- Ken Bald
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birthname = Kenneth Bruce Bald
birthdate =August 1 ,1920
location =New York City ,New York
deathdate =
deathplace =
nationality = American
area = Penciller, Inker
alias =
notable works =
awards =Kenneth Bruce Bald (b.
August 1 ,1920 ) is an Americanillustrator andcomic book artist best known for the "Judd Saxon ", "Dr. Kildare ", and "Dark Shadows "newspaper comic strips . Due to contractual obligations, he is credited as "K. Bruce" on the "Dark Shadows" strip.Bald, Kenneth Bruce, foreword, "Dark Shadows: The Comic Strip Book", edited by Kathryn Leigh Scott, Pomegranate Press, 1996. ISBN 0938817396. p. vii]Biography
Early life and career
Ken Bald was born in
New York City ,New York and raised in suburbanMount Vernon, New York . [http://profmendez.tripod.com/html/likeness.htm "The Look of Love: The Rise and Fall of The Photo-Realistic Newspaper Strip — The Art of Ken Bald: Truth, Beauty, and Photography", by Prof. A. E. Mendez] , citing "The Steranko History of Comics 2"] He attendedPratt Institute inBrooklyn for three years, then joined theEnglewood, New Jersey studio ofJack Binder , one of the early comic-book "packagers" who would supply complete comics on demand for publishers entering the new medium. Beginning in 1942, during the 1940s period fans and historians call theGolden Age of Comic Books , Bald, via Binder, began drawing backup features for the prominentFawcett Comics .Creator credits were not routinely given during this era, and while historians have tentatively identified Bald as both
penciler andinker of the 14-pageBulletman story "The Terror of the Iceberg" in Fawcett's "Master Comics" #26 (May 1942), his earliest confirmed credit is penciling the 16-pageCaptain America story "Ali Baba and His Forty Nazis" in "Captain America Comics" #32 (Nov. 1943), published byMarvel Comics precursorTimely Comics .Going on staff at Timely, Bald drew stories of such
superheroes as Captain America, theSub-Mariner , theBlonde Phantom , the Destroyer, and Miss America variously through comics cover-dated July 1949. He both wrote and drew a number ofMillie the Model humor stories in the comics "Georgie" and "Patsy Walker", and at least drew the teen-humor character Cindy in "Georgie and Judy Comics" and "Junior Miss".Bald penciled the first appearance of the Sub-Mariner spin-off characterNamora , in "The Coming of Namora" in "Marvel Mystery Comics " #82 (May 1947), but it is unclear if he helped create the character; the cover, which was sometimes created first, featured Namora draw by Bob Powell. Similarly, Bald drew Timely's single issue of "The Witness" (Sept. 1948), starring a character co-created by writer-editorStan Lee , but the cover for which was drawn by Charles Nicholas. Bald, with an unidentified writer, co-created Timely the superhero Sun Girl, who starred in a three-issue series cover-dated August to December 1948.Other comic-book work includes the character
Crime Smasher in Fawcett's "Whiz Comics " in the 1940s, and many anthological horror/suspense stories inAmerican Comics Group 's "Adventures into the Unknown", "The Clutching Hand", "Forbidden Worlds " and "Out of the Night" from 1949 through late 1954. Also for ACG, he co-created the adventure feature Time Travelers in "Operation: Peril" #1 (Nov. 1950)Personal
Bald and his wife, Kaye, have five children.
Footnotes
References
* [http://www.comics.org/search.lasso?query=Ken+Bald&type=credit&sort=chrono&Submit=Search Grand Comics Database search: Ken Bald]
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