Tom Sutton broke into comic books in 1967 and worked almost non-stop on various projects until the early 1990s. Sutton's work has ranged from beautifully crafted genre work - horror stories for Warren and Charlton, 'Daredevil', 'Planet of the Apes' - to simple hackwork - 'Seeker 3000', 'Godzilla'.
Coming from North Adams, Massachusetts, Sutton graduated from high school in 1955 and enlisted in the US Air Force afterwards, where he worked on his first art projects, including the adventure strip 'F.E.A.F. Dragon' for the base publication. Back in civil life, he attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and began a career as a freelance commercial artist.
In 1967, Sutton did his first story for Warren's horror magazine Eerie, as well as his first western feature for Marvel, 'Renegades' in Western Gunfighters. He was the artist of the first 'Vampirella' story for the Warren magazine of the same name in 1969. Mostly using the pen name Sean Todd, he also worked for competitor Skywald Publications ('Frankenstein' in Psycho, 'Butch Cassidy', 'The Heap').
He took on science fiction work for Marvel ('Planet of the Apes'), as well as for First Comics ('GrimJack', 'Squalor'). He additionally appeared in the humor title 'Not Brand Ecch', in which he did Marvel parodies. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Sutton mainly worked with Marvel's supernatural characters, such as 'Werewolf by Night', 'Ghost Rider', and 'Doctor Strange' (including 'Baron Mordo' backup stories). With writer Steve Englehart, he made a solo series with the 'X-Men' character 'Beast' in Amazing Adventures.
Sutton was present in many Charlton horror titles, including 'Ghost Manor', 'Midnight Tales', 'Monster Hunters' and 'The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves', for which he also did painted covers. For DC, he made stories for 'House of Mystery', 'House of Secrets', and all of the 56 'Star Trek' issues. In his spare time, Sutton exhibited paintings of bar scenes in local galleries. In 1994, Tom Sutton retired from the comic books field, although he still made comics in his free time, like for Fantagraphics' Eros Comix. Tom Sutton died of a heart attack at his drawing board, on Friday 3 May 2002.
