Ivan Velez Jr.

The artist’s work creating educational materials for the Hetrick-Martin Institute in the late 80s brought him to Milestone Media in the early 90s. In 1993, Latino artist, Velez, expanded Latino representation to include a team of queer, straight, and multicultural Latinos for Milestone Media’s series Blood Syndicate. Importantly, Velez’ characters portrayed more than one type of Latino identity; such as, Dominican, Puerto Rican, Afro-Hispanic, among others. This is due to the fact that there is more than one type of Latino identity within the United States. Additionally, Velez brought Latino and Afro-Caribbean characters to Marvel Comics. Working through Vol 3, issue 1, 70-93 of Ghost Rider, Velez brought color to the comic by employing supporting characters of color. For instance, the supporting cast and Ghost Rider’s wife were used to broaden racial representation.

Since 2015, Velez has focused his attention to The Ballad of Wham Kabam, a new comic book series. Notably, Velez’ production and publication of this series was made possible through his recipience of the Creative Capital Award. This honor funds adventurous artists with the hopes of amplifying their voice and establishing sustainable art practices. In this new series of five interconnected comic books, The Ballad of Wham Kabam, relies on the tropes of the superhero genre to tell the side of American history that has been omitted from mainstream record. To elaborate, Wham Kabam follows American history from the subjugation of the indigenous to slavery, and from the Civil Rights movement to today’s pop culture. Throughout these narratives, white Americans were the traditional hero. So, with his new work, Velez aims to subvert the legacy of American comics by documenting the experiences of the diverse and oppressed. Significantly, this superhero epic can be viewed as the pinnacle of Velez's work in the comics industry. Wham Kabam's narrative, a tale spanning centuries of American history and facing conflicts of race and power through multicultural superheroes, accurately summarizes the most important aspects of Velez’ works overall meaning. Velez revealed that this new work will differ from his previous in artistic style. It will contain more realistic drawings that attempt to accurately depict the various peoples and time periods of American history.

After graduating from college, Velez realized that coming to terms with his identity as a gay, Latino man should have been easier. The artist felt that the world failed to care for those society deemed outside the range of normalcy. In 1987, this introspection spurred the creation of Tales of the Closet, a multi-cultural initiative. So, Velez began working at the Hetrick-Martin Institute for the Protection of Lesbian and Gay Youth. There, he created educational tools about LGBTQ youth for high schools and social services agencies. Velez' comics are focused on minority characters and the everyday obstacles they face due to race or sexual identification. Significantly, Velez was a contributor on AIDS-awareness videos and literature during the Gay Men's Health Crisis.

The late twentieth and early twenty-first century saw the rise of queer representation in comics. Notably, Ivan Velez Jr. created one of the first narratives about queer youth in his series Tales of the Closet (1987-1993). The artist created Tales of the Closet to assert the notion that teenager had sexuality, and to protect youth. At the time, this was a novel concept. Given that queerness in teenagers was often thought to be the result of corruption or conversion from a sexual predator. The author notes that he struggled watching people in the gay community die from a lack of education and communication about AIDS. So, he created a comic to educate both straight and queer teens.

Ivan Velez Jr.(born 1961) is an openly gay Latino American cartoonist, writer, museum educator, and teaching artist, known for creating the groundbreaking comic book series Tales of the Closet, and for his work with Milestone Media, Marvel, and DC Comics.

Velez was born in the Bronx, New York in 1961 to parents of Puerto Rican descent. He was raised in the South Bronx. As a child, Velez admired the comics and animations of Casper, Hot Stuff, Superman, Supergirl, Archie, Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion, and Five Fingers of Death. From these early muses, Velez attributes his preference for simple pathos and characters with emotional depth. Velez graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1979 and went on to earn a BFA in Illustration from Syracuse University in 1983. Further, he earned certifications in Digital Film Production from the Digital Film Academy, LAST, ATS-W (elementary), CST in Visual Arts, CST in English Language Arts.