Jordi Bernet

Jordi Bernet Cussó (born 14 June 1944) is a Spanish comics artist, best known for the gangster comics series Torpedo and Jonah Hex.

Jordi Bernet Cussó was born in Barcelona into an artistic family. His father was comic artist Miguel Bernet (alias Jorge), and his uncles were illustrator Juan Bernet Toledano and writer Miguel Cussó. He grew up surrounded by artists from the Bruguera school, such as Peñarroya and Cifré, while developping a passion for the work of American artists like Caniff, Alex Raymond and Hal Foster.

He published his first drawings at age thirteen or fourteen in the magazine Pepe Cola, of which his father was a collaborator. His actual debut came at age fifteen, when he took over the humorous series 'Dona Urraca' in Pulgarcito from his father, who died in 1960. Jordi developed a realistic drawing style from 1962, when he assisted Jordi Buxadé on the western comic books starring 'Jim Huracán', that were published by Toray. He also started taking assignments from British, Italian and US publishers through the Bardon Art agency. One of the comics he drew during this period was 'Poncho Yucatán', that was written by his uncle Miguel Cussó, in 1963. Between 1964 an 1967 he was also a regular contributor of war, historical and fantasy stories for British comic books like Victor, The Hornet, Smash and Tiger.

After the fall of Franco, Bernet returned to Spain and worked for several Spanish comics magazines such as Creepy, Metropol and Cimoc, eventually meeting three writers with whom he would form productive partnerships. With Antonio Segura he created the amazone fantasy series Sarvan, and the series Kraken, depicting a sewer monster terrorizing a futuristic fascist society.

Bernet first collaborated with Enrique Sánchez Abulí on several short stories, collected in Historietas negras. When Alex Toth, after producing two stories of Torpedo 1936 in 1981, decided he did not share Abulí's darkly humorous view of mankind and parted with the project, Bernet was asked to continue the work.[4] This became the beginning of a long-lasting series, which became a popular success and was awarded at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. It eventually formed the basis of its own magazine, Luca Torelli es Torpedo in 1992.[3] Later collaborations with Abulí include De vuelta a casa, La naturaleza de la bestia: Ab Irato and Snake: por un puñado de dolares.

Bernet also formed a creative partnership with the Argentine writer Carlos Trillo, resulting in the sexually explicit series Cicca Dum-Dum, the less lewd and more comical series Clara de Noche, and several one-shots, including Custer, Light and Bold and Ivánpiire.

Bernet's more recent publications include several albums for the Italian western character Tex Willer, and a run of work for the U.S. comics market, including a Batman story, and a trilogy detailing "the shocking origin" of Jonah Hex.[5] Bernet has later continued to work with Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray on Jonah Hex.

American artist Will Eisner described his impression of Bernet's work in an anthology preface:

Here was a man who was producing pure story-telling art. That is art that uses the kind of minimalism so singular to his draftsmanship that is actually a narrative device in itself. This fit into my own philosophy of sequential narrative art. I pursued the progress of his work with great interest.