John Romita, Sr. is a beloved comic book artist known for his work in Amazing Spider-Man and Daredevil, and for co-creating iconic characters like the Punisher and Wolverine. He has a strong, distinctive, character-rich comic book style that has influenced successive generations of Marvel artists. Since the artist recently celebrated his 93rd birthday, we thought it was a great time to take a look back at his impressive career in comics.

For many Spider-Man fans, his Spidey is the definitive version, but how did he get to that point and beyond?

Romita was born on January 24, 1930, in Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from Manhattan’s School of Industrial Art in 1947. He entered the comics industry just two years later with a story in Famous Funnies and became ghost artist for Lester Zakarin at Timely and Trojan Comics.

In early 1951, Romita was drafted into the US Army, and after he showed his art to the art director on New York Bay’s Governors Island, he was stationed there to create layouts for the recruitment posters. While in the army, he visited Stan Lee’s office in search of work and was tasked with penciling a short science fiction story for Atlas Comics.

From there, he worked on Westerns, war stories, horror, and romance comics at Atlas in the early ‘50s. Some of his prominent early work was in Young Men and Captain America, and creating human robot M-11 in Menace #11. Romita moved over to DC, where he specialized in romance comics like Secret Hearts, Heart Throbs, Girls’ Love Stories, Young Love, and Girls’ Romances in the late ‘50s to early ‘60s.

Romita joined Marvel in ’65 by inking Don Heck’s pencils and Jack Kirby’s cover to The Avengers #23. At the same time, he sought work in advertising with well known ad agency BBDO where he became an art director. Stan Lee reached out to him, expressing his interest in bringing Romita in to pencil Daredevil. The success of that book laid the groundwork for Romita’s transition to Amazing Spider-Man, via a Daredevil guest spot.

Initially, Romita tried to mimic Steve Ditko’s style in case he returned to the title, but after a few months, he started transitioning the art into his own style. Romita took over on Amazing Spider-Man #39 (August 1966) with Mike Esposito as the inker, and the pair stuck together until issue 66.

During this period, Romita designed the look of Mary Jane Watson, using Ann-Margret’s appearance – the red hair, shape of her face, and clothing style from Bye Bye Birdie. He and Lee co-created villains like Rhino, Shocker, and Kingpin, and they told stories not just about Spidey’s exploits but also about Peter Parker’s personal life and issues of the time like the Vietnam War.

Romita’s work load on Spider-Man started to be reduced as he spent more time doing corrections and touch-ups for other Marvel artists. He pulled back to doing layouts and covers around Spider-Man #57-95, returned as the penciler for #105-115, and then dropped back to some inking and most of the covers through #168. One of his biggest contributions during that period was suggesting to writer Gerry Conway that Gwen Stacy be killed by Green Goblin. He was also the artist on the Spider-Man comic strip from early ’77 to late ’80.

He officially became Marvel’s art director in ’73 and held that position until the late ‘80s. Romita designed or helped design characters like Wolverine, Luke Cage, Punisher, Tigra, and Bullseye. He did art corrections on Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man, inked Monica Rambeau’s first appearance as Captain Marvel and the debut of the Hobgoblin, and penciled the story, “I Remember Gwen,” for Amazing Spider-Man’s 30th anniversary issue. Romita penciled and inked a 10-page story about Peter and Gwen’s first kiss for Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man #1 in ’99 and drew alternate versions of Spider-Man characters for the one-shot Spidey: A Universe X Special in 2001.

Later in his career, Romita contributed to milestone issues of Captain America, Iron Man, and Daredevil. In 2007, his Spider-Man art and a Hulk image he inked were part of the US Postal Service’s Marvel commemorative stamps. He provided a Marvel heroes cover for The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide #41 Hero edition in 2011.

Romita was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2002, the Overstreet Hall of Fame in 2008, and into the Inkwell Awards Joe Sinnott Hall of Fame in 2020.