George Tuska
Encyclopedia
George Tuska who early in his career used a variety of pen name
s 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 Iron Man
and other Marvel Comics
characters. As well, he drew the DC Comics
newspaper comic strip
The World's Greatest Superheroes
from 1978–1993.
He was a 1997 recipient of the industry's Inkpot Award
.
George Tuska was born in Hartford
, Connecticut
, the youngest of three children of Russian
immigrants Harry and Anna Onisko Tuska, who had met in New York City
. George's siblings Peter, the eldest, and Mary, the middle child, were born in New York City. Years later, Mary died while giving birth to her second child, who was stillborn. Harry, a foreman at a Hartford auto-tire company, died when George was 14. Anna then opened a restaurant in Patterson, New Jersey
, where she had relatives, and later remarried. At 17, Tuska moved to New York City, rooming with his cousin Annie, and a year later began attending the National Academy of Design
. His artistic influences included illustrators Harold von Schmidt
, Dean Cornwell
, and Thomas Lovell, and comic strip
artists Lou Fine
, Hal Foster, and Alex Raymond
. At some early point, he took his first job in art, designing women's costume jewelry
.
Tuska then began working for comic book
packager Eisner & Iger
, one of a handful of companies at the time that supplied comics on demand for publishers entering the new medium
. His first known published comic-book work appeared in Fox Comics' Mystery Men Comics #1 and Wonderworld Comics #4, both cover-dated August 1939. Tuska in the mid-2000s recalled:
At Eisner & Iger, Tuska said in 2001, "I worked alongside Bob Powell
, Lou Fine
, and Mike Sekowsky
". His studio colleagues later grew to include artists Charles Sultan, John Celardo
, and Nick Cardy
, and writer Toni Blum
.
Writer-artist and company co-founder Will Eisner
recalled of the period, "It was a friendly shop, and I guess I was the same age as the youngest guys there. We all got along. The only ones who ever got into a hassle were George Tuska and Bob Powell
. Powell was kind of a wiseguy and made remarks about other people in the shop. One day, George had enough of it, got up, and punched out Bob Powell". The otherwise mild-mannered Tuska, thinking comic books "would last two or three years — a fad", later left to seek non-comics work. After two weeks, however, he came across colleagues Sultan and Dave Glaser, on their way to meet with comics packager Harry "A" Chesler. Tuska, invited along, joined Chesler's studio, working there in 1939 and 1940, earning $22 a week, increased to $42 a week within six months. Alongside colleagues that included Sultan, Ruben Moreira
, Mac Raboy
, and Ralph Astarita, to Tuska helped to supply content for such Fawcett Comics
publications as Captain Marvel Adventures
. Later, when Eisner-Iger client Fiction House
formed its own bullpen to produce work on staff, Tuska left Chesler to join Cardy, Jim Mooney
, Graham Ingels
and other artists there.
Tuska produced a prodigious amount of work that included, for Fiction House, the South Sea
adventure feature "Shark Brodie" (under the pen name
George Aksut) and the investigative feature "Hooks Devlin", both for Fight Comics; the rich-vigilante feature "Glory Forbes" in Ranger Comics; and "Jane Martin" in Wings Comics. Before and during his six years at Fiction House, Tuska freelanced such features as the North Atlantic seafaring adventure "Spike Marlin" (as Carl Larson) in Harvey Comics
' Speed Comics; "Wing Turner" (as Floyd Kelly) for Fox Comics' Mystery Men Comics; "Archie O'Toole" (as Bud Thomas) in Quality Comics
' Smash Comics
and "Cosmic Carson" (as Michael Griffith) in Fox's Science Comics.
At some point, Tuska again worked for Will Eisner
, now split from Jerry Iger
, with a group of artists that included Alex Kotzky
and Tex Blaisdell
. "While with Eisner, I penciled some Spirit and Uncle Sam
stories". (Tuska's first Uncle Sam work was the cover and virtually every story in Uncle Sam Quarterly #3, cover-dated Summer 1942.) Independently, he was assigned by Fawcett art director Al Allard to draw "a few more Captain Marvel stories. Allard had asked me to draw as close as possible to the way Captain Marvel had first appeared in Whiz Comics. ... After those freelance jobs, I never worked for Fawcett again". Tuska's earliest Captain Marvel work appeared in Captain Marvel Adventures #2-4 (Summer 1941, Fall 1941, and the oddly dated Oct. 31, 1941).
