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Carl Burgos

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Carl Burgos (née Max Finkelstein, April 18, 1916, New York City, New York; died 1984) is an American comic book and advertising artist best known for creating the original Human Torch in Marvel Comics #1, the first comic book from Timely Comics, the predecessor of Marvel Comics. The Torch, Captain America and the Sub-Mariner were companies three hit characters in the 1930s-1940s Golden Age of comic books, all enduring into the 21st century.

Biography

Early career

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 then 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.

Young Men #25: The Human Torch's 1950s revival. Cover art by Carl Burgos.

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 did work for the Harry "A" Chesler comic-book studio in 1938 before joining the staff of Funnies, Inc. from 1939-42. Following his World War II military service, he left comics as a full-time career and concentrated on advertising and commercial art for the next quarter-century. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Burgos worked for the Pro-Art Company and later for the Belwin Company, where he drew covers for sheet-music books, sometimes assisted by Susan Burgos, one of his two daughters. He also worked for a greeting-card company.

Atlas and the 1950s

Burgos continued to do occasional work in comics. Most prominently, in 1953-54, Burgos draw Human Torch stories and five dramatic, dynamically designed and detailed covers for Young Men #24-28 (Dec. 1953 - June 1954), in which Atlas Comics, the 1950s iteration of Marvel, attempted to revive the dormant superhero field with the Torch, the Sub-Mariner, and Captain America.

Burgos also did art during this time for the Atlas humor comics Crazy, Wild and Riot, for its Western comic Annie Oakley, and its horror-science fiction comics including Astonishing, Journey Into Unknown Worlds, Strange Stories of Suspense and Strange Tales of the Unusual. He did humor for Pierce Publishing's Frantic, Satire Publications' Loco, and Major Magazines' Cracked during 1958-59, as well as layout art for the MLJ/Archie Comics series The Adventures of The Fly and The Double Life of Private Strong. He contributed illustrations for Marvel publisher Martin Goodman's pulp magazines, including Marvel Science Stories and Western Magazine in the 1950s.

Silver Age and afterward

In the mid-1960s, Burgos pursued a lawsuit against Marvel to assert ownership of the Human Torch, whose name and superpowers had been used for The Fantastic Four's Johnny Storm since 1961, but little, if anything, came of this legal action.Template:Fn Burgos nonetheless contributed art to a Johnny Storm Human Torch story in Strange Tales #123 (Aug. 1964), as well as to three Giant-Man stories in Tales to Astonish #62-64 (Dec. 1964-Feb. 1965). Burgos drew himself and writer-editor Stan Lee into the final panel of the Torch story, with Lee adding the avuncular dialog:

Stan (referring to the Torch and the Thing): "There go the greatest guys in the world, Carl."

Carl: "Aw, you're just prejudiced, Stan."

Marvel eventually revived Burgos' original Human Torch for present-day stories, starting with The Fantastic Four Annual #4 (Nov. 1966). That same year, Burgos created a short-lived character called Captain Marvel (no relation to either the old Fawcett Comics superhero or to Marvel's Captain Marvel) for Myron Fass' M.F. Enterprises.

Burgos would serve as an editor in the 1970s for Fass' Eerie Publications line of black-and-white, horror-comic magazines. He would later edit various magazines for Harris Publications before his death from colon cancer. Burgos was posthumously given a 1996 Harvey Award and was inducted into the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame.

Quotes

Fred Hembeck recalling his childhood purchase of Strange Tales #123 : "I found my attention drawn to a longish line of copy located in one of the credit boxes. It read, 'Illustrated by Carl Burgos (who was the first to draw the Torch way back in the Golden Age of Comics!).' Well, there you go — I'm sold yet AGAIN!! Because in a time when the oldest archival material being reprinted by either Marvel or DC came from the mid-to-late fifties ... ANYTHING that was somehow connected to that mysterious and majestic era when the original pantheon of colorfully costumed superheroes was born had my full and complete attention!"

Footnotes

  • Template:Fnb Interview with daughter Susan Burgos, Alter Ego #49, June 2005, "The Privacy Act of Carl Burgos", page 9(offline): "I know he had a lawsuit against Marvel Comics. ... I do know that he went to see a lawyer. I assume it was about getting the rights to the Human Torch, and I read in Alter Ego that they settled out of court. I'm sure that's what happened the day he threw away . I have no idea how it was settled or even if it went to court, though I don't think it did"

References

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