Mike Lynch and Mark Evanier are reporting that golden age Sandman artist Creig Flessel passed away last Thursday, after suffering from a stroke the week before. He was 96. Evanier has more:
His non-advertising cartoon appeared over the years in publications as diverse as Boy’s Life and Playboy, but it was his work for the early DC Comics that made the most history. His first work for them appears to have appeared in More Fun Comics #10, cover-dated May of 1936. He drew a strip in the first issue of the historic Detective Comics and drew the covers for issues #2-17, along with many other covers for early DC titles. His work also appeared inside many comics for the firm, and he drew many stories of the Sandman in Adventure Comics, and created a character named The Shining Knight, who appeared in the same title.
In 1940, DC editor Vin Sullivan moved over to the newly-formed Columbia Comics, and Flessel began to freelance for him there, as well. In 1943, Sullivan formed his own company, Magazine Enterprises, and Flessel signed on as associate editor. He returned from time to time to DC, drawing for them again briefly in 1949, in the late fifties (mostly as an inker on Superman-related comics) and then in the early seventies, he worked on comics that Joe Simon was editing for the firm, including Prez.
For more on Flessel or to see some of his artwork, go here, here, here, here or here.
