“I closely collaborated with Juan Giménez for 10 years and together, we created The Metabarons saga,” Jodorowsky said in a statement. “What facilitated my task as we offered him to work on the complex world of the Metabarons was that he already embodied the immortal No-Name, the last Metabaron. In my unconscious, Juan Giménez cannot die. He will continue on, drawing like the master warrior that he was.”
Giménez won a number of awards during his career, including The Yellow Kid Award for Best Foreign Artist at the 1990 Lucca International Comic Fair, as well as the Gaudia award at the Feria Internacional del Comics de Barcelone that same year.
“There are many artists who are adored by their fans, but only a select few are equally revered by their peers,” said Mark Waid, publisher of Humanoids, which issued Metabarons. “Juan Giménez was the latter, able to give us not only epic moments of space opera but subtle and moving moments of humanity. Worldwide, the comics community mourns for him.”
According to Argentine newspaper La Nacion, Giménez had been hospitalized since March 22, following his return from a trip to Spain. His death April 2 marks the first known coronavirus-related death of a comic industry professional.
