Jack Abel
Encyclopedia
Jack Abel a.k.a. Gary Michaels (July 15, 1927 – March 6, 1996) was an American comic book artist
best known as an inker
for leading publishers DC Comics
and Marvel Comics
. He was DC's primary inker on the Superman titles in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and inked penciler Herb Trimpe
's introduction of the popular superhero
Wolverine
in The Incredible Hulk #181 (Nov. 1974).
stories for such anthology
series as Mr. Publications' Mister Mystery, and Atlas Comics
' — the 1950s forerunner of Marvel Comics
— Journey into Unknown Worlds , and Western
tales in Prize Comics' aptly title Prize Comics Western. He inked, science fiction
, romance
and war comics
for Atlas, American Comics Group
, Avon Comics, Harvey Comics
, and Hillman Periodicals
, and later in the decade became a prolific penciler for the DC war titles Our Fighting Forces
, Our Army at War
, Star Spangled War Stories and All-American Men of War.
as Curt Swan
's embellisher on "Legion of Super-Heroes
" in Adventure Comics
(most issues, #369-406, June 1968 - May 1971); Superman
(most issues, #208-219, July 1968 - Aug. 1969); "Superman" in Action Comics
(#369-392, Nov. 1968 - Sept. 1970), and occasional issues of Superboy
.
there on a long stretch of Iron Man
stories beginning with Tales of Suspense
#73 (Jan. 1966), under the pseudonym "Gary Michaels". As Colan recalled, "He did a lot of Iron Man with me. He had a very slick line, which was okay on Iron Man, of course. Iron Man was made of iron, so you want it to look like metal. But when it came to stone and dark corners and garbage [laughs], he wasn't the man for that".
Later, under his own name, he would embellish Colan on some issues of Daredevil
and Tomb of Dracula
(including the introduction of Blade
, in #10); Trimpe on The Incredible Hulk; George Tuska
on Iron Man; and Paul Gulacy
on Master of Kung Fu, among other work.
From the mid-1970s, Abel inked not only for Marvel and again DC (including its Teen Titans and The Flash), but for the smaller companies Gold Key
(Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery, Grimm’s Ghost Stories, Mighty Samson, the licensed title The Twilight Zone
); Charlton Comics
(Ghost Manor, Ghostly Haunts, Haunted, Midnight Tales); Atlas/Seaboard (IronJaw, Morlock 2001); and Skywald Publications
(The Heap
, and additionally the black-and-white horror-comics magazines Nightmare and Psycho).
Baseball-fan Abel, who in the 1970s rented studio space at Neal Adams
and Dick Giordano
's Continuity Associates
, organized the Continuity softball
team that played league games in Central Park
.
After suffering a serious stroke in 1981, Abel rehabilitated his paralyzed right hand to the extent that he was able to ink and draw again — which he did through the rest of the 1980s, primarily for Marvel.
Years later, when in his sixties, Abel inked backgrounds for DC artist Murphy Anderson
, and became a proofreader in the Marvel bullpen before being partially debilitated by another stroke.
from 1967-1969 on the syndicated
comic strip
Tales of the Green Beret
, written by author Robin Moore
.
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...
best known as an inker
Inker
The inker is one of the two line artists in a traditional comic book or graphic novel. After a pencilled drawing is given to the inker, the inker uses black ink to produce refined outlines over the pencil lines...
for leading publishers 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...
and 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...
. He was DC's primary inker on the Superman titles in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and inked penciler Herb Trimpe
Herb Trimpe
Herbert W. "Herb" Trimpe Herbert W. "Herb" Trimpe Herbert W. "Herb" Trimpe (b. May 26, 1939, is an American comic book artist and occasional writer, best known for his work on The Incredible Hulk and as the first artist to draw for publication the character Wolverine, who later became a breakout...
's introduction of the popular superhero
Superhero
A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...
Wolverine
Wolverine (comics)
Wolverine is a fictional character, a superhero that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Born as James Howlett and commonly known as Logan, Wolverine is a mutant, possessing animal-keen senses, enhanced physical capabilities, three retracting bone claws on each hand and a healing...
in The Incredible Hulk #181 (Nov. 1974).
