Comic Art Legend: Bill Everett

Born on May 18, 1917, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Bill Everett studied at the Vesper George School of Art, soon working on various commercial art jobs before finally landing at the Lloyd Jacquet Comic Shop in 1939. Drawing under his own name and a handful of pseudonyms the artist created some forgotten superheroes (White Streak, Amazing Man, Chameleon) for Centaur, Novelty, and others. But Everett's big break came when he created the Sub-Mariner which made his first appearance in Marvel Comics #1. As a foil to Carl Burgo's Human Torch which also came from the Jacquet shop, Bill's undersea antihero was a major overnight success with his distinct stylized look of triangular head and arched eyebrows. During the early forties, Everett created other underwater heroes and super beings (Hydroman, The Patriot, Music Master) for Eastern Color, Timely, Hillman, and Eastern, before a stint in the armed forces, but all these paled in comparison to his historic Prince Namor character.

After the war, he returned to Timely to work on Sub-Mariner and his companion book Namorita, before switching to produce a large number of horror tales for Atlas in the 1950s. After a short return to Sub-Mariner, Bill left comics for the more lucrative field of commercial art until 1964. He returned to Marvel Comics to work on a new crop of superhero titles and got the chance to once again to work on his creation and revitalize the series for a new generation. Just when Everett was making a name for himself with new readers the artist took suddenly ill and passed away on February 27, 1973. But so liked was the man by his peers, the Academy of Comic Book Arts set up a fund for indigent artists in his name to help the less fortunate.

National Cartoonist Society Profile: Gus Arriola

Born in Florence, Arizona 1917, after high school in Los Angeles, one year animation for Screen Gems. Four years MGM Cartoon Department in story sketch. Sold "Gordo" in 1941, enlisted 1942, wed Mary Frances Sevierin 1943. Resumed daily and Sunday in 1946 after three and a half years animation for Army Air Force film unit. Awards, San Francisco Artists Club 1957, National Cartoonist Society Best Humor strip in 1957 & 1965, San Diego Comic Con Inkpot 1981, Sunday page tribute to Rachel Carlson in the Smithsonian. Retired in 1985, after forty four years of deadlines. We keep very busy searching for ambergris, misguiding tourists to Clint Eastwood's Hog Breath Inn and smelling the roses, if they trot them by our hammocks in lovely, cool Carmel by the Sea.

My Greatest Adventure: Kamandi

Jack Kirby's "Last Boy on Earth" debuted in his own title, Kamandi #1, November 1972, in which a Great Disaster in the near future had turned an alternate Earth into a wasteland ruled by all types of savage beast-men. After his grandfather was murdered by scavenging rat-men, Kamandi left his protective bunker (called Command D) to search for other intelligent humans in what was left of a destroyed North America. While Great Caesar and his tiger-men governed all the eastern province, monstrous gorillas under Czar Simian controlled most of the west, with Kamandi the strange "talking animal" caught in the middle of their feud. Eventually our hero meets astronaut Ben Boxer, and the faithful dog-faced Dr. Canus, who help Kamandi in his quest to survive capture from the many terrors of this post apocalypse future and try to restore humanity to its once former glory.

Direct Currents: The Human Target

Now with two television incarnations, the first in 1992 on ABC starring Rick Springfield in the title role and the recent FOX program with actor Mark Valley, DC's The Human Target debuted in 1972 as a backup feature to Action Comics #419. Created by writer Lein Wein and artist Carmine Infantino, Christopher Chance is an Olympic level athlete, ultimate marksman, skilled martial artist, and master of disguise, making him the superior choice as a bodyguard for hire. Traumatized as a child by observing the death of his father, Chance vowed no one would ever suffer such fear again at the hands of an assailant, devoting all his special skills to take his client's place as "The Human Target". Chance is a master Thespian as well as the ultimate method actor, and unparalleled in impersonation and disguise, opening up a special private investigation agency to provide his security for a hefty price tag! Here are a few examples from those early Human Target stories with art by fan favorite artist Dick Giordano.