| Lou Fine |
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Information AboutLou Fine |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT LOU FINE | |
| 1914 births | |
| fine, lou | |
| 1971 deaths | |
| american comics artists | |
| golden age comics creators | |
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GOLDEN AGE COMICS CAREER Lou Fine, who had been partially crippled by childhood polio, studied at Manhattan 's Grand Central Art School and Brooklyn 's Pratt Institute . His influences included Dean Cornwell , Heinrich Kley , and famed advertising illustrator J.C. Leyendecker . In 1938, Fine, like many other comics artists of the time, found work at Eisner & Iger , one of the most prominent of the "packagers" who supplied complete comic books to Publishers testing the waters of the emerging medium. Fine's first published comics art was the strip "Wilton of the West" in Fiction House 's ''Jumbo Comics'' #4 (Dec. 1938), signed with the house Pen Name Fred Sande (which strip originator Jack Kirby had used in previous issues). Other early Pseudonyms Fine employed (reflecting the fledgling Eisner & Iger's attempts to convince publishers they had a large stable of artists) were '''Curt Davis''' and '''Basil Berold'''. Fine went on to do exquisite, much-acclaimed work for Fox Feature Syndicate , where he supplied the cover of 1939's '' Blue Beetle '' #1 and drew such features as "The Flame" in ''Wonderworld Comics'' and the later namesake series. For publisher Everett M. "Busy" Arnold 's Quality Comics , he drew features including " The Black Condor " in ''Crack Comics'', " Doll Man " in ''Feature Comics'', "The Ray" (initially under the jokey pseudonym "E. Lectron") in ''Smash Comics'', " Uncle Sam " in ''National Comics'', and "Stormy Foster" in ''Hit Comics''. Fine became particularly prominent as a cover artist. Fine, along with '' Plastic Man '' creator Jack Cole , was a ghost-artist on Will Eisner 's celebrated Sunday-supplement Newspaper comic book '' The Spirit '' during Eisner's World War II Military Service . Some of these were reprinted in Quality's ''Police Comics'' and ''The Spirit'' comic book, where Fine's work continued to appear through 1949, five years after Fine had left comics. Fine's ''Spirit'' work has also been reprinted in DC Comics ' hardcover collections ''The Spirit Archives'' Vols. 5 to 9 (2001-2003), spanning July 1942 - Dec. 1944. ADVERTISING AND COMIC STRIPS History of Comics, Vol. 2'' (1972), helped introduce Fine's art to a new generation.]] Leaving comic books in 1944, Fine segued into Newspapers by drawing Sunday Advertising comics. He later drew the Comic Strips ''Taylor Woe'' (1949), ''Adam Ames'' (1959) and ''Peter Scratch'' (1965). In a single return to comic books, he contributed to a Toy company's custom one-shot, '' Wham-O Giant Comics'' (1967), illustrating a two-page story, "The Man From Aeons", starring a Prehistoric man who, though named "Tor", was not the Same-name Caveman Character created in the 1950s by Joe Kubert . Fine also worked on the strip ''Space Conquerors'' in the magazine '' Boys' Life '' from the late 1960s until his death. QUOTES Will Eisner {Link without Title} : "I had respect for his towering kind of draftsmanship. He was the epitome of the honest draftsman. No fakery, no razzle-dazzle — very direct, very honest in his approach." ''''s favorite artist. I know that Jack was a fan of and greatly influenced by Fine’s work." Atlas Comics (retailer), "The Top 100 Artists of American Comic Books" {Link without Title} : #10 - Lou Fine: "By God, Lou Fine could draw. One of comics' first illustrative stars, he influenced and astounded such later greats as Alex Toth , Jim Steranko , and Gil Kane . His covers alone during the '40s stand as some of the best-designed and most exciting work ever produced for any comic book publisher." REFERENCES
FURTHER READING Interviews with Fine family-members, ''Alter Ego'' Vol. 3, #17 (Sept. 2002) |
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