Another pioneer of the earliest days of comics has died. It's legendary artist Bob Oksner and the cause of death, earlier this evening, was pneumonia. Born October 14, 1916 in Paterson, New Jersey, he originally embarked on a legal career at New York University. It was while he was editing the campus humor magazine that he met many cartoonists and began flexing his muscles in that area. Before long, he'd changed majors and enrolled also at the Art Students League. He received an M.A. at Columbia University, then taught art and history in high school until he broke into comics. His earliest work was in either 1939 or 1940 for Funnies, Inc., which was an art service that supplied comic book material to a number of publishers, including Timely (now Marvel) Comics. Timely liked to hire artists away from Funnies, Inc. and by '42, Oksner was working directly for the publisher on strips including The Destroyer and Marvel Boy, while also occasionally drawing for other houses. In 1945, he began drawing a syndicated newspaper strip, Miss Cairo Jones, that lasted until 1947.
Sheldon Mayer, an editor at DC, had been a fan of Miss Cairo Jones and he invited Oksner to work for DC…an association that kept Bob occupied for the rest of his career. He started on The Black Canary and other strips featuring pretty ladies and soon segued to humor features, especially ones based on licensed properties. Oksner drew The Adventures of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis until that team split up, whereupon his assignment became The Adventures of Jerry Lewis. He also drew Sgt. Bilko, Doberman, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, Pat Boone, The Adventures of Bob Hope and non-licensed humor titles like Leave it to Binky, Miss Beverly Hills, A Date With Judy and Stanley and His Monster. One of his more memorable stints was as artist/co-creator of the short-lived The Angel and the Ape in the late sixties. He received the National Cartoonists Society Award in its Comic Book Division for 1960 and 1961 won the Shazam Award in 1970 for Best Pencil Artist (Humor Division).
When DC didn't have humor work for him, he did romance tales for Girl's Love Stories and other such comics. Later, when they weren't publishing either, Oksner worked on Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Lois Lane and other adventure-type strips, especially those featuring heroines. He did a long tour of duty as Curt Swan's inker on Superman and drew a number of Superman stories on his own and illustrated many classic covers.
Over the years, Oksner occasionally returned to syndicated comic strips. From 1952 to 1955, he drew a strip based on the I Love Lucy TV show and from 1967 to '68, there was Soozie, a very well-drawn strip about a very well-built young lady. His longest run in syndication began in '69 when he began collaborating with his long-time friend, Irwin Hasen, on the scripts for Hasen's strip, Dondi. Oksner did the plots and Hasen wrote the dialogue. This lasted until 1986 when the strip ended.
That was a year or two after Oksner had retired completely from drawing…and I don't mean just from drawing for DC. He gave away his drawing table and art supplies, and when fans contacted him to inquire about commissions, his reply was, "Sorry…I don't have anything to draw on." A few years later, he weakened enough to do a few sketches but when I interviewed him at the 2002 Comic-Con International, he said he was quite content to have put drawing behind him. (The above photo of him was taken at that convention. Thanks to Jackie Estrada for supplying it.)
That convention was the only opportunity I ever had to meet Mr. Oksner and spend time with him, even though we'd both worked briefly on a mid-seventies comic book adaptation of the TV show, Welcome Back, Kotter. He was a charming gentleman who was amazed and delighted to discover he had so many fans. It seemed like every thirty seconds for all four days, someone was coming up to him to say how much they'd always admired his art. Especially the way he drew the ladies.
An issue of Alter Ego devoted to Oksner's work is just about to go to press.