Ivan Reis was born Rodrigo Ivan dos Reis in a small city outside of São Paulo, Brazil. He started his career at the age of 14, working with Brazil’s famous cartoon artist, Mauricio de Sousa. Through this association, he contributed to the review Histórias Reais de Drácula, published by Bloch Editores, and drew several cartoons for Editora Fênix. At the same time, Reis worked for an advertising agency.

Then in 1995, he attracted the attention of Dark Horse Comics in the United States and appeared in their anthology, Dark Horse Presents. Ivan became the penciller on a title called Ghost, and continued to work on that project until 1999. Other Dark Horse books that Reis illustrated were Time Cop, The Mask, Máscara and Xena. During this period, he also drew a number of Lady Death comics for Chaos!

In 1997, another American comic book company took notice of Ivan. That company was DC Comics. DC put him to work on The Invisibles under its Vertigo imprint.

From 1998 to 2004 he also worked for Marvel, pencilling The Thing: Freakshow, Thing & She-Hulk: The Long Night, The Order, Supernaturals, Avengers Icons: Vision, Captain Marvel, Iron Man, Defenders, and Avengers.

But since 2004, Ivan has been an exclusive artist to DC and pencilled titles such as Action Comics, Green Lantern, Justice League of America, Rann-Thanagar War, The Authority, Wildcats, Teen Titans, 52, Superman, Countdown, Infinite Crisis, and most recently Green Lantern: Blackest Night. He has also done covers for numerous other DC series.

Reis is currently working as the artist for the DC new 52 book, Aquaman.

Additionally, Reis has taught comics illustration at Quanta Academia, considered the best school in Brazil for that discipline.

Some characters created:

• Aaron Cole
• Abyssma
• Adam Familiar
• Alfa
• Aquadog
• Aqualad
• Aquawoman
• Arkillo
• Atomica
• Behemoth
• Bobby Zirrozinski
• Brother Hymn
• B'udde
• Dame Merciless
• Deathstorm
• Demogorgunn
• Deputy Wilson
• Devilfist
• Empty Hand
• Flashlight
• Frank Future
• Golem
• Grid
• Guardian 7
• Hellmachine
• Horoq Nnot
• Hunger Dog
• Igneous Man
• Intellectron
• Jennifer
• Jessica Cruz
• Joseph Devol
• Kahina the Seer
• King Ryus
• Kite
• Kraken
• Krystal
• Ladybug
• Lashorr
• Loragg
• Lord Broken
• Major Max
• Markot Five
• Microbot
• Morro
• Prisoner of War
• Randy Rovner
• Red Dragon
• Red Racer
• Rees-Van
• Relok Hag
• Sandstorm
• Scar
• Sea King
• Sebastian Cardona
• Siren
• Smoky
• Stephen Shin
• Stubbs
• Technosapiens
• Tekbreakers
• The Entity
• The Operative
• The Trench
• Thunderer
• Turytt
• Walküre
• Warth
• William Matthews
• Xulio
• Ya'Wara