Sol Brodsky

Determined early in life to pursue cartooning, he took a job sweeping floors at Archie Comics in order to break into the industry.

He was stationed on the USS Fairfax, but that destroyer was decommissioned to become the British Royal Navy ship HMS Richmond on November 26, 1940, more than a year before the US entered the war.

[9] Upon his return from military service, Brodsky created the feature "Red Cross" in Holyoke's aviation series Captain Aero Comics, where it ran as a backup from issues #21-25 (Dec. 1944 - Feb.

[8] Brodsky in late 1950 or early 1951 — the exact date uncertain due to his work often going unsigned, in the manner of the times — began penciling and inking for Marvel's 1950s forerunner, Atlas Comics.

Freelance cartoonist and later longtime Marvel colorist and Millie the Model artist Stan Goldberg recalled, "They needed someone on production to handle things since there was no real staff.

Brodsky teamed with friend and fellow comic artist Mike Esposito to attempt launching a publishing company.

[citation needed] Brodsky had much more success with a series of promotional comic books he created and produced for the Big Boy restaurant chain.

As Marvel began to expand with the success of Fantastic Four, The Amazing Spider-Man and other titles, Brodsky's organizational skills and easygoing manner led Lee, by now a friend for several years, to offer him the newly created, formal position of production manager in 1964.

When artist Bill Everett, on his return to Marvel after many years in commercial art, turned in Daredevil #1 (April 1964) extremely late, Brodsky and Spider-Man artist Steve Ditko inked "a lot of backgrounds and secondary figures on the fly [and] cobbled the cover and the splash page together from Kirby's original concept drawing.

Stan's office was as big as everything else put together, and Sol Brodsky, [secretary/receptionist] Flo Steinberg, and [artist/colorist/production person] Marie Severin were crowded into two other little rooms.

At the time, Stan was doing occasional work for the Archie Comics people, and they didn't like to see their artists drawing in that style for other publishers.

So when Stan drew teen comics for Marvel, they put Brodsky's name on them in the hope that the Archie editors wouldn't know it was him.

"[17] In 1985, one year after his death, Brodsky's son Gary founded the independent-comics company Solson Publications, which published an issue of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R.

Agents update T.H.U.N.D.E.R., by writer Michael Sawyer and artist James E. Lyle, plus the short-lived "super-president" spoof series Reagan's Raiders.

[citation needed] Occasional 1970s Marvel writer Allyn Brodsky, who served as assistant to editor-in-chief Stan Lee, following Al Hewetson, is not related.

[20] A fictionalized Brodsky also appeared alongside Lee, Kirby, and Steinberg — all transformed into a Marvel Bullpen version of the Fantastic Four — in the alternate-reality comic What If Vol.

Brodsky inked one of penciler Jack Kirby 's most significant comics, The Fantastic Four #3 (March 1962).
Tales to Astonish #40 (Feb. 1963), a rare interior by the occasional cover-art team of penciler Jack Kirby and inker Sol Brodsky. Ant-Man stars.