Now I want that Shazam 100-pager.

^ Ha!

The 24th was Jim Henson and Marc Guggenheim.

September 25th includes the indie creator Paul Pope, who had some interesting work on today's theme, Batman.

And the late great critic, publisher, and fanboy comic book letter writer Kim Thompson.

Artist, writer, editor, and Valiant co-founder Bob Layton.

Today is the publication anniversary of the first Tintin!

And the creator of another all-time classic comic, Little Nemo, Winsor McCay.

Happy birthday to one of the Veitch brothers, Tom, who I guess is most famous for his Star Wars books.

And last one for today, one of our greats, model for one of the most famous DC covers of all-time, creator of Power Pack; Louise Simonson.

Layton always had the best grip on Iron Man. I enjoyed his Valiant stuff a great deal.

Pretty good spectrum of talent born today; first let's remember that some good stuff comes from overseas, like great Disney work from Romano Scarpa.

And weird indie stuff like Charles Burns.

And big time mainstream like Jim Shooter.

Personal favorite, comic editor/historian Michael Eury.

I'm a bit too young to have enjoyed the heyday of Li'l Abner by Al Capp, but really should sample it someday. His comic strip was so huge that he was a staple of The Tonight Show, made the covers of Time and Newsweek, and was a friend of multiple Presidents.

Thanks for including Kim. I still talk to his widow regularly, and I miss him.

This guy maybe isn't "big enough" to get a mention here, but I think he was local to me back when he started in comics and I might have met him. Or maybe I'm confusing details, but at any rate, I remember a local shop prominently featuring his early books and many thinking he'd be the next big thing. I own that Grips book, and maybe some of his stuff at Caliber, but nothing else by him iirc.
Tim Vigil

One of the last still living legends, Russ Heath.

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And this is cool, even if you're not familiar with his comic work, if you're over 35 you've probably seen the ubiquitous toy advertisements that he often drew for the backs of comics.

Ha, I guess even Heath had to pay the bills. I always wanted to order those kinds of sets but never did. They were probably garbage anyway.

I'd long read (first, I think, in the letters pages of DC's war comics) how particular Russ Heath was about the accuracy of the weapons, planes, tanks, etc, he drew, and when I saw him at Heroes a few years back, I'd brought along an old G.I. Combat for him to sign, and one of the first things he said after quickly leafing through his story was "Man, I spent hours working on those jets." After signing it, he told me that he hadn't seen that issue in years, and he asked me if I minded if he looked at it closer. As far as I was concerned it was his, he could've taken all day and read it if he wanted.

The sad thing is real artists like Russ Heath were reduced to just "paying the bills" while Roy Lichtenstein stole Heath's and other artists' work and became famous and made millions (because irony, or something ).

I've read that they were two-dimensional. Cut out of flat sheets of plastic.

Yep, I bought at least one of those sets. They were cheap flat pieces of plastic, looked nothing like the art b

I'm reaching today...

The rights to the somewhat popular and interesting publishing-history-wise T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents was owned by John Carbonaro for a few decades. He managed to get them published here and there for quite awhile.

And former comic publisher Deni Loubert, known for once being married to Dave Sim, publishing stuff such as the best comic book character of all-time Flaming Carrot, and being scolded by Steve Ditko.