The Fellowship is saddened at the passing of Al Plastino
on November 25th from prostate cancer at the age of 91. Mark Evanier posted the
news yesterday evening. He did the art for the SUPERMAN family of books during
the 1950's and 1960's and co-created Supergirl and the Legion of Super Heroes.
He was recently in the news for his famous story
"Superman's mission for President Kennedy," created before the death
of JFK but published afterward in tribute. The original artwork was to go to
the Kennedy Library, but never made it. The pieces were up for auction, but
later taken down.
From the Evanier post...
Plastino was, I believe, the only person alive who drew
Superman comics professionally before about 1967. He started in 1948. His
earliest known comic book work was in 1941 for a little-known company called
Dynamic Comics. After serving in World War II, he freelanced in and out of
comics until connecting in ’48 with DC, where he worked until the early
seventies. For most of that time, he was the second-string Superman artist.
Wayne Boring was the main guy through the fifties, then it was Curt Swan. The
stories they didn’t have time to do were done by Plastino. He drew some
memorable stories for the Superman line of comics, including the first stories
of Supergirl and also of The Legion of Super-Heroes.
In 1966, he worked on the syndicated Batman newspaper
strip and drifted into that line of work. He was an excellent mimic of styles
and took over the art on the Ferd'nandnewspaper strip in 1970, drawing it until
his retirement in '89. At one point, someone at the syndicate got the brilliant
(!) idea to replace Charles Schulz on Peanuts and they had Plastino draw
several weeks to show that he could ape that style…which he could. There are
several accounts of what happened next but they all resulted in Schulz being
furious (though not at Plastino), Schulz staying on his strip and getting lots
of apologies from the syndicate, and Plastino's strips never being published.
He also worked on the Nancy strip for a time and possibly others. He was a very
versatile artist.
Our thoughts go to his family, friends, and fans.