A fine artist and a fine gentleman, Kurt Schaffenberger, died earlier this evening at the Shorrock Garden Nursing Home in Brick, New Jersey. Kurt was 81 and had been ill for some time with an array of ailments including diabetes and heart trouble, so his passing was not unexpected. Still, it comes as a blow to lose the man who will forever be "the" Lois Lane artist to those of us who grew up on his comics. Kurt was born in Germany but grew up in Hartford, Connecticut where — here's a coincidence — he dated my mother's best friend in high school. Even drew in my mother's yearbook! Shortly after getting out of school and to the surprise of no one who knew him, Kurt got into comics, soon becoming one of the most important artists at Fawcett, ranking third among the Captain Marvel artists after C.C. Beck and Pete Costanza. Many fans felt that Schaffenberger was the best of a good lot.
In the fifties, after the Good Captain folded his tent, writer Otto Binder got Kurt a try-out at DC and he became the main artist on Lois Lane while also working occasionally on Superman. (He also worked for other publishers, including A.C.G., where he signed most of his work "Lou Wahl," since DC frowned on the notion of their freelancers freelancing.)
In the late sixties, Kurt was moved over, against his will, to draw Supergirl. Then he got into trouble with DC management when he became the only artist to join what has been termed "The Writers' Rebellion" — a move by several DC writers to band together and demand things like reprint fees and a health plan. When the writers were tossed out, so was Kurt, who did a few romance comics for Marvel, then got out of comics and into commercial illustration for a time. Finally though, DC lured him back and he again drew Superman, as well as Super-Friends, Wonder Woman, Superboy and many other books. Some editors thought his style was "old-fashioned" and, for a time, they had him inking other artists, especially the other great Superman artist of his generation, Curt Swan. To others, he was a classic comic artist and they treasured the consistency of his work. (Offhand, I can't think of another comic artist whose work changed less over the years. 1960 Schaffenberger art was virtually identical to 1990 Schaffenberger art.)
Kurt himself was a charming gentleman who reminded you of a classic character actor of the forties. He was handsome, gallant and impossible to dislike. My most vivid memory of him is from a convention in the mid-seventies when he started doing freebee sketches for fans. Instantly, he was mobbed and, fearing someone would be trampled, he announced that he would stay until everyone around him got a drawing…and he did. He stayed there for at least three hours, whipping out the neatest-looking Lois doodles you ever saw, complete with her classic pillbox hat and the famous Schaffenberger smile. If you knew Kurt, you knew where that smile came from.
(My thanks to a fine artist of a younger generation, Howard Bender, for spreading the sad word about one of our faves…)