Ernie Hart

Ernie Hart a.k.a. "H.E. Huntley," is an American comic-book writer and artist best known for his funny animal character, Super Rabbit.

Hart was part of Timely Comics "animator" bullpen — separate from the superhero group producing 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, creating such movie tie-in and original funny-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. Artist unknown.

Super Rabbit, squarely in the Mighty Mouse tradition of 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.

Hart remained on staff for Marvel Comics' 1950s predecessor Atlas Comics, and briefly freelanced for Marvel during the 1960s Silver Age. His '60s scripts, some of them from plots by editor-in-chief Stan Lee, included the feature "The Human Torch" in Strange Tales #110-111 (July-Aug. 1963); feature "Ant-Man" in Tales to Astonish #44-48 (June-Oct. 1963); and the single comic Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #8 (Jan. 1969). Hart's work also appears in the "nudie cutie" comic, The Adventures of Pussycat (1968), a one-shot that reprinted some strips of the same-name feature that appeared in Marvel publisher Martin Goodman's line of men's magazines.

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 1959.

This Ernie Hart is not the Leeds United football (soccer) player Ernie Hart, nor is his pseudonym the mathematician H.E. Huntley. Super Rabbit is unrelated to the Merrie Melodies Bugs Bunny cartoon short, "Super-Rabbit".

Quotes

Al Jaffee: "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 don't recall Ernie editing anything but teenage and humor."Template:Fn

Footnotes

Template:Fnb Jim Amash interview with Al Jaffee: Alter Ego Vol. 3, #35, April 2004, p. 14

References