Howard Purcell

Infobox Comics creator

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nationality = American
area = Writer, Penciller
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notable works = Sargon the Sorcerer
Gay Ghost
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Howard Purcell (living status unknown) is an American comic-book artist and writer active from the 1940s Golden Age of comics through the 1960s Silver Age.

A longtime penciler and cover artist for DC Comics, one of the field's two largest firms, he co-created the Golden Age characters Sargon the Sorcerer and the Gay Ghost (renamed in the 1970s the Grim Ghost) for All-American Publications, one of the companies, with National Comics and Detective Comics, that merged to form DC. Purcell also drew the famous cover of "Green Lantern" #1 (Fall 1941).

Biography

Early life and career

Purcell's earliest known credit is National's "Adventure Comics" #53 (Aug. 1940), for which he wrote and drew the six-page feature "Mark Lansing". The titular adventurer's exploits with subterranean races and other science fictiony conceits ran through issue #62. By that time Purcell had drawn the cover of All-American's "All Star Comics" #2 (Fall 1940), reprinted as the cover of DC Comics' quirkily titled, 2006 hardcover collection "All Star Archives" #0 , as well as the feature "Lando, Man of Magic" in "World's Best Comics" #1 (Spring 1941), and both the Green Lantern cover and the humorous adventure feature "Red, White and Blue" of "All-American Comics" #25 (April 1941).

Purcell and writer John Wentworth created Sargon the Sorcerer in the next month's issue. A minor character in what would become the DC universe, Sargon was John Sargent, whose exposure to the "Ruby of Life" during infancy granted him magical powers that he used in adulthood to fight crime, keeping his supernatural abilities camouflaged in his guise as a stage magician. Purcell and Wentworth continued with the character through "All-American Comics" #50 (June 1943).

With writer Gardner Fox, Purcell created the Gay Ghost in All-American's "Sensation Comics" #1 (Jan. 1942). The character, renamed the Grim Ghost in the 1970s, was similar to National Comics' the Spectre in that he was a ghost (of Keith Everet, the fictional 18th-century Earl of Strethmere) who inhabited the body of a modern man, Charles Collins, to fight injustice — although unlike the genuinely grim Spectre, he did so with cheery (i.e., gay) swashbuckling.

For rival Timely Comics, the 1940s forerunner of Marvel Comics, Purcell drew the only appearance of the superhero Young Avenger, in "USA Comics" #1 (Aug. 1941), under the pseudonym Michael Robard. [ [http://www.comics.org/details.lasso?id=1580 Grand Comics Database: "USA Comics" #1] , citing historian Dr. Michael J. Vassallo]

Later life and career

Purcell's 1960s work included doing cover art for the DC series "Sea Devils", and, with writer Bob Haney, creating the supernatural character the Enchantress in "Strange Adventures" #187 (April 1966). Purcell did a smattering for Marvel Comics, including two "Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D." stories, over Jack Kirby layouts, in "Strange Tales" #143-144 (April-May 1966); and a Black Knight solo feature in "Marvel Super-Heroes" #17 (Nov. 1968).

Purcell's last known work was a story each in the DC supernatural anthology "Weird Mystery Tales" #1-3 (Aug.-Dec. 1972), plus the cover of #2.

Footnotes

References

* [http://www.comics.org/ The Grand Comics Database]
* [http://www.toonopedia.com/sargon.htm Don Markstein's Toonopedia: Sargon the Sorcerer]
* [http://www.toonopedia.com/gayghost.htm Don Markstein's Toonopedia: The Gay Ghost]
* [http://www.toonopedia.com/lando.htm Don Markstein's Toonopedia: Lando, Man of Magic]