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.
