Humberto Ramos

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For other persons named Ramos, see Ramos (disambiguation).
Humberto Ramos

Born 27 November 1970 (1970-11-27) (age 37)
Nationality Mexican
Area(s) Penciller
Notable works Crimson, Impulse, The Spectacular Spider-Man

Humberto Ramos (born 27 November 1970) is a Mexican comic book penciller, best known for his work on American comic books such as Impulse, The Spectacular Spider-Man and his creator-owned series Crimson.

Contents

[edit] Biography

In the early 1990s Ramos learned comic book art from Mexican comic book artist Oscar González Guerrero and his son, Oscar González Loyo. The pair later invited him to comic book conventions in the United States.[1]

Ramos was discovered in 1993 at the San Diego Comic-Con, the comic book industry's largest annual convention, where comic legend Walt Simonson brought him to the attention of the founders of Milestone Media, where he did his first work in American comics in 1994, before being hired by DC Comics as the regular penciller for their new Flash spin-off Impulse, which launched in March 1995. Written by Mark Waid, the superhero/teen comedy series focused on young speedster Bart Allen, the grandson of the second Flash, Barry Allen, and his struggles with growing up in an alienated Alabama suburb.

In 1998, Ramos co-founded the imprint Cliffhanger with comic book artists Joe Madureira and J. Scott Campbell. They created the imprint, housed by Jim Lee's Image Comics division Wildstorm, to publish their creator-owned comic books outside the mainstream superhero genre. Both Campbell and Madureira had already built large fanbases with their previous work on Gen¹³ and Uncanny X-Men respectively, and were two of the most popular comic book artists at the time. Ramos, on the other hand, was not as popular and his inclusion on the imprint was perceived as second choice, after fan-favorite Michael Turner declined because he was still under contract at Top Cow.[2] However, while Campbell's Danger Girl and Madureira's Battle Chasers soon ran into problems with both creators frequently missing deadlines and long delays between single issues, Ramos' Crimson—although not selling as many copies as the other two—stayed on schedule, missed hardly any shipping dates, and became the longest-running title of the imprint, even as more artists joined the imprint in the early 2000s.

Crimson wrapped, after 24 issues and two one-shots, in February 2001, and was followed by Ramos' second Cliffhanger title, the fantasy/mystery series Out There, a mere three months later. Along with the start of Out There, Ramos also began illustrating the covers of Peter Parker: Spider-Man with issue #30 and—beginning with May 2002's Peter Parker: Spider-Man #44—additionally did the interior artwork on the four-issue story arc "A Death in the Family" (later collected as Spider-Man: Return of the Goblin; ISBN 0-7851-1019-4), written by Paul Jenkins.

After his Cliffhanger contract ran out and Out There was concluded after 18 issues in early 2003, he left the imprint (apparently not on the best terms[3]) and launched a new Spider-Man title, The Spectacular Spider-Man. The book reunited Ramos with Peter Parker: Spider-Man writer Paul Jenkins and earned him a 2005 Harvey Award nomination as Best Cover Artist. While Ramos worked on Spectacular Spider-Man, another book created by him (although illustrated by Francisco Herrera), the six-issue miniseries Kamikaze, which had originally been planned for 2001,[4] was published by WildStorm under the Cliffhanger imprint.

In 2005, Ramos' creator-owned six-issue miniseries Revelations began publication at Dark Horse Comics. The series, once again written by Jenkins, was originally supposed to be published by Cliffhanger in 2001,[4] but delayed for unknown reasons.

Following Revelations, Ramos returned to Marvel Comics, joining writer Marc Guggenheim as the new creative team on Wolverine, beginning with issue #42 in March 2006.[5] The same month also saw the release of the first volume of the space opera K, a series of three 46-page comic albums Ramos is illustrating for French comic publisher Soleil Productions, written by the popular French comic book creator Crisse.[6] After working on various X-Men titles, Ramos is scheduled to join writer Terry Moore on Runaways in 2008.[7]

[edit] Selected bibliography

This is a chronological list of comic book series Ramos illustrated for multiple issues.

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ Bef. "Humberto Ramos, Un héroe de los cómics".Complot Internacional, Operación Caos Cultural (Año 1. Número 11; December 1997)
  2. ^ Matthew Senreich (1998). "Cliffhanger". Wizard: The Comics Magazine (#78; February 1998): pp. 59–63. 
  3. ^ Humberto Ramos: Web Developer. Silver Bullet Comic. Retrieved on February 19, 2006.
  4. ^ a b Humberto Ramos goes 'Out There'. Comic Book Resources. Retrieved on February 12, 2006.
  5. ^ Guggenheim/Ramos new Wolverine team. Newsarama. Retrieved on February 12, 2006.
  6. ^ Comics from France: Looking at Soleil. Newsarama. Retrieved on February 13, 2006.
  7. ^ Rogers, Vaneta. SDCC '07: Terry Moore/Humberto Ramos next Runaways team. Newsarama. Retrieved on 2007-12-27.
  8. ^ Ramos illustrated the covers for all Impulse issues from #1–25, but the interior artwork on #7, 14, 15, 18, 21, and 22 were done by guest artists.

[edit] External links