Howard Post
Encyclopedia
Howard Post aka Howie Post, was an American
animator
, cartoonist
and comic strip
and comic book
writer-artist
.
Post is known for his syndicated newspaper comic strip The Dropouts which had a 13-year run and for creating DC Comics
' Anthro
.
, Post grew up in the Coney Island
and Sheepshead Bay neighborhoods of Brooklyn
and then in The Bronx
. In a 1999 interview, he recalled his start in drawing and his father's influence:
As a teenager, Post attended the Hastings School of Animation, in New York City. When he was age 16 or 17, his father was stricken with tuberculosis
and hospitalized, making Post the primary breadwinner for a family of four. At Paramount Pictures
' animation studio, Famous Studios
he earned $24 a week as an in-betweener.
art appeared in 1945: the cover of publisher Prize Comics' Wonderland Comics #2, and the five-page "3-Alarm Fire!", starring Hopeless Henry, in Cambridge House Publishers' Gold Medal Comics #1. Credited as Howie Post, he soon began drawing for the company that would become DC Comics
, including the features "Jimminy and the Magic Book" in More Fun Comics
, "Rodeo Rick" in Western Comics
, "Presto Pete" in Animal Antics, "Chick 'n Gumbo" in Funny Folks, and "J. Rufus Lion" in Comic Cavalcade, among other work. During the 1950s, he drew many humorous stories for the satirical comics Crazy, Wild and Riot, from Marvel Comics
' 1950s forerunner, Atlas Comics
, as well as occasional stories in that publishers horror comics
, including Journey into Mystery
, Uncanny Tales
, and Mystery Tales. As Howie Post, he drew the three-issue run of Atlas' The Monkey and the Bear (Sept. 1953 - Jan. 1954).
children's characters as Hot Stuff the Little Devil
, Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost
, Wendy the Good Little Witch
and the Ghostly Trio
in such comics books as Casper's Ghostland and TV Casper & Company, starring Casper the Friendly Ghost
. Post was the head of Paramount Cartoon Studios, as well as a key director, succeeding Seymour Kneitel
from 1964 through 1965.
for DC Comics
, which ran six issues (Aug. 1968 - Aug. 1969) after debuting in Showcase 74
, with the last issue in the series inked by Wally Wood
and Ralph Reese
.
was canceled. The premise of The Dropouts was a variation on the "stranded on a desert island" gag. The two main characters, Alf and Sandy, were indeed castaways, but the island is hardly deserted: One of the strips' running gag
s was how closely the natives' society resembled Western civilization
. Other characters, all natives, included a one-man police force, a doctor and a chef running a cafe with inedible food. There were other Western characters, including a religious zealot, an angry feminist and a disheveled alcoholic, Chugalug.
.
He is survived by his companion of 24 years, Pamela Rutt, and two daughters. His wife Bobbee predeceased him in 1980.
People of the United States
The people of the United States, also known as simply Americans or American people, are the inhabitants or citizens of the United States. The United States is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...
animator
Animator
An animator is an artist who creates multiple images that give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence; the images are called frames and key frames. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, video games, and the internet. Usually, an...
, cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
and comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
and comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
writer-artist
Comic book creator
A comic book creator is someone who creates a comic book or graphic novel.The production of a comic book by one of the major comic book companies in the U.S...
.
Post is known for his syndicated newspaper comic strip The Dropouts which had a 13-year run and for creating DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
' Anthro
Anthro (comics)
Anthro is a fictional character published by DC Comics. Anthro was created by cartoonist Howard Post; he first appeared in Showcase #74, .-Publication history:...
.
