Robert J. Sodaro: Bio

Bio:

Robert J. (“Bob”) Sodaro is an American born writer, editor, and digital graphic artist. Sodaro was born in Norwalk, CT and is best known for writing as a journalist for numerous publications in the comicbook industry press during the ‘80s & ‘90s. He currently contributes stories to a number of independent comicbook publishers including, Dark Fire Press, United Comics, Red Anvil Comics, Main Enterprises, Pronto Comics, Free Lunch Comics, and others, He has also created and written for the online webcomic publisher Inkbot.com. He currently writes for HubPages.com about comicbooks, films, and literature. He is the creator of a number of intellectual properties including Agent Unknown, Wülf Girlz, Girl Skout Wars, Hot Girl & Totally Hot Girl, and others.

 

As a Media Studies Major at Sacred Heart University (SHU), Fairfield, CT, Sodaro studied various forms of modern media including radio, video, film, and print. Sodaro graduated with a BS in Media Studies and a minor in philosophy. While attending SHU he acquired his 3^rd Class FCC License and began broadcasting as a DJ on WSHU, the college’s radio station. It was this position that landed him an internship, and later a job as a copywriter at WICC, the local #1 radio station in the Fairfield County area. It was while working at another station, WNLK in Norwalk CT, Sodaro met Mike Raub a DJ at that station.

 

In 1981, Raub, a renowned comicbook art collector introduced Sodaro to Mike Catron, then an editor for Fantagraphics Publications’ two magazines, The Comics Journal and Amazing Heroes. Catron purchased Sodaro’s first published piece — an article about Steve Ditko’s run on Spider-Man — which set Sodaro off on a publishing run that had his work appearing in virtually every major comicbook industry magazine over the next three decades. It was during these formative days of his career that Sodaro initially met and befriended indie comic publisher, Jim Main (although Sodaro wouldn’t begin contribution stories and/or doing production work for Main’s various publications until 2010).

 

From his initial piece in Amazing Heroes, Sodaro went on to contribute to The FantiCo Chronicles, The Comics Journal, Comics Buyers’ Guide, Wizard, Hero Illustrated, Flux, Combo, Nonsports Update, Comics Values Monthly, Triton, TwoMorrows, and numerous other publications. During the ‘80s & ‘90s he also wrote marketing and promotional material directly for many of the comicbook publishers as well, including Marvel (Marvel Age, Marvel Vision, Marvel Year in Review), DC, Image (Extreme), Malibu (The Malibu Sun), Dark Horse, Valiant/Acclaim, J.C. Comics, and many others. For a time, he served as the Senor Title Coordinator and a regular contributor to SpiderFan.org. Sodaro also briefly worked on an in-house assignment as a copywriting/consultant for Marvel Comics.

 

During this same time, in addition to his extensive comicbook journalism, Sodaro also wrote for numerous non-comics and mainstream magazines and newspapers. These articles ranged from computers, electronic gaming, and technology (Videogaming Illustrated, Ahoy!, Compute’s! Gazette, Run), to local issues (Stamford Plus, Norwalk Plus, Norwalk Beat, Local Matters, The Fairpress, The Fairfield County Weekly, The Hour), to opinion, pop culture, and music (Fairfield County Woman, Relix, Blues Revue), to comics and collecting (American Antiquities, MoneyCard Collector, Tuff Stuff’s Collect). One of Sodaro’s other long loves, has been movies, and he has maintained a movie column over the better part of the last 30 years (Tunes ‘N’ Times, Hip, Mixx/InterMixx, The Stamford Times, More Sugar, PopThought.com, Examiner.com/Hartford and currently for Hubpages.com).

