William Erwin Eisner was an American cartoonist, writer, and entrepreneur. He was one of the earliest cartoonists to work in the American comic book industry, and his series The Spirit (1940–1952) was noted for its experiments in content and form. In 1978, he popularized the term "graphic novel" with the publication of his book A Contract with God. He was an early contributor to formal comics studies with his book Comics and Sequential Art (1985). The Eisner Award was named in his honor and is given to recognize achievements each year in the comics medium; he was one of the three inaugural inductees to the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.
The Spirit is a fictional masked crimefighter appearing in American comic books. Created by cartoonist Will Eisner, he first appeared as the main feature of a tabloid-sized comic book insert distributed in the Sunday edition of Register and Tribune Syndicate newspapers. Popularly referred to as "The Spirit Section", the insert ran from June 2, 1940 to October 5, 1952.
Clarence Matthew Baker was an American comic book artist and illustrator, best known for drawing early comics heroines such as the costumed crimefighter Phantom Lady, and romance comics. Active in the 1940s and 1950s Golden Age of comic books, he is one of the first known African-American artists to find success in the comic-book industry. He also penciled St. John Publications' digest-sized "picture novel" It Rhymes with Lust (1950), the first graphic novel despite that term not having been coined at the time.
Blackthorne Publishing, Inc. was a comic book publisher that flourished from 1986 to 1989. They were notable for the Blackthorne 3-D Series, their reprint titles of classic comic strips like Dick Tracy, and their licensed products. Blackthorne achieved its greatest sales and financial success with their licensed 3-D comics adaptations of the California Raisins, but the financial loss suffered by the failure of their 3-D adaptation of Michael Jackson's film Moonwalker was a major contributor to the publisher's downfall.
George Tuska, who early in his career used a variety of pen names including Carl Larson, was an American comic book and newspaper comic strip artist best known for his 1940s work on various Captain Marvel titles and the crime fiction series Crime Does Not Pay and for his 1960s work illustrating Iron Man and other Marvel Comics characters. He also drew the DC Comics newspaper comic strip The World's Greatest Superheroes from 1978–1982.
Samuel Maxwell "Jerry" Iger was an American cartoonist and art-studio entrepreneur. With business partner Will Eisner, he co-founded Eisner & Iger, a comic book packager that produced comics on demand for new publishers during the late-1930s and 1940s period known to fans and historians as the Golden Age of Comic Books.
Fiction House was an American publisher of pulp magazines and comic books that existed from the 1920s to the 1950s. It was founded by John B. "Jack" Kelly and John W. Glenister. By the late 1930s, the publisher was Thurman T. Scott. Its comics division was best known for its pinup-style good girl art, as epitomized by the company's most popular character, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.
Nellie Elizabeth "Irish" McCalla was an American film and television actress and artist best known as the title star of the 1950s television series Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. She co-starred with actor Chris Drake. McCalla was also a "Vargas Girl" model for pin-up girl artist Alberto Vargas.
Bob Powell was an American comic book artist known for his work during the 1930–1940s Golden Age of comic books, including on the features "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle" and "Mr. Mystic". He received a belated credit in 1999 for co-writing the debut of the popular feature "Blackhawk". Powell also did the pencil art for the bubble gum trading card series Mars Attacks. He officially changed his name to S. Robert Powell in 1943.
Feature Comics, originally Feature Funnies, was an American comic book anthology series published by Quality Comics from 1939 until 1950, that featured short stories in the humor genre and later the superhero genre.
Tarzanesque is a term created by Frenchman Francis Lacassin used to describe characters in comic books inspired by Tarzan. A tarzanesque character resembles Tarzan in his physical resourcefulness, within a line of action that includes an adventurous life in the jungle, the gift of understanding and being understood by animals, contact with lost civilizations and courage combined with the ability to deal with nature. The creation of such characters may have been propitiated by the success that Tarzan had achieved since his appearance in literature in 1912, culminating with the release of daily comic strips in 1929, which paved the way for a genre that combined the allure of the unknown environment, the need for the archetypal characteristics of the hero and the popularity of access.
A jungle girl is an archetype or stock character, often used in popular fiction, of a female adventurer, superhero or even a damsel in distress living in a jungle or rainforest setting. A prehistoric depiction is a cave girl.
Audrey Anthony Blum was an American comic book writer active during the 1930s and 1940s "Golden Age of Comic Books", known for her work with Quality Comics and other publishers and as one of the first female comics professionals in what was then an almost entirely male industry.
Eisner & Iger was a comic book packager that produced comics on demand for publishers entering the new medium during the late-1930s and 1940s, a period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books. Founded by Will Eisner and Jerry Iger, many of comic books' most significant creators, including Jack Kirby, entered the field through its doors. Eisner & Iger existed from 1936 to 1939.
Ruth Ann Roche was a writer and editor in the Golden Age of Comic Books. She was also the business partner of Jerry Iger.
Jumbo Comics was an adventure anthology comic book published by Fiction House from 1938 to 1953. Jumbo Comics was Fiction House's first comics title; the publisher had previously specialized in pulp magazines. The lead feature for Jumbo Comics' entire run was Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.
Arthur F. Peddy was an American comic book and advertising artist best known for co-creating Quality Comics' superhero character Phantom Lady and Atlas Comics' jungle girl character Jann of the Jungle. He also was known for a stint as penciler of the superhero team the Justice Society of America for what later became DC Comics.
Ann Brewster was an American cartoonist and illustrator during the Golden Age of comics. She provided art for many different publishers, including Ace Magazines, Fiction House, and Atlas Comics. Brewster is most notable for illustrating romance comics. After a career as penciller and inker for comics, she transitioned to illustrating novels and children's magazines before retiring in 1980.
Editors Press Service was a print syndication service of columns and comic strips that was in operation from 1933 to 2010. It was notable for being the first U.S. company to actively syndicate material internationally. Despite surviving for more than seven decades, EPS was never a large operation, characterized by comic strip historian Allan Holtz as a "hole-in-the-wall outfit."
Comics packaging is a publishing activity in which a publishing company outsources the myriad tasks involved in putting together a comic book — writing, illustrating, editing, and even printing — to an outside service called a packager. Once the comics packager has produced the comic, they then sell it to the final publishing company.
