John Romita, Jr.

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John Romita, Jr.
John Romita Jr, 2006.jpg
John Romita, Jr. in 2006
Born John S. Romita Jr.
(1956-08-17) August 17, 1956 (age 56)
New York City, New York
Nationality American
Area(s)
Pseudonym(s) JRJR
Notable works
Awards

John S. Romita, Jr. (born August 17, 1956)[2] is an American comic book artist best known for his extensive work for Marvel Comics from the 1970s to the 2000s. He is often referred to as JRJR (the abbreviation of John Romita, Jr.)

Contents

Early life [edit]

John Romita, Jr. is the son of Virginia and comic-book artist John Romita, Sr., one of the signature Spider-Man artists since the 1960s.[1][3]

Career [edit]

Romita, Jr. began his career at Marvel UK, doing sketches for covers of reprints as a favor thanks to his respected father. His American debut was with a six page story entitled "Chaos at the Coffee Bean!" in The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #11 (1977).

Romita's early popularity began with his run on Iron Man with writer David Michelinie and artist Bob Layton which began in 1978. In the early 1980s, he had his first regular run on the Amazing Spider-Man series and also was the artist for the launch of the Dazzler series. Working with writer Roger Stern on Amazing Spider-Man, he co-created the character Hobgoblin. From 1983 to 1986 he had a run on the popular Uncanny X-Men with Dan Green and author Chris Claremont. He would return for a second run on Uncanny X-Men in 1993.

Promotional art for The Amazing Spider-Man vol. 2, #43 (April 2003), by John Romita, Jr. and Scott Hanna.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Romita enjoyed an extended stint on Daredevil with writer Ann Nocenti and Eisner Award-winning inker Al Williamson, noted for its creation of long-running Daredevil nemesis Typhoid Mary and for an influential reimagining of the villain Mephisto.[citation needed] For Romita himself, however, his stint on Daredevil was most significant for being both the first time he was allowed to do full pencils instead of just breakdowns, and the first time he had a working relationship with the writer on a series.[4] He later remarked that "I finally felt like I was part of the creation process for the first time while I was on DD."[4]

After Daredevil #282, Romita left the series to pursue other projects. Readers were promised that this was a temporary leave-of-absence, but though Romita was genuinely eager to return to Daredevil, his stardom as an artist ensured that he was too swamped with assignments to make good on this promise.[4]

Stan Lee interviewed Romita and his father in Episode 8 of in the 1991-1992 documentary series The Comic Book Greats.

Romita later collaborated with Frank Miller on a Daredevil origin story entitled Daredevil: The Man Without Fear, a revisiting of the character's origin, with Williamson again on inks. Romita was repeatedly forced to draw new transitional pages as the story changed formats from a 64-page graphic novel to a 144-page graphic novel to a five-issue limited series.[4] He worked on a host of Marvel titles during the 1990s, including The Punisher War Zone, the Hulk, the Cable mini-series, The Mighty Thor, a return to Iron Man for the second Armor Wars written by John Byrne, and the Punisher/Batman crossover. Klaus Janson was a frequent inker.

In the 2000s, Romita had a return to The Amazing Spider-Man with writer J. Michael Straczynski. He drew Marvel's Wolverine with author Mark Millar as part of the character's thirtieth-anniversary celebration. In 2004, Romita's creator-owned project The Gray Area was published by Image Comics. Romita's art has since appeared in Black Panther, The Sentry and Ultimate Vision, a backup story featured in the Ultimate line, written by Mark Millar.

In 2006, Romita collaborated with writer Neil Gaiman on the reinterpretation of Jack Kirby's The Eternals in the form of a seven-issue limited series.[5] Romita worked with Greg Pak on the five issue main comic of Marvel's 2007 crossover storyline, World War Hulk.

In 2008, Romita again returned to Amazing Spider-Man. He collaborated again with Mark Millar, for a creator-owned series, Kick-Ass, published by Marvel's Icon imprint. The filming of the movie, Kick-Ass, began in September 2008. Romita, one of the producers, made his directorial debut by directing an animated flashback sequence in the film.

On April 9, 2011 Romita Jr. was one of 62 comics creators who appeared at the IGN stage at the Kapow! convention in London to set two Guinness World Records, the Fastest Production of a Comic Book, and Most Contributors to a Comic Book. With Guinness officials on hand to monitor their progress, writer Mark Millar began work at 9am scripting a 20-page black and white Superior comic book, with Romita Jr. and the other artists appearing on stage throughout the day to work on the pencils, inks, and lettering, including Dave Gibbons, Frank Quitely, Jock, Adi Granov,[6] Doug Braithwaite, Ian Churchill, Olivier Coipel, Duncan Fegredo, Simon Furman, David Lafuente, John McCrea, Sean Phillips and Liam Sharp,[7] who all drew a panel each, with regular Superior artist Leinil Yu creating the book's front cover. The book was completed in 11 hours, 19 minutes, and 38 seconds, and was published through Icon on November 23, 2011, with all royalties being donated to Yorkhill Children's Foundation.[6]

On May 4, 2012, Romita set out to break his own record for most continuous cartooning, to support the charity Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Foundation of Nevada. He attempted to continuously sketch characters and sign comics for 50 hours straight.[8]

