Veteran comic artist Ken Bald passed away on St. Patrick's Day at the age of 98. The Guinness Book of World Records had certified him as the world's oldest comic artist and someone has already written to ask me who I think has inherited the title. My guess would be Bob Fujitani. If anyone has another thought, lemme know.
A very good overview of Ken Bald's long, glorious career can be found here. Basically, he started drawing comics in 1941 and retired in 1984, though he continued to do occasional jobs and commissions up until a year or two ago.
Much of his career was spent drawing newspaper strips, starting with Judd Saxon, subtitled "The Dramatic Story of a Young Man's Rise from Obscurity to Prominence and Power." It lasted six years and then Bald had better fortune with Dr. Kildare, spun off from the TV shows of the same name…and yes, I meant to type shows, plural. It started in 1962 depicting actor Richard Chamberlain and others from the popular NBC series. The TV program ended in 1966 after five seasons but the strip was popular enough to continue on and there were probably readers who never knew it was based on a TV series which, in turn, was based on a popular series of stories and books authored by the great pulp novelist, Frederick Faust, aka Max Brand.
In 1972, there was a new series on television — Young Dr. Kildare — and one day, presumably on orders from someone, Mr. Bald began drawing the characters in the Dr. Kildare strip to look like the actors on that series. On Sunday, Dr. Kildare looked like Richard Chamberlain and on Monday, he was Mark Jenkins, who starred in the new show. The new TV series only lasted a year and shortly after it was canceled, Bald reverted the main characters in his strip to their earlier appearances. The strip, which was written by Elliot Caplan, ended in 1984.
Bald was a very good artist and he must have been fast because in 1971, he also began doing a strip based on the Dark Shadows TV series. It only lasted a year.
Before his time in strips, he was busy in comic books, most notably a long run with Stan Lee for Timely (now Marvel) comics where he did Captain America, Millie the Model and practically everything else they published for about a five year period. He was prominent for years after that in comics for ACG (American Comics Group) and began to work extensively in advertising.
If he was ever unemployed in his life, it was only by choice…a very talented illustrator. The above link can tell you more about his life as can his Wikipedia page.