Posted By Dan Greenfield on Nov 26, 2025 | 4 comments

From Quality Comics to The Spirit to the strips — and so much more…

By PETER BOSCH

November 26 marks the birthday of one of comic books’ finest artists, whose actual name was Fine. Lou Fine. His art has been influential on several generations of artists, including Jack Kirby, Murphy Anderson, Gil Kane, Alex Toth, and Neal Adams. (Speaking of Adams, please be sure to read the sidebar to this piece. You will find that, for a time, Neal Adams was Lou Fine — and he was also Gray Morrow… and Stan Drake… and Al Williamson.)

Born Louis Kenneth Fine in 1914 in New York, the son of an immigrant who painted houses, he could be found drawing from an early age. He went on to study at the Grand Central Art School, the Pratt Institute, and also attended Cooper Union to study engineering (at his father’s request).

In his early 20s, Fine went to work at the Eisner & Iger Studio (which provided complete comic book content for publishers, including writing, drawing, etc.), and his first published work appeared in comics from Fiction House and Fox.

Wonder Comics #2 (June 1939, Fox). Lou Fine’s first cover.

In the 1940s, Quality Comics was added to that mix and he would soon be lured away to work exclusively for that company, drawing several of Quality’s most popular superheroes, including the Ray, the Black Condor, Doll Man, and Uncle Sam. He came to be revered by other illustrators at Quality. Art-wise, what Alex Raymond was to comic strips, Lou Fine was to comic books.

Hit Comics #8 (Feb. 1941, Quality)

Hit Comics #11 (May 1941, Quality)

National Comics #9 (Mar. 1941, Quality)

National Comics #13 (July 1941, Quality)

Think his covers were great? Take a look at some of his splash pages!

Crack Comics #18 (Oct. 1941, Quality)

National Comics #16 (Oct. 1941, Quality)

National Comics #18 (Dec. 1941, Quality)

Smash Comics #30 (Jan. 1942, Quality)

After Pearl Harbor was attacked December 7, 1941, Will Eisner was drafted. By this time, he had been writing and drawing The Spirit newspaper weekly section for awhile. He was able to stockpile a number of completed strips before he entered the service in early 1942, but he needed to have someone take over drawing the strip.

He entrusted it to Lou Fine, who was already drawing the daily Spirit newspaper strip for Eisner. Fine was unable to serve during World War II because he had polio when he was young, which affected one leg, leaving it shorter than the other. (Quality artist Jack Cole took over the daily strip for a time and would also draw a number of The Spirit sections.)

The Spirit, May 16, 1943

It was not long after Eisner returned to civilian life and to the Spirit sections that Fine decided to leave comics and enter the field of advertising illustration. He worked first for the firm of Johnstone & Cushing and then left to form his own company with Don Komisarov, who had inked many of his Spirit stories.

Fine and Komisarov drew a regular feature between 1945-46 for Liberty Magazine: The Thropp Family, using the combination of their two names, “Donlou.”

Liberty, May 11, 1946. Pencils by Fine, inks by Don Komisarov.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen: Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon) pushing Wildroot Cream Oil hair tonic. All-American Comics #90 ad (Oct. 1947, DC). This was a tie-in to the radio series, The Adventures of Sam Spade, and Wildroot was its sponsor.

Fine also drew a newspaper comic strip in 1949 called Taylor Woe but it was cancelled quickly due to low circulation. A decade later, in 1959, he and writer Elliot Caplin (brother of Al Capp) created a soap opera strip, Adam Ames, which came to an end in 1962.

The first week of the Adam Ames newspaper strip, July 6-11, 1959. Written by Elliot Caplin.

Fine also drew several “Space Conquerors” stories for Boy’s Life magazine in the early 1960s.

Boy’s Life, September 1962. Unconfirmed if Al Stenzel wrote the strip at this time.

In 1965, he and Caplin tried a new comic strip, but this time with a completely different type of story: Peter Scratch was a private detective cut from the same cloth as Mike Hammer, Sam Spade, and Philip Marlowe.

First daily strip for Peter Scratch, written by Caplin. September 13, 1965.

A sample week (Sept. 5 to Sept. 10, 1966) of Peter Scratch, written by Caplin.

The strip ran for two years and featured good art by Fine — and, on occasion, was ghosted by Neal Adams.

Neal Adams filling in for Lou Fine on the Peter Scratch newspaper strip for the week of June 13 to June 18, 1966.

As always, Fine had plenty of advertising work to offset the various comic strips’ short runs. In 1967, his artwork could also be found in the one-shot publication Wham-O Giant Comics #1 — so named because each page measured 14 x 21 inches! He illustrated the two-page feature “Tor and the Man from AEONS.” (This was a different “Tor” than Joe Kubert’s.)

Wham-O Giant Comics #1 (1967, Wham-O). Unknown writer.

Wham-O Giant Comics #1 (1967, Wham-O). Unknown writer.

Lou Fine died July 24, 1971.

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MORE

— When NEAL ADAMS Ghosted Some of the Greatest Comic-Strip Artists. Click here.

— STAN DRAKE and THE HEART OF JULIET JONES: A Rich, Artistic Legacy. 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.