A graduate of New York City's Music & Art High School, Billy Graham was influenced artistically by the work of Al Williamson, Frank Frazetta, Burne Hogarth, and George Tuska.

[5]In a 2005 interview, Warren mentions tweaking a Rolling Stone reporter who asked about his decision to hire an African-American art director, a rarity in comics at the time: "'What!?'

Graham eventually left Warren and joined the creative team that launched Marvel's Luke Cage, Hero for Hire, inking the premiere issue (June 1972) over pencilers John Romita Sr. and George Tuska.

[7] He either inked or himself penciled every issue of the book's 16–issue run under its original title, and the first as the retitled Luke Cage, Power Man (Feb.

"[10] Graham collaborated with writer Don McGregor on the critically lauded "Black Panther" series that ran in Jungle Action #6–24 (Sept. 1973–Nov.

The pseudonymous Buzz Maverik wrote in Ain't It Cool News, "I know the [Jungle Action] artist, Billy Graham, was black.

His art, even more than McGregor's writing, made T'Challa one of what I call the 'grown men' of the Marvel Universe, the others being Daredevil and Iron Man.

[4] He additionally illustrated the Marvel story "More Than Blood", scripted by science-fiction author George Alec Effinger, in Journey into Mystery vol.

[4] Graham's last comics work was co-penciling, with Steven Geiger, Power Man and Iron Fist (the again-retitled Luke Cage series) #114 (Feb. 1985), written by Jim Owsley, who would later write the Black Panther under his pen name, Christopher Priest.

[4] Graham appeared as an extra in TV commercials for products including beer and chewing gum,[13] and played the artist father of one of the lead characters in McGregor's unreleased, low-budget film adaptation of his Detectives Inc. graphic novels.