Pratiksha Shome
John Romita Sr. was a significant comic book creator who collaborated in the creation of many well-known Marvel characters, including Mary Jane Watson and Wolverine. He was 93. His son, John Romita Jr., who followed in his father’s footsteps and is now a well-known Marvel comic artist, shared the news of his passing on Twitter.
Romita Jr. posted on Twitter, “I say this with a sorrowful heart, my father died away quietly in his sleep. “It would be an honour for me to continue in his shoes; he is a legend in the art world. Please respect my family by keeping your sympathies and thoughts to yourself and remain here. I’ve never encountered a man like him. Romita Sr., who was born in New York City in 1930, joined the realms of commercial illustration and comic book art after earning his degree from the School of Industrial Art in Manhattan in 1947. After collaborating with Marvel on a brief ’50s resurrection of Captain America, Romita Sr. began working on DC’s then-popular romance comics. At the time, comics were less dominated by the superhero genre than they are now.
Romita Sr. introduced the look of romance comics to his work on Spider-Man when he rejoined Marvel in 1966. After co-creator of Spider-Man Steve Ditko left Marvel, Romita Sr. took over as the series’ regular artist and contributed to Amazing Spider-Man being Marvel’s most well-known comic during the next years. Peter Parker had been given a geeky, alienated appearance by Ditko, but Romita Sr. gave him a romantic hero’s face and gave him a gorgeous new love interest in Mary Jane Watson, who Romita based on the actress Ann-Margret. Many people credit Romita Sr. for making Spider-Man the most recognisable figure in the Marvel universe.
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Later, Romita Sr. changed roles and spent the following many decades as Marvel’s art director. He contributed to the creation of Wolverine, the Punisher, and Luke Cage in that role. Younger artists benefited from his mentoring as well. Alongside his wife, Virginia, Romita Sr. spent a lot of years working in the Marvel headquarters. In 1996, in the midst of Marvel’s financial crisis, they both left the company, disillusioned by having to let go of skilled staff members. In Sean Howe’s Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, Romita Sr. compared the “intolerable” circumstance to sequences from the 2009 movie Up in the Air, in which George Clooney plays a dispersed corporate “downsizer.” The Marvel legacy of Romita Sr. endures to this day. Romita Jr. is presently the artist for The Amazing Spider-Man, for starters.
“John Romita Sr. was a pillar of the Marvel Universe, and his talent defined decades of Marvel’s most well-known stories and characters,” says a statement from Marvel posted on social media. “We grieve the passing of a creative titan, and the Marvel family has lost one of its legends. His family and other close friends are in our thoughts.
Source: Yahoo!
