On this day, June 18, 1888, illustrator and author of children’s books about animals and natural history, Carl V. Burger was born in Maryville, Tennessee. He studied architecture at Cornell University and art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. He illustrated the young people’s novel Old Yeller by Fred Gipson and
On this day, June 17, 1927, comic writer and artist Wally Wood was born in Menahga, Minnesota. After high school Wood signed on with the U. S. Merchant Marines and then enlisted in the U. S. Army’s 11th Airborne Division. In 1947 Wood studied for a term at the Minneapolis School of Art and then
On this day, June 22, 2001, cartoonist and illustrator George R. Evans died in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania. Evans studied at the Scranton Art School and then entered the Army. After WWII, Evans began working for comic books. In addition to working for Fiction House’s comics, Evans also did some pulp illustrations and titles for Fawcett. Later
On this day, June 16, 1983, artist and illustrator Doris Emrick Lee died in Clearwater, Florida. After attending Rockford College in Illinois, she studied at the Kansas City Art Institute, at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco, and then in Paris. Even as she was making her name as an artist, she was
On this day, June 15, 1989, pulp illustrator Chester Bloom died in Queens, New York. Canadian by birth, Bloom and his family moved to New York City in 1939. Even as he began created work for pulp magazines, Bloom studied at the Art Students League in New York. He served in the U. S. Army in
On this day, June 14, 1914, illustrator, artist, and writer Winifred Milius Lubell was born in New York City. Lubell’s initial training was by her mother, a painter Elsa Simonson and later at the National Academy of Design and at the Art Students League of New York. Lubell was a socially aware writer and illustrator and
On this day, June 13, 1927, illustrator C. Coles Phillips died in New Rochelle, New York. Phillips went to Kenyon College in his native state of Ohio. In his junior year, Phillips went to New York to work as an illustrator. From 1908 until just before his death, Phillips cover illustrations appears on Life magazine at
In 1916 the illustrator Everett Shinn was commissioned to create the first of June cover illustration for Vanity Fair magazine (see below). To express the frothy entertainments of summer, Shinn portrayed an upscale dandy with his boater in his proper right hand and his elegantly dressed companion seated among or straddling the bough’s of a tree,
On this day, June 12, 1956, cartoon illustrator Scott Roberts was born in New Jersey. H created his first cartoon character, Patty-Cake, when he was nine and many years later it became a comic book. Roberts has also worked on Miep & Patches, Comic Book Defenders, Bob the Man, and Because it was Your Birthday. He has
On this day, June 11, 1842, artist and illustrator E. B. (Edmund Birchhead) Bensell was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Bensell is best known for his ink drawings illustrating Charles F. Hazeltine’s edition of the work of William Shakespeare. He also created illustrations for Scribners & Sons,