Artist catalog & profile

Billy Tucci

Creator of Shi, independent publisher and writer–artist of Sgt. Rock: The Lost Battalion.

Artist Profile

A career in context

Billy Tucci is a cartoonist and the creator of Shi, the modern-day samurai saga published through his company Crusade Fine Arts. A graduate of New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, he built a career around both drawing comics and publishing his own characters. His professional recognition includes an Inkpot Award and Eisner nominations. Shi became an enduring independent property, with editions in multiple languages and a publishing history extending into new graphic novels and anniversary collections.

For DC, Tucci wrote and illustrated the six-issue Sgt. Rock: The Lost Battalion, which began publication in November 2008. The story combines DC’s war-comics characters with events surrounding the Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team in World War II. His official biography records a Military Writers Society of America Gold Medal for the project. His other work includes the Nativity retelling A Child Is Born and Miss Fury: Joy Division for Dynamite, extending his bibliography beyond Shi into historical and religious stories.

Crusade’s later releases include Shi: Return of the Warrior, Haikyo, Sakura and collected editions funded through Kickstarter and Indiegogo. The 2024 anniversary programme also included an enlarged original-art edition of Shi: Way of the Warrior #1, reproducing the debut’s creation. Tucci drew connecting Shi and Lady Death covers for The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide #54 with colorist Wes Hartman. Those projects bring together his roles as character creator, illustrator and independent publisher.

CoverLineage noteShi: Return of the Warrior and the Black Line edition of Shi: The Way of the Warrior #1 connect Tucci’s signature character to ASM300. Their individual entries distinguish the publication and treatment while grouping the source-cover relationship.

Catalog connections

Across the archive

This artist appears in 1 indexed catalogs. Explore the lineages below, then open individual covers for edition details and credited roles. The Dungeon Crawler Carl title catalog can overlap with the composition catalogs.