Saturday, December 9, 2006

Martin Nodell, the artist co-creator of Green Lantern, died this morning less than a month after his 91st birthday. I'm afraid I have no further details other than that Marty had been in poor health lately.

Marty was born 11/15/15 in Philadelphia. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago and later, Pratt Institute in New York. It was in New York that he began working as a freelance artist, in or around 1938. He soon started freelancing for several comic book companies that either didn't pay or didn't pay well. As he later told the story, he got tired of being stiffed by the smaller firms and decided to make an all-out effort to break into the majors. He called at the offices of the biggest publisher, DC Comics, and was told they were full up but that there might be work at an affiliated company, All American. The editor there was Sheldon Mayer.

Mayer gave him a little work. When Nodell asked what it would take to get steady assignments, Mayer, who was looking for a new feature for the company's signature title, All-American Comics, told him to come up with a character. Nodell returned a few days later with sketches and the germ cell of a strip called Green Lantern. He said the idea had come to him on the subway when he saw a man waving — you guessed it — a green lantern. Nodell also said he wrote and drew the first few pages of the first story...but he wasn't a writer so Mayer brought in one of comics' top writers, Bill Finger, to rewrite and finish the first tale. The result was that Green Lantern, by Bill Finger and "Mart Dellon," debuted in All-American Comics #16, cover dated July of 1940. The character, which drew inspiration from the legend of Aladdin, was an immediate hit on the magnitude of the firm's other new superstars, The Flash and Wonder Woman, and soon received his own comic. (The All-American company was later absorbed by DC Comics. A new version of Green Lantern was created in 1959 and that version remains popular today, though the original Nodell incarnation has also been known to reappear.)

Nodell was very proud of his creation and its longevity. Asked why he'd opted for a pen name on the early stories, he once explained, "A lot of us did that back then. We thought of comics as a way to earn money before we moved on to real illustration work. If you used a fake name, you could disavow the work. Now, of course, I don't want to."

Marty worked for DC until 1947, then did a brief stint at Timely (Marvel) where he drew Captain America, the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner in some of their final appearances before the declining popularity of super-heroes brought about cancellation. He took that as a cue to get out comics and around 1950, made the move into advertising work, which he found more satisfying, at least in terms of pay and stability. He was also good at it. Marty was widely credited, here and elsewhere, with designing several iconic characters including the Pillsbury Doughboy. Apparently, some of these attributions are arguable, at least insofar as giving him sole credit is concerned. But he was definitely a major contributor and was responsible to some extent for a lot of memorable cartoon figures.

In the eighties, following his retirement from advertising, Marty was rediscovered by comics. He and his delightful wife Carrie could be found on the convention circuit, selling his sketches and often being interviewed by me. Carrie passed away in April of 2004 (reported here) and as one might expect, life was rough for Marty after that. They had been married for 63 years.

Is The Pulse as good?