Ken Ishikawa (real name Ken'ichi Ishikawa) was a manga artist renowned as the co-creator of Getter Robo with his friend (and then employer Go Nagai). Ishikawa also made his own series like Maju Sensen and Gokudo Heiki. In 2006, Ishikawa had died at a banquet in 2006.
Career
Ishikawa originally worked as an assistant of Go Nagai during the drafts of Harenchi Gakuen and Abashiri Ikka. For a while he went out on his own writing manga starting with Ultraman Taro before returning to Dynamic Productions as an artist for the enemies appearing in some of Nagai's works. During this time, Ishikawa expressed the idea of Getter Robo from some old designs of the Mazinger Z. After this, Ishikawa had collaborated with Nagai on various projects including the Tokusatsu series Battle Hawk and Aztekaiser. Eventually he started working on his own series such as Maju Sensen. After decades of success, Ishikawa started to show signs of his health faltering and on November 15, 2006 after playing golf for the day with friends (including Nagai) Ishikawa passed away from heart failure.
Style
Originally due to his close work with Nagai, Ishikawa used themes similar to Go Nagai including in the way he styled his characters and their comedic portrayals. Overtime, he developed a more detailed design unique to him and later began to include themes such as military and Buddhism-based concepts.