Ernie Hart

Ernest Huntley Hart (October 2, 1910 – May 2, 1985 sources differ), also known as H. E. Huntley, was an American comic-book writer and artist best known for creating Marvel Comics' character Super Rabbit as well as co-creating the superhero The Wasp. In addition, he variously wrote, edited and illustrated numerous books on dog breeding and ownership.

Biography Early life and career During the 1930s, Ernie Hart painted murals for the Works Progress Administration. In the following decade he joined Timely Comics, the future Marvel Comics, as part of its "animator" bullpen, separate from the superhero group that produced comics featuring the Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner and Captain America. Along with others including Vincent Fago, Jim Mooney, Mike Sekowsky, and future Mad magazine cartoonists Dave Berg and Al Jaffee, Hart worked on such movie tie-in and original talking animal comics as Terrytoons Comics, Animated Funny Comic-Tunes and Mighty Mouse. Movie Tunes #3 (Sept. 1946), with Super Rabbit, Ziggy Pig, Silly Seal and others. Cover artist unknown.

Super Rabbit, an animal superhero in lighthearted children's adventures, debuted in Comedy Comics #14 (March 1943). Hart also worked on "Pookey the Poetical Pup" and "Ding-a-Ling the Little Bellboy" in Krazy Komics; "Wacky Willie" and "Andy Wolf & Bertie Mouse" in Terrytoons Comics; "Skip O'Hare" in Comedy Comics; and the heroic-adventure feature "Victory Boys" for Timely. Other Golden Age comics work includes "Egbert and the Count" and "Marmaduke Mouse" for Quality Comics' Hit Comics, of which one critic wrote, "Ernie Hart's 'Marmaduke Mouse' and 'Egbert' were, especially in the beginning, solidly drawn and reasonably funny, but lacked a convincing sense of action and character."

Cartoonist Al Jaffee, then a fellow Timely editor, recalled in 2004, "Ernie was a very lively guy; very funny and fun to be with. He was an editor with Don Rico, and the two of them shared an office. Both men could write and draw.... Ernie did humor work and Don edited certain titles. This was all post-World War II. One day, Stan called me in and said, 'I want you to edit the teenage books.' That may have been because Ernie left the company, because I do not recall Ernie editing anything but teenage and humor." Hart freelanced in the 1950s for that decade's Marvel predecessor, Atlas Comics, and also wrote for detective and true-crime magazines, occasionally being recruited to pose as a character on a photo-cover.

Hart, occasionally signing his work "EHH", also did stories for Charlton Comics, including writing and drawing issues of the horse series Rocky Lane's Black Jack in the late 1950s. At the time he was living with his first wife and their sons, Allan (d. May 31, 1999) and Lance. When Lance was 9 years old, in the early 1950s, the family moved to Orange, Connecticut, where they built a house near a veterinary clinic run by Hart's longtime friend Leon Whitney. Partly through this connection, Hart and his son Allan eventually became beagle breeders whose dogs included the bench champion Lynnlann's Button Up. Hart continued as a freelance writer, and combining his vocations by writing and editing nonfiction books for dog-owners. He became a dog-show judge and importer of German Shepherds, and in 1960, with Charles Kaman, co-founded the nonprofit Fidelco Breeders Foundation to produce German Shepherds of "true working dog temperament and utility." He resided there at the time of his death, though his death certificate was issued in Connecticut.