Dick Giordano

Richard Joseph "Dick" Giordano (born July 20, 1932 in New York City , New York , † March 27, 2010 in Ormond Beach , Florida ) was an American comic book artist and editor.

Dick Giordano (portrait of Michael Netzer )

Life and work

Giordano grew up in the New York borough of Manhattan. He began his career in the comic industry in the 1960s with the small publisher Charlton Comics . There he coordinated the so-called “action hero” segment of the publisher as an editor, which specialized in science fiction and superhero stories .

In 1968, at the insistence of Carmine Infantino , Giordano moved to DC Comics , the leading publisher in the American comic market, as managing editor . His first projects - the nonchalant western series Bat Lash and the unusual series Deadman , which came up with an unprecedented mixture of the genres of horror and superhero comics - were critically acclaimed, but were commercially unsuccessful.

Together with Neal Adams , one of the star draftsmen of the time, who had already designed the Deadman comics edited by Giordano, Giordano founded the Atelier Continuity Studios in the early 1970s, which still exists today and focuses primarily on the design of advertising materials concentrated.

At Jenette Kahn's urging , Giordano returned to DC in the late 1970s. After temporarily overseeing the comic series about the character of the superhero Batman , one of the figureheads in the DC program, he was appointed Managing Editor of the publishing house in 1981. In 1983 he was promoted to vice-president and executive editor of the publishing house, a position he held until 1993. Together with Kahn and Paul Levitz staged Giordano in the mid-eighties, the overhaul of all the major series in the published list of DC such as Batman , Justice League of America , Superman , Teen Titans , Wonder Woman , Green Lantern and Flash , the 1987 all new number one started were.

At the beginning of the 1990s, Giordano, together with Kahn and Levitz, created the Vertigo imprint of DC Verlag, which was tailored to an adult readership , and which they entrusted to Karen Berger and which produced numerous critically acclaimed series such as Sandman and Preacher .

After Giordano went into semi-retirement in the early 1990s, he helped set up the Future Comics publishing house together with David Michelinie and Bob Layton in 2002 , which was dissolved in 2004.

As an artist, Giordano drew attention to himself above all as an Inker , who revised the pencil drawings of other artists by tracing and refining with ink. The great works of comic history that Giordanos have in store include, among others, Neal Adams drawings for the twelve-part story Hard Traveling Heroes , written by Dennis O'Neil and appearing in the early 1970s in the series Green Lantern / Green Arrow , George Pérez Drawings for the maxisierie Crisis on Infinite Earths and John Byrnes drawings for the miniseries The Man of Steel and the Action Comics series in the mid-eighties. There are also ink works for some of the Batman stories drawn by Adams and for the 70s hits Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man (1976) and Superman vs. Muhammad Ali (1978).

Since 2002, Giordano has drawn comics in the series The Phantom by the Swedish publisher Egmont, which appeared in Europe and Australia.

Giordano, who had been suffering from leukemia for a long time, died on March 27, 2010 of complications from pneumonia at Florida Hospital Oceanside in Ormond Beach.

Artists who refer to Giordano as an artistic role model include, among others, the tuscher Terry Austin , Klaus Janson , Steve Mitchell , Bob Layton and Mike DeCarlo .

Prizes and awards

Giordano has received numerous prizes for his work over the decades: For example the Alley Award in the category of best editor in 1969 and the Shazam Award as best ink draftsman in 1970, 1971, 1973 and 1974.

Works

Working for DC Comics

• Action Comics # 419-420, 422-423, 426, 428-429, 432, 600, 836
• Adventure Comics # 419 (Zatanna story), # 475-478 (Aquaman story)
• Batman # 247, 250 (Batman story), 327 (Batman & Robin story), 421;
• Batman Chronicles # 13, 21
• Batman. Dark Knight of the Round Table # 1-2
• Batman. Gordon of Gotham # 1-4
• Batman: Gotham Knights # 19, 28
• Batman Hollywood Knight # 1-3
• Batman Turning Points # 3
• Birds of Prey # 12
• Birds of Prey. Wolves (graphic novel)
• Black Canary New Wings # 1-4
• Black Fury # 7, 42, 47
• Brave and the Bold # 65 (Flash & Doom Patrol), # 143–144 (Human Target), # 163 (Batman & Black Lightning), # 166 (Batman & Black Canary)
• Catwoman # 31-32
• Christmas with the Super-Heroes # 2 (Deadman story)
• Detective Comics # 426, 430, 436, 449 (Elongated Man story), # 457 (Batman story), # 484, 486, 493 (Human Target), # 487 (Batgirl), # 500 (Batman)
• Flash # 206, 208, 210, 212 (Elongated Man story), # 220–221, 223–224 (Green Lantern story)
• Flash (2nd series) Annual # 10
• Jonah Hex (2nd series) # 51
• Jonni Thunder aka Thunderbolt # 1–4
• Justice League of America (4th series) # 0
• Lois Lane # 112, 115–116 (Rose and Thorn story)
• Modesty Blaise (Graphic Novel)
• New Teen Titans (2nd series) # 16 (Tales of Tamaran)
• Power of Shazam # 28
• Secret Origins (Series 2) # 6 (Halo Story)
• Secret Origins of the World's Greatest Super-Heroes (Batman) (1989)
• Supergirl (3rd series) Annual # 1 (1996)
• Superman # 236, 255, 271 ("Fabulous World of Krypton" story)
• Wonder Woman # 200–203, 220, 300

Working for Marvel Comics

• Deadly Hands of Kung Fu # 1, 3
• Dracula Lives # 5-8, 10-11
• Legion of Monsters # 1 (Dracula story)
• Marvel Feature (Series 2) # 1 (Red Sonja Story)
• Savage Sword of Conan # 25 (Conan story), # 78 (Red Sonja story)

Working for Warren Publishings

• Creepy # 94
• Eerie # 88

Book publications

• Drawing Comics with Dick Giordano , 2005.

literature

• Michael Eury: Dick Giordano. Changing Comics, One Day at a Time 2003.
• Maurice Hornn: The World Encyclopedia of Comics , 1983.