Posted By Dan Greenfield on Dec 10, 2024 | 2 comments

A BIRTHDAY SALUTE: The respected artist was born 104 years ago, on Dec. 10, 1920…

By PAUL KUPPERBERG

I’ve said this before, but I couldn’t have begun working in comics at a better time. In 1975 when I made the jump from fan to professional, the comic book business had been in existence for only 40 years, so most of the original creators and their immediate predecessors were still alive, many still active. That meant that not only did I get the opportunity to work with my peers, but the people whose work I’d grown up reading, and made me want to get into the business to begin with, as well.

Dan Spiegle (Dec. 10, 1920 – Jan. 28, 2017) wasn’t a comic book founder but he was already an established professional by the time I was born in 1955. Dan served in the Navy during World War II, working on the base newspaper and painting insignias on airplanes, then studied art on the G.I. Bill in Los Angeles before beginning his professional career on the Hopalong Cassidy newspaper strip (1951-55) for the Mirror Enterprises Syndicate.

Hopalong Cassidy

Following the demise of the strip, Dan turned to comic books, beginning on such Western strips as Maverick (based on the TV series starring James Garner) and Annie Oakley for Dell and Gold Key, as well as licensed versions of such programs as The Rifleman, Rawhide, Colt .45, Lawman, The Untouchables, Sea Hunt, and many others. For Western Publishing/Gold Key, he was the artist on Space Family Robinson, The Green Hornet, Korak: Son of Tarzan, Brothers of the Spear, as well as on a host of animated features, including those featuring the characters of Walt Disney, Hanna-Barbera, Warner Bros, and The Simpsons.

Spiegle was also an accomplished superhero- and action/adventure artist, with credits including Crossfire, Mr. E (co-created with Bob Rozakis), Blackhawk, Tomahawk, Jonah Hex, and Secret Six.  Remember up above where I said I got to work with the people whose work inspired me to want to make comic books? Dan Spiegle was one of them, and our careers briefly crossed paths in 1982 when DC Comics editor Mike W. Barr assigned him to draw my two-part Zatanna story for World’s Finest. I thought that was so cool, it didn’t even bother me that that young whippersnapper of a letterer, Adam Kubert, misspelled my name in the credits.

I don’t think there was anything Dan Spiegle couldn’t draw because as far as I can tell, there wasn’t anything he didn’t draw. He seemed to jump effortlessly from Westerns to funny animals to adventure to animation… and don’t get me started on the skill it takes to consistently keep actors’ likenesses for all those movie and TV adaptations (as well as animated characters) on model.

As ever, it’s impossible to thoroughly represent a career like Dan’s that spanned almost 70 years distilled down to 13 selections, but be that as it may, here are MY 13 FAVORITE STORIES ILLUSTRATED BY DAN SPIEGLE:

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Annie Oakley and Tagg #7 (June 1956, Dell). I’m not sure if the comic book newcomer just wasn’t used to all the real estate given him on the full comic book page after four or five years on a newspaper strip, or he was just imitating the sparse, open look of a lot of the art in Dell Comics in those days, but Spiegle would quickly get comfortable on that page.

Writer unknown

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Four Color Comics #1049: Don’t Give Up the Ship (1959, Dell). Most of my early exposure to Spiegle’s art was in Dell’s Four Color Comics, and, maybe because he drew horses so darned well, he was assigned to lots of Westerns, including, in addition to those listed above: Brave Eagle, Tales of the Pony Express, Johnny Mack Brown, Jace Pearson’s Tales of the Texas Rangers, The Adventures of Jim Bowie, The Nine Lives of Elfego Baca, The Texan, Tombstone Territory, Johnny Ringo, and Walt Disney’s Texas John Slaughter. Giddy-yup!

He was also the pen and ink behind an impressive list of movie adaptations, including John Paul Jones, Yellowstone Kelly, A Dog of Flanders, Atlantis, the Lost Continent, Disney’s Old Yeller, Old Ironsides, The Shaggy Dog, Annette’s Life Story, The Parent Trap, The Prince and the Pauper… and Jerry Lewis’ Don’t Give Up the Ship (that’s my copy, signed by Jerry).