Early life and career
Abel's published work stretches to 1951, when he penciled and inked horrorHorror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
stories for such anthology
Comics anthology
Comics anthologies collect works in the medium of comics that are too short for standalone publication.- U.S. :- UK :British comics have a long tradition publishing comics anthologies, often weekly...
series as Mr. Publications' Mister Mystery, and 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...
' — the 1950s forerunner of 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...
— Journey into Unknown Worlds , and Western
Western comics
Western comics is a comics genre usually depicting the American Old West frontier and typically set during the late nineteenth century...
tales in Prize Comics' aptly title Prize Comics Western. He inked, science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
, romance
Romance comics
Romance comics is a comics genre depicting romantic love and its attendant complications such as jealousy, marriage, divorce, betrayal, and heartache. The term is generally associated with an American comic books genre published through the first three decades of the Cold War...
and war comics
War comics
War comics is a genre of comic books that gained popularity in English-speaking countries following World War II.-American war comics:Shortly after the birth of the modern comic book in the mid- to late 1930s, comics publishers began including stories of wartime adventures in the multi-genre...
for Atlas, American Comics Group
American Comics Group
American Comics Group was a New York City-based comic book publisher which operated during the Golden and Silver Age of comic books. ACG published one of the first horror comics titles, Adventures into the Unknown. Another of ACG's claims to fame was the character of Herbie Popnecker, who starred...
, Avon Comics, Harvey Comics
Harvey 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...
, and Hillman Periodicals
Hillman Periodicals
Hillman Periodicals, Inc. was an American magazine and comic book publishing company founded in 1938 by Alex L. Hillman, a former New York City book publisher...
, and later in the decade became a prolific penciler for the DC war titles Our Fighting Forces
Our Fighting Forces
Our Fighting Forces is a DC Comics war-anthology comic book series that ran for 181 issues from 1954-1978.Writer-editor Robert Kanigher and writer-artist Jack Kirby were among the comics creators whose work appeared in the title...
, Our Army at War
Our Army at War
Our Army at War was the title for a comic book published by DC Comics that featured war themed stories and was the first appearance for popular heroes such like Sgt. Rock and Enemy Ace. The series started in August 1952 and ended in February 1977....
, Star Spangled War Stories and All-American Men of War.
DC and Superman
Abel inked hundreds of DC stories, and eventually was chosen to succeed longtime "Superman family" inker George KleinGeorge Klein (comics)
George D. Klein was an American comic book artist and cartoonist whose career stretched from the 1930s and 1940s' Golden Age of comic books...
as Curt Swan
Curt Swan
Douglas Curtis Swan was an American comic book artist. The artist most associated with Superman during the period fans and historians call the Silver Age of comic books, Swan produced hundreds of covers and stories from the 1950s through the 1980s.-Early life and career:Curt Swan, whose Swedish...
's embellisher on "Legion of Super-Heroes
Legion of Super-Heroes
The Legion of Super-Heroes is a fictional superhero team in the 30th and 31st centuries of the . The team first appears in Adventure Comics #247 , and was created by Otto Binder and Al Plastino....
" in Adventure Comics
Adventure Comics
Adventure Comics was a comic book series published by DC Comics from 1935 to 1983 and then revamped from 2009 to 2011. In its first era, the series ran for 503 issues , making it the fifth-longest-running DC series, behind Detective Comics, Action Comics, Superman, and Batman...
(most issues, #369-406, June 1968 - May 1971); Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
(most issues, #208-219, July 1968 - Aug. 1969); "Superman" in Action Comics
Action Comics
Action Comics is an American comic book series that introduced Superman, the first major superhero character as the term is popularly defined...
(#369-392, Nov. 1968 - Sept. 1970), and occasional issues of Superboy
Superboy
Superboy is the name of several fictional characters that have been published by DC Comics, most of them youthful incarnations of Superman. These characters have also been the main characters of four ongoing Superboy comic book series published by DC....
.
