After Pratt, Bald joined the Englewood, New Jersey, studio of Jack Binder, one of the early comic-book "packagers" who would supply complete comics on demand for publishers entering the new medium[4] during what became known as the Golden Age of Comic Books. His first known professional comics work, via Binder, was the seven-page story "Justice Laughs Last," starring the super-speedster Hurricane, in Captain America Comics #7 (Oct. 1941), from Marvel Comics precursor Timely Comics,[8] Beginning in 1942, Bald, also via Binder, began drawing features including Golden Arrow and Bulletman for Fawcett Comics.[4]
On December 7, 1942, Bald enlisted in the Marine Corps,[6] serving with the 5th Marine Regiment-1st Marine Division and seeing combat in Cape Gloucester, Peleliu, and Okinawa from 1943 to January 1946, rising to the rank of captain.[9][2]
In the 1940s, Bald drew stories of such superheroes as Captain America, the Sub-Mariner, the Blonde Phantom, the Destroyer, and Miss America variously through comics cover-dated July 1949. He both wrote and drew a number of Millie the Model humor stories in the comics Georgie and Patsy Walker, and at least drew the teen-humor character Cindy in Georgie and Judy Comics and Junior Miss.[8]
Bald penciled the first appearance of the Sub-Mariner spin-off character Namora, in "The Coming of Namora" in Marvel Mystery Comics #82 (May 1947), but it is unclear if he helped create the character; the cover, which was sometimes created first, featured Namora drawn by Bob Powell. Similarly, Bald drew Timely's single issue of The Witness (Sept. 1948), starring a character co-created by writer-editor Stan Lee, but the cover for which was drawn by Charles Nicholas. Bald, with an unidentified writer, co-created the Timely superhero Sun Girl, who starred in a three-issue series cover-dated August to December 1948.[8]
His other comic book work included the character Crime Smasher in Fawcett's Whiz Comics in the 1940s, and many anthologicalhorror/suspense stories in American Comics Group's Adventures into the Unknown, The Clutching Hand, Forbidden Worlds and Out of the Night from 1949 through late 1954. Also for ACG, he co-created the adventure feature Time Travelers in Operation: Peril #1 (Nov. 1950).[8]
By this time, beginning October 15, 1962,[12] Bald had started drawing his next strip, Dr. Kildare.[10] Bald and writer Elliot Caplin produced the daily strip Dr. Kildare,[13] based on the television show of that name. A Sunday color strip was added beginning on April 19, 1964.[12] Comics historian Maurice Horn said, "Bald, who modeled the two principals on the actors who played them on television (Richard Chamberlain and Raymond Massey), drew the strip with breezy, self-assured elegance."[12] Bald continued to draw the Dr. Kildare strip for 22 years until 1984, long after the 1960s television series had ended.
In 1971, Bald (credited as K. Bruce)[6] created the comic strip Dark Shadows based on the Dark Shadows TV series, a soap opera featuring Jonathan Frid as vampire Barnabas Collins. That strip ended the following year. In addition to drawing comics, Bald also worked as a commercial artist.[11]
Detail from Dark Shadows newspaper comic strip. Art by Bald.
With the end of the Dr. Kildare strip in 1984,[12][13] Bald retired[11] — although Guinness World Records in 2017 declared him the world's oldest comic-book artist and the oldest artist to illustrate a comic-book cover, both at age 96,[14] when he came out of retirement to illustrate a variant cover for Marvel's Contest of Champions #2 (Jan. 2016).[15][16]
Personal life
In 1941, after graduating from Pratt Institute, Bald moved to Englewood, New Jersey.[6] He and actress Kaye Dowd, sister of fellow Binder-studio artist Victor Dowd,[9] married on October 30, 1943, and had five children, daughters Karen, Christophea, Victoria and Valerie, and son Kenneth III.[2] By his mid-90s, Bald was residing at Mt. Arlington Senior Living, in Mount Arlington, New Jersey.[17] Ken Bald died March 17, 2019, at age 98 and Kaye Dowd Bald died April 18, 2020, at age 96.[18][19]
His papers, including more than 2,900 pieces of original artwork for the Judd Saxon and Dr. Kildare comic strips, reside at Syracuse University Libraries Special Collections Research Center.[20] Contrary to his name, he had hair.
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References
1 2 Bald, Ken (2012). "Ken Bald Interview" (Interview). Interviewed by Stroud, Bryan. The Silver Age Sage. Archived from the original on August 4, 2017. Retrieved March 27, 2019. I had to sign the strip "K. Bruce." My middle name is Bruce. King Features didn't want me to sign it 'Ken Bald' or whatever I was using on Judd Saxon and Dr. Kildare.
1 2 3 "Kenneth B. Bald". Wharton, New Jersey: Bermingham Funeral Home. Archived from the original on March 28, 2019. Retrieved March 28, 2019.
↑ Bald, Kenneth Bruce, foreword, Dark Shadows: The Comic Strip Book, edited by Kathryn Leigh Scott, Pomegranate Press, 1996. ISBN0-938817-39-6. p. vii.
1 2 Leiffer, Paul; Ware, Hames (eds.). "Judd Saxon". The Comic Strip Project: Credits E-K. Archived from the original on June 9, 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
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