Archives - "John Romita Sr., The Quintessential Marvel Artist

Introduction

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John Ramita Senior

1:00neighborhood host jt wheatley back for another episode of history comics podcast this time with the life of john ramirez senior the quintessential marvel artist of the many great artists marvel comics benefited from during its revival in the silver age one of the most significant was john ramirez senior beginning at timely atlas in the 1950s when comics were just on the downturn from the golden age he related rejoined marvel in the comics in 1965 literally picking up the mantle of spider-man from his co-creator steve dicko and carrying our favorite wall crawler to some of

1:31his most iconic stories to the introduction of mary jane watson and the revealing of norman osborn as the green goblin it wasn't just spider-man that remita would contribute to as he would soon set the art style for the company for decades creating the marvel look we know and love today along with many of his characters thus making his own place in comic book history john ramirez senior was born on january 24th 1930 in brooklyn new york the son of maria and victor ramirez a baker of italian descent

Early Life

1:58he had three sisters and a brother and by age five he started to show his talent for drawing according to ramirez he became something of a street performer by age 10 with his chalk drawings on the streets to entertain friends and neighbors however he grew up so poor he had to scrounge for bits of plaster to draw on sidewalks because he couldn't afford actual chalk of his work for media did a hundred foot drawing of the statue of liberty on the streets of new york which he knew was that length because that was how far between the manholes in the streets were ramirez also enjoyed drawing

2:29superheroes and bought the copy of action comics number one just so he could trace the cover over and over again and it's also why he's not a millionaire because that copy was obviously worn down he also loved the works of charl burrell's daredevil comics which had no relation to the future marvel character ramirez would eventually become famous drawing for this was created by jack bender and jack cole and used the boomerang as a weapon ramirez loved burrell's work in general pointing out the writer did a lot of things with the character and story stan lee would innovate decades later stan lee himself would call charles burrell a genius the rs he most admired were jack kirby george

3:04tusca especially his work on charles burrell's crime does not pay in daredevil comics and milton knieff who ramirez called his god when ramirez was 14 he delivered boxes of minio grass for big bangers like louis armstrong and glenn miller for money around the same time ramirez's father victor opened his own bakery which required his family to move to albany new york however ramirez's mother maria objected to john moving insisted he stay in brooklyn to become an artist originally ramirez wanted to become a magazine illustrator at school he painted backgrounds and scenery for school

3:37plays along with murals of heroes like zorro and tarzan he also carved heads from soap like abraham lincoln and mickey mouse these became so popular with his fellow students that they broke into a turkish bath to get more soap for him to carve only for the police to get involved ramirez senior did say at one point a local priest tried to get him to join the priesthood over incidents like this but he passed because he didn't want to go girls john ramirez senior started at the manhattan school of

Art Education

4:03industrial arts at age 17 in 1947 after he graduated from high school where his classmates were joe gialla lester zarkin and wilton gaff their instructors included comic book artist howard simon and magazine illustrator ben clements however ramirez also learned by mimicking his favorite artists such as milton knieff who he grew up admiring his work of terry the pirates and steve canyon strips it was here that ramirez said he learned how to draw blacks in anatomy especially the correct way a hand dresser should make he also learned to draw people who looked at each other while

4:35speaking ramirez senior would later pay tribute to knieff an amazing spider-man number 108 and 109 which he counted as some of his favorite stories meanwhile ramirez got his first job for an anesthesiologist at manhattan general hospital where he designed boards for hospitals at six dollars a week while providing art for medical books for other doctors at the hospital as for the comic books ramirez nearly broke into the industry in 1949 with famous funnies considered the first modern american comic book he credited stephen douglas with his first story a romance that ramirez looks on in shame now calling

5:09his men looking emaciated douglas paid him two hundred dollars for the story but it was never published which ramirez was also grateful for in all counts ramirez next break came when his old classmate lester zarkarin came to him in 1949 when he offered a ghost pencil his work on a 10-page story at 17 to 20 a page at the time ramirez was making 30 a week doing ford's lithographs so he naturally took a job with zarkarin claiming they were his pencils to stan lee who was one of the few editors at the time he requested changes forcing them to go back to ramirez to make them while ramirez also did the inking as

