You see that cover? That's from the eighth issue of Hangman, published by MLJ in the Fall of 1943. The cover and the story inside that went with it were drawn by one of the prolific, underappreciated artists in comics — Bob Fujitani, who passed away this past Sunday at the age of…well, almost all online sources give his date of birth at 1920 but not long ago, he told interviewer Jim Amash that he was born October 15, 1921 so that would make him a little over a month shy of 99.
He was employed as a comic book and strip artist constantly from 1940 until some time in his eighties when he retired…to paint. His first job was as an assistant to the great Will Eisner. His last jobs were mainly as a ghost artist from comic strips including Rip Kirby and a long stint on Flash Gordon. In between, he drew comic books. He did a few for Marvel, none for DC and quite a few for MLJ comics, Quality Comics, Holyoke, Lev Gleason and Western Publishing. For Western, he was the first artist on the well-remembered Dr. Solar comic. For Lev Gleason, he did hundreds of crime stories and many of their classic covers, some as paintings.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Bob a few times on panels. He was an artist who loved to talk as much as draw, and he told grand tales of his childhood and how growing up as part-Japanese and part-Irish subjected him to a wide array of ethnic slurs. He was also an enormous fan of all the artists he worked with or around, including Eisner and Nick Cardy.
"I learned to draw from everyone I ever knew," he said. Fast, dependable, good and easy to get along with, he was never out of work until he chose to be…a career that is hard to chart but which lasted at least sixty-five years. What an amazing achievement.