“John Romita Sr., Creative Force at Marvel Comics, Is Dead at 93”

“As an artist, he defined decades of Marvel storytelling and helped bring characters like Spider-Man and Wolverine to life.”

– By Derrick Bryson Taylor and George Gene Gustines for the New York Times.
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John Romita Senior started drawing after spending a year in commercial art. His first jobs were for Stan Lee’s Atlas group in 1949. Romita drew mostly horror and romance stories, but also several war, western and crime features for Western Publishing. After the folding of Atlas, he went to National, where he did anonymous romance stories for eight years. He then went back to Stan Lee, this time at Marvel. His first works were inking ‘Avengers’ and pencilling ‘Daredevil’ comics.

His most notable work became The Amazing Spider-Man  which he did from 1966. Under Romita’s and Lee’s guidance, Spider-Man became the quintessential antihero of the late 1960s and early 1970s. He left the Spider-Man comic in the early 1970s, to become an art director at Marvel, working specifically in the Special Projects Department. Romita Sr. was engaged in product illustration and special designs and as Art Director for Marvel Books, the short-lived children’s book line. In 1977, he briefly did the artwork of the syndicated Spider-Man newspaper comic. His son, John Romita Jr., is also a talented artist for Marvel.

From the Museum of Illustration at the Society of Illustrators’ Permanent Collection.