Steve Muffatti: A Friend's Salute to an Unsung Genius of Cartooning

Who was Steve Muffatti (sometimes listed in credits as Muffati)? He was a first-rate animator at Fleischer Studios. Anyone who has had the pleasure of watching the Fleischer Superman cartoons will recall the thrilling introduction scenes that were animated by Steve Muffatti. He was instrumental in streamlining the Superman costume design for the silver screen and modernizing Clark Kent's love interest, Lois Lane. Muffatti is credited with animating the most exciting and world famous episodes including, Superman, Mechanical Monsters, Electric Earthquake, Showdown, and Secret Agent. Along with contributions from comic book "super ghosts" Fred Ray and Jack Burnley, Steve Muffatti's sleek designs helped refine the Golden Age Superman. Muffatti also worked at the later incarnation of Paramount's Famous Cartoon Studios where he was an animator on such cartoon series as Popeye, Casper the Friendly Ghost, and Little Lulu.

In 1952, at Harvey Comics, the "Harvey World" phase of their publishing history began. Harvey acquired two properties from St John Publishing and published Little Audrey #25 (8/52), Casper the Friendly Ghost #7 (12/52), as well as their own title, Paramount Animated Comics #1 (9/52). In 1953 Little Dot was redesigned and given her own title. Richie Rich and Little Lotta started as back-ups in Little Dot. Sid Jacobson started at Harvey as an editor and took over the departing Matt Murphy’s titles. Harvey considered creating its own animation studio and hired Steve Muffatti. Warren Kremer came in to work with Muffatti, and as a result, learned Muffatti's animation style (Little Max is an example of Kremer’s pre-Muffatti art style). The "Harvey World" style was a mixture of Muffatti and Kremer, as ultimately refined by Kremer. This art style sustained Harvey Comics for decades.

Although disputed, many historians cite Steve Muffatti as the original artist who created the design of Richie Rich, following Alfred Harvey's lead. Muffatti drew the earliest Richie Rich stories in Little Dot during the fifties. It has also been alleged that Muffatti created Little Audrey for the animation studios.The "Harvey World" inkers included Lee Donahue and the "girl inkers" recruited from the animation studios. The three main inkers were Helen Cason, Ruth Leon, and Jacqueline Roettcher.

With his trend-setting contributions to the Superman, Richie Rich, Little Audrey, and other "Harvey World" characters, Steve Muffatti's lasting contributions to comic books and animation were immense and his superb work should be more recognized and celebrated by fandom at large.

Doug Wildey: A "Western" Gentleman

One of my favorite comic artists was born on May 2, 1922 in Yonkers, New York., and even though Doug Wildey had no formal art training, he was inspired by three of the greatest cartoonists in the field, Harold Foster, Alex Raymond, and Milton Caniff. His desire to draw surfaced early on, when Wildey started producing cartoons for his army company's newspaper while serving in W.W.II After the war, his first professional job was drawing the western hero, Buffalo Bill, and other various pulp illustrations for Street and Smith Publications in the late forties. Wildey's detailed illustrative style, even though heavily influenced by many photo references was a natural for any realistic situation, locals, or characters. Apparently the editors of other comic publishers liked Wildey's clean style too, as he freelanced the next ten years with companies including National, Dell, Levi Gleason, Cross, Master, St. John, Youthful, and others. Doug's love for drawing Western material lead him to illustrate many television and movie favorites including Lash LaRue and Hopalong Cassidy for Fawcett Publications. The artist also had a fantastic series of issues with Atlas Comics from 1954 thru 1957 drawing The Outlaw Kid. Atlas' successor, Marvel Comics was so pleased with his early stories, that the company resurrected the title in the mid-seventies and reprinted Wildey's complete run of adventures. When the editor's later tried to introduce a new artist on the title, the fans requested more Wildey tales, so "The House of Ideas" just ended up reprinting the old stories once more.

A man of many artistic talents, Wildey then took over the syndicated strip The Saint from Bob Lubbers in 1959 and drew it in Lubbers' style for many months before developing his own unique look to the feature. The Saint's new image, now with a hip goatee beard, over time developed into the prototype for another creation, the future Dr. Benton Quest. Later, one can start to see the foundations of Race and Jonny were also in development when Wildey pitched his own Sunday strip about an international race car driver named Stretch Bannon and his boy mechanic, but unfortunately the strip never caught on with any syndicate. In the early sixties, Doug then joined Hanna-Barbara Studios and created the first prime time animated television program, and his most famous creation, Jonny Quest. All his best ideas and inspirations of his prior years in comics surfaced in this exciting new adventure series. The show has played in syndication for decades, sparked a new television sequal, and inspired many artists in the comic field. Wildey did other work for the small screen, including art direction, layouts, and design work for Marvel characters such as The Fantastic Four , The Submariner and other Hanna-Barbara's properties, The Herculoids, Space Angel, and caveman hero, Mighty Mightor. While pursuing his TV assignments, Wildey also drew three years of Tarzan of the Apes for Gold Key and their companion jungle book, Korak, Son of Tarzan. Though his style was not as sophisticated as his later work, it still had a charming rough quality that made these Edgar Rice Burroughs stories work very well. Wildey in his spare time also perfected his western storytelling technique with an oversized series of characters and southwest scenes. In 1971 he produced a portfolio with twenty six illustrated drawings which was entitled, The Movie Cowboy, which was his best work to date in the genre but there was one great western character to come.


