AQUAMAN co-creator dies
Illustrator Paul Norris, who co-created DC Comics' AQUAMAN in 1941, passed away on November 5th.
Paul Norris, who co-created the comic book character AQUAMAN, has died at the age of 93, following the latest of a series of strokes.
A native of Greenville, Ohio, Norris trained as an illustrator and cartoonist and, by 1940, was drawing comic books for Prize Publications in New York, where he launched strips including Yank and Doodle, Power Nelson and Futureman.
A year later, he created Aquaman, with editor-writer Mort Weisinger, for National Publications (later DC Comics).
"I drew up the character, and off he went," Norris recalled modestly.
He then revamped the SANDMAN in Adventure Comics from his costume of a business suit and gas mask into "a BATMAN knock-off."
After a stint in the Army, he worked as a "troubleshooter" for King Features Syndicate, temporarily drawing strips such as Flash Gordon and Secret Agent X-9. He drew the Jungle Jim Sunday feature for several years and, in 1952, took over Brick Bradford, an assignment that ended only when the strip did in 1987.
Beginning in 1947, he also worked for Western Publishing Company, first on comic books based on newspaper strips, and eventually on westerns and TV-based comics such as Tarzan of the Apes and Magnus, Robot Fighter.
In the '70s, Norris worked with writer Mark Evanier on a comic book of Hanna-Barbera's Dynomutt.
"He was a lovely man who worked very hard on his art but always managed to have it in on time," Evanier recalled on his blog, only four hours after Norris had died. "He usually delivered the work by mail but once or twice, when he was worried the work might not be early, he drove up to Los Angeles with it from his home near San Diego — three hours each way."
As Evanier noted, Norris was the last of the great creators of Golden Age DC super-heroes such as SUPERMAN, Batman, FLASH, GREEN LANTERN and WONDER WOMAN.
Paul Leroy Norris passed away at his home in Oceanside, California, on Monday, November 5, 2007.
[Thanks to KEVIN MELROSE at Newsarama for the link, and to LINDA MCINTOSH at the San Diego Union-Tribune for the Norris quote.]