Veteran comic book artist Al Hartley died on Tuesday at age 81. Hartley was best known to comic fans for his work on Archie Comics, for Marvel's Patsy Walker, and for one very odd Thor story that ran in Journey Into Mystery #90. For reasons no one can recall, a super-hero story was assigned to a man who drew in a comic/teen style and the result was…interesting. (I'm being charitable here…)
For much of his career, Hartley worked with the Archie company and with an outfit called Spire Christian Comics for which he wrote and drew 59 one-shot Christian comic books — many featuring the Archie characters — liberally laced with Biblical quotes and deeply religious themes. Some folks found this work preachy to the extent of being offensive, but no one doubted his sincerity. The one time I met Mr. Hartley, he explained at some length how he prayed over every page, hoping fervently to reach some lost soul with the messages he was conveying. If you could get past that, some of what he did — particularly non-Archie projects like his comic book adaptation of The Cross and the Switchblade — showed solid storytelling and great passion.
This obituary will tell you more about Mr. Hartley, including something I hadn't known; that his father was the co-sponsor of the famous Taft-Hartley bill. (It will also tell you that he started drawing Spider-Man and the Hulk in 1946. Needless to say, those characters didn't exist until the sixties and if Hartley ever drew them, it was only for a panel or two somewhere.)