There are a number of strong communities of comics art (those of you in the expensive seats read: “graphic storytelling”) in various parts of the world, each with its own stylistic leanings. Some, like Japan, France and Belgium are more familiar to us here in the U.S. than others, like Italy, the UK, South America, China, Korea and the Phillipines.
Unlike comics artists in China, Korea and most other countries in the Western Pacific rim that produce comics, artists in the Philippines took their primary influences not from Japanese Manga styles but from Spanish, South American and North American influences.
In the early 1970′s established artists from the Phillipines, many of them with with their own studios and publishing endeavors, like Alfredo Alcala, Nestor Redondo (a personal favorite), and Tony De Zuñiga began to do work for American companies like Marvel, DC and Warren.
I don’t know the details, but it may have had a lot to do with the crackdown and sanitization of the comics medium that resulted when the Marcos government declared martial law and began to outlaw or control all mass media in the country.
In the U.S., the Filipino artists’ unique styles and intense, detailed rendering brought them the immediate attention of publishers and readers, and had a dramatic impact on the American comics artists working at the time.
The elder Filipino comics artists (in the Phillipines, is was “komiks”, as there is apparently no “C” in the alphabet), soon began to bring some of their younger contemporaries into the American market. One of the most notable of these was Alex Niño, who would become a star comics (and komiks) artist in his own right.
Niño illustrated over 300 stories for publishers in the Phillipines; and in the U.S. did work for Marvel, DC, Warren, Byron Preiss and Heavy Metal magazine.
Drawing on influences that ranged from his fellow Filipino artists to golden age pen and ink illustrators like Franklin Booth and Joseph Clement Coll and science fiction illustrators like Virgil Finlay, Niño created a synthesis of pen and ink styles that he used to propel his highly imaginative flights of fantasy.
His work ranged from quietly elegant renderings to over-the-top, wildly stylized fantasies that had some of the manic energy of American underground comics.
His rendering style combined the calligraphic thin-to-thick line work common to American comics with the intensely textural rendering of pen and ink illustration, to unique effect.
In the late 80′s and early 90′s Niño’s decorative style and fertile imagination led him to doing production and design work for Disney Studios, contributing to feature animation like Treasure Planet, Mulan, The Emperor’s New Grove and Atlantis.
Auad Publishing, who I have mentioned in the past as the publisher of terrific books on Franklin Booth, Alex Toth and other illustrators and comics artists, has just released The Art of Alex Niño, a 160 page labor of love into which Auad had crammed page after page of Niño’s lavishly rendered illustrations, drawings and comics pages, including several complete short stories.
The book covers a wide range of Niño’s styles, and includes a healthy sampling of color work (perhaps a quarter of the book). As much as I enjoy his color work, it was in his black and white work, particularly in the Warren magazines, that I think Niño was able to utilize his drawing and rendering strengths, and his dramatic sense of page design, to best advantage.
The Gallery of Niño’s work on the Auad site is small, and the is no official site for Niño or large single repository of his work in the web that I’m aware of. I’ve tried to line up some other resources for you below.
He looks amazing! But most of these links seem to lead to 404s! But thanks for the heads up anyways, I’m going to look further into this guy..
Oops. Sloppy search and replace for the tilde in his name whacked the links.
Corrected. Thanks.
Parabéns!
Seu site é excelente!!!!!!!!!
Sou ilustrador e pro fessor de art aqui no Brazil.
Aprendi muito aqui.
Abraço
Thanks!
Other readers can see Brücke Caribé’s blog here. (In Portuguese).
I’m a big fan of Alex Niño’s artwork. His brushwork and design sense is amazing.
The site Comic Art Fans has galleries of art from comic collectors that include original pages and convention sketches. Use their search button on his name to find several examples.
http://comicartfans.com
Oops, I see you did that already. :P
Alex Nino is by far one of the the best illustrators I’ve known and have the privilege of working with. A real genius. He never runs out of design ideas and very consistent. Thanks for posting
WOW! I’d never heard of this guy before. How could I possibly have missed him?
This is why I keep coming back to your site. Very inspiring. Thank you!
This guy ate a lot of lsd ! :)))
Do you know his “people of the dark” ? it’s a Conan story.
I love your site.
sorry for my poor english…
An upcoming exhibition of original Alex Niño artwork will be held November 4-30 at Kingsborough Community College, 2001 Oriental Boulevard, Brooklyn, NY 11211. The show, entitled “Maidens, Moons and Monsters: The Imagined Worlds of Alex Niño” will showcase original pages from the science-fiction comic magazine 1984 (later titled 1994). These pages–including two sets of huge,multi-panel images–are among his most experimental and mind-blowing work. Hope to see you there!
For information, see the facebook page, “Fans of Alex Niño”:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=111544034386&ref=mf
A small gallery of images that will be on view in this exhibition:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=101765&id=664968061&l=f357012cd1
Directions to Kingsborough Community College:
http://www.kingsborough.edu/sub-directions/index.html