Eduardo Barreto

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Eduardo Barreto
Wizard Fan Award
for Best Graphic Novel, 1997 Silver Morosoli for Graphic Humor, Caricature, and Comics

Luis Eduardo Barreto Ferreyra[1] (1954 – December 15, 2011)[2] was a Uruguayan artist who worked in the comic book and comic strip industries including several years of prominent work for DC Comics.[3]

All of his children are artists. Two of them, Diego and Andrea, also work in comics, Diego as an artist, Andrea used to be a colorist & Guillermo who is an inker and illustrator. The three of them occasionally collaborated with Eduardo Barreto.

Early life

Luis Eduardo Barreto Ferreyra was born in 1954 in Montevideo, Uruguay. From the Sayago neighborhood, his childhood and youth house was in Calaguala street; and he grew up reading comics and being an avid supporter of his favorite soccer team, Club Nacional de Football. In interviews, Barreto reminisced about the time when, at age seven, he was reading a comic and decided he would grow up to be a professional comic strip artist.[4]

Career

In Uruguay and Argentina

A self-taught artist, Barreto named

Cantar de Mio Cid
(The Lay of the Cid), was soon published in the magazine, scripted and drawn by Barreto, aged 16.

In 1974 he created a science fiction and space opera strip inspired by The Morning of the Magicians, a book by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier. He created the strip intending to sell it to a syndicate, as his first love in comics was strips, and called it El Poderoso Halcón (The Mighty Hawk). In Uruguay, however, his only client was the newspaper magazine he was already working for, in which he published two pages featuring the character on Sundays. Many artist that had influenced his work include, Hal Foster[5] (b. 1892), Warren Tufts (b. 1925), and Mark Schultz[6] (b. 1955) along with many others.

A year later, Barreto sold the strip to United Press International, and the syndicate distributed his strips to some sixteen or seventeen newspapers in Latin America. There was even talk of translating it into English, but it never happened, due to international paper and oil crisis in the mid-1970s. At age 21, Barreto was publishing a strip all across Latin America.

Working outside Uruguay was a logical consequence of the career he had been forging for himself, a logical consequence of wanting to make a living in comics. Since making a full living from comics in Uruguay was impossible, he traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to leave some samples in publisher Editorial Columba (house of comic anthology magazines El Tony and Dartagnan). He returned to Montevideo, and supplemented his comic work for El Día with artwork for advertising agencies.

After getting married and moving, he returned to Buenos Aires on vacation, and visited Columba again. The publisher's chief art editor, Antonio Presa, asked him why he hadn't answered the letter in which they offered him a position working on the strip Kabul de Bengala. Barreto never had received the letter, as it had been sent to his former address.

Starting in 1975, he worked for about three years for the Argentinian publisher, first living in the country for a year, working in the Nippur IV studio (which was named as the classic Argentinian

historieta/character Nippur de Lagash). In the morning he worked in the Kabul art (scripted by H. G. Oesterheld), and in the afternoon he worked at the Nippur studio, as an assistant to Ricardo Villagrán; or rather a ghost artist. Among others, he worked on "Mark" (doing full pencils starting with issue seven). After that year he moved back to Uruguay, working there and traveling once a month to Argentina. By then he was working on several Nippur studio characters, but on his own, and signing his own name. Eventually, tired of Ray Collins' (Eugenio Zapietro) scripts, he signed his Kabul art with aliases, such as "S. Gneis" or "Kopy"; using the latter when he had to copy another artists' styles.[7]

United States work

After three years working in Argentina, his editor advised him to try his luck in the United States. He had reached a certain ceiling in the regional market. In 1979 he went to New York City, and his first U.S. work was inking for

Red Circle, particularly in The Shield. Three or four months later, he started to work on Superman for DC, and on other things for Marvel and Western as well.[9]

He did most of his U.S. work for DC Comics and the Uruguay audience knew him as the "Uruguayan Batman artist", something that was only a partial look at his work. In addition to being the most well-known Uruguayan artist in international comics, he was also the only Uruguayan to draw a regular U.S. series continuously, and not as fill-in, guest artist. First he drew eight issues of Atari Force (October 1984 to August 1985) and then a very long run drawing of most of the issues from #13 (Oct. 1985) to #49 (Nov. 1988) of The New Teen Titans vol. 2.[9][10] During those years, he worked for other comic publishers and drew for other media including a He-Man story book in 1985.

During the 1980s, in addition to his Titans work, he drew stories, covers, and pin-ups featuring a wide variety of DC characters: Superman, Batman,

Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography, written by James D. Hudnall, in which Superman is practically absent, instead featuring Clark Kent in his investigative journalist role.[9]

In 1989 and 1990, Barreto drew The Shadow Strikes with writer Gerard Jones. The two also collaborated on Martian Manhunter: American Secrets (1992), a miniseries set in the 1950s.[9][10]

In the 1990s Barreto worked with several companies and characters, such as Dark Horse Comics, for whom he drew Indiana Jones, Aliens/Predator: Deadliest of the Species, and Star Wars: A New Hope – The Special Edition.[9]

For DC Comics, his 1990s work included

Tekno Comics he drew Mickey Spillane's Mike Danger, about a hard-boiled detective who finds himself in a futurist world.[9]