Drafted into the U.S. Army circa 1942, Tuska was stationed at the 100th Division at Fort Jackson in Columbia
, South Carolina
, where he drew military plans and was honorably discharged after a year for reasons the artist has not specified. Returning home, he took up again with Fiction House, drawing a host of stories featuring Reef Ryan, Rip Carson, Lady Satan, the Western
hero Golden Arrow
, and Camilla, Queen of the Jungle.
years, those characters' appeal began to dwindle in the post-war era. Comic-book publishers, casting about for new subjects and genres, found a hit in crime fiction
, the most prominent comic of which was Lev Gleason Publications
' Crime Does Not Pay
. Tuska would soon make a name for himself as one of the genre's top comics artists. After starting with short backup features and spot illustrations for text stories, Tuska was drawing the lead stories and more by Crime Does Not Pay #50 (March 1947).
came in 1949, when Marvel's predecessor company, Timely Comics
, was transitioning to its 1950s iteration, Atlas Comics
. His first confirmed credit is the seven-page story
"Justice Has a Heart" in Casey - Crime Photographer # 1 (Aug. 1949). He quickly went on to draw in an abundance of genres for Atlas, including crime fiction
(in titles including Crime Can't Win, Crime Exposed, Private Eye, Justice, Amazing Detective Cases, and All True Crime Cases Comics); military fiction
(Men in Action, War Combat, Man Comics, Battlefield, and Battle); horror
(Adventures into Weird Worlds, Adventures into Terror, Mystic, Menace
, and Strange Tales
); and, particularly, Westerns
(Black Rider
, Gunsmoke Western
, Kid Colt, Outlaw, Red Warrior, Texas Kid, Two-Gun Kid
, Western Outlaws & Sheriffs, Wild Western and many others) through 1957, while also occasionally contributing to Lev Gleason and St. John Publications
.
Simultaneously at first, from 1954 to 1959, Tuska took over as writer-artist for the failing adventure comic strip Scorchy Smith
, supplying "eye-catching drawings and interesting plots, but it was too late". The strip would end in 1961. Tuska by then had moved on to the long-running science-fiction comic strip Buck Rogers
, on which he was the final artist, drawing both the daily and Sunday strip from April 1959 to 1965, and the daily only from then through 1967, when both the daily and the Sunday were canceled.
, then in the full breadth of what historians and fans call the Silver Age of Comic Books
. "I called [editor-in-chief] Stan[ Lee]
and he said, 'Come on up', Tuska recalled in the mid-2000s. His first Marvel story, a "Tales of the Watcher
" feature in Tales of Suspense
#58 (Nov. 1964), included a special introduction by Lee, hailing the return of the Golden Age
great.
Tuska became a Marvel mainstay, penciling and occasionally inking
other artists on series as diverse as Ghost Rider
, Luke Cage, Power Man
, Sub-Mariner, The X-Men
and the movie tie-in series Planet of the Apes
. His signature series became Iron Man
, on which he enjoyed a nearly 10-year, sometimes briefly interrupted, run from issue #5 (Sept. 1968) to #106 (Jan. 1978).
The A.V. Club
insert of The Onion
wrote, shortly before Tuska's death in 2009, that,
That assessment of Tuska's Marvel work is not widely shared. John Romita, Sr.
, Marvel's de facto and later official art director
during this period, found Tuska "so versatile. He could do everything. When Stan knew that a guy could do anything, he used him in every possible, conceivable way. George was a helluva artist and very versatile and very fast. ... He was in demand". Comics writer and Tuska collaborator Tony Isabella
wrote, "I would love to see a Best of George Tuska collection which included his crime, mystery, romance, war, and western stories. He brought as much excitement and talent to those genres as he did to superhero comics". Comics journalist and historian Tom Spurgeon
wrote that,
, Tuska drew characters including Superman
, Superboy
, and Challengers of the Unknown
. He had a 15-year run drawing The World's Greatest Superheroes
comic strip from 1978–1993, often inked by Vince Colletta
. From 1981, the strip was titled The World's Greatest Superheroes Presents Superman.
