R.I.P. TONY DEZUNIGA

I've just read the very sad news that Tony Dezuniga has died. A great artist from the Philippines who did a lot of work for the big US companies in the 70s and 80s. Here is some artwork from the stories I really enjoy that he drew. Dezuniga and John Albano created the western character Jonah Hex in the early 70s.

He had a crack at Star Wars. Around the same time, Marvel were publishing a magazine called The Rampaging Hulk. This had some quite racy back up stories. So a youngster who wanted to read about The Hulk off the telly also got to read the adventures of Shanna the She-devil.

In the early 90s Marvel UK were publishing Strip. The comic reprinted Dezuniga's Punisher stories from years before. Dezuniga was the first of a wave of Filipino artists who were given work by DC Comics because they could be paid much less than US artists. In fact Dezuniga acted as an agent of sorts for a "Filipino invasion". This led to another favourite comic of mine - the adaptation of War of the Worlds by Yong Montano. There was also Ernie Chan, a very good artist, especially his inking. Dezuniga was criminally underused in comics once the 90s began, which is a shame, but he had already left behind a great body of art.