Armando Norte obit

RIP Armando Norte

 He was not on the list.

Chicano animator and science fiction visionary Armando Norte dies at 72

CALO News

By Robb Hernández

6/10/2026

 Legendary Chicano artist Armando Norte passed away on June 4, 2026, after a long illness at the age of 72. Born and raised in East Los Angeles on June 12, 1953, Norte attended Montebello High School and pursued art training at East L.A. College and California State University Los Angeles (CSULA). Later, he secured a job at Filmation Associates where he worked as an illustrator for several animated children’s shows of the 1980s, including “He-Man: Masters of the Universe,” “She-Ra: Princess of Power” and “The Real Ghostbusters,”among others.

Norte’s artistic voice was gregarious, extraordinary and startling like the aftereffects of a flash in his words.  More than his accomplishments in commercial media, Norte was part of a formative generation of Mexican American artists from Southern California who trailblazed an experimental vocabulary amid the tumult of post-1960s civil rights activism.

By instigating L.A. publics through intermedia artworks that provoked and disturbed, Norte found camaraderie among different art organizations germane to the expressive fabric of East L.A. In the early 1980s, he was a recognizable figure in Self Help Graphics’ earliest forays in Day of the Dead activities. His eye-catching looks and trendy ensembles innovated the cultural tradition with New Wave sensibilities and modernizing attitudes in costuming and make-up. His creative designs remolded cultural archetypes in ways that drew attention from the Los Angeles Times and attracted photographers Laura Aguilar, Harry Gamboa, Jr. and Ricardo Valverde, who respectively documented Norte and his family in acclaimed artworks like “At Home with the Nortes” (1990), “Blessed Bag Bombers” (1982), and “Armando y Consuelo: Two Alienz Muertos” (1983/1991).

More than dress, Norte was equally adept at printmaking and explored the medium in the historic Self Help Graphics’ Experimental Screenprint Ateliér in 1983 where his piece, ‘Savagery and Technology,” conjoined Mesoamerican ritual with a hardwired East L.A. His capacity to suffuse past, present, and future in his post-apocalyptic visualizations focused much of his work throughout the decade, which culminated in a retrospective show entitled “Barrio 2100,” organized by Consuelo Flores and featured historic and new work by Norte and sons, Alain and Gian, at Avenue 50 Studio on Fig in 2025. Norte’s screen prints have been collected by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas Austin, and the University of California Santa Barbara Special Research Collections.

Over the years, Norte’s penchant for Chicano futurist aesthetics found partnerships with a host of other artistic innovators, among them Diane Gamboa, Nic Greene, Gronk, Willie Herrón and Marisela Norte, along with the space age rock band, Zolar X. His artistic practice in the early 80s can be seen in the speculatively fantastic and spectacularly odd theatrics in performance art actions of various art organizations and collectives.

One of his signature contributions innovated paper dress silhouettes for Day of the Dead celebrations choosing to supplant tradition with armored garments, plated extraterrestrials and machinic homeboys with kitschy charm akin to Elsa Schiaparelli couture. His expertise in science fiction idioms forged interdisciplinary outlets and exploratory platforms in ways that redefined the terms of Chicano art, preferring to focus on the rubble of artistic address and distress.

Though Norte would eventually step away from performance-based collaborations, his countercultural language of punk angst, urban pessimism and B-movie sensibilities endured in sketchbooks and paintings.

Later in life, Norte aligned himself with a rogues’ gallery where his unapologetic defense of monsters and counterfactual questions about life (and death) in East L.A. allowed for a fantastical place giving the divine, demeaned and alienated their due. More than his historic contributions to Chicano art and performance aesthetics, Norte might also be known for his personal touches quietly embellishing the borders and corners of paper goods with immaculate ghouls or adorning himself in handmade steampunk trimmings further solidifying his place among a pantheon of the city’s science fiction originals, along with his peers Forrest Ackerman, Ray Bradbury, Octavia Butler and Ray Harryhausen.

He is survived by his sister Marisela Norte; son Alain Flores Norte, daughter-in-law Aimée Suen, and their child Iyari Huitzili Suen Norte; son Gian Flores Norte, daughter-in-law Omega Norte and their sons Benjamin Ezekiel Norte and Titus Alexius Pedro Norte. He is preceded in death by his father Armando Norte, Sr. and his mother Eloisa Melendez Norte. The family asks that donations be made in his name to Self Help Graphics.

NORTE, Armando

Born: 6/12/1953, East Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Died: 6/4/2026, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

 

Animation Department

Spookier Collection (2011)

Spookier Collection

Video

background design artist (segment "Ghostbusters - Shades of Dracula")

2011

 

Bubsy (1993)

Bubsy

3.1

TV Movie

layout artist

1993

 

The Moo Family Holiday Hoe-Down (1992)

The Moo Family Holiday Hoe-Down

5.4

TV Movie

layout artist

1992

 

Mr. Bogus (1991)

Mr. Bogus

7.4

TV Series

layout supervisorlayout artist

1991–1992

5 episodes

 

Widget, the World Watcher (1990)

Widget, the World Watcher

6.8

TV Series

layout supervisorlayout artist

1990–1991

14 episodes

 

The Real Ghostbusters (1986)

The Real Ghostbusters

7.6

TV Series

additional character designer

1989

20 episodes

 

Malcolm McDowell, Edward Asner, Irene Cara, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Sally Kellerman, Tracey Ullman, Carol Channing, Linda Gary, Michael Horton, and Frank Welker in Happily Ever After (1989)

Happily Ever After

5.6

background designerlayout artist

1989

 

BraveStarr: The Legend (1988)

BraveStarr: The Legend

6.8

background artist

1988

 

Charlie Adler, Pat Fraley, and Ed Gilbert in BraveStarr (1987)

BraveStarr

7.1

TV Series

background designer

1987–1988

65 episodes

 

Melendy Britt in She-Ra: Princess of Power (1985)

She-Ra: Princess of Power

6.8

TV Series

background designer

1985–1987

93 episodes

 

Lana Beeson, Scott Grimes, Jonathan Harris, Rickie Lee Jones, Don Knotts, and William Windom in Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (1987)

Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night

6.2

layout artist

1987

 

Ghostbusters (1986)

Ghostbusters

6.3

TV Series

background designer

1986

65 episodes

 

He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special (1985)

He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special

6.6

TV Movie

background designer

1985

 

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983)

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe

7.5

TV Series

background designer

1983–1985

114 episodes

 

Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (1972)

Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids

6.7

TV Series

background designer

1985

2 episodes

 

He-Man and She-Ra: The Secret of the Sword (1985)

He-Man and She-Ra: The Secret of the Sword

7.2

background designer

1985

 

Art Department

Harvey Atkin, Lou Albano, Jeannie Elias, and Danny Wells in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! (1989)

The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!

6.3

TV Series

prop designer

1989

65 episodes

 

The Crater Lake Monster (1977)

The Crater Lake Monster

3.6

illustrator

1977

 

Actor

Fright Club (2006)

Fright Club

2.5

Demon

2006

 

Production Designer

Fright Club (2006)

Fright Club

2.5

Production Designer

2006