Retired from active comics work as of the 2000s, Tuska lived in Manchester, New Jersey with his wife Dorothy ("Dot"), where he did commissioned art. The couple had three children. Tuska died near midnight, October 15, 2009. His last published comic-book art was one of four variant covers for Dynamite Entertainment
's Masquerade #2 (March 2009).
Pen name
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
s including Carl Larson, was an American
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...
and newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
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....
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 1940s work on various Captain Marvel
Captain Marvel (DC Comics)
Captain Marvel is a fictional comic book superhero, originally published by Fawcett Comics and later by DC Comics. Created in 1939 by artist C. C. Beck and writer Bill Parker, the character first appeared in Whiz Comics #2...
titles and the crime fiction
Crime fiction
Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalizes crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred...
series Crime Does Not Pay
Crime Does Not Pay (comics)
Crime Does Not Pay is the title of an American comic book series published between 1942 and 1955 by Lev Gleason Publications. Edited and chiefly written by Charles Biro, the title launched the crime comics genre and was the first "true crime" comic book series. At the height of its popularity,...
, for and his 1960s work illustrating 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,...
and other 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...
characters. As well, he drew the 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...
newspaper 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....
The World's Greatest Superheroes
The World's Greatest Superheroes
The World's Greatest Superheroes was a syndicated newspaper comic strip featuring DC Comics characters which ran Sunday and daily from April 9, 1978 to February 10, 1985...
from 1978–1993.
He was a 1997 recipient of the industry's Inkpot Award
Inkpot Award
The Inkpot Award, bestowed annually since 1974 by Comic-Con International, is given to some of the professionals in comic book, comic strip, animation, science fiction, and related pop-culture fields, who are guests of that organization's yearly multigenre fan convention, commonly known as...
.
Early life and career
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...
, Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
, the youngest of three children of Russian
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
immigrants Harry and Anna Onisko Tuska, who had met 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...
. George's siblings Peter, the eldest, and Mary, the middle child, were born in New York City. Years later, Mary died while giving birth to her second child, who was stillborn. Harry, a foreman at a Hartford auto-tire company, died when George was 14. Anna then opened a restaurant in Patterson, 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...
, where she had relatives, and later remarried. At 17, Tuska moved to New York City, rooming with his cousin Annie, and a year later began attending 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...
. His artistic influences included illustrators Harold von Schmidt
Harold von Schmidt
Harold von Schmidt was an American illustrator who specialized inmagazine interior illustrations. Born in Alameda, California in 1893, he was orphaned at the age of five. After a year in an orphanage, he went to live with his grandfather, who had been a forty-niner. As a youth von Schmidt worked...
, Dean Cornwell
Dean Cornwell
Dean Cornwell was an American illustrator and muralist. His oil paintings were frequently featured in popular magazines and books as literary illustrations, advertisements, and posters promoting the war effort. Throughout the first half of the 20th century he was a dominant presence in American...
, and Thomas Lovell, and 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....
artists Lou Fine
Lou Fine
Louis Kenneth Fine was an American comic book artist known for his work during the 1940s Golden Age of comic books, where his quality draftsmanship became an influential model to a generation of fellow comics artists....
, Hal Foster, and Alex Raymond
Alex Raymond
Alexander Gillespie "Alex" Raymond was an American cartoonist, best known for creating Flash Gordon for King Features in 1934...
. At some early point, he took his first job in art, designing women's costume jewelry
Costume jewelry
Costume jewelry is jewelry manufactured as ornamentation to complement a particular fashionable costume or garment. Costume jewelry came into being in the 1930s as a cheap, disposable accessory meant to be worn with a specific outfit...
.
Tuska then began working for 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...
packager Eisner & Iger
Eisner & Iger
Eisner & Iger was a comic book "packager" that produced comics on demand for publishers entering the new medium during the late-1930s and 1940s period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books...
, one of a handful of companies at the time that supplied comics on demand for 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...
. His first known published comic-book work appeared in Fox Comics' Mystery Men Comics #1 and Wonderworld Comics #4, both cover-dated August 1939. Tuska in the mid-2000s recalled:
At Eisner & Iger, Tuska said in 2001, "I worked alongside 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...
, Lou Fine
Lou Fine
Louis Kenneth Fine was an American comic book artist known for his work during the 1940s Golden Age of comic books, where his quality draftsmanship became an influential model to a generation of fellow comics artists....
