Carlos Garzon 1 1

[Matthias.]

Hi, does anybody have some background information about Carlos Garzon, an inker from Columbia (?) that did some prestigious stuff all through the 80s (Star Wars, Blade Runner (both with Al Williamson as penciller) and Cosmic Odyssee (with Mike Mignola as penciller)), but I can't find any further information and don't know why he suddenly appears at the beginning of the 80s and then disappears again at the end of the 80s. I think he was a very good inker and therefore wondered if anybody here in this forum has some more info (there is no Wiki entry). Thanks in advance!

[Ecclectica]

Hi,

I'm sad nobody gave you some information, because I was asking myself the same question of what happened to Carlos Garzon not later than last January.

I was exchanging talks in a forum in my country on an author he worked with, put the same question in that forum at this occasion and got no reply. So I did some researchs, as I too remember fondly Mr Garzon, who helped so much Al Williamson in the 80's to produce so beautifully detailled Star Wars comic strips and comics.

You have to know first that what we know generally of Carlos Garzon (his production in the 80's) in only the tip of the iceberg. His career in the US comic field extends to the whole 70's and the 90's.

In the 70's he was primarly an assistant for Al Williamson from his debut on Warren titles (Eerie, Creepy - see https://www.comicartfans.com/galleryroom.asp?gsub=82675) to helping him on the X9, Secret Agent Corrigan comic strip. It is less known that in the 70's he drew some Flash Gordon episodes when the rights reverted from Charlton back to Western in 1978. Al Williamson helped him to have this job. Here are some examples on CAF :

https://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=540776
https://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=1028306

I don't need to tell you things about his 80's period because you already know of the work he did on Star Wars, and after, when Al Williamson made the switch from penciler to inker for  Marvel comics, he did the same thing and worked for Marvel first, then DC, as an inker.

In the 90's, he didn't disappear as you think. He continued to be an inker for DC for the most part working on several Star Trek, Justice League (International, for example), Titans or Legion of Super Heroes titles. He also worked briefly for Valiant comics too (Archer & Armstrong, Rai) before being saw again at Marvel (Conan and a What If issue). After work for a GI Joe series for Dark Horse, the last thing I could find is that he worked again in the Star Wars universe on the Solo title first, then assisting again Al Williamson when "Star Wars A New Hope Special Edition Adaptation" was done (Eduardo Barreto was the penciler, but Williamson and Garzon helped the title to acquire thru inking the great look they gave to their Star Wars stories in the 80's).

After this last 1997 job, I have not found no other work done by him.

My guess is that when the comic market experienced hard difficulties in the end of the 90's (with Marvel bankruptcy in U.S at the very end of 1996), he left the field. After all, he was already 52 and, even Williamson was entering the road that would lead to retirement in 2002/2003. I supposed he worked in other fields to complete his artistic career, maybe in illustration as I know at least one book he work on in the 90's. Maybe somebody here saw him at a US comic convention after, and know something else about him.

To conclude, there isn't a Wiki entry on him and that's a shame, because here is a webpage that could provide the basic content : https://fichas.universomarvel.com/autores/garzoncarlos.html You can have Google Chrome translated it for you.