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Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.82: John Paul Leon
No.82: John Paul Leon
John Paul Leon was a comic artist who followed in the footsteps of the likes of Alex Toth, Sergio Toppi and Hugo Pratt. His first professional work was at the age of 16 drawing for TSR’s Dragon and Dungeon magazines. Words: Joel Meadows…
pic: Joel Meadows
He studied illustration at New York’s acclaimed School Of Visual Arts under artists like the legendary Will Eisner and Walter Simonson. His first professional job was drawing RoboCop miniseries RoboCop: Prime Suspect published back in 1992. This led to him being hired by Milestone Media for their launch book Static which started in 1993.
In the 1990s, Leon carved a niche for himself drawing X-Men miniseries like Logan: Path Of The Warlord and The Further Adventures Of Cyclops and Phoenix at Marvel. He also drew hit Marvel 12-parter Earth X, written by Jim Krueger and Alex Ross which offered a dystopian vision of the Marvel Universe.
Leon then went on to create style guides for DC movies like Batman Begins, Superman Returns and The Dark Knight.
He worked on Detective Comics at DC and Wildstorm series The Wintermen.
He collaborated with writer Kurt Busiek on Batman: Creature Of The Night, a miniseries that was completed while he had been diagnosed with cancer.
In June of this year, Leon’s artwork was published as part of the first issue of Image Comics’ Jupiter’s Legacy: Requiem and his art was used as a variant cover for its third issue.
The loss of Leon to cancer in spring of this year was huge as he was perhaps the most versatile artist of his generation, a true classic comics stylist who was able to adapt his drawing to suit the series or the subject.
His broad, sweeping lines and his powerful compositions gave him an instantly recognisable fingerprint as an artist.
He leaves a huge legacy but we can’t help but wonder what else he could have done if he’d had a few more years.
JM
Read the first eighteen entries so far here too
Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.83: Jim Lee
Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.84: Denys Cowan
Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.85: Ross Andru
Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.86: Paul Gustavson
Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.87: George Evans
Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.88: Michael Golden
Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.89: Matt Baker
Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.90: Todd McFarlane
Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.91: Fiona Staples
Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.92: Carl Barks
Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.93: Carmine Infantino
Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.94: Alan Davis
Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.95: CC Beck
Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.96: Syd Shores
Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.97: Bob Fujitani
Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.98: Tim Sale
Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.99: Jim Aparo
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