, and Mike Sekowsky
Mike Sekowsky
Michael Sekowsky was a Jewish American comic book artist best known as the exclusive penciler for DC Comics' Justice League of America during most of the 1960s, and as the regular writer and artist on Wonder Woman during the late 1960s and early 1970s.-Early life and career:Mike Sekowsky began...
". His studio colleagues later grew to include artists Charles Sultan, John Celardo
John 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...
, and Nick Cardy
Nick Cardy
Nick Cardy , a.k.a. Nick Cardi, is an American comic book artist best known for his DC Comics work on Aquaman, the Teen Titans and other major characters....
, and writer Toni Blum
Toni Blum
Audrey Anthony "Toni" Blum was an American comic book writer active during the 1930s and 1940s "Golden Age of Comic Books", known for her work with Quality Comics and other publishers and as one of the first female comics professionals in what was then an almost entirely male industry.Known...
.
Writer-artist and company co-founder Will Eisner
Will Eisner
William Erwin "Will" Eisner was an American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur. He is considered one of the most important contributors to the development of the medium and is known for the cartooning studio he founded; for his highly influential series The Spirit; for his use of comics as an...
recalled of the period, "It was a friendly shop, and I guess I was the same age as the youngest guys there. We all got along. The only ones who ever got into a hassle were George Tuska and 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...
. Powell was kind of a wiseguy and made remarks about other people in the shop. One day, George had enough of it, got up, and punched out Bob Powell". The otherwise mild-mannered Tuska, thinking comic books "would last two or three years — a fad", later left to seek non-comics work. After two weeks, however, he came across colleagues Sultan and Dave Glaser, on their way to meet with comics packager Harry "A" Chesler. Tuska, invited along, joined Chesler's studio, working there in 1939 and 1940, earning $22 a week, increased to $42 a week within six months. Alongside colleagues that included Sultan, Ruben Moreira
Ruben Moreira
Ruben Moreira was a Puerto Rican comic book artist and writer best known for his work on Tarzan and as a DC Comics artist.-Biography:...
, Mac Raboy
Mac Raboy
Emmanuel "Mac" Raboy was an American cartoonist whose comic books and strips remain collectibles more than 40 years after his death. He was known for his work on Fawcett Comics' Captain Marvel Jr...
, and Ralph Astarita, to Tuska helped to supply content for such 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...
publications as Captain Marvel Adventures
Captain Marvel (DC Comics)
Captain Marvel is a fictional comic book superhero, originally published by Fawcett Comics and later by DC Comics. Created in 1939 by artist C. C. Beck and writer Bill Parker, the character first appeared in Whiz Comics #2...
. Later, when Eisner-Iger client 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...
formed its own bullpen to produce work on staff, Tuska left Chesler to join Cardy, Jim Mooney
Jim Mooney
James Noel "Jim" Mooney was an American comic book artist best known as a Marvel Comics inker and Spider-Man artist, and as the signature artist of DC Comics' Supergirl, both during what comics historians and fans call the Silver Age of comic books...
, Graham Ingels
Graham Ingels
Graham Ingels was a comic book and magazine illustrator best known for his work in EC Comics during the 1950s, notably on The Haunt of Fear and Tales from the Crypt, horror titles written and edited by Al Feldstein, and The Vault of Horror, written and edited by Feldstein and Johnny Craig...
and other artists there.
Tuska produced a prodigious amount of work that included, for Fiction House, the South Sea
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
adventure feature "Shark Brodie" (under the pen name
Pen name
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
George Aksut) and the investigative feature "Hooks Devlin", both for Fight Comics; the rich-vigilante feature "Glory Forbes" in Ranger Comics; and "Jane Martin" in Wings Comics. Before and during his six years at Fiction House, Tuska freelanced such features as the North Atlantic seafaring adventure "Spike Marlin" (as Carl Larson) 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...
' Speed Comics; "Wing Turner" (as Floyd Kelly) for Fox Comics' Mystery Men Comics; "Archie O'Toole" (as Bud Thomas) in 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....
' Smash Comics
Smash Comics
Smash Comics is the title of an American Golden Age comic book anthology series, published by Quality Comics for 85 issues between 1939 and 1949...
and "Cosmic Carson" (as Michael Griffith) in Fox's Science Comics.
