Mike DeCarlo
/ref> is an American comics artist. He is best known for his work for DC Comics in the 1980s Inker the artwork of such artists as George Pérez, Greg LaRocque, Keith Giffen, and Jim Aparo.
DeCarlo has worked on various titles including Atari Force, Cartoon Network, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Fantastic Four, and Simpsons Comics as well as adaptations of the Warner Bros. stable of cartoons including Looney Tunes, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain and Superman & Bugs Bunny.
Comics
Mike DeCarlo entered the comics industry as an assistant to
Dick Giordano.
When Giordano became an editor at
DC Comics in 1980, DeCarlo became an inker in his own right.
[Eury, p. 105: "Mike DeCarlo, like Dick's assistants who preceded him, had graduated into the big leagues as a solo inker."] DeCarlo inked the penciled artwork of George Pérez on "The Judas Contract" storyarc in
Tales of the Teen Titans with Giordano.
[Flores, Mark (April 24, 2003). "Here they come to save the day, and us: Not all superheroes work alone. These teams give comics lovers something to cheer about", USA Today, p. D08.] Pérez critiqued their work in a 2003 interview stating that "While not perfect in getting the same feel as, they were closer as far as the crispness that the characters needed."
He inked the
Legion of Super-Heroes from 1986 to 1988
first with
Greg LaRocque and then briefly with
Keith Giffen. As inker of the
Batman comic book series, DeCarlo worked on several key storylines including the "Ten Nights of The Beast" which introduced the
KGBeast; "A Death in the Family" which featured the death of the second Robin
Jason Todd;
and "A Lonely Place of Dying" which saw
Tim Drake become the third Robin.
In 2014, critic Greg Burgas of Comic Book Resources reviewed DeCarlo's inking of
Jim Aparo's work on the final chapter of "Ten Nights of The Beast" commenting that "inkers who don't add roughness to Aparo's line work aren't doing him any favors. DeCarlo is better than [William Wray]], but he still seems to keep Aparo's work too smooth." He later adds that "I love the first image, with Batman and the Beast fighting in the sewer and the artists somehow putting their shadows on the wall. I don't know if Aparo drew this in and then DeCarlo inked it, or if DeCarlo just inked it without the benefit of pencils. It's quite cool, though."
At Marvel Comics, DeCarlo inked Conan the Barbarian, NFL SuperPro, The Mighty Thor, and What The--?!
Bongo Comics's Radioactive Man series received an Eisner Award in 2002 for "Best Humor Publication" while DeCarlo was one of the artists.
In 2025, he was awarded the Inkwell Awards Stacy Aragon Special Recognition Award.[ Inkwell Awards 2025 Lifetime Achievement Winners 2025]
Role-playing games
DeCarlo illustrated the covers to the
DC Heroes role-playing game adventures
Deadly Fusion (1990)
and
The Law of Darkness (1990).
Other products in the game line that he drew include the
Who's Who in the DC Universe Role-Playing Supplement 1 (1992) and the
DC Heroes Role-Playing Game (3rd Edition, 1993).
External links
