Phil Jimenez

Early life

Phil Jimenez was born and raised in Los Angeles and later Orange County, California. He moved to New York City to attend college at the School of Visual Arts, where he majored in cartooning. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1991.

Career

After graduating from SVA, Jimenez was hired by DC Comics Creative Director Neal Pozner at age 21, with his first published work illustrating four pages in the 1991 miniseries War of the Gods. Pozner was HIV-positive when he and Jimenez started dating, and was hesitant about dating someone younger and HIV-negative. Nonetheless, Jimenez became both Pozner's partner and caretaker, saying:

Neal Pozner was my first editor, and he was probably my greatest mentor at DC Comics. He was an incredibly talented man, with some very strong opinions about the way things should be done. I developed a crush on him the minute I met him, and I wanted to know more about him, and I wanted to be with him all the time. So I'd hang out with him at work, in the offices, far later than I had any reason to. I would buy clothes I couldn't afford to impress him. And eventually, I mustered the nerve to ask him on a date. And he was 15 years older than I was. And he had been my boss. And so, against his better judgement, he said yes. And it actually ended up being a really wonderful relationship.

Following Neal Pozner's death in 1994, Jimenez wrote and illustrated the 1996 DC miniseries, Tempest, based on a character from Pozner's late-1980s Aquaman series. In the last issue, Jimenez dedicated the miniseries to Pozner, and wrote an editorial page in which he came out publicly for the first time. "It got over 150 letters," he says, "including the classic letter from the kid in Iowa: 'I didn't know there was anyone else like me.' That's what counts. It meant a lot to people."

Much of Jimenez's work is related to works by George Pérez, whose art strongly influenced Jimenez. Jimenez has worked on several Teen Titans-related series (some issues of the ongoing series New Titans and Team Titans, and the miniseries JLA/Titans, The Return of Donna Troy and Tempest), was the main artist of Infinite Crisis, a sequel to Crisis on Infinite Earths, and did a long run as writer/artist of Wonder Woman beginning with issue #164 (Jan. 2001). Pérez had worked on the series in the late 1980s to early 1990s. Pérez and Jimenez would also co-write a two–part story together in Wonder Woman (vol. 2) issues #168–169 in 2001. Jimenez would leave as series writer/artist with issue #188 in March 2003. Jimenez and Pérez also have worked together in 2005–2006 in the miniseries Infinite Crisis (where Jimenez was the main penciller, and Pérez drew some sequences and covers for the series) and DC Special: The Return of Donna Troy (written by Jimenez and inked by Pérez).

Jimenez is also known for his work on various titles for DC Entertainment's "mature readers" imprint, Vertigo, including Swamp Thing, The Invisibles with writer Grant Morrison, and his own creator-owned series, the sci-fi/fantasy mashup Otherworld. In 2003, Jimenez drew several story arcs of Morrison's New X-Men run.

It was announced at the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con that Jimenez had signed an exclusive contract with Marvel Comics. He was one of the four artists working on Marvel's flagship title, The Amazing Spider-Man, the company's sole Spider-Man title, in which Marvel upped its frequency of publication to three issues monthly, and inaugurated the series with the "back to basics" story arc "Brand New Day" at the beginning of 2008. His first work on Spider-Man was in the Free Comic Book Day 2007: Spider-Man #1 (June 2007) comic book, with writer Dan Slott, which served as a prelude to "Brand New Day". Jimenez and writer Bob Gale co-created the Freak in The Amazing Spider-Man #552 (March 2008). Ana Kravinoff, the daughter of Kraven the Hunter, was introduced in The Amazing Spider-Man #565 (September 2008) by Jimenez and Marc Guggenheim. During his run, Jimenez drew the cover for The Amazing Spider-Man #583, featuring Barack Obama.

In 2009, Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada announced that Jimenez would become the artist of Astonishing X-Men beginning with issue #31. Jimenez co-wrote the book The Essential Wonder Woman Encyclopedia with John Wells for Del Rey Books in 2010. He later returned to DC Comics, illustrating a brief stint on Adventure Comics featuring the Legion of Super-Heroes, and Fairest, a spin-off of Bill Willingham's series Fables.

He appeared at the White House for the National Design Awards to present original art to First Lady Michelle Obama.

Jimenez appeared in a panel discussion on diversity in sci-fi/fantasy fandom in the March 19, 2015 episode of the Comedy Central humor and commentary program The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, along with Marvel Comics' director of content and character Sana Amanat, hip-hop artist Jean Grae and comedian Mike Lawrence. During the discussion, Jimenez commented, "It feels strange to me that we would partition race, gender and nerd as if they were distinct things...All human beings are this combination of experiences and ideologies...Everybody's get some nerd in them. But the idea that, somehow, being a nerd is separate from one’s religious or moral or political beliefs is strange to me. We all bring everything to our decision-making on a daily basis."

As part of the DC Rebirth relaunch of DC's titles, Jimenez was the writer and artist of the Superwoman series from 2016 to 2017. He got involved with Rebirth when he was originally assigned to be the artist of Superman but after DC changed their publishing plan, he was asked to work on Superwoman. Jimenez uses his own experiences and emotions and projects them onto the characters in his work. He uses the anxiety he experienced with his mother's death to relate to how Lana Lang deals with her losses. In addition, Jimenez wanted to create a female villain that was not sexually charged, and was motivated by something other than baby making.

Other work

Jimenez teaches a life drawing course as part of the undergraduate cartooning program at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, where he himself once studied. He has held figure drawing classes outside of SVA, at places such as the LGBT Center in the West Village.

Jimenez provided sketches seen in the 2002 superhero film Spider-Man. In scenes in which Peter Parker, played by Tobey Maguire, is seen creating sketches of his costume, the close-ups of his hands are actually those of Jimenez.

Jimenez created art for the first permanent AIDS awareness exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. His art has appeared on album covers and in editorial magazines. His artwork has been featured in mainstream publications such as TV Guide, and he himself has been profiled or recognized in Entertainment Weekly, The Advocate, Instinct magazine and Out magazine.

Awards and recognition

Personal life

Jimenez came out as gay in 1992, and his first public relationship was with Neal Pozner, who hired him at DC that same year.