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Golden Age artists you’d like to know more about.
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37 posts in this topic

Comic book artists active in and around the Golden Age that you’d like to familiarize yourself with more, either to potentially discover more interesting art that you previously didn’t know about, or out of curiosity in general. For me, one of those artists would have to be DickRyan, who drew various funny animal comics in the late 30s for companies like Centaur, and even drew for a newspaper comic called Animal Crackers at that time, but I don’t know much else about him or his other work.

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There are quite a few guys who gave few or no interviews and I wish they did. Fred Kida, Hank Chapman, Jack Cole, Zolnerowich, Jesse Marsh, Maurice Whitman, a passel of funny animal artists starting with Mo Gollub and Dan Noonan. The list is too long but these popped up immediately.

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On 9/17/2020 at 10:06 PM, Scrooge said:

There are quite a few guys who gave few or no interviews and I wish they did. Fred Kida, Hank Chapman, Jack Cole, Zolnerowich, Jesse Marsh, Maurice Whitman, a passel of funny animal artists starting with Mo Gollub and Dan Noonan. The list is too long but these popped up immediately.

Thankfully, there are people like David Saunders helping bring as much info together as possible from the artists of back then, including Maurice Whitman, whom doesn’t seem to be written about much in the first place: https://www.pulpartists.com/Whitman-M.html

It was interesting learning quite a few things about him, such as him having to be rescued off the roof of Charlton Press at one point, as well as this poster he made for the Army:

z8UIG8w.jpg

Edited by Electricmastro
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26 minutes ago, MusterMark said:

Cover for Navy Combat (Marvel, 1955 series) #19

I know who "Lee. S.", "Maneely." and "Severin. J." are.

I'd like to know who "Ward. G." is.

 

That’s apparently George A. Ward, the one that shared a studio with Joe Maneely and Peggy Zangerle, as well as assisting Walt Kelly on Pogo.

Edited by Electricmastro
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This is an interesting thread concept that might benefit from getting into the weeds, so-to-speak.  The under-appreciated element in any analysis of the talented artists contributing to the growth of the GA comic business is House style.  Each publisher hired artists ...either as part of a bullpen or as a contract shop... to supply art and story on deadline.  Each publisher had a criteria for scheduling work based upon financial motivations and personal preferences that influenced the interior and cover art purchased.

For instance, Quality’s publisher “Busy” Arnold had a very hands-on approach to art.  He paid very well and had quirky preferences for cover art that ranged from cartoony ...like Gill Fox... to the refined realistic styles of Lou Fine, Reed Crandall, Charles Cuidera, Ruben Moreira, Will Eisner, et al.  Timely, MLJ, Fawcett, Prize, Ace, Fiction House, Lev Gleason and DC all had House styles and the artists they employed shaped or tempered their styles accordingly. Everything made a difference to the final product, including colorists.

To be clear, I’m bringing up House style as an essential element of artist research not to throw a monkey wrench into an intriguing idea of focusing on specific GA artists, but rather as a means of better understanding differences in art styles produced by those specific artists working under the demands of various publishers.  

By way of example, I’m interested in learning more about Jack Binder’s work.  He had his own shop, working for a variety of publishers including Fawcett and Prize.  Researching his work is complicated by the fact that Binder often employed other artists in an assembly line fashion to finish his work.  He definitely had a style influenced by fine art training, but isolating his work from the many collaborative efforts he signed off on for publishers he was contracted with is a perplexing task.  The research is a daunting task with scant info.

There aren’t many books focusing on lesser known GA artists, so this approach seems like fertile ground for greater exploration.

:tink:

Edited by Cat-Man_America
Cheers!
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3 hours ago, Cat-Man_America said:

By way of example, I’m interested in learning more about Jack Binder’s work.  He had his own shop, working for a variety of publishers including Fawcett and Prize.  Researching his work is complicated by the fact that Binder often employed other artists in an assembly line fashion to finish his work.  He definitely had a style influenced by fine art training, but isolating his work from the many collaborative efforts he signed off on for publishers he was contracted with is a perplexing task.  The research is a daunting task with scant info.

