Artist catalog & profile

Jen Bartel

Illustrator and comic artist known for superhero covers and the creator-owned fantasy series Blackbird.

Artist Profile

A career in context

Jen Bartel is an illustrator and comics artist whose clients include Marvel, DC and Dark Horse. In her own introduction to JENBARTEL.CLUB, she dates the beginning of her freelance art career to 2016 and describes how building a client list allowed her to leave her day job. She identifies covers for Wonder Woman and She-Hulk among the work readers know her for. The same platform grew from her efforts to answer aspiring artists’ questions about professional opportunities and the business of illustration.

With writer Sam Humphries, Bartel co-created Blackbird at Image Comics. Its first issue appeared in October 2018, following development discussions that began in 2016. The fantasy follows Nina Rodriguez through a magical world concealed within Los Angeles and gives family relationships, grief and personal growth a central place in its story. In Image’s interview, Bartel explained that using an actual city initially made collecting visual reference easier; Los Angeles subsequently became integral to the narrative and its imagery.

Bartel described drawing on the city’s neon lights, architecture and people while developing Blackbird, and identified Spirited Away’s Chihiro as an influence on Nina’s growth. Her superhero illustration remains another substantial part of her career. Marvel credits her among the cover artists for She-Hulk’s 2022 debut and collected her Women’s History Month variant illustrations in Women of Marvel. Those assignments sit alongside her creator-owned storytelling, giving her bibliography both extended narrative projects and individual character-focused illustrations for established publishers.

CoverLineage noteBartel’s Star #4 cover belongs to the Action Comics #1 lineage. Her Marauders #10 Classic Homage variant adds X-Men #141, linking two Marvel titles to source compositions from different publishers and eras.

Catalog connections

Across the archive

This artist appears in 2 indexed catalogs. Explore the lineages below, then open individual covers for edition details and credited roles. The Dungeon Crawler Carl title catalog can overlap with the composition catalogs.