Comic strip and comic book artist Bob Fujitani has passed away.
Robert (Bob) Fujitani
October 15, 1921 – September 6, 2020
Bob is well known among comic buffs for his lifelong career as a comic book artist. He was only twenty when he went to work at the New York studio of Will Eisner as a penciler. A few years later, he was drawing “Hangman” as well as other superhero and detective comics. This was the period known as the “Golden Age of Comics”. Bob went on to illustrate the comic books “Prince Valiant” and “Lassie” among others. He spent many years drawing and inking the daily and Sunday “Flash Gordon” strips for King Features. Bob was also a talented and prolific painter, particularly seascapes of Long Island Sound where he loved to fish, and the woods at Tod’s Point and Montgomery Pinetum where he walked every day.
After a debilitating stroke in early June 2020, Bob was fortunate to have a close family friend as his constant companion and caregiver.
Bob’s comic career began in the very early 1940s as a comic book artist. He contributed to comic books into the 1960s, after which time he seems to have done some commercial illustration.
He soon plunged into comic strips where he remained until the late 1990s.
Bob did briefly do the Judge Wright comic strip in 1945 and 1946. Then it would be almost twenty years before he was again doing syndicated strips. In 1963 Bob began a long association with Dan Barry on the Flash Gordon strip. From 1963 to 1965 Bob was the art assistant on Flash Gordon. Then, after a short break, during which he would he would spell an ailing Fred Fredericks on Mandrake the Magician for a week, Bob returned to the Barry Studio.
In 1969 Bob would become the assistant/ghost/artist on Flash Gordon; getting signed credit in 1977.
Bob would stay with Barry and Flash until 1986.
He would later help John Prentice on Rip Kirby for a few years in the mid-1990s.
Lambiek’s Comiclopedia has a brief profile.
We were happy to see Bob up and about a year and a half ago.
And Bob was a highlight of our Senior Strippers list.