Written by Eric Freiwald and Robert Schaefer

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Space Family Robinson: Lost in Space #23 (August 1967, Gold Key). If I was going to buy only a few Gold Key titles with whatever money I had left after getting my fill of DC, Marvel, and Charltons, Space Family Robinson: Lost in Space was usually on the list. The stories were OK, but the real draw was Dan Spiegle’s art which, if I recall correctly, he supplied for the entire 50-plus issue run of the title.

Written by Gaylord Du Bois

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The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera (Marvel, 1978). Like I said, Dan could draw it all, including the gamut of animation styles, from superheroic to funny animal!

Written by Mark Evanier

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Jonah Hex #38 (July 1980, DC). Spiegle returned to the Old West for a thrilling fill-in on one of the only surviving Western features in comics.

Written by Michael Fleisher

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Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom #29 (1981, Gold Key). A dozen years after the end of the nuclear hero’s original run, Gold Key attempted a short-lived revival with art by Dan, one of their 1960s mainstays.

Written by Roger McKenzie

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The Brave and the Bold #181 (December 1981, DC). Spiegle was so good, not even a humungous John Costanza sound effect can distract from his art.

Written by Cary Burkett

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Blackhawk #253 (December 1982, DC). Spiegle was a “quiet” artist, one of those guys like Curt Swan who drew down-to-Earth, realistic human beings with often vivid, very true emotions. That’s not to say both artists weren’t capable of dynamic, explosive action, but their default setting was grounded in the believable humanity of their characters, so whether it was the members of the Blackhawks confronting their foes in the air or the demons inside their own heads, he was up for the task.

Written by Mark Evanier

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World’s Finest #276 (February 1982, DC). I’m often asked what it was like to work “with” various and sundry artists from years gone by, but the honest answer is I didn’t actually work with most of them, or even meet many of them. I wrote my scripts, often without knowing who the artist would end up being and, just as often, I wouldn’t find out until I saw the published book. But I can tell you what it was like to see my name sharing credit boxes with, yes, legends like Dan Spiegle: breathtaking!

Written by… me!

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Marvel Super Special #29 (1983, Marvel). No stranger to jungle adventures after a run on Gold Key’s Korak: Son of Tarzan in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Marvel brought Dan back for some tales of the kid’s old man.

Written by Mark Evanier and Sharman DiVono

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Crossfire #1 (May 1984, Eclipse). This Eclipse Comics series starring a Hollywood bail bondsman who assumes the identity of a slain costumed villain to fight crime from the inside introduced Dan to a whole new generation of readers.

Written by Mark Evanier

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Action Comics Weekly #602 (1988, DC). The Secret Six was a cult favorite from the 1960s that was revived 20 years later as one of the features in the new anthology format for Action Comics (and would be revived almost 20 years after that during the Infinite—for the moment—Crisis). An action/adventure series with a very human element, this group seemed tailor-made for Spiegle.

Written by Marty Pasko

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The Shadow Strikes #29 (March 1992, DC). There was no evil in the heart of this reader when he found Dan Spiegle had supplied the art for this 1940s-based series of Shadow adventures.

Written by Don Kraar

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MORE

— 13 COVERS AND PAGES: A DAN SPIEGLE Birthday Celebration: 2023 — BLACKHAWK. Click here.

— 13 GREAT ILLUSTRATIONS: A DAN SPIEGLE Birthday Celebration: 2022 — CROSSFIRE. Click here.

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PAUL KUPPERBERG was a Silver Age fan who grew up to become a Bronze Age comic book creator, writer of Superman, the Doom Patrol, and Green Lantern, creator of Arion Lord of Atlantis, Checkmate, and Takion, and slayer of Aquababy, Archie, and Vigilante. He is the Harvey and Eisner Award nominated writer of Archie Comics’ Life with Archie, and his YA novel Kevin was nominated for a GLAAD media award and won a Scribe Award from the IAMTW. He also wrote an essay for DC’s Aquaman: 80 Years of the King of the Seven Seas. Check out his new memoir, Panel by Panel: My Comic Book Life. 

Website: https://www.paulkupperberg.net/

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