At some point, Tuska again worked for Will Eisner
Will Eisner
William Erwin "Will" Eisner was an American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur. He is considered one of the most important contributors to the development of the medium and is known for the cartooning studio he founded; for his highly influential series The Spirit; for his use of comics as an...
, now split from Jerry Iger
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...
, with a group of artists that included Alex Kotzky
Alex Kotzky
Alex Kotzky was a cartoonist best known for his three decades of work on the comic strip Apartment 3-G, distributed by Publishers-Hall Syndicate....
and Tex Blaisdell
Tex Blaisdell
Philip Eustice Blaisdell , better known as Tex Blaisdell, was an American comic strip artist and comic book editor...
. "While with Eisner, I penciled some Spirit 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:...
stories". (Tuska's first Uncle Sam work was the cover and virtually every story in Uncle Sam Quarterly #3, cover-dated Summer 1942.) Independently, he was assigned by Fawcett art director Al Allard to draw "a few more Captain Marvel stories. Allard had asked me to draw as close as possible to the way Captain Marvel had first appeared in Whiz Comics. ... After those freelance jobs, I never worked for Fawcett again". Tuska's earliest Captain Marvel work appeared in Captain Marvel Adventures #2-4 (Summer 1941, Fall 1941, and the oddly dated Oct. 31, 1941).
Drafted into the U.S. Army circa 1942, Tuska was stationed at the 100th Division at Fort Jackson in Columbia
Columbia, South Carolina
Columbia is the state capital and largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The population was 129,272 according to the 2010 census. Columbia is the county seat of Richland County, but a portion of the city extends into neighboring Lexington County. The city is the center of a metropolitan...
, South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
, where he drew military plans and was honorably discharged after a year for reasons the artist has not specified. Returning home, he took up again with Fiction House, drawing a host of stories featuring Reef Ryan, Rip Carson, Lady Satan, the 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 Golden Arrow
Golden Arrow (comics)
Golden Arrow is a fictional character who had his own strip in Fawcett Comics' Whiz Comics comic book series, from 1940 to 1953.-Fictional character history:...
, and Camilla, Queen of the Jungle.
Crime Does Not Pay
Following the huge popularity of superheroes during the World War IIWorld 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...
years, those characters' appeal began to dwindle in the post-war era. Comic-book publishers, casting about for new subjects and genres, found a hit in crime fiction
Crime fiction
Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalizes crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred...
, the most prominent comic of which was 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....
' Crime Does Not Pay
Crime Does Not Pay (comics)
Crime Does Not Pay is the title of an American comic book series published between 1942 and 1955 by Lev Gleason Publications. Edited and chiefly written by Charles Biro, the title launched the crime comics genre and was the first "true crime" comic book series. At the height of its popularity,...
. Tuska would soon make a name for himself as one of the genre's top comics artists. After starting with short backup features and spot illustrations for text stories, Tuska was drawing the lead stories and more by Crime Does Not Pay #50 (March 1947).
1950s
Tuska's first work for the future Marvel ComicsMarvel 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...
came in 1949, when Marvel's predecessor company, 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 transitioning to its 1950s iteration, 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...
. His first confirmed credit is the seven-page story
"Justice Has a Heart" in Casey - Crime Photographer # 1 (Aug. 1949). He quickly went on to draw in an abundance of genres for Atlas, including crime fiction
Crime fiction
Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalizes crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred...
(in titles including Crime Can't Win, Crime Exposed, Private Eye, Justice, Amazing Detective Cases, and All True Crime Cases Comics); military fiction
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...
(Men in Action, War Combat, Man Comics, Battlefield, and Battle); horror
Horror 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...
(Adventures into Weird Worlds, Adventures into Terror, Mystic, Menace
Menace (Atlas Comics)
Menace was a 1953 to 1954 American crime/horror anthology comic book series published by Atlas Comics, the 1950s precursor of Marvel Comics. It is best known for the first appearance of the supernatural Marvel character the Zombie, in a standalone story that became the basis for the 1970s...
, and Strange Tales
Strange Tales
Strange Tales is the name of several comic book anthology series published by Marvel Comics. It introduced the features "Doctor Strange" and "Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.", and was a showcase for the science fiction/suspense stories of artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, and for the...
