| Don Perlin | |
|---|---|
 Perlin in 2001 | |
| Born | Donald David Perlin (1929-08-27)August 27, 1929 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | May 14, 2024(2024-05-14) (aged 94) St. Johns, Florida, U.S. |
| Area | Writer,Penciller,Inker, Editor |
Notable works | Werewolf by Night Moon Knight The Defenders Ghost Rider Bloodshot |
| Awards | National Cartoonists Society Comic Books Award (1997) |
Donald David Perlin (/ˈpɜːrlɪn/; August 27, 1929 – May 14, 2024) was an American comic book artist, writer, and editor. He is best known forMarvel Comics'Werewolf by Night,Moon Knight (a character he co-created),The Defenders, andGhost Rider. In the 1990s, he worked forValiant Comics, both as artist and editor, where he co-createdBloodshot.
Perlin was born on August 27, 1929, in New York City,[1] and grew up in theCanarsie neighborhood of the borough ofBrooklyn.[2] At 14, he began studying art underBurne Hogarth, who taught small private classes at either hisCentral Park West apartment[2] or at a rented "loft in a small building up on upper Broadway in Manhattan and on Saturday mornings we had about half a dozen students."[3] One of them, future comics artistAl Williamson, became a friend and colleague.[2] As the class expanded and became affiliated with the Stevenson School, Perlin could no longer afford to attend and left; he later returned as a student when Hogarth co-founded theCartoonists and Illustrators School.[4]
He broke into the industry in the late 1940s, later recalling, "My first job was for a company calledFox Features. It was one of those cops-and-robbers stories. Ipencilled it,Pete Morisiinked it."[3] Credits were not routinely given in most comics until the 1960s, making identification difficult, and Perlin's first confirmed work is penciling and inking the seven-page story, "Ghosts From the Underworld", by an unknown writer, in the publisherYouthful'sCaptain Science #3 (cover-dated April 1951). Through 1952, he did some comics work forZiff-Davis,Hillman Periodicals andStanley Morse, before finding his niche pencilinghorror-comics stories forHarvey Comics,St. John Publications,Comic Media, and the 1950s iteration ofMarvel Comics, known asAtlas Comics.[5] He recalled he spent three weeks as aghost artist pencilling overJules Feiffer's layouts onWill Eisner's newspaper-insert comics featureThe Spirit. As he recalled the experience,
I kind of say that I worked for Will Eisner. What happened was I walked into his office when the fellow that they had doingThe Spirit left. I walked in with some samples and they brought them in to Eisner, he looked at them and hired me. At that time they had a publication that they were doing calledPS magazine; it was a mechanical maintenance magazine for the Army. They gave me a drawing board in the corner of the office and left me alone. Jules Feiffer was writing it. He, at that time, was in the Army stationed atGovernors Island ... and he’d come in on the weekend and write a story, lay it out roughly on the boards. I’d come in on the Monday and I’d pencil it. I never saw Eisner again after that first time. I mean, while working there.[3]
Around this time, Perlin, Morisi andSy Barry rented a one-room studio nearCooper Union in Manhattan for $35 a month, later renting space to artist Al Gordon. The group gave up the studio in 1953 when Perlin wasdrafted into theUnited States Army.[3][4]
From 1955 to 1958, Perlin concentrated onwar comics forCharlton Comics, while also turning in the occasional assignment for Atlas. His credited output slowed after that, and he took on work in technical illustrating and package design for several years.[6] He recalled,
I worked as a technical illustrator, taking blueprints and converting them to three-dimensional exploded views. I worked for a company that did the parts catalog forBoeing airliners. These were the books that the mechanics kept in the hangars so that they could order the parts. We drew every screw, washer, bolt and everything else in the planes. I got to the point where I thought I could go in there and take the plane apart with a screwdriver. ... I kind of enjoyed it. It was different. After that I went to work as a package designer for a manufacturer of paper boxes. I would do dummy artwork for the boxes and after they were approved I did the camera-ready art so that it could be printed. I worked there until one of the partners did some tricks with the books and the place went out of business.[7]
Doing comics in the evenings after work,[7] he drewRobur the Conqueror, an adaptation of aJules Verne novel about a power-mad genius and his "flying apparatus", forThe Gilberton Company'sClassics Illustrated #162,[8] with the first of its three printings cover-dated May 1961.[9] In 1962 he began an 11-year stint drawing almost exclusively for Charlton, across a variety of genres, from war toromance comics tohot-rod sports stories. Occasional artwork for other companies included the TV-series tie-inHogan's Heroes #4 (March 1967), forDell Comics, and comics biographies ofThurgood Marshall and Dr.Martin Luther King Jr. forFitzgerald Publications.[5]
