Founding Fathers: Comics’ Elder Statesmen

As we celebrate our country’s independence; a independence won through the hard work and determination of our nation’s legendary “Founding Fathers”; we though it would be somewhat appropriate to look back at the people who struggled, persevered, and pioneered to form the foundations of the comics industry we know today. These were writers, artists, and publishers alike who struggled and fought for creative freedom in a fledgling industry considered at first “kids stuff”, but eventually deemed anything but.

To come to our Top 5 featured here this month, we surveyed a mix of collectors and industry professionals to give us their Top 10 creators. What we got was a diverse list of names — legends all — that wildly ran the gamut from the Golden Age to the early Bronze Age of Comics, but matched up several instances. While we can never get 100% of the people to agree 100% of the time, the following Founding Fathers of Comics are among the most legendary and storied individuals in our hobby’s long, long history.

#1: STAN LEE

(B. 12/28/1922 – Present)

Born Stanley Martin Lieber on December 28, 1922, Stan Lee is the lifelong face of Marvel Comics. He began his career as an assistant at Martin Goodman’s Timely Comics in 1939, hired by editor Joe Simon.

In 1941, after doing everything from keeping the inkwells filled to getting lunch for the office, young Stanley Lieber got his chance with his first published work,  a text filler in #3, written under the pen name “Stan Lee,” which he would later adopt as his legal name.

Twenty odd years later, Lee worked his way up to Editor of what was then known as Atlas Comics, and following several years, unleashed the Marvel Universe upon the world with Jack Kirby and the debut of #1 in November 1961.

From that point forward, Lee, working alongside Kirby, Steve Ditko, Bill Everett, and others, created the original cast of characters that have remained in publication to this day, and have helped to make Stan Lee a household name.

#2: JACK KIRBY

(B. 8/28/1917 – D. 2/6/1994

Born Jacob Kurtzberg on August 28, 1917, Jack Kirby is considered to be one of the greatest comic artists of all time… earning him the royal nickname “King Kirby”, among others. pencillers to ever live. Starting in the 1930s comic strip world, working under various pen names, Kirby was best known in his early years for his role in co-creating Captain America with Timely Comics writer-editor Joe Simon. Later, the Simon and Kirby team would go on to innovate many new comics genres at publishers like Archie and DC Comics, finally returning to the Timely offices under its new name of Atlas Comics. It was there, working alongside Stan Lee and others, where the Marvel Universe was born in the early 1960s. In the years that followed the formative period of Marvel, Kirby’s career would take him on many new adventures across the comics industry, even into the animation field, and eventually into the realm of comics legend, forever hailed as “King Kirby” by his legions of fans.

#3: WILL EISNER

(B. 3/6/1917 – D. 1/3/2005

Born William Erwin Eisner on March 6, 1917, Will Eisner is considered to be one of the most important contributors to the development of the comics medium, known in part for the influential cartooning studio which he co-founded with Jerry Iger, and also for his highly influential comic strip series,  (which innovated a “Comic Book Section” pull-out for Sunday newspapers). Eisner began his career in 1935, contributing original comic strip material to , a strip reprint title edited by Jerry Iger, his future partner in the Eisner and Iger Studio, that would go on to produce original material for Fox Comics, Fiction House, and Quality Comics (including  and ).

As the years progressed, Eisner turned his attention to establishing the graphic novel as a form of literature with his book , the first of many personal, often semi-autobiographical works drawing upon his life and experiences. In the late’70s, Eisner began teaching a course in sequential art at the School of Visual Arts, resulting in the best-selling educational work, , still used by art students and artists alike to this day.

#4: STEVE DITKO

(B. 11/2/1927 – PRESENT)

Stephen J. Ditko on November 2, 1927, Steve Ditko is one of comics’ most creative and enigmatic personalities. Best known as the artist co-creator, with Stan Lee, of the Marvel Comics heroes and , Ditko began his art career studying under the tutelage of artist Jerry Robinson at the Cartoonist and Illustrators School in New York City following a stint in the military following WWII.

Some years later in 1953, he began his professional career working in the studio of Simon and Kirby, beginning as an inker, where was greatly influenced by artist Mort Meskin. It was during this time that Ditko began his long association with Charlton Comics, working in many genres such as science fiction, horror, and mystery, and also (co-creating  in 1960), and working at Atlas/Marvel Comics in the years leading up to and encompassing the launch of the Marvel Universe.

Over the years, Ditko has refused to give interviews, and has been happy to let his work speak for him. 

#5: WILLIAM GAINES

(B. 3/1/1922 – D. 6/3/1992)

Born William Maxwell Gaines on March 1, 1922, Bill Gaines was the publisher and co-editor of the notorious EC Comics line, and publisher of , the long-running satire magazine. Gaines’ father, Max Gaines, was publisher of the Educational/Entertaining Comics line, known mostly for its adaptations of Bible stories. Following his father’s accidental death in 1947, Gaines left his college studies in his senior year to take over the family business.

It was at EC Comics that Gaines helped to guide and create one of the most enduring and impactful line of comic books ever created. Written and illustrated not merely for children but for readers of all ages, the EC line was unlike anything on the racks at the time, outselling most of its competitors. It was also at this time that comics came under fire as one of the alleged leading causing of juvenile delinquency. Over the course of many days, Gaines and others testified before the Senate Sub-Committee on Juvenile Delinquency, whose chief witness Dr. Frederic Wertham and his book, Seduction of the Innocent, helped to bring about the Comics Code Authority (CCA), and drove the EC line as it existed to extinction.

Gaines continued after the fall of the EC line with their one remaining title, , which escaped the control of the CCA by switching to a magazine format. It was that kept Gaines busy, laughing all the way, until his passing.