Later career
After a reshuffling at DC c. 1970, Abel went to Marvel. He had already inked Gene ColanGene Colan
Eugene Jules "Gene" Colan was an American comic book artist best known for his work for Marvel Comics, where his signature titles include the superhero series, Daredevil, the cult-hit satiric series Howard the Duck, and The Tomb of Dracula, considered one of comics' classic horror series...
there on a long stretch of Iron Man
Iron Man
Iron Man is a fictional character, a superhero in the . The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee, developed by scripter Larry Lieber, and designed by artists Don Heck and Jack Kirby, first appearing in Tales of Suspense #39 .A billionaire playboy, industrialist and ingenious engineer,...
stories beginning with Tales of Suspense
Tales of Suspense
Tales of Suspense is the name of an American comic book series and two one-shot comics published by Marvel Comics. The first, which ran from 1959 to 1968, began as a science-fiction anthology that served as a showcase for such artists as Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and Don Heck, then featured...
#73 (Jan. 1966), under the pseudonym "Gary Michaels". As Colan recalled, "He did a lot of Iron Man with me. He had a very slick line, which was okay on Iron Man, of course. Iron Man was made of iron, so you want it to look like metal. But when it came to stone and dark corners and garbage [laughs], he wasn't the man for that".
Later, under his own name, he would embellish Colan on some issues of Daredevil
Daredevil (Marvel Comics)
Daredevil is a fictional character, a superhero in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Bill Everett, with an unspecified amount of input from Jack Kirby, and first appeared in Daredevil #1 .Living in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood...
and Tomb of Dracula
Tomb of Dracula
The Tomb of Dracula is a horror comic book series published by Marvel Comics from April 1972 to August 1979. The 70-issue series featured a group of vampire hunters who fought Count Dracula and other supernatural menaces...
(including the introduction of Blade
Blade (comics)
Blade is a fictional character, a superhero/vampire hunter in the Marvel Comics universe. Created by writer Marv Wolfman and penciller Gene Colan, his first appearance was in the comic book The Tomb of Dracula #10 as a supporting character.The character went on to alternatively star and co-star...
, in #10); Trimpe on The Incredible Hulk; George Tuska
George Tuska
George Tuska , who early in his career used a variety of pen names including Carl Larson, was an American comic book and newspaper comic strip artist best known for his 1940s work on various Captain Marvel titles and the crime fiction series Crime Does Not Pay, for and his 1960s work illustrating...
on Iron Man; and Paul Gulacy
Paul Gulacy
Paul Gulacy is an American comic book illustrator best known for his work for DC Comics and Marvel Comics, and for drawing one of the first graphic novels, Eclipse Enterprises' 1978 Sabre: Slow Fade of an Endangered Species, with writer Don McGregor.-Early life and career:Paul Gulacy began...
on Master of Kung Fu, among other work.
From the mid-1970s, Abel inked not only for Marvel and again DC (including its Teen Titans and The Flash), but for the smaller companies Gold Key
Gold Key
In fiction, a gold key is a special token granting access to and control of a mythical or ultra-private or secret bank account or vault, such as a Swiss bank account. In reality, the key is often a code word and accounts are not completely anonymous....
(Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery, Grimm’s Ghost Stories, Mighty Samson, the licensed title The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone is an American television anthology series created by Rod Serling. Each episode is a mixture of self-contained drama, psychological thriller, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, or horror, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist...
); Charlton Comics
Charlton Comics
Charlton Comics was an American comic book publishing company that existed from 1946 to 1985, having begun under a different name in 1944. It was based in Derby, Connecticut...
(Ghost Manor, Ghostly Haunts, Haunted, Midnight Tales); Atlas/Seaboard (IronJaw, Morlock 2001); and Skywald Publications
Skywald Publications
Skywald Publications is a 1970s publisher of black-and-white comics magazines, primarily the horror anthologies Nightmare, Psycho, and Scream. It also published a small line of comic books and other magazines....
(The Heap
The Heap (comics)
The Heap is the name of several fictional comic book muck-monsters, the original of which first appeared in Hillman Periodicals' Air Fighters Comics #3 , during the period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books...
, and additionally the black-and-white horror-comics magazines Nightmare and Psycho).
