Drawing for "Monstober 2024", drawn and colored by Shirow Di Rosso.
Shirow Di Rosso is a Belgian comic creator, who debuted in 2014 with the self-published comic 'The Cynja'. Since 2017, he is one of the most notable colorists of Dutch-language comics, working with artists like Patrick Cornelis, Charel Cambré, Joey Potargent, Romano Molenaar, Gerben Valkema and many more.
Early life and career
Shirow Di Rosso was born as Stefaan van Rossem in 1973 in Sint-Agatha-Berchem, a town in the Brussels region. Both his grandfather and his father were garage owners, but also had creative sides. From a young age, he had a keen interest in manga and anime, and his biggest influences became Masamune Shirow ('Ghost in the Shell', 'Appleseed', 'Dominion Tank Police'), Akira Toriyama ('Dragon Ball') and Yukito Kishiro ('Battle Angel Alita'). Later in life, he also explored American comic books, with Joe Madureira becoming a favorite.
After studying business and administration at the Sint-Donatus Institute in Merchtem, Van Rossem spent the first 14 years of his working life as an IT engineer at American Express. In 2011, he suffered a burnout and spent two years at home. During this period, he was diagnosed with autism, and he discovered that his creative IQ was much higher than his logical IQ. Besides that, a genetic skin condition forces him to be careful in his daily life. This urged him to explore a different career path, and in those two years at home, he learned how to draw. Since there were already three people called Stefaan Van Rossem in his hometown, he adopted the pen name Shirow Di Rosso: Shirow after the manga artist Masamune Shirow and Di Rosso as an Italian translation of his last name. Based in Merchtem, he started as a freelance comic creator in 2013.
'The Cynja' (2014), drawn and colored by Shirow Di Rosso.
The Cynja
As one of his first projects, Di Rosso teamed up with the American journalist Heather Dahl and created 'The Cynja' (2014), a self-published children's comic showing the dangers of the Internet in a fun but accurate way. In 2016, the follow-up 'Code of the Cynja' appeared, accompanied by an activity booket. To promote the comic, Di Rosso was invited to the 2015 and 2016 editions of the San Diego Comic Con, where in 2016 he met Stan Lee.
Promotional material for 'The Cynja'.
David Doet Het
In 2018, Di Rosso was commissioned by local politician David De Valck of the Open VLD party to create the 8-page comic book 'David Doet Het!' for the upcoming elections, distributed freely among the people of Merchtem. Other Belgian cartoonists who once made party propaganda comics have been Rik Clément, Luc Cromheecke, Ian, Mark Janssen and Geert Kinnaert
'David Doet Het!' (2018).
Comic colorist
Artistically, Di Rosso draws and prints in 3D, and he is also active in model building. Since 2017, he has changed his focus as a comic creator towards coloring, and first teamed up with Patrick Cornelis, for whom he colored many comics on the artist's own Pangolin Comics imprint, including the 'Virus' series. In 2019, Di Rosso also colored the special 'De Rode Ridder' album Patrick Cornelis made for Standaard Uitgeverij, which resulted in additional coloring assignments for the publisher's series related to classic Willy Vandersteen creations. Di Rosso He became the regular colorist of the 'Suske en Wiske' spin-off series 'De Kronieken van Amoras' by Marc Legendre and Charel Cambré, and also for the 'Rode Ridder' spin-off 'Galaxa', drawn by Romano Molenaar.
'Nello & Patrasche', drawn by Griffo and colored by Shirow Di Rosso (Kennes Éditions, 2022).
In addition, Standaard Uitgeverij assigned him to do the coloring for the comic series 'Het Verhaal van Vlaanderen' by Frodo De Decker, as well as the new 'Kiekeboes' albums drawn by Charel Cambré. For publisher Syndikaat, Di Rosso has worked as a colorist with Joey Potargent on the series 'De Bergenvaarders'. In addition, he has worked as a colorist with Mario Boon, Griffo, Ronaldo Barate and Gerben Valkema. Through the latter, he also became a colorist for the Dutch Disney magazines published by DPG Media.
Recognition
In 2023, Shirow Di Rosso won the Rising Star award and the Guido De Mey Prize at the Knokke-Heist Comics Festival.
In later years, Di Rosso's own artwork has mostly appeared in self-published art books, for instance with his participations for the annual "Monstober" drawing contests.
Cover for Galaxa #4, drawn by Romano Molenaar and colored by Shirow Di Rosso.