5:44well ramirez would later claim that zarkarin just couldn't draw it all this led to ramirez joining timely outright in 1951 beginning with his first professional inking job on the story of it in strange tales number four december of 1951 about a murdering alien baby there lee set up a meeting with joe manley that helped ramirez improve his improve his technique and to meet deadlines ramirez would later say working with manley for one afternoon was the equivalent of a six-month art course as he watched manley pencil and ink an entire double spread with

6:16no reference in a day ramirez also observed how manley was able to insert bone structure into his figures thus making everything look round look round but crisp as he would describe it ramirez work and confidence immediately improved afterwards and even switched to inking with a pen over brush as manley did tragically joe manley died at the too young age of 38 in a train accident ramirez was still ghosting for lee zarkarin for the trojan and other combo companies on books like crime smashers eventually he would they would be signed zarkarin and ramita while also making 25 a week doing

6:49coca-cola ads and also work at avon during this time doing western comics like the western kid his collaboration with zarkarin was finally in the spring of 1951 when john ramirez senior was drafted into the u.s army wanting to avoid getting sent overseas he managed to show his artwork to the air force captain at governor's island who pulled some strings to get him assigned there he was stationed at camp umpton doing during his basic training at fort disc in new jersey during this time he married virginia in march of 1952 and he thought he accidentally deserted when he went on his honeymoon in canada

7:22the couple will eventually have two sons victor and john jr the latter who became a legendary artist in his own right ramirez was made corporal in seven to eight months and made class a which means he could leave his post when off duty and even live off base so he could still work it timely delivering completed pages while still in uniform uniform resulting in the secretary of time to call ramita his g stanley's gi there he would talk to stanley about future stories while renting an apartment in brooklyn when word got out about this and that he was making more money in a week than his fellow

7:53servicemen did in a month ramita said he became suddenly unpopular on base ramita would eventually served 24 months and was offered a rank of master sergeant but turned it down which angered his father as he thought a career in the army would be a more stable one especially since it came with a salary of 488 dollars a month which his father thought was a fortune despite the fact that ramita was making more in comics at the time john ramita's senior's most significant work for timely and now atlas during

Marvel Career

8:22this time was penciling the brief revival of captain america under editors in chief stanley and young men number 24 to 28 december 1953 to july of 1954 and captain america number 76 to 78 in may and september of 1954 ramita would work on other superheroes during their brief revival of the genre one of which introduced m11 the human robot in menace number 11 on may of 1954 a character who eventually turned in agents of atlas decades later soon he noticed his style was imitating his idols jack kirby and milton

8:53but he would later learn to adapt their style while making it his own another significant work for ramita worked on for atlas was at the time was jungle comics which starred waku prince of bentu who was originally created in jungle comics number one september of 1954 by writer don rico and artist odin whitney noted for being one of the first comic features to not only have a black character as a star but no regular white characters ramita took over the art chores for whitney with issue number two at the time stanley was doing very detailed scripts before adapting to the marvel method thus

9:26ramita didn't have the freedom when his art he would later achieve when he was assigned to captain america he tried to avoid ways to draw a shield even even going so far to have it color held which didn't work out too well despite all this ramita didn't think comics would last by the end of 1950s and soon events would nearly prove him right after the publication of seduction of innocence by frederick worvin in 1954 and the following senate subcommittee on juvenile delinquency the comics industry formed the comics magazine association america in 1955 with the comics code authority

9:56tasks to severely restrict the medium's content to stave off the backlash against the industry and governor's censorship artists like ramita were powerless against this though he would play a hand in his downfall years later and in 1957 it would be the low point of his work with stanley at atlas former timely and current marvel as lee had to cut his rate of forty four dollars to pay to twenty four dollars to pay leading ramita to quit the company till 1965 of course his father chided him about all this over leaving the army he wasn't the only one as this is up to a mass exodus for

