It seems as though we're losing classic comic creators at a dizzying rate these days. I just read that long-time funnybook artist Henry Scarpelli passed away on Sunday at age 79. To be honest, as a child I tended to avoid most teen humour and funny animal books. They also seemed to be around the neighbourhood, because I imagine most parents felt they were a 'safe' choice. I was generally too obsessed with Batman and Daredevil to notice just how much intelligence and artistry went into most of these books. Scarpelli played a large role in those genres, and it is only within the last 10 years or so that I've come to appreciate how much skill he brought to the table. I'm still not totally on board the good ship Archie, but I have become more and more familiar with Scarpelli's work for various licensed properties at Dell and Charlton, and his contributions to a handful of DC titles. For my money, his work with Steve Skeated on the Abbott & Costello series for Charlton was simply fantastic, and I'm only sorry that I've come to learn this so late in life. Rest in Peace Mr. Scarpelli.Wednesday, April 07, 2010
R.I.P. Henry Scarpelli
It seems as though we're losing classic comic creators at a dizzying rate these days. I just read that long-time funnybook artist Henry Scarpelli passed away on Sunday at age 79. To be honest, as a child I tended to avoid most teen humour and funny animal books. They also seemed to be around the neighbourhood, because I imagine most parents felt they were a 'safe' choice. I was generally too obsessed with Batman and Daredevil to notice just how much intelligence and artistry went into most of these books. Scarpelli played a large role in those genres, and it is only within the last 10 years or so that I've come to appreciate how much skill he brought to the table. I'm still not totally on board the good ship Archie, but I have become more and more familiar with Scarpelli's work for various licensed properties at Dell and Charlton, and his contributions to a handful of DC titles. For my money, his work with Steve Skeated on the Abbott & Costello series for Charlton was simply fantastic, and I'm only sorry that I've come to learn this so late in life. Rest in Peace Mr. Scarpelli.
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3 comments:
Like you, I wasn't a teen humour or funny animal fan for most of my early collecting days... Except for french UNCLE SCROOGE reprints from Héritage Comics. I could never understand why I was particularly interested in that single "funny animal" series. (I later learned that most stories in that reprint series were Carl Barks.... so that figures why I liked them so much!). I later collected the first wave of Gladstone's Disney. And I am now just into Bronze Age Archies Giants, Dell and Gold Key Disney and Hanna-Barbera...
But the too few times I came across a Scarpelli cartoon page I always appreciated his work: the occasional Casey the Cop (in DETECTIVE COMICS?) or Super-Turtle in Bronze Age DC comics were a treat.
Does someone else remeber what other work Mr. Scarpelli worked on?
For Dell - he did some TV stuff like Get Smart and Beverly Hillbillies. I think he was almost exclusively at Archie from the early 70s onwards.
He won a Shazam award in 1970 for inking DC humor comics including Binky. He also worked on Scooter, Stanley and his Monster, and Debbi.
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