For anyone who has loved the look and style of DC Comics characters from the 1980s will really want to get their hands on the DC Comics Style Guide from 1982 as designed by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez.
In 1982, Spanish-Argentine artist José Luis García-López was hired to create the key art for an ambitious project: a total standardization of DC’s Super Heroes look. The resulting 3-ring-binder filled with rules, color swatches, character profiles, and hundreds of pages of stunning art was in itself a showcase of García-López’s artistic talent, collaborating with legendary inker Dick Giordano. But it served a very practical purpose, as it was intended to create artwork for products and packaging of DC’s wide range of licensed products and promotions. Most earlier DC licensed products or ads picked up images from the comics, without any additional payment to the talent—led by president Jenette Kahn, the team updated that policy so that most licensees had to use artwork created specifically for that purpose, either in the Style Guides or newly drawn.
The model sheets in the 1982 DC Comics Style Guide became the standard reference for DC license holders working on DC releases for decades and, thanks to García-López’s timeless character work, has continued to deeply influence many DC artists and fans to this day.
Over the years new pages were added to the Style Guide and new DC Style Guides were issued to keep it current, but as franchises moved on and updated looks eventually took over, the original Style Guide was no longer needed (and in most cases, likely disposed of). The copy held by Standards Manual is a rare collector’s item and unavailable to wide-audiences beyond low resolution, poorly reproduced, and often watermarked images online. The reissue is based on the original copy held by Standards Manual, containing an amalgam of page versions—presumably added by the owners of this original from ’82 to ’85.
Nostalgia fans are going to want to grab one of these, when DC Comics releases the 1982 DC Comics Style Guide on August 31, 2024. The book will cost $90.00, but since we’ve been quietly collecting digital versions of the character turnarounds and color guides over the years, this is a steal.
