Fred Guardineer
Encyclopedia
Frederick B. Guardineer was an American
illustrator
and comic book
writer
-artist
best known for his work in the 1930s and 1940s during what historians and fans call the Golden Age of Comic Books
, and for his 1950s art on the Western
comic-book series The Durango Kid.
A pioneer of the medium
itself, Guardineer contributed a feature to the seminal Action Comics
#1, the comic book that introduced Superman
.
Fred Guardineer was born in Albany
, New York
. He acquired a fine arts degree in 1935, then moved to New York City
, where he drew for pulp magazine
s. The following year he joined the studio of the quirkily named Harry "A" Chesler, an early "packager" supplying comics features on demand for publishers entering the emerging medium
of comic books. There he drew adventure features such as "Dave Dean" and the science-fiction feature "Dan Hastings" before going freelance in 1938.
Guardineer's first known comics credits appear in several one- to three-page Western
and comic-Western stories, and in spot illustrations for a text story, in Centaur Publications
' Star Ranger #2 ([cover-date]]d April 1937). Through that year, he continued writing and drawing such short features in a variety of genres in some of the medium's first comics, including Centaur's Star Comics, '"Funny Pages and Funny Picture Stories.
He is among the contributors to the future DC Comics
' landmark title Action Comics
#1 ([cover-date]]d June 1938), the landmark comic that introduced Jerry Siegel
and Joe Shuster
's seminal superhero
Superman
. There Guardineer wrote, drew and lettering
the 12-page feature introducing his magician
-hero creation Zatara
, a character remaining in the DC stable as of the 21st century. Guardineer was also one of the artists on two features handled previously by Creig Flessel
in More Fun Comics
: "Pep Morgan" (on which he sometimes used the pseudonym
Gene Baxter) and, in Detective Comics
, "Speed Saunders, Ace Investigator
".
He married Ruth Ball in 1938, and the couple settled in Long Island, New York
.
Guardineer's other early work includes art for Quality Comics
, where he created the character Blue Tracer
; and Columbia Comics
, where he worked with former DC editor Vin Sullivan
, who had edited Action Comics.
, which Sullivan founded. There from 1949–1955, Guardineer drew writer Gardner Fox
's Old West masked-crimefighter series The Durango Kid. In the late 1940s, he also drew for such Lev Gleason Publications
comics as Black Diamond Western and Crime Does Not Pay. In 1955, Guardineer retired from comics and worked 20 years with the U.S. Postal Service.
Popular culture historian Ron Goulart
called Guardineer
Comics historian Mark Evanier
wrote that during his years away from comics, Mad
magazine writer and editor Jerry DeFuccio
located him "and became the first of many collectors to pay what Guardineer considered tidy sums to re-create some of his old covers." Guardineer again lost contact with the comics community until 1998, when a comics fan found him in northern California
and convinced him to attend that year's Comic-Con International
in San Diego, California
. There, he was part of an Evanier-hosted panel "of every surviving person who'd had a hand in the creation of the historic Action Comics #1. [When presented with the convention's Inkpot Award,] Fred was confined to a wheelchair ... but with great effort, he insisted on standing as he made a brief but eloquent acceptance speech." Guardineer later was a guest at WonderCon
, in Oakland, California
.
One source says Gardineer moved to San Ramon
, California
, where he died in 2002, though the Social Security Death Index
gives his last place of residence as Babylon
, New York
, on Long Island
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
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 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
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....
-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 for his work in the 1930s and 1940s during what historians and fans call 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...
, and for his 1950s art on the Western
Western comics
Western comics is a comics genre usually depicting the American Old West frontier and typically set during the late nineteenth century...
comic-book series The Durango Kid.
A pioneer of the 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...
itself, Guardineer contributed a feature to the seminal 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...
#1, the comic book that introduced 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...
.
Early life and career
Albany, New York
Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...
, 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...
. He acquired a fine arts degree in 1935, then moved to 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...
