Bob Powell
Powell also did the pencil art for the bubble gum trading card series Mars Attacks.
Powell's first published comic-book art is tentatively identified as the uncredited three-page story "A Letter of Introduction", featuring the famed ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy, Charlie McCarthy, in Fiction House's Jumbo Comics #2 (Oct. 1938).
[5] Other pseudonyms included Rex Smith and W. Morgan Thomas,[5] as well as Buck Stanley, S. T. Anley, and Major Ralston.
[4] As part of the Eisner & Iger studio, Powell drew many of the earliest adventures of the jungle-queen Sheena in Jumbo Comics.
[5] Later, after Will Eisner split off to form his own studio in an arrangement with Quality publisher Everett M. "Busy" Arnold — bringing Powell, Nick Cardy, Chuck Cuidera, Lou Fine and others with him — Powell pitched in to co-write the premiere of "Blackhawk," created by Eisner and Cuidera, in Military Comics #1 (Aug. 1941).
"[7]Artist Nick Cardy, a colleague at the Eisner studio, said Powell "came in later when I was doing [the 'Spirit Section' feature] 'Lady Luck'.
[4] As comics historian and critic Tom Heintjes wrote, After The Spirit, perhaps the best drawn feature in the section was Powell's 'Mr.
Mystic' was cut from the Sunday section's lineup in 1944, by which time Fred Guardineer was handling its production.
His work in the 1950s included features and covers for Street and Smith's Shadow Comics; Magazine Enterprises' Bobby Benson's B-Bar-B Riders, based on the children's television series, and all four issues of that publisher's Strong Man; and, for Harvey Comics, many war, romance, and horror stories, as well as work for the comics Man in Black, Adventures in 3-D and True 3-D.[5] Howard Nostrand, who joined as one of Powell's assistants in 1948, recalled working alongside fellow assistants "George Siefringer, who [drew] backgrounds [and] Martin Epp, who inked, lettered and helped George on backgrounds.
"[12] Features on which they worked during this period included "Red Hawk" in Magazine Enterprises' Straight Arrow; and, for Fawcett Comics, work in Hot Rod Comics, an adaptation of the film The Red Badge of Courage, and "a couple of Westerns" including the movie-spinoff feature "Lash LaRue".
Powell had previously worked with Saunders and others on Topps' 1961 Civil War News series of cards.
[5] As commentator and columnist Fred Hembeck described Powell's brief tenure at Marvel, Powell bowed with what was then only the latest — but not last — Giant-Man revamp in Tales to Astonish #65 (March 1965), and was in charge of the exceedingly disappointing meeting between the Human Torch, the Thing, and the Beatles (Strange Tales #130, also March 1965).
[4] Some Powell’s work has been reprinted and collected, beginning with full comic-book reproductions by Bill Black’s AC Comics.
