Posted By Dan Greenfield on Mar 26, 2024 | 4 comments

A BIRTHDAY SALUTE to Garcia-Lopez, who was born 76 years ago, on March 26, 1948…

By PETER STONE

In 1988, DC was creating a plethora of comics in a relatively new format – the mini-series. The number of issues ranged from four to 12. They included concepts and characters that didn’t fit in the standard, ongoing-series superhero world. The Unknown Soldier, Martian Manhunter, The Weird, The Crimson Avenger and many more. Among those titles there was a diamond. Penciled AND inked by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, written by Gerry Conway, it was the best of the bunch. It was called Cinder and Ashe.

Cinder and Ashe was a four-issue mini-series that had nothing to do with superheroics. Almost European in execution, it focused on characters, their pasts and the legacy of the Vietnam War. Just out of college, it was exactly what I was looking for. Sequential, artistic storytelling at its best.

The hard-bitten drama was a “buddy-cop” story at the time when “buddy-cop” stories were all the rage. But this one was different.

A Vietnamese woman and a Creole Army vet team up as private eyes. When the woman, Cinder, was a girl, her mother was killed in a bombing raid. She gets taken in by a local American crime boss named Lacey and must steal wallets, jewelry and cash from servicemen and Vietnamese businessmen. As she gets older — and prettier– Lacey takes notice. It’s a gruesome story but eventually she is rescued by Jacob Ashe, an American soldier. They set up as PIs once they make their way to the States and have to find Lacey, who is out to kill them.

It’s a fully realized story, with rich characters, and a dramatic climax — a TV series in comic-book format if I’ve ever seen one. Garcia-Lopez sold that concept with brilliant art and since it wasn’t a superhero series on a harsh monthly deadline, he could ink it himself. Four issues of pure artistic wonder.

It was obviously so influential among the artistic community that even Peter David and George Perez recreated the concept decades later with Sachs and Violens, even basing the final conflict in New Orleans, the setting for much of Cinder and Ashe. The male character is an ex-Vietnam photojournalist. The female protagonist is a soft-core porn actress. In this case, David and Perez put the two characters together romantically. Conway and Garcia-Lopez did not.

Now we get to talk about “the man” – Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez.

Garcia-Lopez was born in Spain but his family moved when he was 3 and he grew up in Argentina. His personal artistic influences were nothing but the best: Hal Foster, Milton Caniff and Alberto Breccia. He got work in Argentina when he was pretty young. Sea-faring pirate stories, love stories and others. In the 1960s he worked for Charlton Comics before finally moving to New York in 1974 where he worked with Joe Orlando. In 1977, he helped launch a Jonah Hex solo series and if you can get those issues – do it. They are spectacular.

He was the original artist on DC Comics Presents and also illustrated treasuries like Superman vs. Wonder Woman and Batman vs. the Hulk. He had a run on The New Teen Titans after George Perez and is perhaps most beloved for his work on DC’s Style Guides. (Fans to this day clamor for DC to release them in full.) Later, he drew Twilight, written by Howard Chaykin, which many consider to be his best artistic work, but it didn’t sell due to the less than commercial story.

But Garcia-Lopez brought some of his best work to Cinder and Ashe. His understanding of anatomy is stunning and his storytelling is so clear that the reader can never be confused. It practically begs to be put on screen, big or small. The structure is there. The relationships. The problems. The connection. It could easily be modernized into an Afghanistan story.

Paul Levitz once called Neal Adams one of the pillars of DC Comics. I truly believe, and I know Neal did as well, that Garcia-Lopez was another.

He’s never fought to be a superstar, but he is one anyway.

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MORE

— BURIED TREASURE: Edvin Biukovic’s THE HUMAN TARGET. Click here.

— BURIED TREASURE: P. Craig Russell’s PELLEAS & MELISANDE. Click here.

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Peter Stone is a writer and son-in-law of the late Neal Adams. Be sure to check out the family’s twice-weekly online Facebook auctions, as well as the NealAdamsStore.com, and their Burbank, California, comics shop Crusty Bunkers Comics and Toys.