Happy Birthday Jazzy Johnny "Ring-a-Ding" Romita!!!

**616MarvelYear is LeapYear** · 01-24-2016, 03:40 PM

John Romita Senior
John Romita Senior was born on January 24, 1930, Brooklyn New York City
and graduated from the Manhattan School of Industrial Art in 1947.

In 1949, he received his first taste of the comic book industry.
During this time he worked on a series called Famous Funnies.
In that same year, Romita went on to work for Forbes Lithograph.
Eventually, John would run into his high school friend Lester Zakarin who offered him an opportunity at more money.
Given the chance to work alongside his friend and for more money, he took it.

The majority of the 1950’s saw John Romita Sr. spend his time with DC Comics working on their romance line.
Unfortunately for him, as time went on, the romance genre began to fall off. Luckily, big things were in store for him.

John Romita Senior joins Marvel

As soon as Stan Lee learned that Romita was leaving DC, he quickly offered him a spot at Marvel.
Working at Marvel was more to Romita’s liking.
While there, he was permitted to work freely from home or he could spend the day in his office.
Due to his obvious talents, he was assigned the marvel character, Daredevil.
Impressed by his work, Lee issued a challenge to John Romita Senior.
He challenged him to do a two-part story that included Spider-Man.
What Romita didn’t realize was that the challenge was issued to see if he could handle the web-slinging character.

Along came a spider
In 1966, John Romita, Sr. was given a daunting task: to take over Marvel’s blockbuster flagship title, The Amazing Spider-Man.
Romita’s only predecessor on the book was Spider-Man’s co-creator, original artist Steve Ditko.
Following creative differences with Marvel’s management, Ditko had abruptly left the title with issue #38
and John Romita was tasked with illustrating the next issue.

Romita’s cover for Amazing Spider-Man #39 became an instant classic and "How Green Was My Goblin!"
is considered a masterpiece as the Green Goblin is revealed to be Norman Osborn, father of Peter Parker’s best bud, Harry.

While Romita’s early issues of Amazing Spider-Man appeared to stay true to Ditko’s stylings,
he soon made the book his own – and with the introduction of Mary Jane Watson
on the last page of issue #42 he created a truly iconic moment in Marvel history.
It was the first of many such moments.
During the run, Romita also introduced what would become mainstays in the Spider-Man title,
like Rhino and Kingpin.

Romita was no stranger to drawing Spidey, as shown by his earlier work on Daredevil #16-17,
but in interviews he admitted to trepidation about taking over Spider-Man.
His fears proved unfounded.
Romita’s interpretation of the character soon became Marvel’s official version
and the template for many of the artists who followed him.

Romita’s Spider-Man influence reached long and far.
In fact, in one of the most seminal issues of the run, it was he that put the idea in the head of Gerry Conway to kill off fan-favorite Gwen Stacy.
This issue has become one of the most influential issues in comic history and it is aptly called, “The Night Gwen Stacy Died”.

Art Director

After Stan Lee took the title of President of Marvel Comics, Romita was promoted to Art Director.
While the Art Director, Romita’s influence was far-reaching.
During this time, the world was introduced to characters such as
Brother Voodoo, The Punisher, Luke Cage, Wolverine, Ms. Marvel, Bullseye, and Tigra.

Later in his career
Into the 2000’s and even as much as the present day, John Romita Senior remains active in the comic book industry.
In fact, he is a part of a project called The Hero Initiative. For this, he serves on the Disbursement Committee.

The legacy of Romita endures to this today – directly through his own occasional work and indirectly via son John Romita Jr.,
a talented artist who became a big name in the industry in his own right, penciling Spider-Man, Daredevil, Iron Man
and many other characters he grew up watching his legendary father draw.

John Romita, Sr. was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2002.
http://www.libraryofamericancomics.c.../article/2953/
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