Mortimer Leav is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 artist

Artist

An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

 best known as co-creator of the influential comic-book character 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 for his advertising

Advertising

Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...

 art, which included some of the earliest TV commercial storyboard

Storyboard

Storyboards are graphic organizers in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence....

s — among them, for Procter & Gamble

Procter & Gamble

Procter & Gamble is a Fortune 500 American multinational corporation headquartered in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio and manufactures a wide range of consumer goods....

's venerable Charmin

Charmin

Charmin is a brand-name of toilet paper manufactured by Procter & Gamble.-History:The Charmin name was first created in 1928 by the Hoberg Paper Company in Green Bay, Wisconsin. In 1950, Hoberg changed its name to Charmin Paper Company and continued to produce bath tissue, paper napkins, and other...

 bathroom-tissue

Toilet paper

Toilet paper is a soft paper product used to maintain personal hygiene after human defecation or urination. However, it can also be used for other purposes such as blowing one's nose when one has a cold or absorbing common spills around the house, although paper towels are more used for the latter...

 character, the grocer Mr. Whipple

Mr. Whipple

Mr. George Whipple is a fictional supermarket manager featured in television commercials and print advertisements that ran in the United States and Canada from 1964 to 1985 for Charmin toilet paper...

.

Early life and career

Mort Leav began his professional career in 1936 with New York City's Editors Press Service, supplying illustrations for articles 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....

 to South American newspapers. Five years later, he entered the field of comic books at the Jerry Iger Studio

Jerry Iger

Samuel Maxwell "Jerry" Iger was an American cartoonist. With business partner Will Eisner he co-founder of Eisner & Iger, a comic book packager that produced comics on demand for new publishers during the late-1930s and 1940s period known to fans and historians as the Golden Age of Comic...

, one of a handful of "packagers" that supplied outsourced comics to publishers entering the new medium

Mass media

Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...

. Earning $30 a week — a marked improvement on the $78 monthly he'd earned his first year at EPS — Leav penciled and inked

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...

 the feature "Jungleman" in 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...

' Champ Comics (under the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 "Stanley Maxwell"); "ZX-5, Spies in Action" in Fiction House

Fiction House

Fiction House is an American publisher of pulp magazines and comic books that existed from the 1920s to the 1950s. Its comics division was best known for its pinup-style good girl art, as epitomized by the company's most popular character, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.-History:-Jumbo and Jack...

's Jumbo Comics (under the pen name "Major Thorpe"); "The Hangman" for MLJ

Archie Comics

Archie Comics is an American comic book publisher headquartered in the Village of Mamaroneck, Town of Mamaroneck, New York, known for its many series featuring the fictional teenagers Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle and Jughead Jones. The characters were created by...

; and, for Quality Comics

Quality Comics

Quality Comics was an American comic book publishing company that operated from 1939 to 1956 and was an influential creative force in what historians and fans call the Golden Age of comic books....

, "Sally O'Neil, Policewoman" in National Comics, and "Hell Diver" in Hit Comics, among others. He reportedly also drew stories for the Quality hit characters Blackhawk

Blackhawk (comics)

Blackhawk, a long-running comic book series, was also a film serial, a radio series and a novel. The comic book was published first by Quality Comics and later by DC Comics. The series was created by Will Eisner, Chuck Cuidera, and Bob Powell, but the artist most associated with the feature is Reed...

, Doll Man

Doll Man

Note: This article is about the Quality Comics character. For the Full Moon Features film Dollman, see Dollman . For the article on the movie's titular character, please see Brick Bardo....

, Kid Eternity

Kid Eternity

Kid Eternity is a comic book superhero who first premiered in Hit Comics #25, published by Quality Comics in December, 1942. The character - as well as all of Quality's intellectual properties were sold to DC Comics in 1956...

, and Uncle Sam

Uncle Sam (comics)

Uncle Sam is a fictional character, a DC Comics superhero based on national personification of the United States, Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam first appeared in National Comics #1 and was created by Will Eisner.-Quality Comics:...

.

The Heap and postwar work

Leav and writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

 Harry Stein co-created the World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 aviator

Aviator

An aviator is a person who flies an aircraft. The first recorded use of the term was in 1887, as a variation of 'aviation', from the Latin avis , coined in 1863 by G. de la Landelle in Aviation Ou Navigation Aérienne...

 character Skywolf in 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...

