal-Kor' (TwoMorrows Publishing, 2002).
Final years and death
Angel Gabriele suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) during his final years, and was more or less housebound. He found some joy in working with Paul Kupperberg for the little independent comics company Charlton Neo. He illustrated one of Kupperberg's stories for 'Secret Romances', and also had his own comic strip, called 'No Name', on Pix-C Webcomics. He was also the artist of the Pix-C strip 'N.E.O.' until his condition forced him to quit.
Angel Gabriele died on 23 February 2016.
'Dark Adventures' and 'Studs'.