Early life and career
Born in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Post grew up in the Coney Island
Coney Island
Coney Island is a peninsula and beach on the Atlantic Ocean in southern Brooklyn, New York, United States. The site was formerly an outer barrier island, but became partially connected to the mainland by landfill....
and Sheepshead Bay neighborhoods of Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
and then in The Bronx
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
. In a 1999 interview, he recalled his start in drawing and his father's influence:
As a teenager, Post attended the Hastings School of Animation, in New York City. When he was age 16 or 17, his father was stricken with tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
and hospitalized, making Post the primary breadwinner for a family of four. At Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
' animation studio, Famous Studios
Famous Studios
Famous Studios was the animation division of the film studio Paramount Pictures from 1942 to 1967. Famous was founded as a successor company to Fleischer Studios, after Paramount acquired the aforementioned studio and ousted its founders, Max and Dave Fleischer, in 1941...
he earned $24 a week as an in-betweener.
Comic books
To supplement what even then was considered a meager income, Post broke into comic books—first being rejected by the L.B. Cole studio on 42nd Street and then successfully selling work to artist Bernard Bailey on West 43rd. Post's earliest confirmed comic bookComic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
art appeared in 1945: the cover of publisher Prize Comics' Wonderland Comics #2, and the five-page "3-Alarm Fire!", starring Hopeless Henry, in Cambridge House Publishers' Gold Medal Comics #1. Credited as Howie Post, he soon began drawing for the company that would become DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
, including the features "Jimminy and the Magic Book" in More Fun Comics
More Fun Comics
More Fun Comics, originally titled New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine a.k.a. New Fun Comics, was a 1935-1947 American comic book anthology that introduced several major superhero characters and was the first American comic-book series to feature solely original material rather than reprints of...
, "Rodeo Rick" in Western Comics
Western Comics
Western Comics was a Western comic book series published by DC Comics. DC's longest-running Western title, it published 85 issues from 1948 to 1961. Western Comics was an anthology series, featuring such characters as the wandering cowboy the Wyoming Kid, the Native American lawman Pow Wow Smith,...
, "Presto Pete" in Animal Antics, "Chick 'n Gumbo" in Funny Folks, and "J. Rufus Lion" in Comic Cavalcade, among other work. During the 1950s, he drew many humorous stories for the satirical comics Crazy, Wild and Riot, from Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
' 1950s forerunner, Atlas Comics
Atlas Comics (1950s)
Atlas Comics is the term used to describe the 1950s comic book publishing company that would evolve into Marvel Comics. Magazine and paperback novel publisher Martin Goodman, whose business strategy involved having a multitude of corporate entities, used Atlas as the umbrella name for his comic...
, as well as occasional stories in that publishers horror comics
Horror comics
Horror comics are comic books, graphic novels, black-and-white comics magazines, and manga focusing on horror fiction. Horror comic books reached a peak in the late 1940s through the mid-1950s, when concern over content and the imposition of the self-censorship Comics Code Authority contributed to...
, including Journey into Mystery
Journey into Mystery
Journey into Mystery was an American comic book series published by Atlas Comics, and later its successor Marvel Comics. It featured horror, monster, and science fiction stories...
, Uncanny Tales
Uncanny Tales
Uncanny Tales may refer to one of the following publications:* Uncanny Tales , an American pulp magazine* Uncanny Tales , a Canadian pulp magazine...
, and Mystery Tales. As Howie Post, he drew the three-issue run of Atlas' The Monkey and the Bear (Sept. 1953 - Jan. 1954).
Harvey Comics
By 1961, Post was drawing adventures of such Harvey ComicsHarvey Comics
Harvey Comics was an American comic book publisher, founded in New York City by Alfred Harvey in 1941, after buying out the small publisher Brookwood Publications. His brothers Robert B...
children's characters as Hot Stuff the Little Devil
Hot Stuff the Little Devil
Hot Stuff the Little Devil is a comic book character who first appeared in Hot Stuff #1, published by Harvey Comics in October 1957. The character didn't first appear as a back-up feature in another book or receive a trial run in Harvey Hits...
, Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost
Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost
Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost is a fictional character that appeared in titles published by Harvey Comics. Spooky first appeared in Casper the Friendly Ghost #10 . He is, according to canon, the cousin of Casper, though how they are exactly related is never really clear...
