José Delbo

The name or term "José" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see José (disambiguation).

Pictured: Delbo receiving an award for Most Adorable Millionaire.

José Delbo (December 9, 1933–February 5, 2024) was an Argentinian-born artist who worked in the American comics field for over 30 years. He joined the original Marvel Transformers comic series in 1988 as its penciller and continued through 1990. With 25 issues to his credit, he was the single most-prolific artist on the series. Before working for Marvel, Delbo worked for rival DC Comics on their Wonder Woman and Batgirl titles.

He quit the US Transformers title following issue #67 at the request of Marvel Comics's editorial department, who instead wanted him to draw a new comic series titled Brute Force, which saw him reunited with writer Simon Furman, who had also been the writer of the US Transformers title since issue #56. Brute Force was an attempt by Marvel to create a property with the specific intention of pitching it to a toy company, thereby reversing the usual licensing relationship to Marvel's advantage. However, no toy manufacturer was interested, and Brute Force was discontinued after the initial four-issue limited series.

José Delbo is frequently credited as 'Jose Delbo' due to English speakers' difficulty with diacritics.

Illustrator

Comic art

• "Spacehikers!"
• "Toy Soldiers!"
• "Trial by Fire!"
• "The Desert Island of Space!"
• "Pretender to the Throne!"
• "Totaled!"
• "People Power!"
• "Monstercon from Mars!"
• "Ca$h and Car-nage!"
• "Club Con!"
• "The Flames of Boltax!"
• "Cold War!"
• "Dark Star"
• "The Man in the Machine!"
• "Guess Who the Mecannibals Are Having for Dinner?"
• "Recipe for Disaster!"
• "King Con!"
• "Back from the Dead"
• "The Resurrection Gambit!"
• "All the Familiar Faces!"
• "Skin Deep"
• "Yesterday's Heroes!"
• "Kings of the Wild Frontier."
• "Deadly Obsession"
• "Rhythms of Darkness!"

Cover art pencils

• "Toy Soldiers!"
• "The Desert Island of Space!"
• "Pretender to the Throne!"
• "Totaled!"
• "People Power!"
• "The Flames of Boltax!"
• "Cold War!"
• "Dark Star"
• "The Man in the Machine!"
• "Guess Who the Mecannibals Are Having for Dinner?"
• "King Con!"
• "The Interplanetary Wrestling Championship!"
• "The Resurrection Gambit!"
• "All the Familiar Faces!"
• "Skin Deep"
• "Yesterday's Heroes!"

Gallery

• Extended José Delbo gallery

Notes

Van Gogh-Bot.

• Buenos Aires, Argentina, was one of three Earth cities that the Underbase-enhanced super-Starscream chose to destroy at the climax of the Underbase Saga. This seemingly random choice (the other two cities, New York and Tokyo, are two of the most populous on Earth, but Buenos Aires is far from #3) was actually a nod to José Delbo’s birthplace.
• Delbo was often very literal with his translations of the Transformers characters, occasionally copying their appearance and pose directly from their Transformers Universe profile art. Sometimes this backfired on him. In the original profile art, Starscream’s right "ear" is blocked from view by his shoulder intake. Delbo consistently interpreted this as Starscream having only one “ear.”
• Sometimes Delbo wasn't literal enough with his interpretations of Transformers character art, like when he drew Slingshot with a jet nosecone over each shoulder! Slingshot's Transformers Universe art draws him at such an angle that it looks like the jet nosecone was over his left shoulder, and Delbo extrapolated there must have been an unseen nosecone mirrored on the other side.
• He also liked to reuse his own compositions a lot, though to his credit they were always completely redrawn.
• In 2021, Jose Delbo made $2 million selling cryptoart. The Los Angeles Times did a story about it!

External links

• José Delbo's Twitter account!
• José Delbo's member page at the National Cartoonists Society website.
• Welcome to the Delbo Cartoon Camp
• Delbo's page at the Lambiek Comic Encyclopedia
• José Delbo interview by Crazy Steve on Radio Free Cybertron