); and, particularly, Westerns
Western comics
Western comics is a comics genre usually depicting the American Old West frontier and typically set during the late nineteenth century...
(Black Rider
Black Rider
Black Rider may refer to:* The Third Horseman of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse* Black Rider , a Marvel Comics Western character* The Black Rider, a 1990 stage musical by Tom Waits, Robert Wilson and William S...
, Gunsmoke Western
Gunsmoke Western
Gunsmoke Western was an American comic book series published initially by Atlas Comics, the 1950s forerunner of Marvel Comics, and then into the 1960s by Marvel...
, Kid Colt, Outlaw, Red Warrior, Texas Kid, Two-Gun Kid
Two-Gun Kid
The Two-Gun Kid is a fictional character, a cowboy gunslinger in the Wild West of Marvel Comics' shared universe, the Marvel Universe.-Publication history:...
, Western Outlaws & Sheriffs, Wild Western and many others) through 1957, while also occasionally contributing to Lev Gleason and St. John Publications
St. John Publications
St. John Publications was an American publisher of magazines and comic books. During its short existence , St. John's comic books established several industry firsts. Founded by Archer St. John , the firm was located in Manhattan at 545 Fifth Avenue. After the St...
.
Simultaneously at first, from 1954 to 1959, Tuska took over as writer-artist for the failing adventure comic strip Scorchy Smith
Scorchy Smith
Scorchy Smith was an American adventure comic strip created by artist John Terry that ran from 1930 to 1961.Scorchy Smith was a pilot-for-hire whose initial adventures took him across America, fighting criminals and aiding damsels in distress...
, supplying "eye-catching drawings and interesting plots, but it was too late". The strip would end in 1961. Tuska by then had moved on to the long-running science-fiction comic strip Buck Rogers
Buck Rogers
Anthony Rogers is a fictional character that first appeared in Armageddon 2419 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. A sequel, The Airlords of Han, was published in the March 1929 issue....
, on which he was the final artist, drawing both the daily and Sunday strip from April 1959 to 1965, and the daily only from then through 1967, when both the daily and the Sunday were canceled.
The Silver Age
Near the cancellation of the daily Buck Rogers strip, Tuska again found a freelance home at what was by now Marvel ComicsMarvel 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...
, then in the full breadth of what historians and fans call the Silver Age of Comic Books
Silver Age of Comic Books
The Silver Age of Comic Books was a period of artistic advancement and commercial success in mainstream American comic books, predominantly those in the superhero genre. Following the Golden Age of Comic Books and an interregnum in the early to mid-1950s, the Silver Age is considered to cover the...
. "I called [editor-in-chief] Stan
Stan Lee
Stan Lee is an American comic book writer, editor, actor, producer, publisher, television personality, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics....
and he said, 'Come on up', Tuska recalled in the mid-2000s. His first Marvel story, a "Tales of the Watcher
Uatu
Uatu, often simply known as The Watcher, is a fictional character that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Stan Lee and designed by artist Jack Kirby, he first appeared in The Fantastic Four #13 ....
" feature in 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...
#58 (Nov. 1964), included a special introduction by Lee, hailing the return of the Golden Age
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...
great.
Tuska became a Marvel mainstay, penciling and occasionally 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...
other artists on series as diverse as Ghost Rider
Ghost Rider (comics)
Ghost Rider is the name of several fictional supernatural antiheroes appearing in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Marvel had previously used the name for a Western character whose name was later changed to Night Rider and subsequently to Phantom Rider.The first supernatural Ghost Rider is...
, Luke Cage, Power Man
Luke Cage
Luke Cage is a fictional character, a superhero appearing in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Archie Goodwin and artist John Romita, Sr., he first appeared in Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #1...
, Sub-Mariner, The X-Men
X-Men
The X-Men are a superhero team in the . They were created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, and first appeared in The X-Men #1...
and the movie tie-in series Planet of the Apes
Planet of the Apes (comic book)
Planet of the Apes comics are tie-ins to the Planet of the Apes universe. They have been released by several publishers over the years and include tie-ins and spin-offs.-Japanese comics :...
. His signature series became 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,...
