The celebrated Mr. K salutes a Super(b) and Marvel(ous) artist… By PAUL KUPPERBERG As far as I’m concerned, if all Jim Mooney (August 13, 1919 – March 30, 2008) had ever done was draw the Supergirl back-up strip in Action Comics, that would have been enough to make him one of the favorite artists of my youth. But he didn’t just draw Supergirl (for 10 years, across 120 issues, I might add). He drew thousands and thousands of other beautiful pages since entering the comic business in 1940, working for Fox Publications, the (Will) Eisner & (Jerry) Iger Studio, and Fiction House before hooking up with the proto-Marvel Timely Comics drawing their funny animal characters. In 1946, sensing the decline of funny animal comics and looking for a change, Jim Mooney dropped in on National Periodical Publications (the proto-DC Comics) and walked out with an assignment to draw Batman, albeit under the “Bob Kane” signature. Twenty-two years later, after drawing Batman in his own title and World’s Finest, Robin in Star-Spangled Comics, Superboy, Tommy Tomorrow (which was replaced in Action Comics by Supergirl and shifted over to a back-up spot in World’s Finest), the “Dial ‘H’ for Hero” strip in House of Mystery, and others, Mooney left DC and returned to Marvel where his inks graced many a John Romita Spider-Man (and other artists and strips) and penciled such series as Man-Thing, Omega the Unknown, and others. Later still, Mooney entered the world of black-and-white comics, providing many issues of Claypool Comics’ Elvira Mistress of the Dark and as inker on Soulsearcher and Company. Like I said, Jim Mooney was a favorite artist because of his long association with Supergirl, whose strip was the reason I had begun collecting Action and who, thanks to a kindly gesture by the comics gods, I would later get to write and make a small, pre-Crisis On Infinite Earths impression on. My admiration for the artist wasn’t limited to his association with the Maid of Might, though. Whatever he drew, Jim Mooney drew it good! He had a solid, clean line and was a great storyteller and he drew pretty girls, which was, in the context of the strip, another good thing. And, yes, he did pencil Supergirl in the nude, as he explained in The Legion Companion: “Of course, I used to...