The one-time editor of Timely Comics (aka Marvel), Vince Fago, has passed away from stomach cancer. He was 88 years old and had devoted his entire life to cartooning and comics. Fago was born in New York and got into the animation field there in 1933. He worked for an array of small commercial houses in New York and Detroit before settling in briefly at Max Fleischer's operation, where he worked on Betty Boop, Superman and Popeye other cartoons, as well as the feature, Gulliver's Travels. When World War II broke out, most of the animation studios shifted over to making films for the military and Fago, who found such work boring, went out to try and get work in comic books.
Timely was plunging into "funny animal" titles and when editor Stan Lee saw Vince's work, he knew he had a good source of them. Fago drew strips with names as odd as " Frenchy Rabbit," "Dinky and Rudy Rooster." and "Floop and Skillyboo." Soon after, when Stan entered the service, he had to pick someone to take over the editor's job in his absence. He chose Vince Fago.
Fago held the job until soon after Stan returned. Thereafter, Vince worked for Timely as well as other companies as a writer, editor and artist, usually of "funny animal" comics. He dabbled in newspaper strips, magazine publishing, animation, commercials and just about any field where you could make a buck drawing silly pictures. Roy Thomas's fine magazine, Alter Ego, recently published a number of exhaustive articles and a long interview with the man, conducted by his friend, Jim Amash.