José Luis García-López (born March 26, 1948) is a Spanish-Argentine comics artist who works in the United States, particularly in a long-running relationship with DC Comics. In addition to his storytelling art, he has been responsible for producing the official reference art for characters in the DC Comics Style Guide, as used in licensed merchandise.

Early life

José Luis García-López was born on March 26, 1948 in Lalín, Province of Pontevedra, Spain, and lived since age three in Argentina. He was inspired by artists as Alex Raymond, Harold Foster, Milton Caniff, José Luis Salinas, and Alberto Breccia.

Career

During the 1960s, García-López worked for Charlton Comics. In 1974, he moved to New York, where he met DC Comics editor Joe Orlando. His first interior art credit for DC was June 1975's "Nightmare In Gold" back-up in Action Comics #448, where he inked the pencils of artist Dick Dillin. The following month, he inked the pencils of Curt Swan on a "Private Life of Clark Kent" backup story in Superman #289, before graduating to full pencils on a back-up story written by E. Nelson Bridwell in Detective Comics #452 (October 1975). The following month, García-López and writer Gerry Conway created the Hercules Unbound series and in April 1977, he and writer Michael Fleisher launched the Jonah Hex ongoing series. García-López and Conway collaborated on a Superman vs. Wonder Woman story in All-New Collectors' Edition #C-54 (1978). DC Comics Presents, a team-up title starring Superman was launched in 1978 by writer Martin Pasko and García-López. He drew the first appearance of the Snowman in Batman #337 (July 1981) and a DC–Marvel crossover between Batman and the Hulk in DC Special Series #27 (Fall 1981). He penciled five issues of The New Teen Titans in 1985 and writer Marv Wolfman later commented that "I knew that I had this incredible artist who could draw almost anything that I wanted...So I decided to make the story just the biggest spectacle I could come up with." Other works by García-López include Atari Force, Road to Perdition, Deadman, and various DC superheroes. His work on the DC series Twilight received an Eisner Award nomination. His work on the Cinder and Ashe limited series was praised by ComicsAlliance in 2014 which noted "His characters are never in a static position; they’re always stretching, or crunched up, or twisting. There is constant dramatic content in their movements." During his exclusive contract with DC Comics, he has been responsible for penciling the style guides used by the company to provide official artwork for merchandise licences around the world. García-López illustrated the 1982 guide, still used today as part of a DC Comics retro line, a 1992 guide focused on the Batman Returns movie, the Superman related guides from 1991, 1994, and 2006, and other DC Universe guides in 1998, 2004, and 2012. His 2000s work includes JLA: Classified and a 2009 story arc in Batman Confidential which introduced the King Tut character. He drew the Metal Men story in Wednesday Comics which was written by Dan DiDio. In 2011, he drew one of the stories in The Spirit #17. DC Comics published a collection of his Superman stories in Adventure of Superman: José Luis García-López in 2013. He and Len Wein produced a comics adaptation of a Two-Face story written by Harlan Ellison originally intended for the Batman television series. García-López drew the "Actionland!" chapter in Action Comics #1000 (June 2018) and the Superman story in DC Nation #0 (July 2018).

DC Comics

Other publishers

Compilations

Awards

1992: Nominated for "Best Artist" Eisner Award, for Twilight. 1997: Nominated for "Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team" Eisner Award, with Kevin Nowlan, for Doctor Strangefate