In 1972 Wildey went back to the strips creating a feature for the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate. Ambler was the story of a young folk singer's and his adventures while traveling across America. Despite the fact that the strip had great graphics, a solid story line, and a loyal fan following, it only survived two short years. When Doug's last strip attempt folded, the artist returned to comics with the western book Kid Cody for Atlas/Seaboard Publications, horror stories in Madhouse for Red Circle, and some splendid detailed war yarns in G.I. Combat, Sgt.Rock, Blackhawk, and Star Spangled War Stories for DC. While contributing to National's House of Secrets, and Jonah Hex, Doug also created the sly detective feature Eddie Race for Kubert's oversized two issue slick magazine, Sojourn.

Wildey's ultra realistic style was always in demand for any horror, war, mystery, romance, or western stories. Never one to piecemeal his work out, all his pages were penciled and inked by Wildey himself. Many artists seem to produce their best quality work early on, later losing their inspiration and motivation for what they create. Doug Wildey though in my opinion was just the opposite, producing his greatest art work at the end of his career, and I would even dare to say that his last western stories were also superior because it was his favorite subject matter both in the comics and his own personal paintings. Rio, the ex-gunfighter was his most famous western creation produced for Comico, and was later featured in Eclipse, Dark Horse, and finally Marvel Comics.

I was lucky enough to spend a little time with Doug Wildey and his wife, Ellen, years ago in Dallas. He spoke of Jonny Quest and his dislike for that little dog Bandit that the producers forced him to include in the show. Doug talked of The Rocketeer and how at a recent comic show he must have autographed as many comics as Dave Stevens since the character of Peevy was inspired and loosely based on him. He spoke of his travels across the American southwest, western films, oil painting, and his overall love of the West. It was a real pleasure to meet one of my favorite artists and talk with him about his long career before his passing in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1994. He was once quiet gentleman that will be missed by us all.

National Cartoonist Society Profile: Jack Kirby

What can be said about Jack that has not been said before? A giant in one of our favorite entertainment vehicles, the comic book. No one individual in the field has make a bigger impact on the medium than Jack "King" Kirby. He set the standard for all creators to follow in his wake and has inspired scores of professionals around the world for generations. Even his legendary original art output, which is estimated at twenty five thousand pages or more, itself is an astounding feat alone, not to mention that he co-created some of popular culture's most iconic American comic characters such as the Hulk, Captain American, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and many others. Here is the most influential and recognizable artist's brief biography, in his own few words.

Underprivileged by birth on New York's lower east side in summer of August 28th 1917-- overprivileged by forty years of experience in every facet of comics and still going strong...started in animation, switched to weekly syndicated strips and helped to pioneer the early comic magazine. After initiating the action format with "Captain America", was pushed into the real thing with the third army at Metz in 1943... emerged with frozen feet but scalp intact and continued innovating with comic themes.Created a ton of superheroes for marvel and now trying newer concepts. Tolerated by my wife for fifty years, I'm still aiming to win acceptance of my four children and two grandchildren.

Russ Heath: An Unknown Sergeant

We are fortunate today to have a guest author for this posting, my good friend and original art collector, Don Mangus, talking about of one of his favorite war artists, Russ Heath. Thanks Don, for this fantastic contribution to my blog, and now -- right to the action! Russ Heath is first an "Unknown Sergeant" who then became a Five-Star General in the battle theater of comic book art. The tyro Heath hit the ground running. From his earliest works he rapidly developed a dazzling record of consistent and brilliant draftsmanship. Like so many "illustrational cartoonists" of his generation, Heath’s youthful goal was to become a top-flight magazine illustrator for the "slicks", magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Colliers, and so on.

Typically, as with other veterans of the Great Depression and W.W.II, he survived his own " trial under fire" by means of a hard-driven work ethic. Russ Heath received little formal art training, but like so many other comic books artists, he was accepted into the comic book work force during high school and toiled at his craft while on the job. And also like so many comic book artists, he was to remain "signed-up" in the comics field far longer than he had ever anticipated, as those original "slick" markets he had dreamed of starring in atrophied or vanished completely. He became a "Career Man"!

