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This one is for the younger crowd. Let us introduce you to a legend.
Jim Aparo was an American comic book artist, best known for his DC Comics work from the late 1960s through the 1990s, including on the characters Batman, Aquaman, and the Spectre, along with famous stories such as The Brave and the Bold, “A Death in the Family”, and “KnightFall”.
Aparo was primarily self-taught by studying and copying comic books. Growing up and taking inspiration from characters such as Superman, Batman, and Captain Marvel. Aparo was influenced by artists such as Alex Raymond and Milton Caniff. Aparo started his comic career later than most artists around the time working in advertising first while sending his art to various comic book publishers. On a summer vacation in Charlton, Aparo ran into Dick Giordano (τhe future executive editor of DC Comics) who saw potential in his work. That just doesn’t happen nowadays. It doesn’t.
He attempted to enter the comic book profession in his early 20s, approaching EC Comics, which declined to hire him.
His first break in the comics field was with the comic strip Stern Wheeler, which was published in 1963 in a Hartford, Connecticut, newspaper for less than a year. In 1966, editor Dick Giordano at Charlton Comics hired him as a comic book artist, where his first assignment was a humorous character called “Miss Bikini Luv” in “Go-Go Comics.”
Aparo was paid $15 to $20 per page at his time at Charlton Comics.
Aparo was one of the few artists in mainstream comics at that time to serve as penciller, inker, and letterer for all of his work. Again, this is not done today. At least, not in mainstream comics. We do it here at Flipside Comics. 😉
In the late 1960s, Dick Giordano left Charlton for an editorial position at DC Comics and offered Aparo a job drawing the Aquaman comic book. The rest, as they say, is history. He did the art for 19 issues of Aquaman, he then moved to The Brave and the Bold and between issues #100 and #200 ‘missed only a few issues’. Which is a lot of comics folks.
In the ’80’s he became a part of the Death in the Family event that killed off the Jason Todd Robin, via a special 1-800 number reader call-in. Jim passed away in 2005. Jim Aparo is one of ‘those guys’ for me. I say it like that because I was very cold to his work when I was younger. Not knowing any better, he just didn’t appeal to me. But I was stone cold wrong for that. Jim’s work is a masterclass of storytelling and work ethic. He always insisted on inking his own work and would regularly turn in work on time. As I got older I had a newfound love and respect for his work. Truly, the man is one of the greatest comic book artists to ever do it. I implore you to check out his work.