In 1974 he began a long association with Marvel, where he was a full-time penciler until 1987. He earlier had freelanced, initially on aDr. Strange story by writerGardner Fox inMarvel Premiere #5 (Nov. 1972), inkingSam Kweskin (credited as "Irv Wesley"),[10] and co-penciling two issues ofThor withJohn Buscema in 1973, among other work, including a smattering for rivalDC Comics' supernatural anthologies. He had continued in commercial art and package design as his primary employment all these years, Perlin recalled, when had an offer to return to comics full-time:
I was going for a job interview with another company to do paste-ups and mechanicals. This was before computers. I was going in on Monday morning and Sunday morning I got a call from [Marvel Comics editor-in-chief]Roy Thomas. I'd been doing some comic book work in the evenings when I got home from working at the different day jobs that I had. Roy had seen some of the horror stories that I had done for DC. He told me about two books that they were looking for artists for and asked if would I be interested? One of them wasWerewolf By Night and the other was [the feature] "Morbius the Living Vampire" [in the comicAdventure into Fear]. When I went to Marvel and spoke to them I was told the Werewolf [comic] was a monthly and Morbius was [in] a bimonthly [comic], so I took the monthly book deciding that would be a great job.[7]
Perlin drewWerewolf by Night #17–43 (May 1974 – March 1977), a run that introduced the characterMoon Knight, co-created with writerDoug Moench. He went on to become the regular artist for the supernatural-motorcyclist seriesGhost Rider from 1977 to 1981, and a handful of other issues through 1983. He also contributed stories starring characters including theInhumans,Spider-Man, and theSub-Mariner.[5]
Perlin and writerRoger McKenzie developed the idea of Captain America running for the office ofPresident of the United States.[11] Marvel originally rejected the idea but it would be used later byRoger Stern andJohn Byrne[12] inCaptain America #250 (Oct. 1980).[13] McKenzie and Perlin received credit for the idea on theletters page at Stern's insistence.[14] McKenzie and Perlin would also receive credit in the follow-up story inWhat If? #26 (April 1981).[15]
In 1980, Perlin began working onMan-Thing withChris Claremont, beginning with a crossover withDoctor Strange and continuing until the second to last issue of the series in 1981.[16][17] From 1980–1986, Perlin was the regular (and longest-serving) artist on the superhero-team titleThe Defenders, which Perlin said gave him "a chance to draw almost every character Marvel had at one time or another."[18] Perlin penciledTransformers for nearly two years from early 1986 to late 1987,[5] and then became Marvel's de facto managing art director, a role he served from 1987–1991:
[W]hile I was doing the Transformers, [editor-in-chief]Jim Shooter asked me to come up there and work as an art director. The senior art director at the time wasJohn Romita, the executive art director. I was what you’d call the managing art director. [In that job, he would] take three budding young cartoonists, who were a smidgen away from being professionals, pay them minimum wage, no benefits whatsoever, no sick leave or holidays. When you worked, you got paid. They stayed for a year to do the changes and corrections in the artwork. The editors would bring the pages and things that they wanted changed, corrected or fixed or whatever, and it was up to me to see that was done. I was training these young guys and after about a year they were ready to go out and get work. That was the primary purpose of that job. I was a teacher more or less. I left there to go over to Shooter when he formed his new company,Valiant Comics.[3]
He joined Jim Shooter's Valiant Comics in 1991, pencilling the seriesSolar, Man of the Atom andBloodshot and editingSolar, Man of the Atom,Shadowman, andMagnus Robot Fighter. Shortly after Valiant's mid-1990s takeover byAcclaim Entertainment, Perlin went into semi-retirement.[3] His last known published comics work for quite some time was pencilling and inking the 12-page story "Caves of Castle Finn" in DC Comics' TV-animation tie-inScooby-Doo #25 (Aug. 1999).[5] In 2012, Perlin pencilled a newBloodshot story ("The Tablet") for theBloodshoot: Blood of the Machine Hardcover, written byKevin VanHook and inked byBob Wiacek, his original collaborators on the series.
Perlin was married to Becky Perlin. The couple has two daughters and three sons.[19]
Perlin died on May 14, 2024, at the age of 94.[20][21][22]
Perlin won the 1997National Cartoonists Society Comic Books Award.[23]
(as penciller if not noted otherwise)
I made sure that 1) Roger McK. and Don knew about it, and 2) they were credited with the idea on the letters page.
| Preceded by | Werewolf by Night artist 1974–1977 | Succeeded by N/A |
| Preceded by | Ghost Rider artist 1977–1981 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Captain America inker 1979 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Man-Thing artist 1980-1981 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | The Defenders artist 1980–1986 | Succeeded by N/A |
| Preceded by | Transformers artist 1986–1987 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by N/A | Solar, Man of the Atom artist 1991–1992 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by N/A | Bloodshot artist 1993–1994 | Succeeded by |
