Veteran comic book and strip artist Tom Gill has died of heart failure at the age of 92. Gill was born in Brooklyn and his career as a professional artist began with a staff job at the New York Daily News. He was never certain what year but he was there in time to draw a map of Pearl Harbor that ran in the paper the day of the infamous bombing. He later worked for the New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune and for the latter, he drew a short-lived strip about a cab driver named Flower Potts. Around 1948, he began drawing for comic books and notched a 20+ year run on the Lone Ranger comics for Western Publishing (Dell, Gold Key). He did dozens of other comics for Western, specializing in westerns and — as he put it — "anything with a horse in it." His Fury comics, based on the TV series about a stallion, were especially striking and other artists used them as reference for horse-drawing. Gill also drew comics for Harvey, Toby Press, Marvel and other companies, and illustrated a fair amount of childrens' books for Western. When the Man From U.N.C.L.E. TV show was big, Gill illustrated dozens of books and activity books based on the series.
Of all his many accomplishments, Tom was proudest of his 50+ year stint as an instructor at the School of Visual Arts in New York. There, he taught over 2,500 students, many of whom went on to become prominent in the field of comics, advertising design and animation. A few of them assisted him on his comic book work before graduating to their own assignments, including Joe Sinnott, Herb Trimpe and John Verpoorten. He was also justifiably proud of his work with the National Cartoonists Society, serving several terms as its vice-president. The N.C.S. awarded him its coveted Silver T-Square award in 1964 and its award as Best Comic Book Artist in 1970. (He was then primarily doing the Bonanza comic book for Gold Key. A few years earlier, he drew a few issues for the company of The Owl, a new super-hero creation of Jerry Siegel.)
I met Tom at a New York convention about ten years ago. Veteran artist Dick Ayers, who sometimes worked with him, introduced us by telling me, "You're about to meet one of the real giants of our business." He was right, but Tom sure didn't conduct himself like he thought he was a giant. He was funny and charming and genuinely pleased that I knew who he was…and when I told him how much I admired the work of some of his students, like Joe Sinnott, he beamed with pride. Last year, we had him as a Guest of Honor at the Comic-Con International and I got to spend time with him and interview him. He had a true love of art and cartooning and talent…and it showed.
Here's a link to the Reuters obit and here's a link to a recent article about Tom. He was just what Dick Ayers said he was.