Happy 90th Angelo Torres
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Comic book and comic strip artist Angelo Torres joins our Senior Strippers as he turn 90 years old, having a birth date of April 14, 1932.
Early on in his career Angelo became a member of what Harvey Kurtzman (or Nancy Gaines) dubbed The Fleagle Gang – Roy Krenkel, Frank Frazetta, Al Williamson, George Woodbridge, Nick Meglin, and Angelo Torres. Sadly Angelo is the last remaining artist of that wonderfully creative group.
above: The Fleagle Gang with Bill Gaines
from left: Angelo, Al, Frank, Bill, Nick, George, Roy
Angelo’s comic book career began in the mid-1950s at EC Comics (An Eye For An Eye), and Magazine Enterprises (White Indian). Before the late 50s collapse of the comic market he had contributed to the Atlas (Marvel) comics group (When Ends the Dream), then into the 1960s with stories for Charlton, Harvey, Gilberton and a few others.
His sixties artistic endeavors included a well-regarded series of stories
for Jim Warren’s black and white comic magazines from 1964 to 1967.
Through the better part of The Sixties Angelo had a regular gig with Joe Simon’s Sick magazine, which prepped him for his long run as one of The Usual Gang of Idiots for MAD magazine from 1969 to 2010.
Angelo filled his spare time with various commercial projects such as American Honda Presents DC Comics’ Supergirl, Cliff Merritt and the Very Candid Candidate, Meet Thomas Jefferson, and more.
“I always had something to work on, as did Al [Williamson], as new projects kept popping up. I have never worked at anything but drawing since the day I left art school.”
From a 2015 interview with Angelo:
My dream had always been to do another “Terry and the Pirates” or “Steve Canyon”. I loved Milton Caniff’s work and tried to emulate it. I was also a huge fan of Alex Raymond and Hal Foster, so even though I loved almost every strip appearing then, I wanted more than anything to draw in a realistic style. Attending classes at C&I, I found that my fellow cartooning students had no interest in doing a syndicated strip but dreamed instead of breaking into the comic book business – with EC Comics as their main target. I found myself going in the same direction.
Angelo never did get a strip of his own but he did get to work as a ghost on several comic strips, including a couple of Alex Raymond comics. Allan Holtz has him ghosting art on Secret Agent Corrigan for Al Williamson, Big Ben Bolt for John Cullen Murphy, Dan Flagg for Don Sherwood,
and Rip Kirby for John Prentice.
Further reading:
The Society of Illustrators has a nice profile of Angelo, as does Lambiek’s Comiclopedia.
Of course Angelo Torres Art site is a must for the original art.
A very happy birthday to a very talented artist!
all art by Angelo Torres and copyright the respective copyright owners
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