The name John Romita won't mean much to most people reading this blog, but of all the celebrity deaths I've written about this year, his is the one that's hardest for me to process.
John Romita was the second regular artist to draw the original Amazing Spider-Man comic. He took over from Spidey's co-creator, Steve Ditko, in the late 60s, and set a template that defined the look of the character for over a quarter of a century. Although you probably don't know his name, you will have seen his art, since it was generally his work that was licensed for T-shirts, lunch-boxes, candy wrappers and anywhere else that Spidey showed up in the 70s and 80s. Although other art styles came in and out of fashion, Romita's Spider-Man seems timeless. His son, John Romita Jr. went on to follow in his father's footsteps with a looser, more contemporary style, but one that sticks pretty firmly to the template. He's still drawing the character today.
I don't often write about comics here, but as with the passing of Stan Lee a few years back, I wanted to mark the death of one of my heroes. The only lyrical mentions I found were rappers quoting his name as the co-creator of The Punisher. Big John did, however, draw the covers of two albums I used to own on vinyl, but haven't listened to in years: Spider-Man: Rock Reflections Of A Superhero by Hero (a made-up group that included Marty Nelson from Manhattan transfer and David Sanborn on sax) and The Amazing Spider-Man: From Beyond The Grave - A Rockomic by Ron Dante (formerly of The Archies) & The Webspinners. Neither are classics, but they meant a lot to me growing up.
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