Jack Abel

Jack Abel a.k.a. "Gary Michaels" (born July 15, 1927; died March 6, 1996) is an American comic book artist best known as an inker for leading publishers DC Comics and Marvel Comics. He was DC's primary inker on the Superman titles in the late 1960s and early '70s, and inked penciler Herb Trimpe's introduction of Wolverine in The Incredible Hulk #181.

File:Legion232p29.jpg

Jack Abel inks Ric Estrada in an excerpt from Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #232 (Oct. 1977), p.29

Abel's published work stretches to 1951, when he penciled and inked horror stories for such anthology series as Fiction House's Ghost, Mr. Publications' Mister Mystery, and Atlas Comics' Journey into Mystery. He inked Westerns, science fiction, and war comics for Atlas, American Comics Group, Harvey Comics, and Prize Comics, and later in the decade became a prolific penciler for the DC war titles Our Fighting Forces, Our Army At War, Star Spangled War Stories and All-American Men of War.

Abel inked hundreds of DC stories in his increasingly smooth, lush style, and eventually was chosen to succeed longtime "Superman family" inker George Klein as Curt Swan's embellisher on "Legion of Super-Heroes" in Adventure Comics (most issues, #369-406, June 1968 - May 1971); Superman (most issues, #208-219, July 1968 - Aug. 1969); "Superman" in Action Comics (#369-392, Nov. 1968 - Sept. 1970), and occasional issues of Superboy.

After a reshuffling at DC c. 1970, Abel went to Marvel. He had already inked Gene Colan there on a long stretch of "Iron Man" stories beginning with Tales of Suspense #73 (Jan. 1966), under the pseudonym "Gary Michaels". Now, under his own name, he would embellish Colan on some issues of Daredevil and Tomb of Dracula (including the introduction of Blade, in #10); Trimpe on The Incredible Hulk; George Tuska on Iron Man; and Paul Gulacy on Master of Kung Fu, among other work.

From the mid-1970s, the in-demand Abel inked not only for Marvel and again DC (including its Teen Titans and The Flash), but for the smaller companies Gold Key (Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery, Grimm’s Ghost Stories, Mighty Samson, the licensed title The Twilight Zone); Charlton Comics (Ghost Manor, Ghostly Haunts, Haunted, Midnight Tales); Atlas/Seaboard (IronJaw, Morlock 2001); and Skywald Publications (The Heap, and additionally the black-and-white horror-comics magazines Nightmare and Psycho).

Baseball-fan Abel, who in the 1970s rented studio space at Neal Adams and Dick Giordano's Continuity Associates, organized the Continuity softball team that played league games in Central Park.

Years later, when in his sixties, Abel inked backgrounds for DC artist Murphy Anderson, and became a proofreader in the Marvel bullpen before being partially debilitated by a stroke.

Outside comic books, he inked John Celardo from 1967-1969 on the syndicated comic strip Tales of the Green Beret, written by author Robin Moore.

Quotes

Gene Colan [1]: "He did a lot of 'Iron Man' with me. He had a very slick line, which was okay on 'Iron Man', of course. Iron Man was made of iron, so you want it to look like metal. But when it came to stone and dark corners and garbage [laughs], he wasn't the man for that."

References

• The Lambiek Comiclopedia: Jack Abel
• The Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators
• The Grand Comic-Book Database
• Comic Book Artist #13 (May 2001): Gene Colan interview
• Gotham City Art: Jack Abel
• Comic Art & Graffix Gallery: Murphy Anderson interview
• Ken Gale's Pages: The Fandom Fireballs
• The Comic Strip Project: Credits
• Adelaide Comics and Books: Bob McLeod interview
• POV Online: Why did some artists working for Marvel in the sixties use phony names?
• "Remembering Jack Abel", Comic Book Marketplace, Vol. 2, #46 (April 1997): Reminicences by Gene Colan, Peter David, Joe Giella, Russ Heath, Joe Kubert, Alan Kupperberg, and Steve Mitchell (offline)