 |
| Richard Bassford | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1936 (age 86–87) New York City |
| Nationality | American |
| Area(s) | Illustrator, Artist |
| Collaborators | Nick Kenny |
Richard Bassford (born 1936) is an American illustrator who has worked in both advertising and comic books.
Born in Manhattan, Bassford lived from age three in the Queens neighborhoods of Maspeth, Corona and Whitestone until his marriage in 1961, when he moved to Flushing. In 1975, Bassford settled in Cold Spring, New York.
As a teenager, he took particular note of comic books drawn by Wally Wood, who became a major influence. In Manhattan, Bassford studied at the School of Industrial Art (which later became the High School of Art and Design), and he entered the commercial art field in the early 1950s with magazine gag cartoons and packaging art for toy boxes. His pen-and-ink illustrations were published in the magazine Amateur Art & Camera in 1954.
Bassford's first work in comics came in 1957 with "What Happened on the Mountain!" for Atlas Comics' World of Mystery, reprinted in Atlas' World of Fantasy #13 (August 1958). At the Wally Wood Studio, Bassford was an artist on Tower Comics' T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents almost from the start. Beginning with the second issue, he assisted Wood on the penciling of "Dynamo Battles Dynavac" (reprinted in Tower's The Terrific Trio paperback). Bassford, Wood and Dan Adkins teamed on The Munsters , a comic book adaptation of the 1964-66 CBS television series. Bassford also worked with Gil Kane on Undersea Agent. [1]
An interview with Bassford about Wally Wood in CFA-APA #40 [2] [ circular reference ] noted the educational aspect of the Wood Studio: "His later black-and-white work using Craftint doubletone board was truly amazing. I learned to use the valuable tones available with Zip-A-Tone Benday shading sheets simply by studying Woody's application." [3]
After James Warren recruited Bassford for Warren Publishing in the early 1970s, beginning with an illustration in Vampirella #11 (May, 1971), he contributed to both Creepy and Eerie . For Creepy #39 he drew "The Dragon Prow" from a Steve Skeates script, and in issue #41, he executed "The Hangman of London" for "Creepy's Loathsome Lore." For Eerie #39, he illustrated Doug Moench's "The Mysterious Men in Black!" for "Eerie's Monster Gallery."
His work as an illustrator spans a wide range of subjects from science fiction and fantasy interiors to color cartoons and the poems of Nick Kenny. His airbrushed informational-card illustrations for International Masters Publishers have covered military aircraft; mermaids and creatures for IMP's Myths and Monsters series; and Sports Heroes, Feats & Facts.
Bassford's drawings have appeared in a variety of publications, including Screw and Bill Pearson's Sata. For the magazine Fantastic he illustrated two stories: "The Forest of Unreason" by Robert F. Young (July 1961) and The Trekkers by Daniel F. Galouye (September 1961).
The client list for Bassford's advertising art includes Disney, General Electric, IBM, Nestle, People's Bank and Waldenbooks. Over decades, he continued to do cartoons and illustrations for corporate audio-visual advertising art presentations, such as a slide show of 79 cartoons for GE Lighting and 36 cartoons for a People's Bank promotion. He returned to comics in 1986 when he teamed with Pearson on the story "Daddy's Little Girl" for Lurid Tales, published by Eros Comix, an imprint of Fantagraphics Books.
For Hope Farm Press, Bassford illustrated Crisis in the Lower Hudson (1995), about Benedict Arnold’s attempt to sell West Point to the British during the American Revolution, the capture of British Major John André and his execution in Tappan, New York. In 2003, he was a contributor of both text and art to Bhob Stewart's Against the Grain: Mad Artist Wallace Wood, and his T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents pages were reprinted in the hardback T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Archive series (2003–05), published by DC Comics. In 2006, he provided illustrations for Bill Pearson's novel, Drifter's Detour.
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents is a fictional team of superheroes that appeared in comic books originally published by Tower Comics in the 1960s. They were an arm of the United Nations and were notable for their depiction of the heroes as everyday people whose heroic careers were merely their day jobs. The series was also notable for featuring some of the better artists of the day, such as Wallace Wood and Gil Kane. The team first appeared in T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1. The name is an acronym for "The Higher United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserves". The team has appeared in several versions via several publishers since the early 1980s.
Tower Comics was an American comic book publishing company that operated from 1965 to 1969, best known for Wally Wood's T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, a strange combination of secret agents and superheroes; and Samm Schwartz's Tippy Teen, an Archie Andrews clone. The comics were published by Harry Shorten and edited by Schwartz and Wood. Tower Comics was part of Tower Publications, a paperback publisher at that point best known for their Midwood Books line of soft-core erotic fiction aimed at male readers.
