Marcos Martín is a Spanishcomic book artist, who usually draws for American comics. Notable works include , Breach, Doctor Strange: The Oath, The Amazing Spider-Man, Daredevil and The Private Eye. He is also known as a prolific cover artist for a number of publishers in the industry, including Marvel and DC Comics.
Early life
Marcos Martín became interested in comics at the age of four, reading Spanish translations of the licensed Italian Disney comics and various issues of Kirby/Lee's Fantastic Four that belonged to his older sister. In Martín's own words, "She liked them because Sue Storm would change her hair every once in a while and things were happening besides the battles". He also read translations of Asterix, Tintin, and Mafalda, a popular comic strip by Argentine cartoonist Joaquín Salvador Lavado. Until the age of fourteen, Martín wanted to become a comic book writer, but then he decided it would be easier to break into the industry as an artist. He drew his first comic at the age of seventeen for the school while spending his senior year in upstate New York; it lasted two issues. Upon returning to Spain, Martín majored in painting at the University of Fine Arts in Barcelona.
Career
Martín's first professional work was the creation of covers and illustrations for Spanish reprints of various Marvel Comics by Cómics Forum, where he first met fellow artist Javier Pulido. After University, Martín went back to New York to show his portfolio and get work at either Marvel and DC; eventually, he was assigned on a short story in The Batman Chronicles: After that, Martín returned to Spain yet again and spent the next year working on a new comic Houdini with future screenwriter David Muñoz for Planeta-DeAgostini's Laberinto imprint. The series was unfinished and unreleased as the imprint was closed before the first issue could hit the stands. In 1999, Martín went back to New York, but had more trouble finding work after the Batman Chronicles experience. Eventually, he was asked by Javier Pulido to step in as a fill-in artist on the book Pulido had been working on at the time, '. He did a few more fill-in jobs and eventually was allowed to pick a writer for his first full project, which ended up being ' with Scott Beatty and Chuck Dixon. Martín also enlisted his friend and fellow Spanish comic artist Javier Rodríguez as the colorist for the book. After five years at DC, Martín moved to Marvel, where he did the acclaimed Doctor Strange: The Oath mini-series with Brian K. Vaughan as well various issues of The Amazing Spider-Man as part of the and eras. In 2011, he launched Daredevil, written by Mark Waid and co-drawn by Paolo Rivera, which paved the way for Marvel's more off-beat later series like Matt Fraction and David Aja's Hawkeye. In 2013, Martín founded Panel Syndicate, an online publisher of DRM-Freepay what you wantwebcomics in multiple languages, to release his and Brian K. Vaughan's creator-owned comic The Private Eye. The series has received critical acclaim and media attention for Martín's art and for its role as one of the first DRM-Free, pay what you want comics by creators of Martín and Vaughan's caliber. In July 2015, it was announced the series will be collected and released in print through Image Comics.
