Ogden Whitney

He is best known as co-creator of the aviator hero Skyman and of the superpowered novelty character Herbie Popnecker and his alter ego, the satiric superhero the Fat Fury.

In 2007, Whitney was one of two comics creators inducted into the comic-book industry's Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame, as a "Judges Choice".

He continued on the feature (both writing and drawing one story), and briefly succeeded artist Creig Flessel on the more prominent and enduring character the Sandman with issue No.

[5][6] That issue he also co-created (with an unknown writer), the adventure character Rocky Ryan, soon scripted by Fox.

Fox and Whitney (who also drew the vast majority of the covers) also collaborated on such additional Big Shot Comics characters as the Cloak, and the demon-masked war correspondent and World War II Axis-fighter the Face (all the stories for which the duo provided in issue No.

There he completed eight weeks of truck-driving school before being assigned to work as an artist in the orientation office of Camp Lee in Virginia.

[7] He served in the Philippines during World War II, in a unit with fellow comic artist Fred Guardineer.

[9] By this time Whitney had begun drawing crime comics for Magazine Enterprises, including the features "Fallon of the F.B.I."

[4] Through the following decade, Whitney drew anthological science fiction and other stories for American Comics Group's Adventures into the Unknown and Forbidden Worlds, and co-created the white-hunter feature "Typhoon Tylor" in Operation: Peril #1 (Nov. 1950).

[4] He soon began contributing work as well to the Atlas horror titles Spellbound, Marvel Tales and Adventures into Terror.

By then he had co-created (with ACG editor Richard E. Hughes, under the pseudonym "Shane O'Shea")[10] the work for which he would become best known, the novelty character Herbie Popnecker.

73 (Dec. 1958), the short, fat, deadpan young Herbie, constantly nursing a lollipop, wandered with slacker ennui through life as one of comics' most powerful beings.

Little by little as his story progressed in Forbidden Worlds and in his 23-issue spin-off series, Herbie (May 1964 – Feb. 1967), he revealed abilities to fly (by walking on air), talk to animals (who knew him by name), become invisible, travel through time, and more.

[10] As ACG wound down and ceased publication in 1967, Whitney found work at Tower Comics, where he was one of the stable of artists drawing issues of T.H.U.N.D.E.R.

103 (March 1972), and penciled a nine-page backup story, "Invitation to a Gunfight", by writer Marv Wolfman, in the following issue (May 1972), marking his last known comics work.

[4] Mad magazine editor Jerry DeFuccio wrote that circa 1965, Whitney lived in Manhattan at ... 40 Park Avenue South at the time.

Richard E. Hughes, editor at American Comics Group, was especially helpful to 'old-timers' [and] gave Whitney work, though Ogden seemed absorbed in trying storyboard continuity samples to crack the advertising field.

'[8]In 2007, Whitney was one of two comics creators inducted into the comic-book industry's Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame, as a "Judges Choice" along with Robert Kanigher.

Skyman No. 3 (1947, no month listed). Cover art by Whitney
Herbie No. 3 (Aug. 1964), with Herbie's catchphrase . Cover art by Whitney