Sam Kweskin
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
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...
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...
.
Early life and career
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
Bill Mauldin
Bill Mauldin
William Henry "Bill" Mauldin was a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist from the United States...
. After high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
, Kweskin worked as a copyboy for Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
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...
, and then entered the U.S. Army.
From February 1943 to September 1944, during 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...
, Private Kweskin served with the Third Chemical Mortar Battalion. Afterward, through December 1945, he was the wartime artist for the 83rd Chemical Mortar Battalion. After his discharge, studied at the Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
, receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts
Bachelor of Fine Arts
In the United States and Canada, the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, usually abbreviated BFA, is the standard undergraduate degree for students seeking a professional education in the visual or performing arts. In some countries such a degree is called a Bachelor of Creative Arts or BCA...
degree in early 1949. He worked for year with former Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
animator
Animator
An animator is an artist who creates multiple images that give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence; the images are called frames and key frames. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, video games, and the internet. Usually, an...
Sam Singer, doing two children's cartoon series for the local ABC-TV
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
station. Kweskin then left to develop his own local children's-TV programs.
He later drew comic-book bible stories for David C. Cook Publishing in Elgin, Illinois
Elgin, Illinois
Elgin is a city in northern Illinois located roughly northwest of Chicago on the Fox River. Most of Elgin lies within Kane County, Illinois, with a portion in Cook County, Illinois...
. A friend put Kweskin in touch with 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...
's 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...
, the 1950s precursor of Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
, and Kweskin "flew into NYC in August or September of 1952" to met with Atlas editor-in-chief Stan Lee
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....
. Kweskin did well on a sample story, and continued to freelance comic-book art for the company from back home in Chicago. Shortly thereafter, Kweskin, his wife and their two small children, moved to New York City.
Atlas and advertising
Kweskin's earliest confirmed credits include penciling and self-inkingInking
Inking is the process of using a liquid known as ink, which contains natural or man-made pigment.* Inking is work done by a Inker, one kind of commercial artistIn biology:...
stories in three Atlas comics cover-dated February 1953: The 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...
/mystery
Mystery fiction
Mystery fiction is a loosely-defined term.1.It is often used as a synonym for detective fiction or crime fiction— in other words a novel or short story in which a detective investigates and solves a crime mystery. Sometimes mystery books are nonfiction...
books 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...
#15 and Adventures Into Terror #16, and the war comic
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...
Battlefront #9. He continued drawing stories for such Atlas horror anthologies as Journey Into Mystery
Journey into Mystery
Journey into Mystery was an American comic book series published by Atlas Comics, and later its successor Marvel Comics. It featured horror, monster, and science fiction stories...
, Marvel Tales
Marvel Tales
Marvel Tales is the title of three American comic-book series published by Marvel Comics, the first of them from the company's 1950s predecessor, Atlas Comics...
, and Uncanny Tales
Uncanny Tales
Uncanny Tales may refer to one of the following publications:* Uncanny Tales , an American pulp magazine* Uncanny Tales , a Canadian pulp magazine...
, 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...
titles including Kid Colt, Outlaw
Kid Colt
Kid Colt is the name of two fictional characters in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The first is a cowboy whose adventures have taken place in numerous western themed comic book series published by Marvel...
and Wild Western, and even Bible Tales for Young Folk.
After about a year, during a downturn in the comics industry, Kweskin returned to the Midwest. He worked as a studio artist, then became an art director
Art director
The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
for a maker of industrial films
Sponsored film
Sponsored film, or ephemeral film, as defined by film archivist Rick Prelinger, is film made by a particular sponsor for a specific purpose other than as a work of art: the films were designed to serve a specific pragmatic purpose for a limited time...
. All the while he freelanced book-cover art and other illustrations. He then become an art director for an advertising agency
Advertising agency
An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services...
that specialized in the Latin American market. He later art directed on TV commercials at a different agency while continuing freelance, doing medical illustrations for the Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy
Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy
The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, often called simply The Merck Manual, is the world's best-selling medical textbook. First published in 1899, it is now in its 19th edition.-Professional Edition:...
. He later began a small agency of his own.
In 1957, he freelanced briefly again for Atlas, on the science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
anthology World of Fantasy
World of Fantasy
World of Fantasy was a science fiction/fantasy comic book anthology series published by Marvel Comics' 1950s predecessor company, Atlas Comics. Lasting from 1956 to 1959, it included the work of several notable comics artists, including industry legends Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and Bill Everett.The...
.
Marvel Comics
In the early 1970s, Kweskin briefly returned to freelancing for what was now formally Marvel Comics. He both wrote and penciled a six-page horror tale, "Revenge from the Rhine", in Journey into Mystery vol. 2, #3 (Feb. 1973), and then succeeded Sub-Mariner creator Bill EverettBill Everett
William Blake "Bill" Everett, also known as William Blake and Everett Blake was a comic book writer-artist best known for creating Namor the Sub-Mariner and co-creating Daredevil for Marvel Comics...
on that character's comic-book title following Everett's death; Kweskin and Everett together penciled issue #58 (Feb. 1973), with Everett inking and Kweskin penciled or laid out #59-60 and 62-63.
As Kweskin wrote in a 2002 e-mail excerpted in an article by comics historian Ken Quattro:
Later career
Afterward he spent three years as an art director at Ziff-Davis magazines, and then freelanced for 10 years as an ad-agency storyboardStoryboard
Storyboards are graphic organizers in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence....
artist. Kweskin also painted, and exhibited at art galleries
Art gallery
An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
. In 1993, he moved to Boca Raton, Florida
Boca Raton, Florida
Boca Raton is a city in Palm Beach County, Florida, USA, incorporated in May 1925. In the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 74,764; the 2006 population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau was 86,396. However, the majority of the people under the postal address of Boca Raton, about...
, and until his death continued to freelance, including doing the cover of the Veterans of Foreign Wars
Veterans of Foreign Wars
The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States is a congressionally chartered war veterans organization in the United States. Headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, VFW currently has 1.5 million members belonging to 7,644 posts, and is the largest American organization of combat...
magazine, and to paint, doing a commissioned canvas for a military museum in Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
.