Comic Books Comic strips Obituary

Don Perlin – RIP

Skip to comments

D. D. Degg May 16, 2024 1 minute 0 comments

Comic book artist Don Perlin has passed away.

Don’s passing was announced by family on social media:

I am devastated to report the death of an amazing man. My father Don Perlin passed away peacefully yesterday at the age of 94. He ws an amazing father husband grandfather and great grandfather. We will all miss him terribly. He was an amazing artist and considered a legend in the comic world. To me he was my best friend. I will miss him so much

_{above: a 1951 gag page and a 1968 adventure by Don Perlin (source: Four Color Shadows)}

Don began his comic career in 1949. By the early 1950s he had settled in with Marvel (then Atlas) until Stan Lee was forced to cut back. Don then became a regular at Charlton Comics from the late 1950s and into the 1970s.

In the 1970s he returned to Marvel Comics where he most famously worked on Werewolf By Night and The Defenders and co-created Moon Knight. In the 1990s Don left Marvel and joined Valiant Comics as art director.

_{hat tip to the Grand Comics Database for the covers}

Brian Cronin at CBR has a nice summary of Don’s comic book career.

In the mid 1950s, while working at Marvel/Atlas Don contributed gag cartoons to the affiliated joke/cartoon books of Magazine Management. Alter Ego #177 has a couple of those from Gaze (1953) and Joker (1956).

Earlier Don had a short stint as part of the Will Eisner studio in 1951. While there he pencilled three stories of The Spirit newspaper comic book insert. From the Alter Ego #177 interview:

I sat in a corner of the Eisner Studio, and Jules Feiffer was the writer.

… {Feiffer’d] come in on Saturday or Saturday and write and lay-out the pages. I’d come in on Mondays and pencil them.

I did three jobs – three weeks worth of stuff, and I don’t think they were too happy with me. They laid me off.

The Grand Comics Database identifies the three issues as December 19, 1951, January 13, 1952, and June 15, 1952.

Frans Boch Waldorff posted the first of those stories at Comic Art Fans.

The Comic Art Fans’ Don Perlin gallery has hundreds of pages by the artist.

Nerd Team carries a 2010 interview with Don.