Ernie Schroeder
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
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...
artist and a commercial illustrator
Illustrator
An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...
and sculptor, best known for drawing and co-writing 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...
' influential muck-monster the Heap from 1949 to 1953.
Other characters with which Schroeder is associated include Hillman's Airboy
Airboy
Airboy is a fictional aviator hero of an American comic book series initially published by Hillman Periodicals during the World War II-era time period fans and historians call the Golden Age of comic books. He was created by writers Charles Biro and Dick Wood and artist Al Camy.-Golden Age:Airboy...
and 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...
' Shock Gibson
Shock Gibson
Shock Gibson is a fictional comic book superhero who first appeared in Speed Comics #1 , from Brookwood Publications, a company later absorbed by Harvey Comics). He was created by artist Maurice Scott, who drew it through issue #11, and an unknown writer...
and Spirit of '76
Spirit of '76 (comics)
The Spirit of '76 is the name of two fictional comic book characters, one each from Harvey Comics and Marvel Comics.-Harvey Comics:The first comics character by this name is a patriotic superhero created by writer Gary Blakey and artist Bob Powell in Harvey's Pocket Comics #1...
.
Early life and career
Ernie Schroeder, in a 2004 interview, described a family life in which his future father was a West Point graduate and Spanish-American WarSpanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...
veteran who after that conflict settled in the Philippine Islands, and who met Schroeder's future mother, the daughter of an amusement park
Amusement park
thumb|Cinderella Castle in [[Magic Kingdom]], [[Disney World]]Amusement and theme parks are terms for a group of entertainment attractions and rides and other events in a location for the enjoyment of large numbers of people...
owner, while on a visit to the United States. Schroeder said that upon marriage, the couple lived in the Philippines, where his mother worked as a hospital nurse; they later returned to the U.S., where his father played a Confederate
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
officer in the D.W. Griffith film The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and based on the novel and play The Clansman, both by Thomas Dixon, Jr. Griffith also co-wrote the screenplay , and co-produced the film . It was released on February 8, 1915...
, made a fortune with a New York City silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
-polish company called Noxon, and sold Ford truck
Truck
A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, with the smallest being mechanically similar to an automobile...
s in 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...
, 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...
, where Schroeder was born, before leaving the family when Schroeder was very young. The artist said he lived with his grandmother for a short time until his mother became resident nurse at the estate of Jesse Jay Ricks president of the Union Carbide & Carbon Corporation
Union Carbide
Union Carbide Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company. It currently employs more than 2,400 people. Union Carbide primarily produces chemicals and polymers that undergo one or more further conversions by customers before reaching consumers. Some are high-volume...
, and that Schroeder then grew up in a wealthy household of four boys, where family guests included Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."-Biography:Sandburg was born in Galesburg,...
.
Schroeder later studied under George Bridgman
George Bridgman
George Brant Bridgman was a Canadian-American painter, writer, and teacher in the fields of anatomy and figure drawing. Bridgman taught anatomy for artists at the Art Students League of New York for some 45 years....
and George Grosz
George Grosz
Georg Ehrenfried Groß was a German artist known especially for his savagely caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s...
at the Art Students League
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...
, in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. He joined the U.S. Merchant Marine in 1936. Leaving the service by 1939, Schroeder got married, had a child, and began working as a textile
Textile
A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands...
designer. As 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...
was beginning, he began working in a machine shop, making tools for the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation
Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation
The Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, later Grumman Aerospace Corporation, was a leading 20th century U.S. producer of military and civilian aircraft...
's PTB bomber. After meeting comic-book artist Bob Powell
Bob Powell (comics)
Bob Powell né Stanislav Robert Pawlowski was an American comic book artist known for his work during the 1930-40s Golden Age of comic books, including on the features "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle" and "Mr. Mystic". He received a belated credit in 1999 for co-writing the debut of the popular...
, Schroeder quit the machine shop to pursue art, but a month later 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...
into the infantry
Infantry
Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...
and stationed at Camp Blanding
Camp Blanding
Camp Blanding Joint Training Center is the primary military reservation and training base for the Florida National Guard, both the Florida Army National Guard and certain non-flying activities of the Florida Air National Guard. The installation is located in Clay County, Florida near the city of...
, near Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Florida in terms of both population and land area, and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. It is the county seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968...
. There he drew for the camp newspaper, The Bayonet, and drew some of his first comic books; his earliest known confirmed credit is penciling the 13-page story "The Black Lagoon" in Buster Brown
Buster Brown
Buster Brown was a comic strip character created in 1902 by Richard Felton Outcault who was known for his association with the Brown Shoe Company. This mischievous young boy was loosely based on a boy near Outcault's home in Flushing, New York...