There aren’t many books focusing on lesser known GA artists, so this approach seems like fertile ground for greater exploration.

Thanks. Despite Binder’s name being used quite a number of times, it can get one wondering if his name was eventually being used as a house name for other artists. I suppose the same could apply to Charles Biro.

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38 minutes ago, Electricmastro said:

Thanks. Despite Binder’s name being used quite a number of times, it can get one wondering if his name was eventually being used as a house name for other artists. I suppose the same could apply to Charles Biro.

Actually, I think the opposite is the more likely case.  Artists who sign their work usually did both penciling and inking.  Biro’s signature, which is often very pronounced, is a fairly obvious statement that it’s his work.  Conversely, Jack Binder apparently didn’t sign a lot of his own work, so his involvement has to be assessed on a case by case basis. Binder’s style usually has identifiable characteristics.  Physical poses, facial expressions, distinctive pattern to stippled shadows, clean detailed architecture with attention to perspective, etc., ...all of these things stand out in Jack’s work.  A good example of Jack’s work displaying a number of these characteristics is Prize Comics #20...

 

dd07a1ae-8868-4d5d-acec-efa943736170_zpsf9pymtyj.jpg.be7cefefb6cf1f7fbf11d7210ed02ad8.jpg

 

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2 hours ago, Cat-Man_America said:

Binder’s style usually has identifiable characteristics.  Physical poses, facial expressions, distinctive pattern to stippled shadows, clean detailed architecture with attention to perspective, etc., ...all of these things stand out in Jack’s work.

 

Binder in general definitely had great attention to detail, not just with anatomy, but also giving the convincing feeling of fast paced movement. He used dramatic lighting and angling, and could even get a little grotesque as well.

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Edited by Electricmastro
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For me - Jimmy Thompson.  

Incredibly talented, ahead of and out of his time in his portrayal of Native Americans (and his friendship with them) a focus of his early work, very adept at multiple genres (including superheros), and so prolific that new work of his kept appearing for three years after his death.  

He did an incredible 76 page Red Eagle comic early in his career (1938) that has art that dramatically stands out from the norm of that time (although reminds of Foster):

image.jpeg.95648b2494b6e9d4706c435e92ecc5ce.jpeg

He did superheroes for DC and Timely in that wonderful mid-1940s style that was as good as Eisner and Cole:

Robotman -Jimmy Thompson | Golden age comics, Classic comics, Thompson

 

He did amazing genre work in the later 1940s (published into the 1950s).  But, he's not well known and I'd like to know more.

 

Edited by sfcityduck
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If he were still around, I would have pestered Maurice Whitman for original art.  I know nothing about where he came from or where he went.

The info on Zolnerowich was great.  I recognize his FH work but did not know about his later efforts.  I assume his style must have changed and I don’t recognize his later work.

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On 10/7/2020 at 2:13 PM, cheetah said:

If he were still around, I would have pestered Maurice Whitman for original art.  I know nothing about where he came from or where he went.

The info on Zolnerowich was great.  I recognize his FH work but did not know about his later efforts.  I assume his style must have changed and I don’t recognize his later work.

More info regarding Daniel Zolnerowich:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper from November 1, 1936 reporting Zolnerowich as president of the B division of First-year illustration at the Pratt Institute, at age 21:

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A Pratt Institute graduate photo of Zolnerowich‘s face from 1937, presumably at age 22, along with some more info:

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Source: https://alphabettenthletter.blogspot.com/2013/06/school-days-pratt-institute-and-golden.html

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On 9/18/2020 at 6:45 PM, Cat-Man_America said:

Artists who sign their work usually did both penciling and inking.  Biro’s signature, which is often very pronounced, is a fairly obvious statement that it’s his work.

My understanding is that on Boy Comics at least, there were times where other artists drew the covers that Biro signed. He apparently was very proprietary about Crimebuster, so he would draw just Crimebuster's head, paste it on the art, and then sign the cover even though someone else drew the rest of it. At least, that's what I have read.

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