Al Plastino (Dec. 15, 1921-Nov. 25, 2013), R.I.P

nweathington

We’ve lost another of the Golden Age/Silver Age greats. Plastino was known primarily for his extensive work for DC’s Superman office from 1948 into the early 1970s. He was in the news recently over the rightful ownership of his story featuring President Kennedy, and he was the artist tasked to redraw Jack Kirby’s Superman heads in the early ’70s, but for the most part he had a quietly solid career.

[Deleted User]

While reading a bio of Charles Schulz, I learned that Al Plastino was hired to write and draw several months worth of Peanuts strips. This was during a tense royalties negotiation between Schulz and the syndicate, and the syndicate hired Plastino behing Schulz' back. They were visually a perfect mimic of Schulz' style, and never published.


Apparently, he ghosted a lot of strips throughout the 70's and 80's, due to his able skills as a mimic.

nweathington

That’s right. Even going back to his early days at DC in the late ’40s, he was told to draw like Wayne Boring, and he came close enough that it's sometimes difficult to tell them apart. Before long the editors saw that he knew what he was doing and let him draw his own way.

Chuck_Melville

I know that he was recently working on the Henry strip (though I'm not sure how recent that 'recently' was), and I heard that he was also doing the Nancy strip at one point.

I'm really sad to hear this. He'd recently opened a Facebook account and was getting all kinds of FB friends linking to him and several pros telling him how much they'd enjoyed his work. The only unfortunate note there had been the discovery about his original artwork for the Superman/JFK story going to auction instead of to the JFK museum. I'd always enjoyed his Superman work growing up, and had felt that, with artists like Boring and Swan getting the notice and acclaim (deservedly), he seemed like the forgotten Superman artist.

LibraryBoy

Damn shame, truly one of the all time greats, and a guy who I always thought was deserving of wider recognition both inside and outside of the comics industry. He'll be missed.

playdohsrepublic

I was just reading his obituary and discovered that we have been living in the same town for years. Feels like a missed opportunity.