Dorothy Woolfolk

Dorothy Woolfolk née Dorothy Roubicek (October 1, 1913 – November 27, 2000 ) was one of the first women in the American comic-book industry. As an editor at DC Comics, one of the two largest companies in the field, during the 1940s period historians and fans call the Golden Age of Comic Books, she is credited with helping to create the fictional metal Kryptonite in the Superman mythos.

Biography

Early life and education Born Dorothy Gertrude Roubicek in New York City, she was the daughter of Czech Jewish immigrant, Josef Roubíček, from Čejtice, and his wife, Anna née Pollack, from Grodno, Russian Empire (today, Belarus). Woolfolk was a New York City high school graduate who never attended college but nonetheless won prizes on a 1950s television game show. then spent the next two years at Timely Comics, the 1940s predecessor to Marvel Comics, and in 1948 was an editor at EC Comics.

Woolfolk said in 1993 that she had found Superman's invulnerability dull, and that DC's flagship hero might be more interesting with an Achilles' heel such as adverse reactions to a fragment of his home planet. This gave rise to the famous fictional metal kryptonite, which made its first appearance in the comics in the story "Superman Returns To Krypton!", credited to writer Bill Finger, in Superman #61 (Dec. 1949).

After raising children Donald and Donna, Comics artist Alan Kupperberg, who worked with her at DC Comics in the 1970s, said in 2001,

Her assistant editor at DC, Ethan Mordden, She met her third husband, novelist William Woolfolk, during her stint at DC, when she rejected a script he had submitted for a Superman comic book.

In 2018, Woolfolk won the 2018 Bill Finger Award from San Diego Comic-Con.