Ogden Whitney

John Ogden Whitney (May 1, 1919 – August 13, 1975) was an American comic-book artist and sometime writer active from the 1930s–1940s Golden Age of comics through the 1960s Silver Age. He is best known as co-creator of the aviator hero Skyman and of the superpowered novelty character Herbie Popnecker and his alter ego, the satiric superhero the Fat Fury. Whitney as well had long runs on characters as diverse as the Western masked crime-fighter the Two-Gun Kid, and the career-girl character Millie the Model.

In 2007, Whitney was one of two comics creators inducted into the comic-book industry's Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame, as a "Judges Choice".

Biography

Early life and career

Ogden Whitney was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1918. His earliest recorded comic-book credit is drawing the six-page story "In the Pit of Dagan", written by Gardner Fox and starring adventurer Cotton Carver, in Adventure Comics No. 42 (Sept. 1939), published by DC Comics predecessor National Comics. He continued on the feature (both writing and drawing one story), and briefly succeeded artist Creig Flessel on the more prominent and enduring character the Sandman with issue No. 46 (Jan. 1940).

He continued on both features for two more issues before working primarily for Columbia Comics for the remainder of the decade, co-creating Skyman with writer Fox in Big Shot Comics No. 1 (May 1940). That issue he also co-created (with an unknown writer), the adventure character Rocky Ryan, soon scripted by Fox. The team continued on both features through at least issue No. 11 (March 1941); records are spotty for this relatively obscure publisher, and such reference sources as the Grand Comics Database (cited here) list only those features, without credits, running well in 1942, when Skyman and Rocky Ryan credits for Fox and Whitney resume. (The title became simply Big Shot with issue No. 30, Dec. 1942). Fox and Whitney (who also drew the vast majority of the covers) also collaborated on such additional Big Shot Comics characters as the Cloak, and the demon-masked war correspondent and World War II Axis-fighter the Face (all the stories for which the duo provided in issue No. 2 of his two-issue spin-off series). They also launched the solo title Skyman in 1941; four issues were published from then through 1948. He served in the Philippines during World War II, in a unit with fellow comic artist Fred Guardineer.

The Fox-Whitney team continued on Big Shot Comics confirmably through No. 44 (March 1944) and almost certainly beyond; Big Shot No. 97 (Jan. 1949), for example, contains a Whitney written-and-drawn Skyman story. Big Shot itself ran through issue No. 104 (Aug. 1949).

By this time Whitney had begun drawing crime comics for Magazine Enterprises, including the features "Fallon of the F.B.I." and "Undercover Girl" in Manhunt from 1947 to 1948. He also drew the company's official adaptation of the 1948 movie Joan of Arc, starring Ingrid Bergman, published the same year in the umbrella title A-1 as Joan of Arc (A-1 #21). Whitney is tentatively credited as artist for the similar adaptation of Destination Moon in Fawcett Comics' of that title, also known as Fawcett Movie Comic No. 3 (1950).

Later life and career As ACG wound down and ceased publication in 1967, Whitney found work at Tower Comics, where he was one of the stable of artists drawing issues of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and NoMan, and Marvel Comics, where he became the regular artist for the Western series The Two-Gun Kid from No. 87 to the final issue, No. 92 (May 1967 – March 1968). He wrote and drew the lead story in the mostly reprint revival of the title, in No. 103 (March 1972), and penciled a nine-page backup story, "Invitation to a Gunfight", by writer Marv Wolfman, in the following issue (May 1972), marking his last known comics work.

Honors In 2007, Whitney was one of two comics creators inducted into the comic-book industry's Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame, as a "Judges Choice" along with Robert Kanigher.

Critical assessment Dan Nadel, author, Art Out of Time: Unknown Comics Visionaries, 1900–1969 (Harry N. Abrams, 2006; ; ):

Whitney is a master of psychological distress. He had these super-bland faces; nobody looks distinctive. But then he'll throw in these crazy close-ups, or very oddball compositions, where things are static in space. I find them really compelling, almost terrifying. If you read his romance comics ... they're the weirdest romance comics ever. ... His version of men and women courting is men and women terrorizing each other for eight or sixteen pages. Pure terror. Psychological warfare. Also the thing about Whitney I like so much is that it's like phone book art – it's so generic it's unique.