, where he drew for pulp magazine
Pulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
s. The following year he joined the studio of the quirkily named Harry "A" Chesler, an early "packager" supplying comics features on demand for publishers entering the emerging 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...
of comic books. There he drew adventure features such as "Dave Dean" and the science-fiction feature "Dan Hastings" before going freelance in 1938.
Guardineer's first known comics credits appear in several one- to three-page 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...
and comic-Western stories, and in spot illustrations for a text story, in Centaur Publications
Centaur Publications
Centaur Publications was one of the earliest American comic book publishers. During their short existence, they created several colorful characters, including Bill Everett's Amazing Man....
' Star Ranger #2 ([cover-date]]d April 1937). Through that year, he continued writing and drawing such short features in a variety of genres in some of the medium's first comics, including Centaur's Star Comics, '"Funny Pages and Funny Picture Stories.
He is among the contributors to the future 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...
' landmark title 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...
#1 ([cover-date]]d June 1938), the landmark comic that introduced Jerry Siegel
Jerry Siegel
Jerome "Jerry" Siegel , who also used pseudonyms including Joe Carter, Jerry Ess, and Herbert S...
and Joe Shuster
Joe Shuster
Joseph "Joe" Shuster was a Canadian-born American comic book artist. He was best known for co-creating the DC Comics character Superman, with writer Jerry Siegel, first published in Action Comics #1...
's seminal 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 —...
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...
. There Guardineer wrote, drew and lettering
Letterer
A letterer is a member of a team of comic book creators responsible for drawing the comic book's text. The letterer's use of typefaces, calligraphy, letter size, and layout all contribute to the impact of the comic. The letterer crafts the comic's "display lettering": the story title lettering and...
the 12-page feature introducing his magician
Magician (fantasy)
A magician, mage, sorcerer, sorceress, wizard, enchanter, enchantress, thaumaturge or a person known under one of many other possible terms is someone who uses or practices magic that derives from supernatural or occult sources...
-hero creation Zatara
Zatara
Giovanni "John" Zatara is a fictional character in the DC Universe. He first appeared in Action Comics #1 , and was created by writer and artist Fred Guardineer. He is a stage magician who also practices actual magic...
, a character remaining in the DC stable as of the 21st century. Guardineer was also one of the artists on two features handled previously by Creig Flessel
Creig Flessel
Creig Valentine Flessel was an American comic book artist and an illustrator and cartoonist for magazines ranging from Boys' Life to Playboy...
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...
: "Pep Morgan" (on which he sometimes used 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...
Gene Baxter) and, in Detective Comics
Detective Comics
Detective Comics is an American comic book series published monthly by DC Comics since 1937, best known for introducing the iconic superhero Batman in Detective Comics #27 . It is, along with Action Comics, the book that launched with the debut of Superman, one of the medium's signature series, and...
, "Speed Saunders, Ace Investigator
Speed Saunders
Cyrill "Speed" Saunders is a DC Comics character who first appeared in Detective Comics #1 . He was an adventurer and detective whose occupation was for a long time never specified. He seemed not to report to anyone, but was able to order people around. Eventually, it was revealed that he was a...
".
He married Ruth Ball in 1938, and the couple settled in Long Island, 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...
.
Guardineer's other early work includes art 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....
, where he created the character Blue Tracer
Blue Tracer
Blue Tracer is a Golden Age of comics superhero, created by Fred Guardineer and published by Quality Comics. His first appearance was in Military Comics #1 .-Publication history:...
; and Columbia Comics
Columbia Comics
The Columbia Comics Corporation was formed in 1940 as a partnership between Vin Sullivan and the McNaught Newspaper Syndicate. The idea was to publish comics featuring a mix of McNaught-owned comic strip reprints like Joe Palooka and Charlie Chan as well as original features.The first title...
, where he worked with former DC editor Vin Sullivan
Vin Sullivan
Vincent "Vin" Sullivan was a pioneering American comic book editor, artist and publisher.As an editor for National Allied Publications, the future DC Comics, he was responsible for buying Superman from creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, and edited that archetypcal superhero in his first...
