Carl Pfeufer
Encyclopedia
Carl T. Pfeufer was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 comic-book artist, magazine illustrator, painter and sculptor
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...

 best known as one of the earliest contributors to American comic books; one of the primary early artists of the 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...

 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 —...

 the Sub-Mariner; and the longtime artist of Western
Western fiction
Western fiction is a genre of literature set in the American Old West frontier and typically set from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century. Well-known writers of Western fiction include Zane Grey from the early 1900s and Louis L'Amour from the mid 20th century...

 hero Tom Mix
Tom Mix
Thomas Edwin "Tom" Mix was an American film actor and the star of many early Western movies. He made a reported 336 films between 1910 and 1935, all but nine of which were silent features...

's comic books.

Early life and career

Though raised in New York City
New 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...

, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, Carl Pfeufer was born in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, as were his three older brothers, Herbert J., Alfred E., and Emil F. Pfeuffer, while younger brothers James F. and William G. Pfeufer were born in Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 and 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...

, respectively, and sister Ethel M. Pfeufer, the youngest child, and mother Anna Pfeufer, were born in New York State. The family immigrated
Immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...

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

 in 1913. No father is listed in the 1930 federal census.

Per differing sources, Pfeufer either attended the college Cooper Union
Cooper Union
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly referred to simply as Cooper Union, is a privately funded college in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States, located at Cooper Square and Astor Place...

 directly after high school, or attended Cooper Union at age 16 after attending a two-year vocational school
Vocational school
A vocational school , providing vocational education, is a school in which students are taught the skills needed to perform a particular job...

 for commercial art
Commercial art
Commercial art is historically a subsector of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. The term has become increasingly anachronistic in favor of more contemporary terms such as graphic design and advertising art.Commercial art traditionally...

. He won a Hors Concours award for his life drawings, and later attended the National Academy of Design
National Academy of Design
The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...

, where he was compelled to turn down a Prix de Rome
Prix de Rome
The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...

 scholarship due to family obligations. Regardless, he continued studying at the Grand Central School of Art
Grand Central School of Art
The Grand Central School of Art was an American art school in New York City, founded in 1923 by the painters Edmund Greacen, Walter Leighton Clark and John Singer Sargent. The school was established and run by the Grand Central Art Galleries, an artists' cooperative founded by Sargent, Greacen,...

, the Art Students League of New York
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...

, and privately with the American Impressionist painter William Starkweather.

In the 1930s, Pfeufer found work as a staff artist for the newspaper the Brooklyn Eagle
Brooklyn Eagle
The Brooklyn Daily Bulletin began publishing when the original Eagle folded in 1955. In 1996 it merged with a newly revived Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and now publishes a morning paper five days a week under the Brooklyn Daily Eagle name...

. He also did magazine illustration, both for pulp magazines
Pulp fiction
Pulp fiction may refer to:* pulp magazines, short stories presented in a magazine format, printed on cheaply made wood-pulp paper* Pulp Fiction, a 1994 film directed by Quentin Tarantino...

 and for glossy magazines such as Macfadden Publications
Macfadden Publications
Macfadden Communications Group is a publisher of business magazines. It has a historical link with a company started in 1898 by Bernarr Macfadden that was one of the largest magazine publishers of the twentieth century.-Macfadden Publications:...

' Liberty, for which he painted covers.

Golden Age of Comic Books

Pfeufer's first comic-book work appears in 1936, at the dawn of the new medium, with his and writer Bob Moore's features "Tad of the Tambark" and "Don Dixon and the Hidden Empire", which initially appeared together on one or two pages per issue in Dell Comics
Dell Comics
Dell Comics was the comic book publishing arm of Dell Publishing, which got its start in pulp magazines. It published comics from 1929 to 1973. At its peak, it was the most prominent and successful American company in the medium...

' Popular Comics #6-8 (cover-dated July-Sept. 1936). It is unclear if these features were done as original comic-book material or if these were reprints of comic strips, as most early comic books contained; Who's Who of American Comic Books 1929-1999 lists "Don Dixon and the Hidden Empire" as a 1935-1942 strip for the Watkins Syndicate, and "Tad of the Tan Bark" (as the source spells it) as a 1936-1942 strip for an unspecified syndicate.

Regardless, these two featues, published both in Popular Comics and Dell's The Funnies
The Funnies
The Funnies was the name of two American publications from Dell Publishing, the first of these a seminal, 1920s precursor of comic books, and the second a standard 1930s comic book.-The Funnies :In 1929, George T...

