James Romberger

James Romberger was born in 1958 in the United States and is best known as an artist and cartoonist whose work captures the gritty, transformed landscape of New York City’s Lower East Side. He came to prominence in the 1980s East Village art scene, where he and his partner, multimedia artist Marguerite Van Cook, co-directed the influential Ground Zero gallery from 1985 to 1987. There, they showcased early work by Romberger and Van Cook, as well as artists including David Wojnarowicz.

Romberger’s pastel drawings of the Lower East Side’s ravaged streets and residents are held in major collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Library of Congress. In comics, he is best known for co-creating the graphic novel *7 Miles a Second* with Wojnarowicz. Romberger drew the first two sections before Wojnarowicz’s death from AIDS; he completed the book in 1994 using Wojnarowicz’s final journals. Van Cook colored it for its 1996 Vertigo Verite release. The book has since been reissued by Fantagraphics and Ground Zero Books, and it has become a classic of graphic memoir, exhibited at the New Museum and MoMA.

Romberger also collaborated with Van Cook on the science-fiction strip *Ground Zero*, serialized in downtown magazines through the 1980s and 1990s. His other comics credits include *2020 Visions*, *Post York*, *For Real*, *Flinch*, and *Aaron and Ahmed*, spanning roles as artist, colorist, inker, letterer, and writer from 1984 to 2021.