, Wendy the Good Little Witch
Wendy the Good Little Witch
Wendy the Good Little Witch is a fictional comic book character from Harvey Comics. Wendy was introduced as a back-up feature as well as a companion for Casper in Casper the Friendly Ghost #20, May 1954. Soon, she was trialed in Harvey Hits, starting with #7. After a total of six appearances, she...
and the Ghostly Trio
The Ghostly Trio
The Ghostly Trio are fictional characters in the Casper the Friendly Ghost series. Their first animated appearance was in Fright from Wrong, a cartoon of Paramount Pictures' Famous Studios theatrical series from the 1950s...
in such comics books as Casper's Ghostland and TV Casper & Company, starring Casper the Friendly Ghost
Casper the Friendly Ghost
Casper the Friendly Ghost is the protagonist of the Famous Studios theatrical animated cartoon series of the same name. As his name indicates, he is a ghost, but is quite personable...
. Post was the head of Paramount Cartoon Studios, as well as a key director, succeeding Seymour Kneitel
Seymour Kneitel
Seymour Kneitel was an American animator. He is best known for his work with Fleischer Studios and its successor, Famous Studios.-Early years:...
from 1964 through 1965.
Anthro
In the late 1960s, as Howie Post, he created, wrote and drew the prehistoric-teen comic book AnthroAnthro (comics)
Anthro is a fictional character published by DC Comics. Anthro was created by cartoonist Howard Post; he first appeared in Showcase #74, .-Publication history:...
for DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
, which ran six issues (Aug. 1968 - Aug. 1969) after debuting in Showcase 74
Showcase (comics)
Showcase has been the title of several comic anthology series published by DC Comics. The general theme of these series has been to feature new and minor characters as a way to gauge reader interest in them, without the difficulty and risk of featuring "untested" characters in their own ongoing...
, with the last issue in the series inked by Wally Wood
Wally Wood
Wallace Allan Wood was an American comic book writer, artist and independent publisher, best known for his work in EC Comics and Mad. He was one of Mads founding cartoonists in 1952. Although much of his early professional artwork is signed Wallace Wood, he became known as Wally Wood, a name he...
and Ralph Reese
Ralph Reese
Ralph Reese is an American artist who has illustrated for books, magazines, trading cards, comic books and comic strips, including a year drawing the Flash Gordon strip for King Features...
.
The Dropouts
The Dropouts was a comic strip created by Post and was syndicated by United Features Syndicate from 1968 to 1981. Post began the strip at the same time his comic book AnthroAnthro (comics)
Anthro is a fictional character published by DC Comics. Anthro was created by cartoonist Howard Post; he first appeared in Showcase #74, .-Publication history:...
was canceled. The premise of The Dropouts was a variation on the "stranded on a desert island" gag. The two main characters, Alf and Sandy, were indeed castaways, but the island is hardly deserted: One of the strips' running gag
Running gag
A running gag, or running joke, is a literary device that takes the form of an amusing joke or a comical reference and appears repeatedly throughout a work of literature or other form of storytelling....
s was how closely the natives' society resembled Western civilization
Western culture
Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...
. Other characters, all natives, included a one-man police force, a doctor and a chef running a cafe with inedible food. There were other Western characters, including a religious zealot, an angry feminist and a disheveled alcoholic, Chugalug.
School of Visual Arts
In later years, Post taught art and illustration privately and at New York's School of Visual ArtsSchool of Visual Arts
The School of Visual Arts , is a proprietary art school located in Manhattan, New York City, and is widely considered to be one of the leading art schools in the United States. It was established in 1947 by co-founders Silas H. Rhodes and Burne Hogarth as the Cartoonists and Illustrators School and...
.
He is survived by his companion of 24 years, Pamela Rutt, and two daughters. His wife Bobbee predeceased him in 1980.