, grew to two pages each as of Popular Comics #28 (May 1938). Following the evolution of the nascent medium during the 1930s-1940s period known as the Golden Age of Comic Books
Golden Age of Comic Books
The Golden Age of Comic Books was a period in the history of American comic books, generally thought of as lasting from the late 1930s until the late 1940s or early 1950s...

, "Don Dixon" had become a six-page comic-book feature by the time its creators switched publishers and it was appearing in Centaur Comics' Amazing Mystery Funnies vol. 2, #-8-9 (Aug.-Sept. 1939). By then Pfeufer had succeeded John Hales as artist on another feature, "Gordon Fife and the Boy King", in Dell's The Comics and Eastern Color's Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics, where all three of Pfeufer's features were appearing by 1941. Who's Who lists this as a Watkins Syndicate strip for which Pfeufer drew the daily from 1936 to 1942 and the Sunday strip from 1940 to 1942. That source additionally lists another early Pfeufer feature, "Scissor Sketches", drawn from 1935 to 1937.

Pfeufer's first confirmed Sub-Mariner art, for 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...

' 1940s forerunner, 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....

, was the 12-page story "Fingers of Death" in Marvel Mystery Comics
Marvel Mystery Comics
Marvel Mystery Comics is an American comic book series published during the 1930s-1940s period known to fans and historians as the Golden Age of Comic Books...

#32 (June 1942), though Pfeufer may have 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...

 over character-creator Bill Everett
Bill Everett
William Blake "Bill" Everett, also known as William Blake and Everett Blake was a comic book writer-artist best known for creating Namor the Sub-Mariner and co-creating Daredevil for Marvel Comics...

's pencil art, or even supplied some penciling himself, as early as the Sub-Mariner story in The Human Torch
Jim Hammond
Herbert Edward 'Jim' Hammond was an English professional football player for Fulham and a cricket player for Sussex.Having been signed from non-league side Lewes F.C., Hammond played for Fulham between 1928 and 1938, scoring 150 goals in 342 games. He was once called up for duty with the national...

#6 (Winter 1941). Working initially through the studio Funnies, Inc., one of the comic-book "packagers" of the time that supplied features and complete comic books to publishers testing the waters of the new medium, Pfeufer drew the aquatic antihero in Marvel Mystery Comics, Sub-Mariner Comics (beginning with #6, Summer 1942), All Winners Comics
All Winners Comics
All Winners Comics was the name of two American comic book series of the 1940s, both published by Marvel Comics' predecessor, Timely Comics, during the period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books. A superhero anthology comic in both cases, they variously featured such star...

, All Select Comics
All Select Comics
All Select Comics is an American comic book series published by Timely Comics, the 1940s predecessor of Marvel Comics, during the period fans and historians call the Golden Age of comic books...

, and at least one issue of Captain America Comics. He continued with the character though Marvel Mystery Comics #79 (Dec. 1946), with an additional, four-page Sub-Mariner story turning up two years later in Blonde Phantom Comics #20 (Nov. 1948).

As comics historian and one-time Marvel editor-in-chief Roy Thomas
Roy Thomas
Roy William Thomas, Jr. is an American comic book writer and editor, and Stan Lee's first successor as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. He is possibly best known for introducing the pulp magazine hero Conan the Barbarian to American comics, with a series that added to the storyline of Robert E...

 described, "When Bill Everett joined the army in 1942, his major successor as Sub-Mariner artist was Carl Pfeufer. Pfeufer soon evolved Namor's musculature and vaguely triangular head to almost grotesque proportions, but basically filled Bill's shoes admirably."

When work dissipated at Timely in 1946, Pfeufer began drawing for Fawcett Comics
Fawcett Comics
Fawcett Comics, a division of Fawcett Publications, was one of several successful comic book publishers during the Golden Age of Comic Books in the 1940s...

, illustrating such features as "Mr. Scarlet
Mr. Scarlet
Mister Scarlet is the name of several fictional characters, comic book superheroes published by DC Comics. Brian Butler the original Mister Scarlet debuted in Wow Comics #1 , and was created by France Herron and Jack Kirby....

" and "Commando Yank" in Wow Comics. Then, with inker John Jordan, Pfeufer began a four-and-a-half-year stint penciling the licensed Western
Western comics
Western comics is a comics genre usually depicting the American Old West frontier and typically set during the late nineteenth century...

 character Tom Mix
Tom Mix
Thomas Edwin "Tom" Mix was an American film actor and the star of many early Western movies. He made a reported 336 films between 1910 and 1935, all but nine of which were silent features...

 in Master Comics #97-122 and 124-133, the final issue (Nov. 1948 - April 1953), as well as very occasionally in other Fawcett titles. Comics historian R. C. Harvey
R. C. Harvey
Robert C. Harvey , popularly known as R. C. Harvey, is an author, critic and cartoonist. He has written a number of books on the history of the medium, with special focus on the history of the comic strip, and he has also worked as a freelance cartoonist.Harvey describes himself as having created...

 opined of Pfeufer's "Tom Mix" art, "For continuous, dynamic action sequences, Pfeufer simply cannot be surpassed."