Techniques and preferences [edit]

Having illustrated both gritty street-level stories of characters such as Spider-Man and Daredevil and cosmic stories such as those starring Thor, Romita says he prefers the former, because "that is where I grew up. I use the same approach to each of the different story types - the story tells me what to do."[1] He prefers to work in the Marvel Method. He considers The Man Without Fear to be his best work,[4] due to the strong storytelling and the quality of the story.[1]

Bibliography [edit]

Marvel Comics [edit]

Other publishers [edit]

Trade paperbacks [edit]

Marvel Comics [edit]

  • The Eternals (Softcover, Reprint's The Eternals limited series, #1-7)
  • Marvel Visionaries: John Romita Jr. (Hardcover)
  • Wolverine: Enemy of the State (Hardcover, collects Wolverine #20-32):
    • Volume 1 (Hardcover, Softcover, collect Wolverine #20-25)
    • Volume 2 (Hardcover, Softcover, collects Wolverine #26-31)
  • Black Panther: Who is the Black Panther? (Hardcover)
  • Iron Man: Demon in a Bottle (Reprints Iron Man #120-128)
  • Iron Man and Doctor Doom
  • Daredevil: The Man Without Fear
  • Punisher vs. Daredevil
  • Hulk: Return of the Monster
  • Thor: The Dark Gods (Reprints Thor #9-13)
  • Spider-Man: The Origin of the Hobgoblin
  • Spider-Man: The Lost Years
  • The Amazing Spider-Man:
    • Volume 1: Coming Home (Reprints #30-35) Also released as volume 21 of The Official Marvel Graphic Novel Collection.
    • Volume 2: Revelations (Reprints #36-39)
    • Volume 3: Until the Stars Turn Cold (Reprints #40-45)
    • Volume 4: The Life and Death of Spiders (Reprints #46-50)
    • Volume 5: Unintended Consequences (Reprints #51-56)
    • Volume 6: Happy Birthday (Reprints #57-58,500-502)
    • Volume 7: The Book of Ezekiel (Reprints #503-508)
  • Sentry: Reborn
  • Essential Dazzler Volume 1
  • The Amazing Spider-Man Volume 1: New Ways to Die (Reprints #567-#573)
  • World War Hulk (Reprints World War Hulk #1-5)

Image Comics [edit]

  • Gray Area: All Of This Can Be Yours

References [edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Andreasen, Henrik; Keller, Katherine (November 19, 2007). "Like Father Like Son: John Romita Jr." Sequential Tart.
  2. ^ Miller, John Jackson (June 10, 2005). "Comics Industry Birthdays". Comics Buyer's Guide. Archived from the original on October 29, 2010. Retrieved December 12, 2010. 
  3. ^ Ross, Alex, Introduction, in Spurgeon, Tom; Cunningham, Brian (2011). The Romita Legacy. Dynamic Forces. p. 5. ISBN 978-1933305271. 
  4. ^ a b c d e Cordier, Philippe (April 2007). "Seeing Red: Dissecting Daredevil's Defining Years". Back Issue (21) (TwoMorrows Publishing). pp. 33–60 which pages are quotes on?. 
  5. ^ Richards, Dave (June 9, 2006). Following in the Footsteps: Romita Talks "Eternals". Comic Book Resources.
  6. ^ a b "Kapow! '11: Comic History Rewritten On The IGN Stage". IGN. April 14, 2011
  7. ^ "Guinness World Records at Kapow! Comic Con". Guinness World Records. April 9, 2011
  8. ^ John Romita Jr. to Break Guinness World Record for Heroes for Jordan", MTV, April 4, 2012

External links [edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: John Romita, Jr.

Interviews [edit]

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Preceded by
Keith Giffen		 Iron Man artist
1978–1979		 Succeeded by
Jerry Bingham
Preceded by
Bob Layton		 Iron Man artist
1980–1982		 Succeeded by
Alan Kupperberg
Preceded by
Keith Pollard		 The Amazing Spider-Man artist
1980–1984		 Succeeded by
Ron Frenz
Preceded by
N/A		 Dazzler artist
1981		 Succeeded by
Frank Springer
Preceded by
Paul Smith		 Uncanny X-Men artist
1983–1986		 Succeeded by
Marc Silvestri
Preceded by
Rick Leonardi		 Daredevil artist
1988–1990		 Succeeded by
Lee Weeks
Preceded by
Herb Trimpe		 Iron Man artist
1990–1991		 Succeeded by
Paul Ryan
Preceded by
Brandon Peterson		 Uncanny X-Men artist
1993–1994		 Succeeded by
Joe Madureira
Preceded by
Gil Kane		 Spider-Man artist
1996–1998		 Succeeded by
N/A
Preceded by
John Byrne		 The Amazing Spider-Man artist
2000–2004		 Succeeded by
Mike Deodato, Jr.
Preceded by
Darick Robertson		 Wolverine artist
2004–2005		 Succeeded by
Kaare Andrews
Preceded by
N/A		 Avengers artist
2010		 Succeeded by
Chris Bachalo
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