Ernie Schroeder

Ernest C. Schroeder (January 9, 1916 – September 20, 2006)[1] was an American comic book artist, a commercial illustrator, and a sculptor, best known for drawing and co-writing Hillman Periodicals' influential muck-monster the Heap from 1949 to 1953.

The artist said he lived with his grandmother for a short time until his mother became resident nurse at the estate of Jesse Jay Ricks,[2] president of the Union Carbide & Carbon Corporation, and that Schroeder then grew up in a wealthy household of four boys, where family guests included Carl Sandburg.

As World War II was beginning, he began working in a machine shop, making tools for the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation's PTB bomber.

After meeting comic-book artist Bob Powell, Schroeder quit the machine shop to pursue art, but a month later was drafted into the infantry and stationed at Camp Blanding, near Jacksonville, Florida.

[4] Later, while in California waiting to be shipped with the planned invasion forces to Japan, news came that the atomic bomb had been dropped, precipitating the end of the war.

He did some work the following year for Prize Comics' Black Magic, under the celebrated writer-artist publishing team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.

[4] His last recorded comic-book credits are pencils and inks for two five-page, anthological fantasy stories in Harvey's Black Cat Mystic #62 (March 1958).

[4] At age 88, however, Schroeder painted Airboy and the Heap for the cover of the comics-history magazine Alter Ego #42 (Nov. 2004), and additional new sketches to accompany an interview with him.

Schroeder segued to magazine and book illustration, providing artwork for short stories by Isaac Asimov, Doris E. Kaye[7] and other writers.

He additionally became a sketch artist for New York City advertising agencies, working on staff for a time at the firm Norman, Craig & Kummel.