 

In the late ‘70s — while working as the managing editor for Ion International, Sodaro began the move from journalist to a writer of comics. His first work of published fiction was for Videogaming Illustrated (an Ion International publication) when he took over the writing chores for an ongoing cartoon strip entitled Video Victor (illustrated by Gill Fox). He went on to create an espionage series for Deni Lobert’s Renegade Press imprint, entitled Agent Unknown (Illustrated by Del Barras). In 2006, Sodaro was invited to join Keith Murphey in The Comicbook Artists Guild (CAG), as well as become publicist for (and contributor to) Murphey’s publishing house, Guild Works Productions (GWP). It was through his association with the Guild and GWP that Sodaro met and befriended Matt C. Ryan and Steve Kanaras of Free Lunch Comics. It was at this time that Sodaro returned to his roots, writing fiction. Since that time several of Sodaro’s short stories have been published by a number of indie publishers including Guild Works Productions (Psychosis!), The Comicbook Artists Guild Anthology (CAG), Free Lunch Comics (Beyond the Kuiper Belt, Only in Whispers), Atlas Unleashed (Psychosis Today!), and Main Enterprises (*PPFZT!, The Attic, Main Enterprises Presents, others), and even created and produced comics for Pronto Comics (Hot Girl & Totally Hot Girl, First in Flight — the story of Gustave Whitehead, and Perceptions).

 

Sodaro’s Hot Girl & Totally Hot Girl (IndyPlanet) began life as a gag and wound up as a stand-alone comic when Sodaro decided to “take the next step” in his evolution as an author. He assembled a team to produce the art then found a publisher (NY-based Pronto Comics) to help him move the project through to fruition. For its initial release, the comic became a full-color, eight-page Print-on-Demand comic from IndyPlanet.com. His other on-going projects include the web comic Girl Skout Wars (a group of young girls fighting off zombies, and other creatures in a post-apocalyptic world); and Wülf Girlz (A pair of pre-teen girls who are werewülves, and stalk pedophiles and other human predators). His second Pronto PoD comic was First in Flight a brief accounting of Connecticut resident, Gustave Whitehead, who flew two years before the Wright brothers. A third Pronto Comic is the mythic flight of fancy entitled Perceptions. Sodaro has also edited and produced books, magazines and comics for various publishers, including Main Enterprises, Stone Island Comics, JGM Comics, Red Anvil Comics, Buffalo Avenue Books, Macrospasm Studios, Hippy Comix, and others.

 

Sodaro is also the author of a pair of prose non-fiction books, (Kiddie Meal Collectibles (Krause) — a price guide/history about Fast Food toys and Collectibles — and Trivia Mania: Commercials and Ads (Zebra) 1001 questions and answers about ads and commercials). Working with Alex Malloy and Stuart Wells, he became the features editor and assisted with the production for the long-running Comics Values Annual (1993–2009); a comicbook price guide. In his role as a comicbook historian he also contributed to the first three volumes of The Official Index to the Marvel Universe; which have been spun off into a number of soft-cover “Official Index to the Marvel Universe” trades (Sodaro’s contributions appear in: Spider-Man. Captain America, Thor, and Ghost Rider). Sodaro contributed to a pair of Dynamite Entertainment’s books, Stan Lee’s How to Draw Superheroes, and Stan Lee's Master Class.

 

In addition to his writing two on-going comics for Red Anvil (Cyberines & Owl Girls) Sodaro also writes for InDELLible Comics and United Comics. He is currently assembling the Wülf Girls stories into a single volume and will be issuing them in a new compiled comic from Dark Fire Press. In addition to the three published short Wülf Girlz illustrated stories, he has also penned a novella of the Girlz’ adventures, and will be issuing that through Dark Fire as well. His articles have also appeared in We Love Monsters, RVA Magazine, Government Technologies, and elsewhere. 

Most recently, Sodaro has not only been kept very busy producing comics and books by his clients, including comicbook writer and author, Paul Kupperberg and pulp fiction writer, William Patrick Murray, but he has had a number of short prose stories of his appear in several anthologies including Writers Unite! Anthologies Dimensions of the Wild West Volume Two, Writers Unite! Anthology Dimensions of Fantasy Volume One, and Writers Unite! Anthology Dimensions of Love Volume Two that are each available through Amazon. 