10:29exodus for many artists as atlas was nearly folded up shop and ramita was forced to take up a newspaper route just to make ends meet in the late 1950s while his wife virginia also went to work eventually ramita was able to get work at dc doing romance comics in 1958 having previously freelanced for the company while working at atlas earlier his first credited work was the cover of secret hearts number 58 on october 1959 and the seven page story i know my love and heart drives number 63 on january of 1960 ramita hated these stories calling them stale into comparison to his

11:02previous work at timely nevertheless his work on romance comics would help him with creating glamorized art notably in being able to draw beautiful women something that will help is later clear much of this came from carmen infantino who helped him with the female form and looking to artists like don heck and bob oster for inspiration soon john ramita senior would be known for his ramita women which range from sultry street smart to the ladies to the girl next door noted for their intelligence and realism this would lead him to be stereotyped as a romance artist for a period of

11:33time though he did lead him making 35 to 38 dollars per page on these comics at dc he didn't like doing horror stories and strangely never got a chance to do superheroes one could only imagine what he could have done with superman or batman though he did get a chance to do more obscure metamorpho however with the romance genre dying out in comic books ramita senior's work at dc dried up the last known uh issue he worked on was my heart tricked me in girls romance number 121 on december of 1966 soon ramita was thinking about going into advertising at bbdno which offered him 250 a week

12:08against the 200 he was making for dc before stanley made him a counter offer promising him a ton of work and he wasn't lying while ramita said stanley constantly puts for changes he was more accepting in dc and he did like being challenged by artists it was there that ramita was indoctrinated as a new marvel method where lee gave outlines of the plots of the artists trusted them to design the characters setting and panel layout and then come back to insert the dialogue between lee's writing and jack kirby's story templates ramita transitioned back into superhero storytelling ramita's first inked an

12:41issue of avengers number 23 in december of 1965 for don hex interior pencils along with a jack kirby cover and would then replace wally wood on daredevil which number 12 on january of 1966 the return to superhero stories would be a bit of a transition as the first three pages ramita produced had to be thrown out as they were too boring like a romance story stanley had jack kirby provide breakdowns but provided ramita a reference on how to do the pacing soon ramita got back into the groove and the sales for daredevil started to go up along with producing stories for the hulk and captain america

13:14in tales of astonish numbers 77 on march 1966 and tales of suspense in number 76 and 77 on april and may of 1966 respectively with this stanley soon had a new job in mind for ramita as he wanted him to take over penciling marvel's flagship character spider-man during john ramita senior's run on daredevil stanley has spider-man guest star in daredevil number 16 and 17 in may and june of 1986 to give ramita a trial run on how he could do the character as he was having trouble with

13:45amazing spider-man artist and co-creator steve dicko one argument specifically was that lee wanted the green goblin to be revealed to be norman osborne the father of harry osborne peter parker's friend dicko objected stating that that was unrealistic since most criminals were people you never knew but lee argued that readers would be disappointed if it didn't happen when dicko finally left of amazing spider-man number 38 the great goblin's identity was still had yet to be revealed and lee was free to have him be norman osborne once john ramita senior came on board however ramita originally turned down the job as he thought spider-man peter parker was just a

14:19teenager clark kent while he felt at home on daredevil nevertheless when he did start on amazing spider-man with issue number 39 which revealed harry norman osborne to be the green goblin ramita would try to ghost dicko's style for six months before realizing it was no longer a temporary get edition number 43 he couldn't believe dicko would leave one of the top selling comic books in the industry once he realized this ramita started delivering his own style since drawing characters with bone structure along with ditching the nine panel page structure it was during his early run that he

14:50debuted the first full appearance of spider-man's future love interest and wife mary jane watson seen previously appearing obscured by a plant in amazing spider-man number 25 in june of 1965 ramita would debut in the iconic final page of amazing spider-man 42 on december of 1966 playing on the subplot of aunt may trying to set up peter with their neighbor's niece he opens the door expecting a comely girl only to see mj and all her red-headed bomb shared glory spouting the iconic line face it tiger you just hit the jackpot ramita's previous years working on romance comics

