A legend of superhero comics, John Romita passed away last Monday “peacefully while he was sleeping”, as his son, John Romita Jr. (also linked to the comic) reported yesterday on social networks.
His assets include the co-creation of characters as popular in superhero comics as Mary Jane Watson (Spider-Man’s girlfriend and later wife), Wolverine or The Punisher, as well as being Marvel’s art director from 1973 to 1996.
“Millions of people discovered Marvel through his art, and millions more came to know Peter Parker through the unmistakable bold brushwork that Romita brought to his pages,” Marvel said in a statement.
Born on January 24, 1930 in Brooklyn, John Victor Romita began drawing at school, and in an interview he recalled how in 1938 he bought two copies of the first Superman, one of which he kept while the other was used to guide his drawing. . Even so, his first work as an artist was commissioned by Manhattan General Hospital, at age 17, and he later worked as an inker at a lithography company.
After an encounter with an old high school classmate who worked for Stan Lee at Marvel’s forerunner, Timely Comics, he began drawing in pencil for his friend, who then transferred the works to ink and passed them off as his own work, until a a year later he confessed it to Lee, who commissioned him some work, then at Atlas Comics.
For a time, he combined these commissions – which included adventures of Captain America, as well as horror, war or love stories – with uncredited drawings in DC Comics, finally entering as an exclusive cartoonist in 1958.
He spent eight years at this publisher, mainly drawing romantic comics and outlining his style, until in 1966 he returned with Stan Lee –the publisher was already called Marvel–, first to take temporary charge of Daredevil, and then he stayed to replace Steve Ditko in the Spider-Man comics, which ended up being his most recognized work, since he modeled the character we know today and introduced characters such as the aforementioned MJ Watson, the Goblin or the Kingpin gangland boss. In fact, it would be with this same character that he would eventually retire in 1995 with his latest work, Spider-Man / Kingpin: to the death, with a script by Stan Lee and which featured Spider-Man, his most recognized hero, but he also had Daredevil, his favorite. It should be said that Romita in the first instance did not want to enter Spider-Man and, although he did it because Lee asked him to, he confessed on more than one occasion that he had never felt comfortable.
In 1973, he was promoted to art director at Marvel –although he already held the position unofficially–, and until his retirement he took part in the creation of new characters such as Wolverine, The Punisher or Luke Cage.
Beyond his comics, Romita came to regret not having been part of the first generation of professional cartoonists because he had to work in the wake of others, but he did assume his own superpower: “A writer and a cartoonist can create something, and I I can improve it.”
