CBR reports comic book artist José Delbo has passed away. He was 90 years old. Delbo was best known for penciling “Wonder Woman” for most of the late 1970s, and Marvel’s “The Transformers” from 1988 to 1990, becoming the most prolific artist on the American version of the title. He was also a teacher, employed by the Kubert School from the 1990s until 2005, where he taught luminaries like Amanda Conner, Dan Parent, Steve Lieber, and Pat Brosseau.
Delbo was born in Argentina on December 9, 1933, and had an early start to his comic book career, drawing the western comic book “Pancho Negro” when he was just 16 years old. After the Argentine Navy revolt in 1963, Delbo immigrated to Brazil, and then to the United States two years later. There, he found work at Charlton Comics, drawing “Billy the Kid” until 1974, alongside other books for the company like “Geronimo Jones” and “The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves.”
He also found steady work at Dell and Gold Key Comics, drawing comics based on TV shows and other properties like “The Twilight Zone,” “The Monkees,” “The Brady Bunch,” “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!,” “Yellow Submarine,” and more, as well as “Turok, Son of Stone.” He made his debut at DC with “The Spectre” #10 in 1969, and went on to draw “The Witching Hour” and other titles (including “Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen”) before landing the honor of penciling “Wonder Woman” in 1975. He drew the book until 1981, creating stories like the death of Steve Trevor with writers like Jack C. Harris and Gerry Conway.
Delbo's first cover for the series
Delbo also branched into newspaper comics, relaunching the Superman/World’s Greatest Superheroes strip in anticipation of the movie in 1978, and ghosting for Sy Barry on “The Phantom” in 1979. Other DC titles penciled by Delbo included the Batgirl segment in “Detective Comics” from 1980 to 1982, “The Superman Family,” and “World’s Finest.” He left DC for Marvel as the syndicated Superman strip came to an end in 1985, stating the Marvel Method offered him more creative freedom than the full scripts DC made him work with.
His first title for DC’s rival was the “ThunderCats” tie-in comic, where he reunited with Gerry Conway. His “Transformers” run saw him work with co-creator Bob Budiansky and his successor Simon Furman, penciling pivotal moments like the ‘Underbase Saga,’ and the first appearance of the characters’ god, Primus, outside the Marvel UK comics. Delbo was purportedly pulled away from the comic to create “Brute Force” with Furman, a property Marvel brainstormed in the hope of pitching it to a toy company, but the lack of interest led to the characters falling into obscurity, until similar creatures in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 renewed attention to the team.
Delbo went on to create “NFL SuperPro” with Fabian Nicieza, and drew some titles for Valiant in the early 1990s, including books from the Disney Action Club line. This led him to work on Marvel’s adaptation of “101 Dalmatians,” released to coincide with the Glenn Close film in 1997. After working at the Kubert School, Delbo moved to Boca Raton, Florida, where he founded the Cartoon Camp for school children at the International Museum of Cartoon Art. He generated some controversy after getting into NFTs in 2021, causing DC and Marvel to forbid artists from using their trademarked characters for work commissioned that way.
Delbo was honored during his lifetime with an Inkpot Award at the San Diego Comic-Con in 2013. He is survived by his wife, children, and grandchildren. Tributes has flowed in from many of his colleagues, students, and fans, with Conner, Parent, Lieber, and Brosseau all recalling on social media how Delbo would push them out of their comfort zones by encouraging them to draw horses, before commenting their attempts looked more like dogs. Furman, Nicieza, Paul Kupperberg, and Nick Roche all described him as being an incredibly kind man, with Nicieza saying, “No matter what else, [‘NFL SuperPro’] gifted me the opportunity to work with a wonderful storyteller who also happened to be an even more wonderful man. Kind. Friendly. Professional to the core. Thank you, Jose Delbo. Rest in Peace.”
Our condolences to all of Delbo’s family, friends, students, and fans at this difficult time.
