William Robert Brown[1] (August 22, 1915 – January 1977)[2] was an American comics artist with an extensive career from the early 1940s through the 1970s. With writers Edmond Hamilton and Gardner Fox, Brown co-created the DC Comics hero Space Ranger, drawing the character's complete run from his debut in the try-out comic Showcase #15 (Aug. 1958) through Mystery in Space #103 (July 1965).
Brown was born in Syracuse, New York, to a father who managed a vaudeville theater and a mother who worked as a pianist.[3] He attended the Hartford Art School and the Rhode Island School of Design.[4] Following his parents into show business, he performed as a youth in a song-and-dance act with his sister and younger brother, starting around 1927. They worked together into the early 1930s. After graduating from high school, Brown and his sister worked in night clubs and theaters as a duo. By the latter 1930s, Brown was a solo dancer while his sister worked with the Tommy Dorsey Band.[3]
Brown began his career in comics during the 1940s, with his earliest known credit as both writer and artist of the "Criss Cross" backup feature in Fox Comics' teen-humor title Meet Corliss Archer.[5]
After some early work on titles from Marvel Comics precursor Timely Comics as it was transitioning into the 1950s iteration, Atlas Comics, he became regular artist of the feature "Vigilante" in DC Comics' Action Comics, drawing it in issues #152–185 (cover-dated Jan. 1951 – Oct. 1953).[5]
In addition to his work on DC Comics' "Vigilante" feature during this time, Brown drew sporadic stories for Atlas Comics and St. John Publications, as well as for such DC supernatural titles as House of Mystery and The Phantom Stranger.[5] He began working exclusively for Atlas sometime in 1954, with the supernatural story "The Time Is Now" in Mystery Tales #25 (Jan. 1955), signed W. R. Brown, the first of many he would draw in genres including Westerns and jungle adventures.[5] With an unknown writer, tentatively identified as Atlas editor-in-chief Stan Lee, Brown produced the first version of the Rawhide Kid (related in name only to the more long-running character Lee and artist Jack Kirby created in 1960) in Rawhide Kid #1 (March 1955). Because another artist, Joe Maneely, drew the cover, often done before a comic's interior art, it is unclear whether Brown or Maneely created the character design.[6] Brown continued on the title through issue #7 (March 1956), then freelanced for both Atlas and DC before becoming regular artist on the latter's American Revolutionary War series Tomahawk with issues #39 (March 1956). He would continue on that title, also doing other work for DC, through #52 (Dec. 1959).[5]
Brown first drew for the modern Marvel Comics as co-penciler of the feature "The Beast" in Amazing Adventures vol. 2, #16 (Jan. 1973). After a little more work for DC, he penciled issues #6–8 (June–Oct. 1973) of the short-lived superhero title Warlock, and became regular penciler of the long-running superhero-team series The Avengers, penciling most issues between #113–126 (July 1973 – Aug. 1974). He and Sal Buscema drew the "Avengers-Defenders Clash" storyline in 1973.[13][14] Brown's last few years were devoted to a run on Marvel Comics' Daredevil from 1974 to 1977. New adversaries for the title character introduced during his tenure include the Silver Samurai in issue #111 (July 1974)[15] and Bullseye in #131 (March 1976).[16] His series collaborator, writer Tony Isabella, said Brown "was very much underappreciated" by comic-book fans,[17] In addition, comics historian Mark Evanier recounted that by this point, Brown
...found his work regarded as "old-fashioned". It wasn't so much that Brown couldn't take a more modern approach to his work as that he just plain didn't understand what that meant. Editors kept showing him the work of new artists, he told me. They'd say, "This is what we want now," but Brown couldn't grasp just what it was he was supposed to learn from the examples, which often struck him as displaying weak anatomy, poor perspective and other fundamental errors. It was almost like they were telling him that, "Kids relate to crude artwork," and he knew it wasn't that.[18]
One of Brown's last published pieces, a fill-in story written by Bill Mantlo and drawn a couple of years earlier,[19] was published posthumously in Uncanny X-Men #106 (Aug. 1977).
Personal life
Brown married a student nurse, Dot, from the St. Louis area when he was posted at Scott Field. Sometime after returning from World War II in September 1945, Brown and Dot married and had three daughters, Marilyn Kay, Constance and Virginia Lou.[3]
Brown was living in Manhattan[2] at the time of his death in 1977 at age 61 from leukemia.[20] He had just signed on as the new artist on Wonder Woman with #231 (May 1977) but completed only a single issue, released two weeks after his death.[21] He was eulogized in August 1977 cover dated issues of Marvel titles, with special mention given to his fostering ". . . better communication between American and European cartoonists."[20]
Bibliography
Brown's comics work (interior pencil art) includes:
^Bails, Jerry; Hames Ware. "Brown, Bob (2)". Who's Who of American Comic Books 1928–1999. Archived from the original on February 19, 2012. Retrieved April 21, 2009.
^Irvine, Alex; Dolan, Hannah, ed. (2010). "1950s". DC Comics Year By Year A Visual Chronicle. London, United Kingdom: Dorling Kindersley. p. 91. ISBN978-0-7566-6742-9. Space Ranger...debuted in Showcase #15 in stories by writer Edmond Hamilton and artist Bob Brown.{{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Markstein, Don (2008). "Space Ranger". Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on May 26, 2024. Retrieved October 18, 2012. Editor Jack Schiff took charge of the character, and handed him over to writers Edmond Hamilton and Gardner Fox for development. Bob Brown illustrated their script.
^McAvennie, Michael "1960s" in Dolan, p. 115: "Garfield Logan didn't impress the Doom Patrol...[but] writer Arnold Drake and artist Bob Brown saw something in the green-skinned delinquent who could take the form of animals."
^Manning, Matthew K.; Dougall, Alastair, ed. (2014). "1970s". Batman: A Visual History. London, United Kingdom: Dorling Kindersley. p. 109. ISBN978-1465424563. Batman had his first brush with the mysterious League of Assassins in this issue written by Dennis O'Neil and illustrated by Bob Brown.{{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^McAvennie "1970s" in Dolan, p. 145: "Before Batman first encountered one of his greatest adversaries, Ra's al Ghul, he met his daughter, the lovely but lethal Talia [in a story by] writer Denny O'Neil and artist Bob Brown."
^Sanderson "1970s" in Gilbert (2008), p. 175: "In March [1976], writer Marv Wolfman and artist Bob Brown co-created one of the Man Without Fear's greatest nemeses, Bullseye."
^Isabella in Mithra, Kuljit (May 1997). "Interview with Tony Isabella". ManWithoutFear.com. Archived from the original on December 10, 2011. Retrieved September 12, 2013.
^Wells, John (November 2009). "Stop a Bullet Cold, Make the Axis Fold – Wonder Woman's Return to WWII". Back Issue! (37). Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows Publishing.
