Lew Schwartz

Lewis Sayre Schwartz ( ; July 24, 1926 – June 18, 2011) was an American comic book artist, advertising creator and filmmaker, credited as a ghost artist for Bob Kane on DC Comics Batman from 1946-47 through 1953, and with writer David Vern Reed, as co-creator of the villain Deadshot. Alongside Pablo Ferro and Fred Mogubgub, he was cofounder of Ferro, Mogubgub and Schwartz in 1961, a film company whose work includes the credits to Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove. Schwartz was a teacher at the School of Visual Arts during the early 1960s. He produced a film about Milton Caniff in 1981.

He was the recipient of an Inkpot Award in 2002, and four Emmy Awards. Animator Jed Schwartz of Jed Schwartz Productions is his son and type designer Christian Schwartz is his grandson.

Early life and education Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Schwartz was of Jewish background. He was educated at the Swain School of Design. Already a fan of Chic Young, artist on the Blondie comic strip, it was here he became introduced to the art of Caniff, Noel Sickles and David Stone Martin through a school friend. After study at Swain, Schwartz went to the Art Students League of New York and became friendly with Caniff, occasionally spending his lunch breaks at Caniff's studio, watching him at work.

In 1947, Schwartz was hired as an artist for the Herald-Tribune comic strip based on The Saint. However, creative difficulties led to Schwartz leaving the strip to Mike Roy. After The Saint, Schwartz found a job at King Features Syndicate through Caniff, initially working on preparing Steve Canyon for publication in various sizes. He also ghosted on the Brick Bradford and Secret Agent X-9 newspaper strips. Advised by his father, Kane had refused to enter into a class action against DC Comics with Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster for ownership of their respective characters. Instead, Kane signed a deal with DC which guaranteed him steady income producing a set number of Batman story pages a year for publication. Kane then hired other artists to produce this work for him. Schwartz stated that he likely produced 240 pages a year for Kane over a seven-year period. Schwartz notes that Kane was "afraid to give anybody else any credit... Bob was scared to death it would be taken away if he acknowledged people that were helping him or even drawing for the strip."

After Batman Schwartz left Batman in 1953, describing himself as unable and unwilling to draw Batman for Bob Kane again. He joined a National Cartoonists Society trip to Korea, during the Korean War, assigned to the Eighth Army stationed in Seoul. Here he entertained the troops doing "chalk talks", inevitably once again drawing Batman day after day. After Korea, Schwartz found employment in the advertising industry, first with the J. Walter Thompson Company, where he started as a storyboard artist but soon worked his way up through art director to a producer in the film department. In 1961, he left J. Walker Thompson and entered into partnership with the animators Ferro and Mogubgub, founding Ferro, Mogubgub and Schwartz, with Schwartz bringing his ad agency experience to the table. The company received six Clio Awards.

Ferro, Mogubgub and Schwartz produced the credits for Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove.