Tom Gill (comics)
Encyclopedia
Thomas P. Gill is an American
comic book
artist
best known for his nearly 11-year run drawing The Lone Ranger
.
newspaper the Daily News. His earliest known comic book
work was penciling and inking
the five-page story "The Scientist's Haunted House" for the feature "K-51 Spies At War" in Fox Comics' Wonderworld Comics #13 (May 1940). Other early comics work includes Novelty Press
' Blue Bolt Comics
, from 1944 to 1946, and Target Comics in the mid-1940s; he is also tentatively identified on three stories for Fiction House
's Jungle Comics in 1941, and drew occasionally for that publisher's Wings Comics in the mid-1940s.
In 1946,he moved to the New York Herald-Tribune, where his work included the three-year comic strip Flower Potts, about a "cauliflower-eared" boxer turned cab driver.
With an unknown writer, he co-created the Native-American Western
character Red Warrior, who starred in a namesake comic-book series for Atlas Comics
, the 1950s iteration of Marvel Comics
. He drew the majority of the stories for the six-issue series (Jan.-Dec. 1951), and all covers except the last.
' The Lone Ranger
#38 (Aug. 1951) — the first issue of that title with original stories rather than reprints of the Fran Striker
-Charles Flanders newspaper
comic-strip — Gill and writer Paul S. Newman
teamed for a nearly 11-year run chronicling the stories of that old-time radio
and later television
Western
hero. Gill drew every issue through though #145 (July 1962), a 107-issue run that marks one of the longest of any artist on a comic-book series.
The series had been produced by Western Publishing
and published by its business partner, Dell. After severing ties, Western established its own comic-book imprint, Gold Key Comics
, which launched its own Lone Ranger title. This reprinted Newman-Gill material from the Dell run for its first 21 issues (Sept. 1964 - June 1975), after which it published new material by other creators through the final issue, #28 (March 1977).
Gill's other comic-book work includes the lengthily-titled spin-off The Lone Ranger's Famous Horse Hi-Yo Silver ; the TV-Western tie-in Bonanza
, and the equine-series tie-in Fury ; the six-issue Native American
-hero Western Red Warrior (Jan.-Dec. 1951) for Atlas Comics
, the 1950s precursor of Marvel Comics
; and, with writer Jerry Siegel
, the sole two issues (April 1967 & April 1968) of Gold Key's self-consciously camp revival of creator Frank Thomas' 1940 character The Owl.
Among Gill's assistants were Joe Sinnott
, Herb Trimpe
and John Verpoorten
.
Working from his studio on Long Island
and never venturing West, Gill gained his facility for drawing horses, he said, from "a $1 book called How to Draw Horses: It's Fun and It's Easy." In that same interview, he explained his philosophy of drawing the Lone Ranger's famed white steed: "You had to make Silver a glamour horse. His head was always high, his mane was always flying."
and Toby Press
. For Western Publishing, he additionally illustrated children's books and such projects as The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
TV tie-in books and activity books.
For roughly 50 years, Gill taught cartooning and children's-book illustration
in New York-area colleges and institutions, including the School of Visual Arts
, where he served as a department chair in 1948, alumni director in 1969, and consultant well into the 21st century. He served several terms as vice-president of the National Cartoonists Society
, winning its Silver T-Square award in 1964 and its Best Story Comic Book Artist award in 1970.
With Tim Lasiuta, he wrote the autobiography Misadventures of A Roving Cartoonist: The Lone Ranger's Secret Sidekick (Five Star Publications, 2008)
. He was survived by family including wife Patricia, daughter Nancy Zaglaluer, and son Tom Gill.
at the 2004 Comic-Con International
, in San Diego
, California
.
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
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 nearly 11-year run drawing The Lone Ranger
The Lone Ranger
The Lone Ranger is a fictional masked Texas Ranger who, with his Native American companion Tonto, fights injustice in the American Old West. The character has become an enduring icon of American culture....
.
Early life and career
Gill began his career as a staff artist with the New York CityNew 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...
newspaper the Daily News. His earliest known 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...
work was 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 five-page story "The Scientist's Haunted House" for the feature "K-51 Spies At War" in Fox Comics' Wonderworld Comics #13 (May 1940). Other early comics work includes Novelty Press
Novelty Press
Novelty Press was an American Golden Age comic-book publisher that operated from 1940–1949. It was the comic book imprint of Curtis Publishing Company, publisher of The Saturday Evening Post...
' Blue Bolt Comics
Blue Bolt
Blue Bolt is a fictional American comic book superhero created by writer-artist Joe Simon in 1940, during the period fans and historians refer to as the Golden Age of Comic Books.-Publication history:...
, from 1944 to 1946, and Target Comics in the mid-1940s; he is also tentatively identified on three stories for 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...
's Jungle Comics in 1941, and drew occasionally for that publisher's Wings Comics in the mid-1940s.
In 1946,he moved to the New York Herald-Tribune, where his work included the three-year comic strip Flower Potts, about a "cauliflower-eared" boxer turned cab driver.
With an unknown writer, he co-created the Native-American Western
Western comics
Western comics is a comics genre usually depicting the American Old West frontier and typically set during the late nineteenth century...
character Red Warrior, who starred in a namesake comic-book series for 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 iteration 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...
. He drew the majority of the stories for the six-issue series (Jan.-Dec. 1951), and all covers except the last.
The Lone Ranger and other Westerns
Beginning with Dell ComicsDell 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...
' The Lone Ranger
The Lone Ranger
The Lone Ranger is a fictional masked Texas Ranger who, with his Native American companion Tonto, fights injustice in the American Old West. The character has become an enduring icon of American culture....
