Earl Norem

Earl H. Norem He saw military action in World War II with the 85th Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division. He trained in Colorado and Texas, and fought the Germans in the Northern Apennine Mountains of Italy. By age 20, Norem was a squad leader and staff sergeant who in the Italian Campaign fought alongside famed skier Torger Tokle, whom he had seen ski jumping at Bear Mountain, New York, when Norem was 12. After Tokle was killed in action on March 3, 1945, Norem was one of the men assigned to retrieve his body from the mountain. Norem himself later was wounded going into the Po Valley, ending his military stint.

Upon returning to the US, Norem embarked on an illustration career.

Career Norem throughout the 1950s and 1960s worked extensively for men's adventure magazines, producing covers and interior-art spreads. In addition, he produced illustrations for such magazines such as Reader's Digest, Field and Stream, Ski, Real West, and Discover.

He worked on such Marvel Comics projects as Savage Sword of Conan, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Magazine, Marvel Preview, Tales of the Zombie, Monsters Unleashed, Planet of the Apes, Rampaging Hulk, The Silver Surfer, and storybooks featuring Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four.

His Transformers work consisted of four Marvel Big Looker storybooks (published 1984–1986), some of which were later adapted into "read along" storybooks: Battle for Cybertron, The Great Car Rally, Car Show Blow Up, and The Story of Wheelie, The Wild Boy of Quintesson At the time of his death, he was working on a trading card assignment for Topps' Mars Attacks franchise,

Other work

Men (Oct. 1967) from Zenith Publishing / Magazine Management. Cover art by Norem, an example of his extensive work for men's adventure magazines. Norem also painted movie posters for Conforte Graphics; package designs and artwork for Mego Toys, Mattel, and Hasbro; murals for the Military Museum of Southern New England, in Danbury, Connecticut; on June 19, 2015, shortly after undergoing surgery. His family announced the news on Norem's Facebook fan page.