Comic Book #23 (1945).
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
waiting to be shipped with the planned invasion forces to Japan, news came that the atomic bomb had been dropped, precipitating the end of the war. Schroeder, who had four children by then, was discharged from the service.
Schroeder eventually divorced his first wife, and remarried. He had children with both.
Airboy and the Heap
From 1946 to 1949, Schroeder drew and also occasionally wrote for Parents Magazine PressParents (magazine)
Parents, published by Meredith Corporation, is the oldest parenting publication in the U.S. It was first published in October 1926.Its editorial focus is on the daily needs and concerns of mothers with young children. The glossy monthly features information about child health, safety, behavior,...
' non-fiction history series True Comics. Other work for that company included art for the comic books Bigbrain Billy, Calling All Boys, and Calling All Kids.
Introduced by Powell to 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...
principals Alfred
Alfred Harvey
Alfred Harvey was the founder of comic book publisher Harvey Comics and the creator of the comic book characters Little Dot, Richie Rich, and Adam Awards....
and Leon Harvey, Schroeder did uncredited art for such company characters as the Zebra, Shock Gibson
Shock Gibson
Shock Gibson is a fictional comic book superhero who first appeared in Speed Comics #1 , from Brookwood Publications, a company later absorbed by Harvey Comics). He was created by artist Maurice Scott, who drew it through issue #11, and an unknown writer...
and Spirit of '76
Spirit of '76 (comics)
The Spirit of '76 is the name of two fictional comic book characters, one each from Harvey Comics and Marvel Comics.-Harvey Comics:The first comics character by this name is a patriotic superhero created by writer Gary Blakey and artist Bob Powell in Harvey's Pocket Comics #1...
. He then began a long stint at 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...
, penciling and inking
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 adventures of 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...
hero Airboy
Airboy
Airboy is a fictional aviator hero of an American comic book series initially published by Hillman Periodicals during the World War II-era time period fans and historians call the Golden Age of comic books. He was created by writers Charles Biro and Dick Wood and artist Al Camy.-Golden Age:Airboy...
in Airboy Comics, from vol. 5, #11 (Dec. 1948) through the final issue, vol. 10, #4 (May 1953).
With vol. 6, #8 (Sept. 1949), Schroeder additionally began drawing the backup feature "The Heap", starring a shambling, elemental muck monster created by Mort Leav
Mort Leav
Mortimer Leav is an American artist best known as co-creator of the influential comic-book character the Heap, and for his advertising art, which included some of the earliest TV commercial storyboards — among them, for Procter & Gamble's venerable Charmin bathroom-tissue character, the...
and Harry Stein in 1942, and which decades later served as an inspiration 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...
' 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 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...
' 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...
. The feature ran through the final issue.
Herb Rogoff, an editor at Hillman and at Ziff-Davis, recalled in a 2004 interview that Schroeder "wrote a lot of his own stories on 'Airboy' and 'The Heap'. His spelling was atrocious and we had to straighten out some of his sentence structures, but he was very imaginative. He was just natively bright, and was a marvelous conceptualist. Ernie and [Hillman's comic-book editor-in-chief] Ed Cronin plotted stories together at lunch, and then Ernie would go home and write them. He and I worked the same way on G.I. Joe at Ziff-Davis."
Later comics career
When Hillman Periodicals ceased its comic-book line in 1953, Schroeder drew the single issue of Toby PressToby Press
Toby Press was an American comic-book company that published from 1949 to 1955. Founded by Elliott Caplin, brother of cartoonist Al Capp and himself an established comic strip writer, the company published reprints of Capp's Li'l Abner strip; licensed-character comics starring such film and...
' medieval-adventure comic The Black Knight, and contributed to the company's anthology
Anthology
An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...
comic Tales of Horror. He did some work the following year for Prize Comics' Black Magic
Black magic
Black magic is the type of magic that draws on assumed malevolent powers or is used with the intention to kill, steal, injure, cause misfortune or destruction, or for personal gain without regard to harmful consequences. As a term, "black magic" is normally used by those that do not approve of its...
, under the celebrated writer-artist publishing team of Joe Simon
Joe Simon
Joseph Henry "Joe" Simon is an American comic book writer, artist, editor, and publisher. Simon created or co-created many important characters in the 1930s-1940s Golden Age of Comic Books and served as the first editor of Timely Comics, the company that would evolve into Marvel Comics.With his...
and Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby , born Jacob Kurtzberg, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor regarded by historians and fans as one of the major innovators and most influential creators in the comic book medium....
