Every time I post an obit for someone like Martin Nodell, as I had to do the other day, I read messages from people lamenting how our heritage is slipping away…how the founders of the comic book industry are almost all gone. This is true and, of course, there's nothing that can be done about it, and we need to honor and interview these folks while they're still with us. This requires that we remember which ones are. This morning in an obit for his father in the L.A. Times, Marty Nodell's son Spencer says, "My dad is one of the last of the Golden Age artists. Guys like [Superman creators Jerry] Siegel and [Joe] Shuster, [Batman creator] Bob Kane, they've all passed. Jerry Robinson [co-creator of the Joker] and [Batman artist] Sheldon Moldoff are still with us, but otherwise they're all gone."
Well, not quite. Paul Norris, who co-created Aquaman, is still with us at the age of 92. George Tuska, who was drawing for Will Eisner's shop in 1939 would certainly fit anyone's definition of a Golden Age artist. He's still around at the age of 90. Nick Cardy, who started with Eisner at the same time, is a much younger man of 85.
Creig Flessel, who was drawing the covers of Detective Comics before Batman was in the book is alive at age 94. Jim Mooney, who drew his first comic book in 1941, is a mere 87 years of age. Joe Simon, who has a pretty impressive list of co-creations to his credit including Captain America, is 93. He started in comics in 1938. Joe Kubert, who's 80 years old, did his first comic book work in 1942.
Irwin Hasen is 88 and he started drawing comics in 1940. His occasional partner Bob Oksner is two years older and he started doing comics about the same time. So did Bob Fujitani, who's 86. Bob Lubbers (age 84) was illustrating for funnybooks in 1942. Carmine Infantino is 81 and he was drawing comics before 1941.
There are others I could add to the list…not many, sad to say, but there are others. Stan Lee wasn't an artist but he was an important figure of that era and he's not only going strong…at his current rate, he's going to outlive all of us.
Then you have a number of folks who are still with us who did their first comic book work later in the forties. Here are ten names and the years in which they first worked in comics: Russ Heath (1947), Gene Colan (1944), Dick Ayers (1947), Al Plastino (1948), Murphy Anderson (1947), Lew Sayre Schwartz (1948), John Romita (1949), Joe Sinnott (1949), John Severin (1947) and Will Elder (1947).
The point, of course, is not that we have a whole lot of these guys left…and Spencer Nodell, mourning his dad, can hardly be faulted for a bit of exaggeration at our collective loss. It's just that we need to treasure the pioneers of comics now, while we can, and not forget that they're here. It also still amazes me when someone suggests to a convention organizer that they invite some 91-year-old comic book legend as a guest and the organizer says, "Oh, my list is kinda full this year. I'll invite him next year…or maybe the year after." Let's not bury an entire generation before we have to.