During this time, Pfeufer also drew three syndicated comic strips: Chisolm Kid, which he also wrote (1950-1956); Alan O'Dare (1951-1954); and, for the New York Herald-Tribune, the daily and Sunday Bantam Prince (1951-1954).

Later life and career

In the 1950s and 1960s, Pfeufer continued to do syndicated comics features, drawing Our Faith (1955-1962), Thoughts (1958-1962), and Our Space Age (1960-1969). He drew unspecified "adaptations" for Dell Comics
Dell Comics
Dell Comics was the comic book publishing arm of Dell Publishing, which got its start in pulp magazines. It published comics from 1929 to 1973. At its peak, it was the most prominent and successful American company in the medium...

, which often licensed film and television properties, from 1957 to 1959, and did illustrations for magazines including Off Beat Detective Stories, from the Holyoke
Holyoke, Massachusetts
Holyoke is a city in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States, between the western bank of the Connecticut River and the Mount Tom Range of mountains. As of the 2010 Census, the city had a population of 39,880...

, 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...

-based Pontiac Publishing, as well as for Outdoor Life
Outdoor Life
Outdoor Life is an outdoors magazine about hunting, fishing, survival and camping. It is a sister magazine of Field & Stream. Together with Sports Afield, they are considered the Big Three of American outdoor publishing. Outdoor Life launched in Denver, Colorado in January 1898. Founder and...

and Readers Digest.

His next known comic-book work appears in a handful of superhero and science-fiction stories published in 1966 and 1967 by 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...

, best known for such children's characters as Richie Rich
Richie Rich
Richard "Richie" Rich, Jr. is a fictional character that debuted in Harvey Comics' Little Dot #1, cover-dated September 1953. Dubbed "the poor little rich boy", Richie is the only child of fantastically wealthy parents and is the world's richest kid. He lives and works in an expensive mansion and...

 and 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...

. With writer Otto Binder
Otto Binder
Otto Oscar Binder was an American author of science fiction and non-fiction books and stories, and comic books...

, Pfeuffer created the single-appearance features "Man from SRAM", starring an interplanetary policemen, in Jigsaw #2; "Robolink", in Spyman
Spyman
Spyman was a short-lived comic book superhero published by Harvey Comics's Harvey Thriller line in the late 1960s. Three issues were published, from September, 1966 to February, 1967....

#2; "Alien Boy" in Thrill-O-Rama #3 (all cover-dated Dec. 1966); and "Campy Champ" in Spyman #3 (Feb. 1967). He also drew a pair of two-page science-fiction humor pieces in Unearthly Spectaculars #2-3 (Dec. 1966 - March 1967).

Again with Binder, Pfeufer co-created the military superhero character Super Green Beret, which appeared in the two issues published (April-June 1967) of the namesake series from the short-lived Lightning Comics
Lightning Comics
-Lightning Comics :Lightning Comics was a short-lived comic book publisher in 1967. It published two titles:*Fatman the Human Flying Saucer, created by writer Otto Binder and artist C. C. Beck, and lasting three issues....

. He also drew romance comics
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...

 in 1967 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...

' Girls' Love Stories and Secret Hearts.

These were Pfeufer's last new comic-book works, although an evidently inventoried, five-page standalone horror story, "The House on Brook Street", appeared in 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...

' Giant-Size Chillers #2 (May 1975), with no known previous publication.

His book-cover art includes the Bantam Books
Bantam Books
Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by Random House, the German media corporation subsidiary of Bertelsmann; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. Kramer, and Ian and Betty Ballantine...

 paperbacks Tales from the Twilight Zone
Twilight zone
-Television series and spinoffs:*The Twilight Zone, the anthology television series and its franchise:**The Twilight Zone , the 1959–1964 original television series***Twilight Zone: The Movie, a 1983 film based on the original series...

(1977) and Stories from the Twilight Zone (1979).

Late in Pfeufer's life, the artist devoted himself to painting and sculpture. He was a resident of Kerr County
Kerr County, Texas
Kerr County is a county located on the Edwards Plateau in the U.S. state of Texas. In 2010, its population was 49,625. Its county seat is Kerrville. Kerr County was named by Joshua D. Brown for his fellow Kentucky native, James Kerr, a congressman of the Republic of Texas...

, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

, at the time of his death at age 69.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK