Seems like it's bad luck for me to say I won't be posting for a while. Whenever I do it, I have to rush back here to post an obit for some veteran comic book creator…
Comic historian Jim Amash informs me of the death, about three weeks ago, of Bill Fraccio, whose work was all over Charlton and Dell Comics in the sixties. Almost all of it was done in tandem with his friend, Tony Tallarico. They were teamed so often that it's sometimes difficult to identify which stories were pencilled by Fraccio and which ones were solo work by Tallarico. I think (but cannot swear) that Fraccio drew the above covers but he may have only done the interiors. Tallarico was the senior partner in the combo. Most of the time, editors gave him the work and he called in Fraccio to help.
Fans know them best for their stints drawing Charlton's short-lived super-hero line of Blue Beetle and Son of Vulcan around 1965 and an odd batch of monster super-heroes — like the Super Frankenstein seen above — shortly after. In the late sixties, they collaborated on dozens of stories for Warren's Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella that were credited to "Tony Williamson" and later to "Tony Willamsune." (Reportedly, artist Al Williamson — who had recently quit working for Warren — objected to the company making it look like "Williamson" was still working for them.)
I never met Mr. Fraccio but Jim Amash says he was a very jolly man and that he loved to draw.