, on which he enjoyed a nearly 10-year, sometimes briefly interrupted, run from issue #5 (Sept. 1968) to #106 (Jan. 1978).
The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...
insert of The Onion
The Onion
The Onion is an American news satire organization. It is an entertainment newspaper and a website featuring satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news, in addition to a non-satirical entertainment section known as The A.V. Club...
wrote, shortly before Tuska's death in 2009, that,
That assessment of Tuska's Marvel work is not widely shared. John Romita, Sr.
John Romita, Sr.
John V. Romita, Sr. is an Italian-American comic-book artist best known for his work on Marvel Comics' The Amazing Spider-Man...
, Marvel's de facto and later official 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....
during this period, found Tuska "so versatile. He could do everything. When Stan knew that a guy could do anything, he used him in every possible, conceivable way. George was a helluva artist and very versatile and very fast. ... He was in demand". Comics writer and Tuska collaborator Tony Isabella
Tony Isabella
Tony Isabella is an American comic book writer, editor, artist and critic, known as the creator and writer of Marvel Comics' Black Goliath, DC Comics' first major African American superhero, Black Lightning, and as a columnist and critic for the Comics Buyer's Guide.-Marvel Comics:Before he joined...
wrote, "I would love to see a Best of George Tuska collection which included his crime, mystery, romance, war, and western stories. He brought as much excitement and talent to those genres as he did to superhero comics". Comics journalist and historian Tom Spurgeon
Tom Spurgeon
Tom Spurgeon is an American writer, historian and editor in the field of comics, notable for his five-year run as editor of The Comics Journal and his blog The Comics Reporter, which he launched in 2004 with site designer Jordan Raphael.-Books:...
wrote that,
Later career and death
Later, for DC ComicsDC 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...
, Tuska drew characters including 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...
, 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....
, and Challengers of the Unknown
Challengers of the Unknown
The Challengers of the Unknown is a group of fictional characters in comic books published by DC Comics. Created by Jack Kirby, or co-created with Dave Wood , this quartet of adventurers explored science fictional and apparent paranormal occurrences and faced fantastic menaces.Scripts for the first...
. He had a 15-year run drawing The World's Greatest Superheroes
The World's Greatest Superheroes
The World's Greatest Superheroes was a syndicated newspaper comic strip featuring DC Comics characters which ran Sunday and daily from April 9, 1978 to February 10, 1985...
comic strip from 1978–1993, often inked by Vince Colletta
Vince Colletta
Vincent Joseph Colletta was an American comic book artist and art director best known as one of industry legend Jack Kirby's frequent inkers during the 1950s-1960s period called the Silver Age of comic books...
. From 1981, the strip was titled The World's Greatest Superheroes Presents Superman.
Retired from active comics work as of the 2000s, Tuska lived in Manchester, New Jersey with his wife Dorothy ("Dot"), where he did commissioned art. The couple had three children. Tuska died near midnight, October 15, 2009. His last published comic-book art was one of four variant covers for Dynamite Entertainment
Dynamite Entertainment
Dynamite Entertainment is an American comic book company that primarily publishes licensed franchises of adaptations of other media. These include adaptations of film properties such as Army of Darkness, Terminator and RoboCop, literary properties such as Zorro, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, Alice in...
's Masquerade #2 (March 2009).
Further reading
- Interview, Comic Book Marketplace #31 (Jan. 1996), pp. 25–33. Gemstone Publishing.
- Tribute and Interview, *Comic Book Artist Bullpen #1, (Dec. 2003), pp. 4–19. RetroHouse Press
External links
- Comic Book Artist George Tuska Tribute Website. WebCitation archive, home page. WebCitation archive, Biography.
- George Tuska at the Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators
- George Tuska at Ask Art: The American Artists Bluebook
- George Tuska at the Comix Art & Grafix Gallery
- George Tuska at the Michigan State University LibrariesMichigan State University LibrariesMichigan State University Libraries comprise the 29th largest academic library system in North America with over 4.9 million volumes and 6.7 million microforms. A unit of Michigan State University, the library system comprises nine branch locations including the main library...
: Index to the Comic Art Collection. WebCitation archive. - Scorchy Smith at Don Markstein's ToonopediaDon Markstein's ToonopediaDon Markstein's Toonopedia was a web encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation. Don D...
. Archived October 25, 2011.