In the 2000s, he continued to work for various publishers, such as

Birds of Prey in 2004 and 2006. In 2006 he drew for Boom! Studios' Planetary Brigade, and the following year he did a short story for Marvel's Civil War: Front Line.[9]

In May 2006 he returned to newspaper strips, taking over as artist of Judge Parker from Harold LeDoux. Shortly afterwards, Barreto suffered a serious car accident, and while he was in the hospital, Judge Parker's art was undertaken by artists such as Graham Nolan, John Heebing, and Eduardo Barreto's son Diego, who had been working as an artist for a few years already, mainly in advertising but doing some work for U.S. comic publishers.[13]

Return to Uruguayan work

After his jump to the U.S. scene, Barreto did very little work for the Uruguayan market. Among the things he worked on in his country were comic stories for the book [email protected] (2000) and Freeway magazine; and the cover for

Pedro de Cevallos
time. These works were never finished.

Final years

Barreto eventually returned to Judge Parker, and continued working on that and occasional stories with other characters, such as Superman and Captain Action. In 2010 he was stricken with meningitis, and was forced to abandon the Judge Parker daily strip in March 2010, which was taken over by Mike Manley.[14] Sometime later, apparently recovered from meningitis, he set to work on other projects. In April 2011 it was announced that Eduardo Barreto and his son Diego would work on Irredeemable, and in July 2011 he took over the art for The Phantom's Sunday strips. His last published work was in DC Retroactive: Superman - The '70s (Sept. 2011), finished from his hospital bed, and with some pages drawn by fellow Uruguayan Christian Duce.[15] Barreto died on December 15, 2011.[3][16] Before his death, Barreto drew Vampire Wedding[17] commissioned by Robert Huttinger and Francesca Lombardo, founders of Castalides Pictures, a London-based film production company producing Vampire Wedding, the comic book and the TV series.

Tributes

With his impeccable draftsmanship and attention to nuance and detail, Eduardo Barreto was a true artist's artist. A mainstay of DC Comics, he was one of the key artists during the 1980s who not only helped define the look and feel of the DC Universe but got me hooked on the Teen Titans. His incredible work and vision will be missed.
— Jim Lee, upon Barreto's death[2]

Bibliography

Archie Comics

Dark Horse Comics

Oni Press Comics

  • The Long Haul graphic novel (2005)

DC Comics

DC Comics/Marvel Comics

  • Batman/Daredevil: King of New York
     #1 (2000)

Marvel Comics

References

  1. ^ Bails, Jerry (2006). "Barreto, Ed". Who's Who of American Comic Books 1928–1999. Archived from the original on March 4, 2012.
  2. ^ a b "Eduardo Barreto". Lambiek Comiclopedia. 2012. Archived from the original on May 5, 2012.
  3. ^ a b "Longtime DC Artist Eduardo Barreto, Passes At 57". Bleeding Cool. December 15, 2011. Archived from the original on November 4, 2014. Longtime DC artist Eduardo Barreto has passed away at the age of 57, with the cause believed to be related to the meningitis that forced him to stop penciling Judge Parker in 2010.
  4. ^ "GCD :: Creator :: Eduardo Barreto (b. 1954)". www.comics.org. Retrieved 2022-10-09.
  5. ^ "Hal Foster". lambiek.net. Retrieved 2022-10-09.
  6. ^ "Mark Schultz". Flesk. Retrieved 2022-10-09.
  7. ^ "Summary Bibliography: Eduardo Barreto". isfdb.org. Retrieved 2022-10-09.
  8. ^ Siuntres, John (December 15, 2011). "Eduardo Barreto (1954-2011)". IFanboy. Archived from the original on January 12, 2012.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g Eduardo Barreto at the Grand Comics Database
  10. ^ a b Melrose, Kevin (December 15, 2011). "Longtime Teen Titans Artist Eduardo Barreto Has Died". Comic Book Resources. Archived from the original on September 7, 2014.
  11. ^ Khouri, Andy (December 15, 2011). "Veteran Comic Book Artist Eduardo Barreto, R.I.P." ComicsAlliance. Archived from the original on August 6, 2014.
  12. ^ Jurgens, Dan (w), Jurgens, Dan (p), Barreto, Eduardo (i). "Intergang --No More!" Superman, vol. 2, no. 60 (October 1991). DC Comics.
  13. ^ Cavna, Michael (February 12, 2010). "Breaking: Judge Parker artist Eduardo Barreto is 'gravely ill'; new artist sought". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on January 19, 2015.
  14. ^ Manley, Michael (February 23, 2010). "New Gig". Draw!. Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows Publishing. Archived from the original on February 29, 2012. Retrieved February 25, 2010.
  15. ^ DC Retroactive: Superman - The '70s #1 at the Grand Comics Database
  16. ^ Hatcher, Greg (December 16, 2011). "A Friday Farewell to a Classic Illustrator". Comic Book Resources. Archived from the original on February 13, 2012. It was meningitis that took him, I guess. He was fifty-seven.
  17. ^ "Vampire Wedding". Castalides Pictures. 2011. Archived from the original on January 19, 2015.

External links

Preceded by The New Teen Titans vol. 2 artist
1985–1988 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
n/a
 The Shadow Strikes artist
1989–1991 		Succeeded by
Rod Whigham
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