Posted By Dan Greenfield on Nov 28, 2022 | 4 comments

The ever-popular artist and writer turns 65!

By WALT GROGAN

Hey, it’s Jerry Ordway’s birthday! Da Ordster has been in the comics business for over 40 years, making him a bona fide industry veteran. Jerry has been an integral part of many of the most important series and events during his time writing, penciling, inking and painting DC Comics.

Last year, we celebrated Jerry’s birthday (he was born Nov. 28, 1957) by showcasing his marvelous painted covers for The Power of Shazam! series — so when 13th Dimension’s head honcho, Dan Greenfield, asked me to help celebrate Jer’s birthday again this year, I had to think about what to feature. It was tough — from inking and then penciling All-Star Squadron to inking Crisis on Infinite Earths to writing and penciling Superman to writing and painting The Power of Shazam! graphic novel and then writing and later penciling the ongoing series and more, Jerry’s hand has touched nearly every character in DC’s vast library.

And then it hit me! With the recent release of DC’s The New Golden Age, a one-shot foreshadowing the return of the Justice Society of America, which features several pages of Ordway art, it seemed only natural to showcase 13 sketches of the mystery men and women who either originated in the Golden Age or were retroactively added to it!

I scoured Jerry’s Twitter feed to find some of his best depictions of those characters and added some retro-coloring to his line art.

As with all things, there’s the right way, the wrong way, and the Ordway! Here’s to you, my friend, as you complete another rotation around the sun!

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MORE

— A CAPTAIN ACTION Childhood, by JERRY ORDWAY. Click here.

— 13 Great JERRY ORDWAY SHAZAM Covers — RANKED. Click here.

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A 10-year-old Walt Grogan fell in love with the original Captain Marvel thanks to essays written by Dick Lupoff and Don Thompson in the paperback edition of All in Color for a Dime, released in 1970 and bought for him by his father off a paperback spinner rack in a liquor store on the South Side of Chicago. Walt runs The Marvel Family Web Facebook page devoted to all incarnations of the Fawcett/DC Captain Marvel and blogs about Captain Marvel at shazamshistorama.com.