, who had edited Action Comics.
Later life and career
Guardineer followed Sullivan to the editor's next venture, the comic-book company Magazine EnterprisesMagazine Enterprises
Magazine Enterprises was an American comic book company lasting from 1943 to 1958, which published primarily Western, humor, crime, adventure, and children's comics, with virtually no superheroes...
, which Sullivan founded. There from 1949–1955, Guardineer drew writer Gardner Fox
Gardner Fox
Gardner Francis Cooper Fox was an American writer best known for creating numerous comic book characters for DC Comics. Comic-book historians estimate that he wrote over 4,000 comics stories....
's Old West masked-crimefighter series The Durango Kid. In the late 1940s, he also drew for such 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....
comics as Black Diamond Western and Crime Does Not Pay. In 1955, Guardineer retired from comics and worked 20 years with the U.S. Postal Service.
Popular culture historian Ron Goulart
Ron Goulart
Ron Goulart is an American popular culture historian and mystery, fantasy and science fiction author.The prolific Goulart wrote many novelizations and other routine work under various pseudonyms: Kenneth Robeson , Con Steffanson , Chad Calhoun, R.T...
called Guardineer
Comics historian Mark Evanier
Mark Evanier
Mark Stephen Evanier is an American comic book and television writer, particularly known for his humor work. He is also known for his columns and blogs, and for his work as a historian and biographer of the comics industry, in particular his award-winning Jack Kirby biography, Kirby: King of...
wrote that during his years away from comics, Mad
Mad (magazine)
Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. Launched as a comic book before it became a magazine, it was widely imitated and influential, impacting not only satirical media but the entire cultural landscape of the 20th century.The last...
magazine writer and editor Jerry DeFuccio
Jerry DeFuccio
Jerry DeFuccio was an American comic book writer and editor, known primarily for his work at Mad, where he was an associate editor for 25 years. In addition to his work on that magazine, he was closely involved in many of the Mad paperbacks, editing Clods' Letters to Mad and many other reprints...
located him "and became the first of many collectors to pay what Guardineer considered tidy sums to re-create some of his old covers." Guardineer again lost contact with the comics community until 1998, when a comics fan found him in northern California
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...
and convinced him to attend that year's Comic-Con International
Comic-Con International
San Diego Comic-Con International, also known as Comic-Con International: San Diego , and commonly known as Comic-Con or the San Diego Comic-Con, was founded as the Golden State Comic Book Convention and later the San Diego Comic Book Convention in 1970 by Shel Dorf and a group of San Diegans...
in San Diego, California
San Diego, California
San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...
. There, he was part of an Evanier-hosted panel "of every surviving person who'd had a hand in the creation of the historic Action Comics #1. [When presented with the convention's Inkpot Award,] Fred was confined to a wheelchair ... but with great effort, he insisted on standing as he made a brief but eloquent acceptance speech." Guardineer later was a guest at WonderCon
WonderCon
WonderCon is an annual comic book, science fiction, and motion picture convention, held in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1987.The convention was conceived by retailer John Barrett and originally held in the Oakland Convention Center, where it remained until 2003, when it moved to San...
, in Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
.
One source says Gardineer moved to San Ramon
San Ramon, California
-2010 census:The 2010 United States Census reported that San Ramon had a population of 72,148. The population density was 3,991.1 people per square mile...
, California
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...
, where he died in 2002, though the Social Security Death Index
Social Security Death Index
The Social Security Death Index is a database of death records created from the United States Social Security Administration's Death Master File Extract. Most persons who have died since 1962 who had a Social Security Number and whose death has been reported to the Social Security Administration...
gives his last place of residence as Babylon
Babylon, New York
Babylon, New York can refer to:* Babylon , New York, in Suffolk County, New York, USA* Babylon , New York, in the town of Babylon...
, 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...
, 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...
.