Irwin Hasen
Encyclopedia
Irwin Hasen is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...

, best known as the co-creator (with Gus Edson
Gus Edson
Gus Edson was an American cartoonist known for two popular, long running comic strips, The Gumps and Dondi....

) of the Dondi
Dondi
Dondi was a daily comic strip about a large-eyed war orphan of the same name. Created by Gus Edson and Irwin Hasen, it ran in more than 100 newspapers for three decades .-Interview:...

comic strip.

Early life

Hasen grew up in New York City on the Upper West Side, after his family moved from Brooklyn to 110th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. He attended DeWitt Clinton High School. In 1939, he began his art training on the block where he lived, as he recalled:
Across the street was 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...

, a huge structure like a garage, an airplane hangar. One of the oldest art schools in America, one of the most prestigious. Classical art. I was always drawing. I was drawing... on the empty pages of books. So my mother, God bless her soul, took me across the street and enrolled me in a course of drawing... I was there for three years, every night during the week, drawing in charcoal all the statues of Michelangelo and all the Bernini and all the classics... During the day, I would hawk, sell, drawings of prizefighters down in New York. That was my first job—boxing cartoonist. I made a very small, very slight living. I was 19-20 years old. I sold my cartoons to the Madison Square Garden Corporation. They were printed all over New York in different newspapers. It was like public relations for the fights.

Career

Comic books

After study at National Academy of Design, Hasen went to 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...

 and then entered the comic book field in 1940 with the Harry "A" Chesler shop, contributing to The Green Hornet
The Green Hornet
The Green Hornet is an American radio and television masked vigilante created by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker, with input from radio director James Jewell, in 1936. Since his radio debut in the 1930s, the Green Hornet has appeared in numerous serialized dramas in a wide variety of media...

, The Fox, Secret Agent Z-2, Bob Preston, Explorer, Cat-Man and The Flash. At this time, he created the feature Citizen Smith, Son of the Unknown Soldier. In 1941, he worked for Sheldon Mayer
Sheldon Mayer
Sheldon Mayer was an American comic book writer, artist and editor. One of the earliest employees of Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson's National Allied Publications, Mayer produced almost all of his comics work for the company that would become known as DC Comics.He is credited with rescuing the...

. His art during the 1940s also included Green Lantern and the creation of the National Comics/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...

 character Wildcat
Wildcat (comics)
Wildcat is the name of several fictional characters, all DC Comics superheroes. The first and most famous of these is Ted Grant, a long-time member of the Justice Society of America...

.

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...

, Hasen was stationed at Fort Dix and managed the Fort Dix Post newspaper: "I edited it, I published it, I took it to the printers, I learned how to set up type, I did the comic strip, I wrote the whole goddam thing, and I interviewed all the celebrities coming in from New York. I worked my ass off, and I wound up in the hospital. But that was my proudest time, editing that newspaper for a year and a half."

He returned to DC after he was discharged from the Army in 1946. In the post-war period, he drew Johnny Thunder, the Justice Society of America, The Flash and Green Lantern.

Comic strips

Before the creation of Dondi in 1954, Hasen drew a comic strip adaptation of The Goldbergs radio/TV series which ran in the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...

in 1944 and 1945.

Hasen, an active member of the National Cartoonists Society
National Cartoonists Society
The National Cartoonists Society is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the troops...

, met Gus Edson
Gus Edson
Gus Edson was an American cartoonist known for two popular, long running comic strips, The Gumps and Dondi....

 while on a tour of Germany and together they created the Dondi
Dondi
Dondi was a daily comic strip about a large-eyed war orphan of the same name. Created by Gus Edson and Irwin Hasen, it ran in more than 100 newspapers for three decades .-Interview:...

 comic strip, with Edson writing and Hasen drawing.

In 2007, Hasen was recovering from a minor stroke which occurred on April 24, 2007.

Awards

Hasen received the National Cartoonists Society
National Cartoonists Society
The National Cartoonists Society is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the troops...

's Story Comic Strip Award for Dondi in 1961 and 1962.

External links

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