#38 (Aug. 1951) — the first issue of that title with original stories rather than reprints of the Fran Striker
Fran Striker
Fran Striker was an American writer for radio and comics, best known for creating The Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet, and Sgt...
-Charles Flanders 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 — Gill and writer Paul S. Newman
Paul S. Newman
Paul S. Newman was an American writer of comic books, comic strips, and books, whose career spanned the 1940s to the 1990s...
teamed for a nearly 11-year run chronicling the stories of that old-time radio
Old-time radio
Old-Time Radio and the Golden Age of Radio refer to a period of radio programming in the United States lasting from the proliferation of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s until television's replacement of radio as the primary home entertainment medium in the 1950s...
and later television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
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. Gill drew every issue through though #145 (July 1962), a 107-issue run that marks one of the longest of any artist on a comic-book series.
The series had been produced by Western Publishing
Western Publishing
Western Publishing, also known as Western Printing and Lithographing Company was a Racine, Wisconsin firm responsible for publishing the Little Golden Books. Western Publishing also produced children's books and family-related entertainment products as Golden Books Family Entertainment...
and published by its business partner, Dell. After severing ties, Western established its own comic-book imprint, Gold Key Comics
Gold Key Comics
Gold Key Comics was an imprint of Western Publishing created for comic books distributed to newsstands. Also known as Whitman Comics, Gold Key operated from 1962 to 1984.-History:...
, which launched its own Lone Ranger title. This reprinted Newman-Gill material from the Dell run for its first 21 issues (Sept. 1964 - June 1975), after which it published new material by other creators through the final issue, #28 (March 1977).
Gill's other comic-book work includes the lengthily-titled spin-off The Lone Ranger's Famous Horse Hi-Yo Silver ; the TV-Western tie-in Bonanza
Bonanza
Bonanza is an American western television series that both ran on and was a production of NBC from September 12, 1959 to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 430 episodes, it ranks as the second longest running western series and still continues to air in syndication. It centers on the...
, and the equine-series tie-in Fury ; the six-issue Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
-hero Western Red Warrior (Jan.-Dec. 1951) for 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, with writer Jerry Siegel
Jerry Siegel
Jerome "Jerry" Siegel , who also used pseudonyms including Joe Carter, Jerry Ess, and Herbert S...
, the sole two issues (April 1967 & April 1968) of Gold Key's self-consciously camp revival of creator Frank Thomas' 1940 character The Owl.
Among Gill's assistants were Joe Sinnott
Joe Sinnott
Joe Sinnott is an American comic book artist. Working primarily as an inker, Sinnott is best-known for his long stint on Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four, from 1965 to 1981 , initially over the pencils of industry legend Jack Kirby...
, Herb Trimpe
Herb Trimpe
Herbert W. "Herb" Trimpe Herbert W. "Herb" Trimpe Herbert W. "Herb" Trimpe (b. May 26, 1939, is an American comic book artist and occasional writer, best known for his work on The Incredible Hulk and as the first artist to draw for publication the character Wolverine, who later became a breakout...
and John Verpoorten
John Verpoorten
John Verpoorten was a comic book artist and editorial worker best known as Marvel Comics' production manager during the latter part of the Silver Age of Comic Books and afterward, during a seminal period of Marvel's expansion from a small publishing concern to a multinational popular culture...
.
Working from his studio 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...
and never venturing West, Gill gained his facility for drawing horses, he said, from "a $1 book called How to Draw Horses: It's Fun and It's Easy." In that same interview, he explained his philosophy of drawing the Lone Ranger's famed white steed: "You had to make Silver a glamour horse. His head was always high, his mane was always flying."
Cartooning and children's books
Gill also drew a 1948 comic strip, Ricky Stevens, and comic books for Harvey ComicsHarvey 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...
and Toby Press
Toby 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...
. For Western Publishing, he additionally illustrated children's books and such projects as The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is an American television series that was broadcast on NBC from September 22, 1964, to January 15, 1968. It follows the exploits of two secret agents, played by Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, who work for a fictitious secret international espionage and law-enforcement...
TV tie-in books and activity books.
For roughly 50 years, Gill taught cartooning and children's-book illustration
Illustration
An illustration is a displayed visualization form presented as a drawing, painting, photograph or other work of art that is created to elucidate or dictate sensual information by providing a visual representation graphically.- Early history :The earliest forms of illustration were prehistoric...
in New York-area colleges and institutions, including the School of Visual Arts
School of Visual Arts
The School of Visual Arts , is a proprietary art school located in Manhattan, New York City, and is widely considered to be one of the leading art schools in the United States. It was established in 1947 by co-founders Silas H. Rhodes and Burne Hogarth as the Cartoonists and Illustrators School and...
, where he served as a department chair in 1948, alumni director in 1969, and consultant well into the 21st century. He served several terms as vice-president 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...
, winning its Silver T-Square award in 1964 and its Best Story Comic Book Artist award in 1970.
With Tim Lasiuta, he wrote the autobiography Misadventures of A Roving Cartoonist: The Lone Ranger's Secret Sidekick (Five Star Publications, 2008)
Later life
Gill died of heart failure at his home in Croton-on-Hudson, New YorkNew 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 was survived by family including wife Patricia, daughter Nancy Zaglaluer, and son Tom Gill.
Awards
Gill won an Inkpot AwardInkpot 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...
at the 2004 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
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...
, 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...
.
External links
- Dell Comics' The Runaway adaptation, drawn by Tom Gill. TCM.com. WebCitation.archive.
- Fran Striker at the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...