15:24had helped and he developed a talent for drawing beautiful women and mary jane watson with no exception modeling her after the film star and margaret it was perfect timing for amazing spider-man as well as all the young boys who started reading the book were now young teenagers and with a newfound interest in pretty girls soon john ramita senior was making amazing spider-man his own comic putting his own mark on all the characters for example he modeled the look of captain stacy the father of spider-man's girlfriend gwen stacy after the actor charles bickford soon peter

15:57parker was getting more handsome as he grew up to a college student and more comfortable with himself while ramita senior made a functional decision to how he dressed for example he had peter parker dressed in long-sleeved turtleneck sweaters because he reasoned he could cover up his costume underneath ramita's settings and backgrounds also became more realistic with cracked sidewalks and trash in the street other classic characters that would debut during john ramita senior's run was the rhino in issue number 41 in october 1966 the shocker in number 46 in march of 1967 and the kingpin in issue number 50 on june of 1967 who ramita loved drawing along with his wife vanessa

16:32of interesting note the iconic amazing spider-man number 50 was a life minute change with the original use for interior art of peter parker leaving his spider-man suit in the garbage which would be referenced in the 2004 spider-man 2 movie the stories also became more topical addressing the vietnam war political protest and student activism due to ramita's success in amazing spider-man he became marvel's de facto art director constantly called up the help with art and all the other books when martin goodman the founder of an owner of marvel comics asked what john ramita senior did at marvel

17:04he replied everything as a result he was taken off of amazing spider-man for some periods only able to do provide covers while artists like john mishima took over the interior pencils such as such as when john mishima ran the issue of the comic for issues number 76 to 81 from september 1969 to february of 1970 remita will eventually return for a brief stint from issues number 105 to 115 and issue number 119 february to december of 1972 and april 1974 before pulling back again only

17:36provided the occasional inking and cover till issue number 168 of may of 1977 remita did provide one more important contribution to spider-man miffuse during this when he suggested to the writer jerry conway that he have spider-man peter parker's girlfriend gwyn stacy die at the hands of the green goblin which conway and artist gill cain did in the classic amazing spider-man number 121 on june of 1973 arguably one of the most iconic moments in comic book history all in all john ramita senior provided 50 covers 56 books of material art along with four annuals helping to redefine the character

18:12and making him even more popular along with marvel's highest selling book while steve dicko was rightly considered the first artist of spider-man and his co-creator remita is a close second by any measure building on the foundation to a brilliant effect one work on spider-man that john ramita senior was disappointed in was the black and white spider a spectacular spider-man magazine published on july of 1978 but not for the book itself attempting to follow the work of black and white comics innovated by warren publishing this magazine was a 35 cents an issue at a time when

18:43comics were 12 cents and in a magazine format thus operating outside the cca and could tell more adult adult stories the first issue featured a 52 page story written by stan lee and penciled by john ramita senior called low the monster along with a 10 page origin story by lee and his brother larry lieber it sold well and was followed by a second issue with a story by lee and ramita called the goblin lives this time with interior color art that also sold well along with promoting the next issue stories the mystery of the tv terror unfortunately martin goodman the founder and owner of marvel didn't have

19:16faith in it and had the magazine canceled the magazine stories would be reprinted in the regular spider-man comics while the tv terrorist costume was readapted for the villain the prowler making his first appearance in amazing spider-man number 78 of november of 1969 ramita felt marley goodman didn't understand the business and nearly shut down their iconic drug issues in amazing spider-man number 96 to 98 may and july of 1971 which lee wrote gilkane pencil and john ramita senior inked despite having the backing of the department of health who wanted marvel to publish an anti-drug story goodman was afraid of going against the cca who wouldn't approve the story's

19:51content lee convinced goodman to publish the story anyway without cold approval and the rest is history leading to cca relaxing its standards for the first time in 17 years ultimately ending decades later however this is just one more example for good of goodman not understanding the comic book business to ramita as a result he never worked for martin goodman's atlas despite the offer of copyright and royalties as he didn't trust them it was a smart call as atlas would collapse a year of launching in 1974 after jack kirby left marvel in fantastic four in 1970 stan lee put