Wallace Allan Wood was an American comic book writer, artist and independent publisher, widely known for his work on EC Comics's titles such as Weird Science, Weird Fantasy, and MAD Magazine from its inception in 1952 until 1964, as well as for T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, and work for Warren Publishing's Creepy. He drew a few early issues of Marvel's Daredevil and established the title character's distinctive red costume. Wood created and owned the long-running characters Sally Forth and Cannon.
Reed Leonard Crandall was an American illustrator and penciller of comic books and magazines. He was best known for the 1940s Quality Comics' Blackhawk and for stories in EC Comics during the 1950s. Crandall was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2009.
witzend, published on an irregular schedule spanning decades, is an underground comic showcasing contributions by comic book professionals, leading illustrators and new artists. witzend was launched in 1966 by the writer-artist Wallace Wood, who handed the reins to Bill Pearson from 1968 to 1985. The title was printed in lower-case.
Alfonso Williamson was an American cartoonist, comic book artist and illustrator specializing in adventure, Western, science fiction and fantasy.
Roy Gerald Krenkel, who often signed his work RGK, was an American illustrator who specialized in fantasy and historical drawings and paintings for books, magazines and comic books.
Warren Publishing was an American magazine company founded by James Warren, who published his first magazines in 1957 and continued in the business for decades. Magazines published by Warren include After Hours, Creepy, Eerie, Famous Monsters of Filmland, Help!, and Vampirella.
Joseph Orlando was an Italian-American illustrator, writer, editor and cartoonist during a lengthy career spanning six decades. He was the associate publisher of Mad and the vice president of DC Comics, where he edited numerous titles and ran DC's Special Projects department.
William Pearson, known professionally as Bill Pearson, is an American novelist, publisher, editor, artist, comic book scripter and letterer, notable as the editor-publisher of his own graphic story publication, witzend.
Ralph Reese is an American artist who has illustrated for books, magazines, trading cards, comic books and comic strips, including a year drawing the Flash Gordon strip for King Features. Prolific from the 1960s to the 1990s, he is best known for his collaboration with Byron Preiss on the continuing feature "One Year Affair", serialized in the satiric magazine National Lampoon from 1973 to 1975 and then collected into a 1976 book.
Danny L. Adkins was an American illustrator who worked mainly for comic books and science-fiction magazines.
Creepy was an American horror-comics magazine launched by Warren Publishing in 1964. Like Mad, it was a black-and-white newsstand publication in a magazine format and did not carry the seal of the Comics Code Authority. An anthology magazine, it initially was published quarterly but later went bimonthly. Each issue's stories were introduced by the host character, Uncle Creepy. Its sister publications were Eerie and Vampirella.
Sky Masters of the Space Force was an American syndicated newspaper comic strip created on September 8, 1958, by writer/penciler Jack Kirby and writer Dave Wood, featuring the adventures of an American astronaut. The strip stars the titular Major Skylar Masters—an American astronaut—and features his adventures in a fictionalized Space Race, including rocket launches, space stations, Moon landings, and double agents.
Len Brown is an American writer, editor, radio personality and comic book scripter, best known as the co-creator of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and Mars Attacks.
Good Girl Art (GGA) is a style of artwork depicting women primarily featured in comic books, comic strips, and pulp magazines. The term was coined by the American Comic Book Company, appearing in its mail order catalogs from the 1930s to the 1970s, and is used by modern comic experts to describe the hyper-sexualized version of femininity depicted in comics of the era.
Gerald Carr is an Australian comic book writer, artist and illustrator, best known for his creations, Vampire! and Vixen.
The Comic and Fantasy Art Amateur Press Association (CFA-APA) was founded in 1985 by Roger Hill. Its membership consists of knowledgeable fans, creators, and collectors of comic and fantasy art who write about various subjects related to those genres. The group self-publishes approximately three times a year and each issue has a theme relating to a specific creator or subject. Currently, membership is limited to 40 persons at any one time and circulation is limited to 55 issues, making the publication itself highly collectible.
Harry Shorten (1914–1991) was an American writer, editor, and book publisher best known for the syndicated gag cartoon There Oughta Be a Law!, as well as his work with Archie Comics, and his long association with Archie's publishers Louis Silberkleit and John L. Goldwater. From the late 1950s until his 1982 retirement, Shorten was a book publisher, overseeing such companies as Leisure Books, Midwood Books, Midwood-Tower Publications, Belmont Tower, and Roband Publications.
Tower Publications was an American publisher based in New York City that operated from 1958 to 1982. Originally known for their Midwood Books line of erotic men's fiction, it also published science fiction and fantasy under its Tower Books line and published comic books in the late 1960s under its Tower Comics imprint. In the early 1970s, Tower acquired paperback publisher Belmont Books, forming the Belmont Tower line. Archie Comics' cofounder Louis Silberkleit was a silent partner in Tower's ownership; longtime Archie editor Harry Shorten was a major figure with Tower in all its iterations.