Mike Allred was a staple in comics, a well-respected cartoonist whose independent creation Madman made his work beloved amongst those who knew it, and that was almost everyone at this point in the early 2000s.

When you’re an artist of that stature, you often can get what you want. That’s why Allred admits he was “very selfishly only using my pals whose work I loved for fill-ins” up until that point, but who can really blame him with friends like Darwyn Cooke and Duncan Fegredo? So, when his editor on X-Statix at Marvel, Axel Alonso, suggested a “new upstart” as a fill-in for that title’s 20^th issue, he wasn’t sure.

“I didn’t even want to consider someone I didn’t know,” Allred said. “(But) Axel pushed hard with a ‘Please give his stuff a look. There’s something special there.’”

So, he did, and Allred understood.

“There was a raw, unique energy to what I saw,” the cartoonist shared.

“Nick (Dragotta) was an absolute outlier.”

This was before Absolute Batman, before the towering sales, before the award nominations, before East of West, before everything. It was Dragotta’s very first project as an artist, and Allred knew how special he was right then and there.

But that’s Nick Dragotta for you.

To know him is to understand why his craft is undeniable, how his drive to improve is insatiable, and, honestly, what a genuinely good guy he is. Even though he’s one of the biggest names in comics at this point, Dragotta is still himself, both as a person and artist. And as those who know him shared, he’s simply one of the best to ever put pen to paper in comics.

“Nick’s a world class artist and no one operating at that level doesn’t have some fundamental or stylistic tricks that make them visually unique. So, Nick obviously has that in spades,” East of West writer Jonathan Hickman said. “(But) he always — always — tells you a good story.”

“Nick does not bog the reader down in detail that doesn’t serve the narrative arc,” shared cartoonist Daniel Warren Johnson. “He has a mission, a story to tell, and he knows exactly how many lines that takes. It’s the sure sign of a master engaged in their craft, well ahead of the pack.”

“There are things that you can push and things you can’t, a limit to how far you can go. Nick has figured out the cheat code or something, because his worlds always make logical sense, even when he’s leaning into cartoony action or proportions,” added Dragotta’s Good Devils: Don’t Play Fair with Evil teammate David Brothers. “There are very few people approaching comics like he does today.”

While Absolute Batman, his series with writer Scott Snyder, colorist Frank Martin and letterer Tom Napolitano, has made the artist a sensation, his art rep Felix Lu of Felix Comic Art noted that it didn’t change his art as much as it increased its visibility.

“Absolute Batman has simply given his art the platform to be seen by everyone,” Lu said.

He’s right. Dragotta’s long been a great artist, one grinding his way through a comics career even if he was delivering potent and impactful work throughout. While Absolute Batman may have made him one of the biggest names in comics, his path to the top was a long and winding road, with plenty of stops and starts along the way.

But that’s okay.

It was all necessary for Nick Dragotta to become the era defining artist he is today.