20:24ramita onto the comic literally moving him from marvel's number one selling book to his number two while gilkane took over his amazing spider-man of interesting note ramita claimed that jack kirby also asked him to come with him to dc to help on his books but turned it down much of it due to his wife virginia stating he would just turn into a kirby clone ramita found himself back on spider-man though as around the same time he and stan lee started working on creating a spider-man strip for the newspapers going so far as to create two weeks worth of dailies they delivered on the chip

20:54goodman martin goodman's son in 1972 only to realize he never opened the envelope when he left it will be years before they were able to get that strip off the ground till then ramita only got busier at marvel john ramita senior was made art director at marvels helping design such characters his brother voodoo luke cage the punisher tiger bullseye and wolverine he also worked on marvel's black and white magazines the savage tales where he created the femazons ramita revamped the black widow's look basing it on the classic miss fury character one of comics first female superheroes

21:28and is now the one used today including how she's portrayed in the recent live action mcu movies by scottie johansson he also gave some mariner his black costume to boost sales though that his comic would still be canceled soon ramita was marvel's fix-it guy for all their art as other artists helped and helped him out before for example it was marie severin who pointed out his buildings were too clean with no fades or cracks severin also reportedly got john ramita jr his son and my personal favorite comic book artist started at marvel as an artist ramita also tried to glamorize everything including

22:01dr doom but he also kept the costumes functional for example the shocker's costume had padding to absorb sock waves while the punisher had an efficient military uniform he also gave dr octopus goggles and muscles though he still retained his classic stomach pouch when jack kirby returned to marvel john ramita senior inked his cover of captain america number 193 on january of 1976 of interesting note the cover was meant to be in 3d which is why the fist looks out of proportion with the rest of cap's body he continued to be marvel's top artist even when john bishima came aboard as every time he got a raise

22:36so did ramita as they essentially established marvel's look over the next decade plus he finally got a chance to do that spider-man strip on january 3rd 1977 the amazing spider-man strip finally debuted along with a number of new strips from marvel such as the hulk conan and howard the duck

Spider-Man Strip

22:53stanley was the writer and john ramita senior the artist with the first storyline featuring dr doom coming to new york to speak to united nations ramita promised to stay on this trip as long as it kept growing which it did for four years straight before before it finally plateauing ramita believed this trip wouldn't last long afterwards ironically it was only canceled last year in 2019 his wife virginia also started to work at marvel during this time helping uh make and keep schedules essentially becoming the traffic manager as ramita described her she also developed a reputation for

23:26wanting to keep the office clean including spraying deodorant around one one time when artists came in smelling too bad from late nights out including one unnamed writer he refused to shower for days one fun job ramita senior god at marvel was working for the beatles which was prompted when he drew a picture of paul mccartney in the titanium man's armor this got him a meeting with him and his wife linda who had who had ramita created his comics based on the stripes a banshee was on all this infuriated john verpoten marvel's production manager and also beatles fanatic it heard even more that ramita

24:00wasn't and preferred irving berlin even calling the beatles phonies when linda mccartney sent ramita senior a christmas gift with photos in a white cushion cover it disappeared ramita hoped verpoten stole it as he felt bad about losing it when jim shooter was made editor-in-chief ramita generally thought he was good at his job especially in balancing numerous tasks however he blamed secret wars in 1984 for his eventual downfall as his success went to shooter's head leading him to make poor decisions afterwards it was shooter that gave the nickname ramita's rangers raiders to the

24:31many artists he mentored at marvel ramita continued to work for marvel throughout the 1980s and 90s from inking the first appearance of monica rambeau and captain marvel in the amazing spider-man annual number 16 in 1982 to the nine page i remember gwen in the amazing spider-man number 365 in august in 1992 as far as spider-man's 30th anniversary however during this time ramita got to witness the marvel look he and jama simra helped establish be rebelled against by a new crop of artists just tom mcfarland and rob liefeld john ramita senior felt personally responsible for getting tom mcfarland

