Howard "Howie" Post, a mainstay of animation, comic books and strips since the mid-forties, passed away some time in the last week, reportedly due to Alzheimer's. Howie was born November 2, 1926 and while no one has ever pinned down exactly when he got into comics, his work was turning up in books from most of the major New York publishers by 1945. He mostly did funny animal comics, such as for DC's More Fun Comics, where he sometimes wrote for other artists but often drew his own wacky, energetic tales. He also worked in animation, at first as an in-betweener and animator for Famous Studios…later as a storyman and, still later, as the creative head of Paramount's cartoon studio in the early sixties.
His best known comic book work? Hard to say. He was a prolific writer (and sometimes writer-artist) for Harvey Comics, where he is often credited with creating Spooky, Little Hot Stuff and many other recurring characters. He wrote and sometimes drew hundreds of stories for Richie Rich, Casper the Friendly Ghost and other Harvey superstars.
Over at DC, he handled Doodles Duck, J. Rufus Lion, Bob Hope, Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis, Jerry Lewis without Dean Martin and many others, including occasional forays into romance and adventure titles. His most famous DC endeavor was probably Anthro, a short-lived light adventure comic that he wrote and drew in the late sixties.
He worked for Marvel in two bursts, the first being a gaggle of (mostly) funny animal comics like The Monkey and the Bear from around 1953 to 1955, along with occasional contributions to their horror comics. In the eighties, he drew Strawberry Shortcake, Madballs, Wally the Wizard, Heathcliff and other features for their kids' line.
He worked for at least a dozen other publishers and also dabbled in syndication. His newspaper strip, The Dropouts, appeared in many newspapers from 1968 until 1982.
And this is really only the briefest summary of this prolific and wickedly-funny man. I had the pleasure of working with him briefly on the Richie Rich cartoon show for Hanna-Barbera and interviewing him on a couple of panels at comic conventions. He was very nice and very creative, and his work sure made a lot of folks happy.