Dheeraj Verma is an internationally renowned Indian comic book artist/creator. Verma is often credited with being the first Indian to enter the US comics industry.
Early life
Dheeraj Verma was born on 22 October 1967 in Delhi, India. He attended school at N P Boys Sr Secondary School and graduated from Pannalal Girdharlal Dayanand Anglo Vedic College, University of Delhi in 1991. Dheeraj spent his life in the heart of the capital, Connaught Place. As an aspiring artist he started drawing "The Phantom, Batman and Superman" in his 3rd grade. He was quite impressed with "The Phantom and Flash Gordon" which became his inspiration to draw.
Career
Verma started his career as an illustrator in the Indian comic industry in 1991 with the New Delhi-based publishers Parampara Comics and Fort Comics. He was noticed by the industry with Divaystro Ka Raja, Ajoobey and garnered more attention from the Indian comics industry with the comics Jangaroo. Later, in December 1993, he moved on to Raj Comics, the leading Indian comic company of the time. There he created his famous one-of-a-kind wolfman character Bheriya. Bheriya represents Verma’s immense love and dedication towards wild life and nature, which have always been the strongest aspects of his lifestyle. His debut issue in Raj Comics was Bheria Aya in 1994. He also wrote as well as illustrated its initial issues which were a huge hit such as Wolfano, Grahano, Lazy, Tilangey and many more. He worked on almost all the major Raj comics characters as an artist. His best selling comics were from the 90’s, and all of them were drawn by him. He also worked on covers, posters, trading cards, pin-ups, and other promotional merchandising for Raj comics. Verma was the first artist to introduce digital coloring to the Indian comic industry in 1996 on Parmanus cover and then Bheria’s Digest. He worked with Raj comics until April 2000. He joined a gaming company Escosoft Tech. as a senior visualizer and worked there for three years until June 2003. In 2004, he got his big break in the American comic industry with Avatar Press where he worked as an artist for writer Joe R. Lansdale on By Bizarre Hands. His biggest series with Avatar was Escape of the Living Dead, Plague of the Living Dead, Yuggoth Creatures, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Night of the Living Dead. He also worked on Dynamite’s The Complete Dracula series written by Alan Moore’s daughter Leah Moore. He also did cover art for Marvel Comics's invincible Iron Man. He worked on Transformers' series published by IDW Publications. His first series for IDW Transforemers: Fall Of Cybertron was a superhit series on ComiXology, which was launched in Aug 2012. After this series he worked on Transformers: Robots in Disguise # 19. In July 2013 and it entered in Top 300 comics. 2013. He has done up to 14 issues of Lady Death. He is currently working on Conan the Slayer, as a penciller. In January 2013, after a decade away, Verma made his comeback in the Indian comic industry with Jaljeevni from Raj Comics. Subhasya Sheegram, Sarvanayak series is his latest on-going project with Raj Comics. Verma also ventured to exhibit his painting in the world renowned Indian Government national academy of fine arts Lalit Kala Akademi in Delhi, and caused quite a buzz in the fine art circle by introducing original comics pages from Transformers and Lady Death in the gallery in a seven-day exhibition, which was Inaugurated by Mr. Taj Hassan, Special Commissioner of Police.
Personal life
Verma married Malti Verma in 1991 and has two daughters.