Baseball-fan Abel, who in the 1970s rented studio space at Neal Adams
Neal Adams
Neal Adams is an American comic book and commercial artist known for helping to create some of the definitive modern imagery of the DC Comics characters Superman, Batman, and Green Arrow; as the co-founder of the graphic design studio Continuity Associates; and as a creators-rights advocate who...
and Dick Giordano
Dick Giordano
Richard Joseph "Dick" Giordano was an American comic book artist and editor best known for introducing Charlton Comics' "Action Heroes" stable of superheroes, and serving as executive editor of then–industry leader DC Comics...
's Continuity Associates
Continuity Associates
Continuity Studios is a New York City- and Los Angeles-based art and illustration studio formed by cartoonists Neal Adams and Dick Giordano...
, organized the Continuity softball
Softball
Softball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of 10 to 14 players. It is a direct descendant of baseball although there are some key differences: softballs are larger than baseballs, and the pitches are thrown underhand rather than overhand...
team that played league games in Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
.
After suffering a serious stroke in 1981, Abel rehabilitated his paralyzed right hand to the extent that he was able to ink and draw again — which he did through the rest of the 1980s, primarily for Marvel.
Years later, when in his sixties, Abel inked backgrounds for DC artist Murphy Anderson
Murphy Anderson
Murphy Anderson is an American comic book artist, known as one of the premier inkers of his era, who has worked for companies such as DC Comics for over fifty years, starting in the 1930s-'40s Golden Age of Comic Books...
, and became a proofreader in the Marvel bullpen before being partially debilitated by another stroke.
Comic strips
Outside comic books, Abel inked John CelardoJohn Celardo
John Celardo is a comic strip artist.After studying at the Art Students League of New York and the New York School of Industrial Arts he began his professional contributing sports cartoons to Street & Smith.-Comic books:He then drifted into comic books, working among other places at the...
from 1967-1969 on the syndicated
Print syndication
Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. They offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content of which they own/represent copyrights....
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....
Tales of the Green Beret
United States Army Special Forces
The United States Army Special Forces, also known as the Green Berets because of their distinctive service headgear, are a special operations force tasked with six primary missions: unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, special reconnaissance, direct action, hostage rescue, and...
, written by author Robin Moore
Robin Moore
Robert Lowell "Robin" Moore, Jr. was an American writer who is most known for his books The Green Berets, The French Connection: A True Account of Cops, Narcotics, and International Conspiracy and, with Xaviera Hollander and Yvonne Dunleavy, The Happy Hooker: My Own Story.Moore also co-authored...
.
External links
- The Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators
- Comic Art & Graffix Gallery: Murphy Anderson interview (1994). WebCite archive
- "Remembering Jack Abel", Comic Book Marketplace, vol. 2, #46 (April 1997): Reminiscences by Gene ColanGene ColanEugene Jules "Gene" Colan was an American comic book artist best known for his work for Marvel Comics, where his signature titles include the superhero series, Daredevil, the cult-hit satiric series Howard the Duck, and The Tomb of Dracula, considered one of comics' classic horror series...
, Peter DavidPeter DavidPeter Allen David , often abbreviated PAD, is an American writer of comic books, novels, television, movies and video games...
, Joe GiellaJoe GiellaJoe Giella is an American comic book artist best known as a DC Comics inker during the late 1950s and 1960s period historians and fans call the Silver Age of comic books.-Early life and career:...
, Russ HeathRuss HeathRussell Heath, Jr. is an American artist best known for his comic book work — particularly his DC Comics war stories for several decades and his 1960s art for Playboy magazine's Little Annie Fanny featurettes — and for his commercial art, two pieces of which, depicting Roman and...
, Joe KubertJoe KubertJoe Kubert is an American comic book artist who went on to found The Kubert School. He is best known for his work on the DC Comics characters Sgt. Rock and Hawkman...
, Alan KupperbergAlan KupperbergAlan Kupperberg is an American comic artist known for working in both comic books and newspaper strips.-Career:Kupperberg began writing and drawing for Marvel Comics in 1974, mostly doing fill-ins and one-shots...
, and Steve MitchellSteve MitchellSteve Mitchell is a retired American basketball player for the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He was selected with the 12th pick in the second round of the 1986 NBA Draft by the Washington Bullets.-Notes:...
Additional WebCitation archive made June 15, 2010.