Legendary comic artist, José Delbo, drops his Satoshi-themed genesis piece on SuperRare

Now 87 years old, José Delbo’s career as a professional artist spans more than seven decades and includes work on nearly every major comic book title we know and love.  His genesis piece on SuperRare, “I Am Not The Creator”, drops July 2nd and pays homage to a significant but unfortunate moment in the history of blockchain technology:

“I Am Not The Creator”

Delbo began his storied career as a professional comic book artist at only 16 years old in Argentina. Chasing his dream of working for the major comic book studios, in 1965, Delbo packed up his bags and moved his family to the United States.

When Delbo arrived in the US, he struggled to learn the inner workings of the comic industry and find his first real opportunity. He worked in a department store drawing the products in the catalogs for consumers to get by. But one fateful day, Delbo was discovered by a major comic publisher. Delbo’s talent was immediately recognized and from that moment on, he began to be offered work by nearly every major comic publisher. And as they say, the rest is history.

For the next 50 years, Delbo worked on virtually every major comic series that existed, from hero-based comics like Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Green Arrow, The Transformers and The Thundercats to TV show adaptations like The Twilight Zone, The Brady Bunch, Hogan’s Heroes, Buck Rogers, The Mod Squad, Disney’s 101 Dalmatians, Little Mermaid and the Mighty Ducks, to American Westerns such as Billy the Kid, Judge Colt and the Lone Ranger. Delbo even illustrated the now infamous Beatles Yellow Submarine comic book.

Having established himself as a legend in the traditional comic book space, Delbo wanted to try something new as his career illustrating comic books for the major publishers was coming to a close. Delbo always had a dream of creating his own comic book and for several years he had been working on the side on a concept called “Death…No Escape” which predictably focused on a main character called Death and explored various circumstances involving death.

After completing the comic book, Delbo was left with a conundrum. Without a publisher for the comic book, Delbo wondered how he would present his new creation to the world. Fortunately for Delbo, the stars were about to align. Delbo’s grandson was becoming deeply involved in the metaverse and NFT community and proposed to Delbo an idea that would change his career and his legacy forever: mint “Death..No Escape” as the first original comic book on the blockchain. 

At the time, Delbo did not fully understand the technology but was satisfied with two basic concepts: that blockchain technology would allow collectors to know that the digital comic books were authentic and that it would allow them to know they were scarce. And so began Delbo’s career creating digital art on the blockchain.  

The community immediately embraced the 87-year-old artist who quickly became the standard bearer for traditional comic art in the NFT space and ushered in a wave of traditional comic artists entering the space. Delbo could not have been happier. Delbo’s success in the space also lead to a desire to learn more about it and evolve his art through it. So Delbo and his team approached some of the top artists in the space to collaborate and bring new life to Delbo’s work.

Delbo’s first major collaboration was with Trevor Jones on a series called “Who Is The Creator 2”.  Delbo’s and Jones’s piece “Genesis” from that collection shattered all previous records for art NFT sales, becoming the first six figure sale of an art NFT to collector Maxstealth.  Delbo’s collaboration with Jones was followed by several other collaborations with talented artists who took Delbo’s work to new heights. Most notably, Delbo collaborated with Italian digital artist duo Hackatao on an NFT drop titled “Heroines” that focused on the power of women throughout history and once again broke records.

Having been welcomed so graciously by the NFT and blockchain community, Delbo wanted to create art to pay homage to this new technology that was enabling him to take his career in a whole new direction. So he and his grandson set off to honor the technology in the only way that would make sense for someone who spent his whole life illustrating superheroes…by creating a superhero universe specifically for the blockchain.

That universe began with Delbo’s personification of Satoshi Nakamoto through a part man, part machine hero named Satoshi The Creator. In March of 2021, Delbo released his first NFT art series surrounding his new character, Satoshi The Creator, and the community immediately embraced their new hero. From that moment on, Delbo and his grandson have been hard at work developing the Satoshi The Creator universe.

As part of the process of researching the many faces of Satoshi to develop the Satoshi The Creator character, Delbo and his grandson came across a story that was both intriguing and troubling. That was the story of Dorian Nakamoto, a man whose name and occupation sparked a controversy that ultimately turned his life upside down and left him pleading in court that he was not the creator of Bitcoin after Newsweek Magazine ran a feature story positing that he was indeed the mysterious creator.

Delbo’s genesis piece on SuperRare “I Am Not The Creator” pays homage to this significant but unfortunate moment in the history of blockchain technology. Troubled by the negative publicity Newsweek’s false identification of Dorian Nakamoto as the creator of Bitcoin has caused, Satoshi The Creator (the true creator of Bitcoin) sits with Dorian in his home consoling him as the Newsweek article that turned Dorian’s life upside down rests on the table in front of them.

Delbo’s genesis piece will be released via auction starting on July 2nd, 2021.