' Air Fighters Comics #2 (Nov. 1942), and in the following month's issue introduced the "muck creature" the Heap — a progenitor, along with the title character of Theodore Sturgeon

Theodore Sturgeon

Theodore Sturgeon was an American science fiction author.His most famous novel is More Than Human .-Biography:...

's short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 "It", of the popular 1970s characters Swamp Thing

Swamp Thing

Swamp Thing, a fictional character, is a plant elemental in the created by Len Wein and Berni Wrightson. He first appeared in House of Secrets #92 in a stand-alone horror story set in the early 20th century . The Swamp Thing then returned in his own series, set in the contemporary world and in...

 and Man-Thing

Man-Thing

The Man-Thing is a fictional character, a monster in publications from Marvel Comics. Created by writers Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, and Gerry Conway and artist Gray Morrow, the character first appeared in Savage Tales #1 , and went on to be featured in various titles and in his own series, including...

, among others.

Leav was drafted

Conscription

Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...

 in 1943 and did his military service as an illustrator for U.S. Army magazines, while moonlighting for comic books. Upon returning to civilian life, he drew, per one source, several Captain America

Captain America

Captain America is a fictional character, a superhero that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in Captain America Comics #1 , from Marvel Comics' 1940s predecessor, Timely Comics, and was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby...

 stories for Timely Comics

Timely Comics

Timely Comics, an imprint of Timely Publications, was the earliest comic book arm of American publisher Martin Goodman, and the entity that would evolve by the 1960s to become Marvel Comics....

, the 1940s precursor 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...

, but this remain uncorroborated by such standard references as the Grand Comics Database and Atlas Tales, the latter of which lists only two 1942-43 Destroyer stories as Leav's Timely output.

In 1946, Leav became art director

Art director

The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....

 for publisher Ruth "Ray" Hermann's Orbit Publications

Orbit Publications

Orbit Publications was a publishing house operated by Rae Herman known for its comic books of the 1940s and 1950s "Golden Age of Comic Books"...

. He drew the bulk of that company's comic-book covers and lead stories, including for the crime title Wanted Comics. By 1950, he was drawing for The Westerner Comics (a.k.a. Will Bill Pecos Westerner) and Love Diary for the Orbit-related, multi-named firm Our Publishing Co. / Toytown / Patches. Leav would also contribute stories to Lev Gleason Publications

Lev Gleason Publications

Lev Gleason Publications, founded by Leverett Gleason, was the publisher of a number of popular comic books during the 1940s and early 1950s, including Daredevil, Crime Does Not Pay, and Boy Comics....

' The Amazing Adventures of Buster Crabbe

Buster Crabbe

Clarence Linden "Buster" Crabbe was an American athlete and actor, who starred in a number of popular serials in the 1930s and 1940s.-Birth:...

in 1954 and do some work for Ziff-Davis romance comics and for the "Triple Nickel Books" comics of publishers Woody Gelman

Woody Gelman

Woodrow Gelman , better known as Woody Gelman, was a publisher, a cartoonist, a novelist and an artist-writer for animation and comic books. As the publisher of Nostalgia Press, he pioneered the reprinting of vintage comic strips in quality hardcovers and trade paperbacks...

 and Ben Solomon before leaving the field.

Later life and career

Leav spent two years as a freelance commercial artist before going on staff at an advertising agency. He drew some of the earliest storyboards for television commercials. He retired in 1978, and taught at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art

Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art

The Kubert School, formerly the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art or Joe Kubert School, located in Dover, New Jersey, is a three-year technical school that teaches the principles of sequential art and the particular craft of the comics industry as well as commercial illustration...

 in Dover

Dover, New Jersey

Dover is a town in Morris County, New Jersey on the Rockaway River. Dover is west of New York City and west of Newark, New Jersey. As of the United States Census, 2000, the town's population was 18,188.-Geography:...

, New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

, from 1982 to 1985.

His last place of residence was Beverly

Beverly, Massachusetts

Beverly is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 39,343 on , which differs by no more than several hundred from the 39,862 obtained in the 2000 census. A resort, residential and manufacturing community on the North Shore, Beverly includes Beverly Farms and Prides...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

.