. In 1955, Schroeder drew for the Ziff-Davis comic book G.I. Joe (unrelated to the toy line
G.I. Joe
G.I. Joe is a line of action figures produced by the toy company Hasbro. The initial product offering represented four of the branches of the U.S. armed forces with the Action Soldier , Action Sailor , Action Pilot , Action Marine and later on, the Action Nurse...
, which debuted the following decade). In 1961 and 1962, he contributed to Simon's satirical-humor
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
magazine Sick
Sick (magazine)
Sick was a satirical-humor magazine published from 1960 to 1980, lasting 134 issues. It was created by comic-book writer-artist Joe Simon, who also edited the title until the late 1960s. Sick was published by Crestwood Publications until issue #62 , when it was taken over by Hewfred Publications...
.
Other 1950s comics work includes issues of 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...
' Captain Davey Jones, Health Publications' Panic, Harvey Comics' Alarming Tales, Pierce Publishing's Frantic, and Ziff-Davis' Buddies.
His last recorded comic-book credits are pencils and inks for two five-page, anthological fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
stories in Harvey's Black Cat Mystic
Black Cat (Harvey Comics)
The Black Cat is a comic book adventure heroine published by Harvey Comics from 1941 to 1951. Harvey also published reprints of the character in both the mid fifties and the early sixties...
#62 (March 1958). At age 88, however, Schroeder painted Airboy and the Heap for the cover of the comics-history magazine Alter Ego #42 (Nov. 2004), and additional new sketches to accompany an interview with him.
Other careers
Short Stories
Short Stories may refer to:*A plural for Short story*Short Stories , an American pulp magazine published from 1890-1959*Short Stories, a 1954 collection by O. E...
by Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
, Doris E. Kaye and other writers. He additionally became a sketch artist for New York City advertising agencies, working on staff for a time at the firm Norman, Craig & Kummel.
Schroeder said in his 2004 interview that in the early 1960s, he followed an uncle into a boat
Boat
A boat is a watercraft of any size designed to float or plane, to provide passage across water. Usually this water will be inland or in protected coastal areas. However, boats such as the whaleboat were designed to be operated from a ship in an offshore environment. In naval terms, a boat is a...
-building business in the Sheepshead Bay section 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...
, working at this for approximately 10 years. In the same interview, however, he says that after having "gone broke", he relocated his family to Seattle, Washington
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
, in 1963. There he was later hired for the art department at the aircraft manufacturer Boeing
Boeing
The Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...
, headquartered in a suburb. During his time with the company he also spent six months at its "Vertol" division in Ridley Township, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, a suburb of Philadelphia.
Schroeder left Boeing in 1970 to become, he said, chief sculptor of the Franklin Mint
Franklin Mint
The Franklin Mint is a private corporation founded by Joseph Segel in 1964. The private mint operated from Wawa, Pennsylvania but that operation has now closed...
, located in another Philadelphia suburb, Aston Township
Aston Township, Pennsylvania
Aston Township is a township in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. As one of the first townships incorporated in Pennsylvania, the present-day boundaries of Aston were drawn in 1945 when the northwestern portion of the township, seceded from the township over a proposed tax hike, and...
. There he helped to design and produce commemorative coins. Leaving this position in 1979, he moved to Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, where he freelanced for Franklin and other mints for approximately four years before retiring. His sculpture work afterward included a life-sized sabre-tooth cat model for a museum
Museum
A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...
in Silver Spring, Maryland
Silver Spring, Maryland
Silver Spring is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. It had a population of 71,452 at the 2010 census, making it the fourth most populous place in Maryland, after Baltimore, Columbia, and Germantown.The urbanized, oldest, and...
; he gave the model an articulated jaw that opened when viewers pressed a button on the floor. Schroeder also sculpted a bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
fountain
Fountain
A fountain is a piece of architecture which pours water into a basin or jets it into the air either to supply drinking water or for decorative or dramatic effect....
in the public square of his town.
Later life
Schroeder, who lived in Port Jefferson, New YorkPort Jefferson, New York
The Incorporated Village of Port Jefferson is located in the town of Brookhaven in Suffolk County, New York on the North Shore of Long Island. As of the 2000 United States Census, the village population was 7,837...
and Glen Cove, New York
Glen Cove, New York
Glen Cove is a city in Nassau County, New York on the North Shore of Long Island. As of the United States 2010 Census, the city population was 26,964....
, both on Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
during the 1950s, was living in Rockledge, Florida
Rockledge, Florida
Rockledge is the oldest city in Brevard County, Florida, United States. The population was 20,170 at the 2000 census. As of 2008, the estimated population according to the U.S. Census Bureau is 24,747. It is part of the Palm Bay–Melbourne–Titusville Metropolitan Statistical...
at the time of his death on September 20, 2006.