Jesse Santos Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1928 - d. 2013

Jesse Santos (June 24, 1928 – April 27, 2013) was a Filipino comic book artist. He is best known as the co-creator of Dagar the Invincible and Tragg and the Sky Gods.

Jesse Santos was born in Teresa, Rizal, Philippines and began drawing professionally at the age of 14. One of his artistic influences was Francisco Coching. Other influences include Hal Foster, Burne Hogarth, Jack Kirby, Alex Raymond, and Tony Velasquez. Santos began his career in the Komiks industry by drawing the "Kidlat" feature in Halakhak Komiks in 1946. He moved to the United States in 1969 and began working for Western Publishing's line of Gold Key Comics after a chance meeting with editors Chase Craig and Del Connell. His earliest work in the U.S. is inking Jack Sparling's penciled artwork in The Microbots #1 (Dec. 1971). He became the artist on the Brothers of the Spear series in 1972 and worked with writer Gaylord DuBois on the first 12 issues. That same year, Santos and writer Donald F. Glut co-created Dagar the Invincible and Tragg and the Sky Gods.

They also collaborated on The Occult Files of Dr. Spektor. Santos received an offer from Marvel Comics to work on their Conan the Barbarian series but turned it down. In the 1980s, Santos left the comics industry and became involved in advertising and animation design. He worked on such series as Bionic Six, Blackstar, Dino-Riders, Jem, and Tiny Toon Adventures. After retiring in 1998, Santos often performed as a lounge singer and self-produced an album of standard love ballads