25:06on the amazing spider-man as he complained how he drew the hulk saying his face was too scrunched up thus prompting the move though he didn't like his spider-man either he understood mcfarland had to draw him his own way similar how ramita had to had to do had to following steve dicko ramita will be critical of mcfarland jim lee and other artists who found in image comics calling their comics filled with impressive shots of people but look like posed models with no human interaction thus lacking basic storytelling something many of them will eventually learn as for ramita he started to

25:37see his recognition for his long and brilliant career receiving the impact award in 1979 and was inducted to the will eisner hall of fame in 2002 on july 27 2007 one of his spider-man images along with a hulk image by rich buckler penciled and he ain't were used for commemorative stamps among the marvel superheroes by the u.s post office while ramita's art career started to slow down he continues to pay play a crucial role in the medium serving as the distributive committee for the hero initiative the charity that helps raise money for past comic creators who have fallen in hard times

26:09john ramita would work at marvel until march 30 of 1996 penciling and inking till the end of all his works he was most proud of the spider spidey super stories which was marvel's comic tie-in to the live action spider-man skits in the electric company pbs show in the 1970s which counted spider-man's first official live action debut along with being narrated by morgan freeman he still does the occasional piece such as variant covers for amazing spider-man however the ramita who makes a name now is his son john ramita jr who himself has had acclaimed

26:43runs in the amazing spider-man along with being the co-creator of the cult hit kick ass plus he remains my personal favorite comic book artist as for ramita senior he is 90 years old still living with his wife virginia and a true living legend if ever there was one in the comic book industry i would like to close out this episode with one of my favorite stories about john ramita senior that i heard on fanboy radio a chief influence for this podcast and which the hosts were at san diego comic-con eating at a local restaurant who had one of their walls painted white so to encourage many of the visiting comic book artists to draw on it

27:16sure enough john ramita senior entered with his son john jr and artist billy tan and all agreed to draw on the wall tan went first drawing a killer wolverine that's described by the host of fanboy radio followed by john jr who drew a brilliant captain america finally john ramita senior stepped up drawing and producing not only a brilliant spider-man but having him look like he was crawling up the wall and looking back at the restaurant reportedly both tan and john jr could be heard muttering why didn't we think of that even more ramita senior asked for more for some white paint as he thought

27:52he made a mistake that no one else could see while just a few years ago ramita senior still showed he had more than a few tricks up his sleeve to show the younger generation who are still learning from him to this day as no doubt what they will far into the future i would like to thank the chief source for this episode alter ego presents john ramita and all that jazz by roy thomas and jim amash which collects a series of great interviews of the legendary artist along with great reprints of his art a must read for any comic book fan

28:22and now it is april 16th 2026 time for the favorite comic of the week absolute batman number 19 by scott snyder and nick dragoto which runs a brand new story arc as the scarecrow makes his appearance in gotham city while batman has to deal with some new revelations more even more enemies coming out of the woodwork

28:53along with another new tragedy to heap onto him scott snyder jam packs this issue with everything i mean it's not just the scarecrow who shows up some other great characters show up and some crazy twists at the end including an insane cliffhanger and also we lose a major character in a tragedy that once again shows this absolute batman it is not uh this is not like a strange parallel universe of the regular dc universe batman no he is going a whole different direction it's a lot of fun and really you go i don't know what's going to happen next and you can't wait to see

29:24it's just a great beginning and dragota's art as usual was exquisite and gorgeous especially with showing just how scary the scarecrow can really be this absolute scarecrow is uh truly a terror to behold and all in all just the best batman book in the stands easily one of the best comics in the stands and uh another prime example of the absolute universe is the best thing dc's uh got on the stands right now and while dc's killing it overall and with that we'll conclude this episode of the archives joining me well hopefully uh joining me next week i'll be out of town the next week on vacation but i'm up i should try to maybe get a new comic review in their archive episode out there

29:59but uh until then go enjoy some good comic book and of course check out absolute batman this easily i'm probably the best my favorite comic book that comes out every every month so far so far you