Comic Book Idol, also known as CBI, is an amateur comic book art competition created and hosted by award-winning comic writer J. Torres, and sponsored by Comic Book Resources and its participating advertisers. Deriving the idea from the singing contest American Idol, CBI is a five-week and five-round competition in which each contestant is asked to draw a script provided by guest judges in a period of one week. These invited comic book professionals will then comment on the artists’ work in each round. Fans will then determine which contestants will move on to subsequent rounds by voting in a weekly poll.
A number of winners and runners-up have gone on to work professionally in the comics industry:
- Patrick Scherberger won CBI1 and has since worked on a number of Marvel Comics titles like Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man, Marvel Adventures: Hulk and GeNext.
- Jonathan Hickman was the runner-up in CBI1 but has gone on to work for Virgin Comics (Guy Ritchie's Gamekeeper and Seven Brothers), Image Comics (Pax Romana, A Red Mass for Mars and Transhuman). and Marvel Comics (Fantastic Four, Astonishing Tales).
- Carlos Rodríguez won CBI2 and went on to work on Shadowhawk for Image and Batman and the Outsiders for DC Comics.
- Billy Penn also competed in CBI2 and has since done work on Savage Dragon.
- Joe Infurnari, another CBI2 contestant, has worked on a couple of titles from Oni Press, including Wasteland and Borrowed Time as well as on the back-up feature of Jersey Gods with Mark Waid.
- Dan McDaid, writer and artist on various Doctor Who comics for Panini and IDW and Jersey Gods for Image Comics, as well as strips for DC Comics, competed in CBI3.
- Nick Pitarra competed in CBI3 and has gone on to do work for Marvel Comics, on books such as Astonishing Tales.
- Charles Paul Wilson III, artist on The Stuff of Legend, also competed in CBI3.
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