Mark Bodē was born February 18, 1963, in Utica, New York, the son of the cartoonist Vaughn Bodē and Barbara Falcon. He began drawing at age three, and was encouraged to draw throughout his childhood.[1]
He'd put a marker in my hand, and say, 'Color this area,' and make sure I didn't go crazy going outside the lines. We'd always race up this hill by our house, knock on a manhole cover and yell for Cheech. I asked him why he never came out, and he'd say, 'Well, he's chasing women and doing tricks.' He was brainwashing me into seeing his world, so the characters I started coming up with were heavily influenced by him. Right before he died he told me: 'We'll always be Bodē and son. Share my style, but don't get too close.' I couldn't wait to work with him.[1]
When Bodē was 12 years old and visiting his divorced father Vaughn in San Francisco, he discovered the dead body of his father after the latter had died as the result of autoerotic asphyxiation.[2]
Bodē has completed and expanded upon many of his father's works.[2] As a 15-year-old, he colored the unfinished work Zooks, the First Lizard in Orbit for Heavy Metal.[2][4] In 1984, he expanded and illustrated Cobalt 60, originally created as a short story by his father in 1968. Written by Larry Todd[5] and fully painted by Mark Bodē, the story was serialized in Epic Illustrated, and later collected by The Donning Company/Starblaze Graphics and re-published as a four-issue limited series by Tundra Publishing.[6]
Bodē was the creator of black-and-white comic Miami Mice, published by Rip Off Press in 1986. Bodē and Todd collaborated again on Rip Off Press' 1987 comic Gyro Force.
From 1988 to 1995, Bodē wrote and drew comics with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman. The two collaborated on several issues for Mirage Studios, including issues #18 & #32. Bodē was also the solo creator on the special edition Times Pipeline of TMNT. The Cobalt 60 saga was completed and was published as four graphic novels with Eastman's company Tundra Publishing.
Bodē's anthology work includes Subway Art, Spray Can Art, Mugs and Mascots, Burning New York, Broken Windows, Dondi White, Aerosol Kingdom, Picturing the Modern Amazon (by New Museum books), Jack Kirby's Heroes and Villains, 15 Years of Heavy Metal, 20 Years of Heavy Metal, and Comic Book Superstars.
Tattooing and spray can art
Bodē took up the art of tattooing in 1994. He trained under the guidance of tattoo artists Al Valenta, from western Massachusetts, and Myke Maldonado, from New York.[citation needed]
Bodē also took up spray can art, and has done many mural tributes to his father's characters over the years.[2] In his career as a spraycan artist, he has done mural work globally in London, Spain, Italy, and Germany as well as locally in his hometown of San Francisco.[7]
Mark Bodē has contributed cover illustrations and interior artwork to numerous magazines, including Penthouse, Hustler and Gauntlet. He also designed the covers for some of those magazines. In addition to this the following comics have been published:
Comic books
1986 Miami Mice #1 (Rip Off Press, San Francisco.)
1986 Mark Bodē's Miami Mice #2 (Rip Off Press, San Francisco.)
1986 Mark Bodē's Miami Mice #3 (Rip Off Press, San Francisco.)
1987 Mark Bodē's Miami Mice #4 (Rip Off Press, San Francisco.)
1987 Gyro Force (Rip Off Press, San Francisco.) Mit Larry Todd.
1987 Gyrotropolis (Rip Off Press, San Francisco.)
1988 GyroBotics (Rip Off Press, San Francisco.)
1988 Cobalt 60 (Starblaze Graphics, Virginia Beach.) With Vaughn Bodē and Larry Todd.
1989 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #18 (Mirage Studios, Northampton.) With Kevin Eastman.
1989 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #32 (Mirage Studios, Northampton.) With Kevin Eastman.
1992 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Times Pipeline (Mirage Studios, Northampton.) With Larry Todd.
1992 Cobalt 60 Book One (Tundra Publishing, Northampton.) ISBN1879450356 With Vaughn Bodē and Larry Todd.
1992 Cobalt 60 Book Two (Tundra Publishing, Northampton.) ISBN1879450366 With Larry Todd.
1992 Cobalt 60 Book Three (Tundra Publishing, Northampton.) ISBN1879450372 With Larry Todd.
1992 Cobalt 60 Book Four (Tundra Publishing, Northampton.) ISBN1879450380 With Larry Todd.
2004 The Lizard of Oz (Fantagraphics Books, Seattle.) ISBN978-1560975953
2008 Cheech Wizard goes to Berlin (Overkill, Berlin.)
1999 The Codex of Strange Body Piercing. In: Cherry #21 (Cherry Comics, Albuquerque.)
2000 I Think I'm Going to Vomit. In: Cherry #22 (Cherry Comics, Albuquerque.)
2007 The Lone Lizard: Hang Um' When They're High. In: Heavy Metal (September 2007). (Metal Mammoth Inc., Easthampton.)
2020 Sunpot: Dr. Electric Meets Da Repo Man. In: Heavy Metal #300-301 (Heavy Metal, LLC.)
2020 Cobalt-19. In: Heavy Metal #302 (Heavy Metal, LLC.)
Other
2013 The Big Book of Bodē Tattoos (Last Gasp, San Francisco.) ISBN978-0867197792. Contains mostly tattoo designs and drawings by Mark Bodē and some works by his father Vaughn.