In addition to his writing and editing, Sodaro is also an experienced Graphic Production Artist as well as a prolific magazine and book designer. Below are some of the numerous books, magazines, and comics that he has produced.

Robert J. Sodaro has two adult children; he currently lives just outside of New York, in lower Fairfield County with the love of his life; a number of cats, and dogs. He can be found at his computer posting to his social media, working on freelance writing or graphic production and/or book designing assignments, catching a film, appearing at a number of comicbook conventions, or simply enjoying life.

 

Date of Birth: September 23, 1955

Birthplace: Norwalk, CT

Website: https://rjsodaro.wixsite.com/freelanceink

Blog: http://freelanceink.blogspot.com/

HubPages: https://hubpages.com/@robertjsodaro 

SlideShare: https://www.slideshare.net/RobertSodaro

Wix (Portfolio): https://rjsodaro.wixsite.com/freelanceink

E-mail: rjsodaro at gmail dot com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/Funnybook_City

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=700449832

MeWe: https://mewe.com/robertsodaro/posts

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/robertjsodaro/_saved/

Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertjsodaro/

Universodon: https://universeodon.com/@BobSodaro

Polywork: https://www.polywork.com/robert_sodaro

Threads: https://www.threads.net/@robertsodaro

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/rjsodaro.bsky.social

 

Notes:

Sodaro is also an avid runner and does so whenever his schedule allows. He also contributes a great deal of his time to a number of local causes and events and is both active and well-known in his local community where he has not only worked with several local community organizations, but also as the Deputy Registrar of Voters in his hometown.

 

A partial listing of Sodaro’s comicbook work as a Writer:

• 2099 Special: The World of Doom (1995)
• The Adversary (2010)
• Agent Unknown (1987)
• Amazing Heroes (1981)
• The Amazing Spider-Man: Official Index to the Marvel Universe (2010)
• Avengers, Thor & Captain America: Official Index to the Marvel Universe (2010)
• Captain America: Official Index to the Marvel Universe (2011)
• Combo (1995)
• Comicbook Artists Guild Anthology (2001)
• Comics Collector (1983)
• Comics Values Monthly (1986)
• Doom 2099 (1993)
• FantaCo's Chronicles Series (1981)
• Ghost Rider: Official Index to the Marvel Universe (2011)
• How to Collect Comics (1994)
• Iconic (2009)
• Malibu Ashcan: UltraForce (1994)
• Marvel Preview 1993 (1993)
• Marvel Vision (1996)
• Marvel: The Year-in-Review (1989)
• Mortal Kombat (1994)
• Official Index to the Marvel Universe (2009)
• Psychosis Today! (2010)
• Psychosis! (2006)
• The Punisher Anniversary Magazine (1994)
• Thor: Official Index to the Marvel Universe (2011)
• Wizard (1991)
• Wizard: The Guide to Comics — 100 Most Collectible Comics (1993)
• Wizard: The Superman Tribute (1993)
• Wolverine, Punisher & Ghost Rider: Official Index to the Marvel Universe (2011)

 

A partial listing of Sodaro’s prose Fiction:

• Writers United Dimensions of the Old West
• Ghost Dance
• Writers Unite Dimensions of Fantasy
• There be Dragons
• Writers Unite Dimensions of Romance
• The Way Back
• Weird Fiction Quarterly (2023-present
• various
• Dark Sister #11
• A Measured Response
• Cat Got Your Tongue
• We Suck at Comics
• When the Legend Becomes Truth 

A partial listing of Sodaro’s work as an Editor:

• Fantagraphics
• The Comics Journal (1977)
• Amazing Heroes (1977)
• Red Anvil Comics
• War of the Independents (2011)
• The Mighty Titan (2013)
• Unit 5 (2017)