Veteran comic book artist Sam Kweskin passed away this morning at the age of 81. His career in comics was brief and almost wholly spent at Marvel. He began drawing (and occasionally writing) for the company in 1952, back when it was called Atlas, and appeared in books like Adventures Into Terror and Wild Western until the amount of available work declined around 1957. The cover pictured above is reportedly the only published cover he ever drew for comics.
Thereafter, Kweskin built a solid career in advertising art and storyboarding for commercials, returning to comics only for one short story — a war back-up for the 1967 Tod Holton, Super Green Beret. Around 1972, he did a small amount of work for Marvel — some of it under the pen-name, "Irv Wesley" — on Daredevil, Dr. Strange and Sub-Mariner. On Sub-Mariner, he worked with the strip's creator, Bill Everett, who was then having health problems. Kweskin was being groomed to take over the book but it was cancelled, and Marvel's editors were not impressed enough with the work he was then doing to offer him more. Kweskin returned full-time to advertising work and also dabbled in illustration work, most of it involving old airplanes and war scenes.
Some historical articles refer to Kweskin as having been a ghost artist for Bill Everett, even before their 1972 collaborations. This is apparently not true, even though Everett told it to interviewers. Years later, when comic historians tracked down and interviewed Kweskin, he said he had never ghosted for Everett or anyone, and couldn't understand how that rumor got started. Well, it got started because Everett apparently had some names confused. In any case, Kweskin was a good artist even if he wasn't Everett's assistant, and it's a shame there wasn't more room for him in comics.