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Revision as of 11:22, 26 September 2005 by Rich Farmbrough (talk | contribs) (Wikify dates.)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Carl Burgos is an American comic book and advertising artist, born April 18 1917, New York City; died 1984. His most famous creation is the original Human Torch in Marvel Comics #1, the first comic published by Timely, predecessor of Marvel Comics.
Even before creating the android Human Torch, Burgos created the robot hero The Iron Skull in Centaur Publishing's Amazing-Man Comics #5 (Sept. 1939). Burgos and others followed Centaur art director Lloyd Jacquet when the latter formed Funnies, Inc., a packager creating comics on demand for publishers. Jacquet's first sale was to the newly formed Timely Comics, for which Marvel Comics #1 (Nov. 1939) would star Burgos' Human Torch as well as Paul Gustavson's pencil-mustached, costumed detective the Angel and Bill Everett's Sub-Mariner, expanding an origin story Everett had created for a never-released promotional comic. A painted cover by veteran science-fiction pulp artist Frank R. Paul featured the Torch.
Burgos' character proved a hit, and quickly went on to headline one of comics' first single-character titles, The Human Torch (premiering fall 1940 with no cover date and as issue #2, having taken over the numbering from the single-issue Red Raven).
Burgos was educated at the National Academy of Design in New York City. He left comics in 1942, spending most of the next quarter-century in advertising. In 1966, he created a short-lived character called Captain Marvel, no relation to either the old Fawcett Comics superhero nor to Marvel's Captain Marvel, for Myron Fass' M.F. Enterprises.
After Marvel used the Human Torch name and superpowers for The Fantastic Four's teen member Johnny Storm, in 1961, Burgos pursued a lawsuit to assert ownership of the character. This was unsuccessful. Burgos nonetheless contributed art to some mid-1960s Giant-Man stories in Marvel's Tales to Astonish, as well as to a Johnny Storm Human Torch story in Strange Tales #123. Marvel eventually revived Burgos' original Human Torch for present-day stories.
In the 1970s, Burgos would serve as an editor for Fass' Eerie Publications line of black-and-white, horror-comic magazines.
References
Michigan State University Libraries, Special Collections Division, Reading Room Index to the Comic Art Collection: "Bureau" to "Buriko" and "Human Tank" to "Human Zeros"