Heath excelled at the horror, romance, crime, western, and war genres. He was also quite adept and drawing the attractive female form. This talent was to serve him well. Russ Heath remarked that he had never cared for illustrating the long-underwear, union suit, super-hero titles, although he did indeed draw a few. While most enthusiasts remember him well for his grim and grisly Atlas war and horror covers, as well as his strikingly realistic DC war stories, Russ Heath also had a fruitful, long-term relationship with Harvey Kurtzman. He worked with Harvey on EC’s Mad, and Frontline Combat, and also on Playboy’s "Little Annie Fanny". In fact, it was working on the lucrative Little Annie Fanny account that afforded Russ the economic means to produce his incredible run on the Sgt. Rock feature for Our Army at War!

Pressure Point!: The Art of Sgt. Rock

Sgt. Rock, the ultimate American W.W.II topkick, was birthed and "booted" by Robert Kanigher. The Rock’s legend has been immortalized by the finest artists in the comic book field, talents such as Ross Andru, Jerry Grandenetti, Irv Novick, Doug Wildey, George Evans, Dan Spiegle, Sam Glanzman, Dick Ayers, and Lee Elias. However, the artist who "took the point" with Sgt. Rock was Joe Kubert. Kubert had his combat antenna tuned for the feature with his "emotional", searing and expressive line quality and his dramatic storytelling. Kubert’s art fused well with the war-torn Kanigher psychodramas. The two men thus became renowned as the fabulous K-K team in the 1960s.

Although he had already "earned his stripes" with superlative artwork on DC’s "Haunted Tank" feature (in G.I. Combat), Russ Heath was ultimately "volunteered" to meet the supreme challenge of assuming the art duties on Sgt. Rock as Joe Kubert "rotated out" Kanigher and Heath became the "High Command" of the DC war titles. Rather than being cowed or shell-shocked by this new tour of duty, Heath was galvanized and charged ahead boldly to create sublime vistas of vivid, dreamlike war tales. Heath honed the emotional edge of Kanigher’s sagas. His photorealistic drawing skills and mastery of reflected light combined seamlessly with a very cinematic approach to comics storytelling and "staging". Each issue seemed to be an epic comic book version of a Sam Fuller war film. Heath’s attention to detail was gripping, dramatic, and magical. Russ Heath put on an all-out blitz for quality, and only the high paying "Little Annie Fanny" feature allowed him to lavishly toil away with the time needed for such quality. When Heath produced the remarkable story, "Give and Take," for Warren’s Blazing Combat # 4 (6/66), scripted by Archie Godwin, he mustered his talents and showed he was ready for a new challenge. Kanigher’s all too human icon, Sgt. Rock, provided the venue. Heath’s run on Our Army at War ranks among the best comic book art and storytelling of all time! He had climbed in the funnybook ranks from a unknown Sergeant to a Five-Star General!

Battle Harvest: The Best Russ Heath Rocks!

While Heath had worked on the Sgt. Rock feature in 1961, 1962, 1966, 1967 and 1968, it was in 1969 that Heath began his most magical run. DC had changed from using "large" original art ( 12" X 18") to a smaller sized page (10" X 15"). This shift, while probably instituted as a money saving convenience, also seemed to have a nice "side effect". The artists composed their panel flow or page layouts as a dynamically designed whole, rather than as a straightforward series of independently composed panels. When Joe Kubert became editor in 1968, the DC war books began using a unique signature format of a double-page splash on page numbers two and three of each comic book, rather than the more traditional page one splash. Heath produced some eye-poppingly dramatic double-page splash scenes. He also remained faithful to the storylines and did not disrupt them simply to dazzle.

Here then is a roll call of what I salute as Heath’s ten best, Five-Star, Sgt. Rock battle tales. (The stories are written by Robert Kanigher unless otherwise noted. )

OAAW # 208 (6/69), "A Piece of Rag... A Hank of Hair," 13 pgs.
OAAW #212 (11/69), "The Quiet War," 14 pgs.
OAAW # 213 (12/69) , "A Letter for Bulldozer," 14 pgs,
OAAW # 219 (5/70), "Yesterday’s Hero," Kubert?, 13 pgs.
OAAW # 221 (7/70), " Hang-Up," Kubert?, 12 pgs.
OAAW # 226 (12/70). "Death Stop," Heath, 14 pgs.
OAAW # 235 (9/71), "Pressure Point," 12 pgs.
OAAW # 244 (4/72), "Easy’s First Tiger," Heath, 14 pgs.
OAAW # 256 (4/73), "School for Sergeants," 14 pgs.
OAAW # 257 (6/73), "The Castaway," 14 pgs.