Posted By Dan Greenfield on Oct 17, 2025 | 2 comments

A birthday tribute to the late artist…

By PETER BOSCH

My earliest appreciation of artist Luis Dominguez was with Four Color #1255, the 1961 Dell comic adaptation of the fantasy movie The Wonders of Aladdin. While the film was forgettable (other than being a complete rip-off of the 1940 classic The Thief of Bagdad), Dominguez’s imagery of wizardry, heroism, beautiful women, a treacherous wazir, Amazons, and a genii was amazing to see, particularly in the fine detail he provided on several full-page illustrations. This was a case where the comic was much better than the film. The script has been attributed in turn to Paul S. Newman and to Lionel Ziprin:

According to Eerie magazine, Dominguez was born October 17, 1923, in Cordoba, Argentina, though a memorial notification following his death gave his birthdate as November 17, 1923. Whichever is correct, by the 1970s he had acquired a legion of American fans for his outstanding work at Marvel, DC, and Warren Publishing. To me, though, he hit his peak as a freelancer at Western Publishing, where he painted many memorable covers for their Gold Key line, such as Grimm’s Ghost Stories, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, and other scary titles.

One of my favorite Dominguez covers is of Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with a séance in progress on the cover of Ripley’s Believe It or Not #89, as seen farther below. (For those unaware of their friendship, Houdini was a major debunker of charlatans who preyed on gullible people by pretending to contact the souls of their departed loved ones in return for large donations of cash. However, Sir Arthur, whose Sherlock Holmes would have easily seen through the tricks of these con men and women, was a believer in the afterlife, seeking relief from the deaths of his older brother, his son, and two nephews. While Houdini and Doyle were friends, they were at drastic odds with each other over why they attended such séances.)

Dominguez was one of the greatest illustrators of the Bronze Age. Here is an astonishing group of 13 original painted covers he did for Gold Key — before logos and text were added:

Ripley’s Believe It or Not #71 (July 1977)

Ripley’s Believe It or Not #79 (July 1978)

Ripley’s Believe It or Not #89 (July 1979).

Ripley’s Believe It or Not #94 (Feb. 1980)

Grimm’s Ghost Stories #23 (May 1979)

Grimm’s Ghost Stories #38 (July 1977)

Grimm’s Ghost Stories #48 (Nov. 1978)

Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery #58 (Dec. 1974)

Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery #61 (June 1975)

Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery #89 (Feb. 1979)

Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery #93 (Aug. 1979)

Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery #96 (Nov. 1979)

UFO Flying Saucers #5 (Feb. 1975)

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MORE

— AMERICAN MOVIE COMIC BOOKS: 13 Artists Who Helped Make Them Great. Click here.

— AMERICAN MOVIE COMIC BOOKS: 13 MORE Artists Who Helped Make Them Great. Click here.

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13th Dimension contributor-at-large PETER BOSCH’s first book, American TV Comic Books: 1940s-1980s – From the Small Screen to the Printed Page, was published by TwoMorrows. (You can buy it here.) A sequel, American Movie Comic Books: 1930s-1970s — From the Silver Screen to the Printed Page, is out now. (Buy it here.) Peter has written articles and conducted celebrity interviews for various magazines and newspapers. He lives in Hollywood.