Adi Granov

Adi Granov

Granov at the 2011 New York Comic Con
Nationality British, Bosnian[1]
Area(s) Artist
Official website

Adi Granov is a Bosnian-American comic book artist and conceptual designer. He is best known for his painted work with Marvel Comics, for whom most of his comics work is produced, in particular his work on Iron Man. He is especially known for illustrating the miniseries Iron Man: Extremis, and for doing concept and keyframe artwork for the 2008 film Iron Man, a job for which director Jon Favreau personally selected him. Granov has also done concept work for the films The Avengers and The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and has designed packaging for the DVDs and toys based on those properties.[1]

Early life

Adi Granov was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.[2] 1994, 16-year-old Granov fled Bosnia with his mother and his sister, four years his junior, to escape the Bosnian War. They emigrated to the United States, where Granov spent the next ten years living in Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington, where Granov studied art and concept design at a university.[1] His names as his primary artistic influences Moebius, Hajime Sorayama and Drew Struzan.[3]

Career

Granov spent his last three years in the U.S. in Chicago doing design work for Nintendo Software Technology, working on Bionic Commando and Wave Race: Blue Storm, among other titles. He provided illustrations for Wizards of the Coast on their Star Wars and Wheel of Time games, and illustrated "Masters of Destiny", a short story for Metal Hurlant #10, an anthology magazine by Humanoids Publishing. While in Chicago he obtained his first illustration work for a Dreamwave Productions, a comics publisher based in Toronto, Canada. Though his work on their book,[1] NecroWar (2003), was well-received,[3] the publisher filed for bankruptcy, at which point Granov had not been paid for several months, impinging upon his ability to pay his rent.[1]

Granov's fortunes changed one morning when he received an unsolicited email from Marvel Comics, stating that they liked his work, and inviting to work for them. Granov accepted, and his first job for them was interior and the cover artwork for the 2004 Iron Man Poster Book.[1][4] His work was a success, and as a result, Granov was teamed with writer/novelist Warren Ellis for the 2005-06, six-issue miniseries Iron Man: Extremis. Though the character at that point was considered an unpopular, third tier character, Extremis is considered one of the best Iron Man comics ever produced, revitalizing interest in the character, and gaining the attention of film director Jon Favreau, who hired Granov one of the three key design and concept artists on the 2008 film Iron Man.[1][3] The Extremis storyline would subsequently be adapted into the 2013 film Iron Man 3.[1] In 2004 Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada named Granov as one of the Young Guns, a group of artists who have the qualities to make "a future superstar penciler".[3]

Granov's subsequent cover work for Marvel includes books such as She-Hulk, Inhumans, Thor X-Men, The Amazing Spider-Man, Black Widow, Hulk, Captain America, Fantastic Four. He has illustrated short stories for Astonishing X-Men and "Dark Reign" titles.

In May 2008, the Iron Man feature film was released, for which Granov helped design the Iron Man and Iron Monger suits, and did key-frame illustrations that indicated how the designs would behave while in motion. Granov also directed the building of 3D models at Stan Winston Studios, working alongside the production's two other key designers, Phil Saunders and Ryan Meinerding. That same month, Marvel debuted Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas, a two-issue miniseries written by director Jon Favreau, and illustrated by Granov, which pit the armored Avenger against Fin Fang Foom.[3][5]

Granov would later do concept work on the 2012 film The Avengers, and on the 2014 film The Amazing Spider-Man 2. He has also provided artwork for the packaging of action figures and other toys based on those characters.[1]

Granov provided cover artwork for video games Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 from Capcom and Heroes of Ruin from Square-Enix, as well as illustrating the cover for Wolverine & The X-Men: The Complete Series DVD from Lionsgate.

Granov provided the illustrations for the packaging of the band Tool's 21st anniversary re-release of their debut album, Opiate.[6] He has worked on packaging illustration, design and consulting for high-end toy company Play Imaginative for their line of collectible Iron Man figures.[7]

Personal life

When Granov started posting his work on an Internet art forum, he became friends with that site's moderator, an Ilkley, West Yorkshire native named Tamsin Isles. They eventually met and married, and made their home in Ilkey. Granov says of the town, "Ilkley was the first place I saw in England. I had always lived in cities, Sarajevo, Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles for a few months, Chicago... but to see the moors and the countryside and the beautiful town..."[1][2][8] Tamsin arranges his convention appearances, handles sales of his art,[9] and also helped organize Thought Bubble, a comics convention based in Leeds.[1]

Granov is fond of airplanes, trains and cars, and his hobbies include beekeeping and working on his 1967 Lotus Elan.[1][9]

Bibliography

Marvel Comics

Interior work

Cover work

Collected editions

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Barnett, David (July 4, 2013). "World renowned comics artist living Hollywood dream in Ilkley". Ilkey Gazette.
  2. 1 2 Booth, Cathy (May 10, 2009). "Superheroes 'made in Yorkshire'". BBC News.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Brady, Matt (September 11, 2007). "Forging Iron: Adi Granov talks Iron Man". Newsarama. The link is dead, but the page is archived by ArchiveDOTis., which cannot be added to Wikipedia.
  4. ↑ Granov, Adi; Jusko, Joe; Ryan, Michael (a). Iron Man Poster Book (2004). Marvel Comics.
  5. ↑ Furey, Emmett (May 21, 2008). "VIVA LAS VEGAS: Granov talks Iron Man". Comic Book Resources.
  6. ↑ Bennett, J. (March 13, 2013). "Interview: Tool Guitarist and Visual Guru Adam Jones on the Making—and Reissue—of Opiate". Revolver.
  7. ↑ "PLAY IMAGINATIVE ANNOUNCES MULTI-TERRITORY LICENSING DEAL WITH MARVEL FOR SUPER ALLOY HIGH END COLLECTIBLE FIGURES". Play Imaginative. January 2013. p. 2. (PDF)
  8. ↑ Johnston, Rich (July 4, 2013). "Adi Granov: Man Of Ilkley, Yorkshire". Bleeding Cool.
  9. 1 2 "About". Adi Granov Illustration. Retrieved March 21, 2014.

External links

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