"[6] Hartley drew for the local newspaper while still in high school,[7] and studied at the Art Students League of New York.

[8] He began selling humorous spot illustrations to magazines, and drew a Western comic-book story about Tecumseh for the publisher Street & Smith before the U.S. joined World War II, after which he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps and flew 20 missions as a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber pilot in Europe.

[10] During this time he also did the backup features "Debbie" and "Teen Tales" in Michel Publications' Cookie, The Funniest Kid in Town; and "Peg" for ACG's The Kilroys.

[7]As Timely segued into Atlas Comics, Marvel's 1950s predecessor, Hartley made his mark with a more than decade-long run on the Patsy Walker teen-girl titles.

Well into the Marvel era, Hartley also drew the "Special Queen Size Annual" publication Patsy Walker's Fashion Parade #1 (1966).

[10] Walker eventually would be integrated into mainstream Marvel Universe continuity in the 1970s as the supernatural superheroine Hellcat, long after Hartley had left the character.

[10] Among Marvel miscellanea, Hartley drew the 1961–63 series Linda Carter, Student Nurse, which began as a humor comic then became a romance with issue #2.

[10] After fellow Atlas artist Joe Maneely was killed in an accident in 1958, Hartley succeeded him on writer Stan Lee's syndicated comic strip Mrs. Lyon's Cubs.

"[12] In 1967, feeling "sterile, numb, and filled with fear", Hartley became a born again Christian, as did his wife, Hermine.

[4] He later received a call from publisher Fleming H. Revell, for whom he then freelanced a comic-book adaptation of David Wilkerson's The Cross and the Switchblade in 1972, quickly followed by adaptations of God's Smuggler by the pseudonymous Brother Andrew and The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom.

The Jewish Goldwater, himself religious, agreed, and Spire went on to release 59 comics – at least 19 of them Archie titles, along with six Bible stories, 12 biography adaptations, four other book or film adaptations (including Hansi: The Girl Who Loved the Swastika), and nine children's comics.

[2] Hartley died May 27, 2003, aged 81, at Health Park Medical Center in Fort Myers, Florida.