| Fred Guardineer | |
|---|---|
| Born | Frederick B. Guardineer (1913-10-03)October 3, 1913 |
| Died | September 13, 2002(2002-09-13) (aged 88) San Ramon, California, U.S. |
| Area | Writer, Artist |
| Pseudonym(s) | F.B.G.[1] Gene Baxter[1] Lance Blackwood[1] |
| Awards | Inkpot Award, 1988[2] |
Frederick B. Guardineer (October 3, 1913 – September 13, 2002)[3] was an Americanillustrator andcomic bookwriter-artist best known for his work in the 1930s and 1940s during what historians and fans call theGolden Age of Comic Books, and for his 1950s art on theWestern comic-book seriesThe Durango Kid.
A pioneer of themedium itself, Guardineer contributed two features to the seminalAction Comics #1, the comic book that introducedSuperman.
Fred Guardineer was born inAlbany,New York.[4] He acquired a fine arts degree in 1935, then moved toNew York City, where he drew forpulp magazines.[4] The following year he joined the studio ofHarry "A" Chesler, an early "packager" supplying comics features on demand for publishers entering the emergingmedium ofcomic books. There he drew adventure features such as "Dave Dean" and thescience-fiction feature "Dan Hastings" before going freelance in 1938.[4]
Guardineer's first known comics credits appear in several one- to three-pageWestern and comic-Western stories, and in spot illustrations for a text story, inCentaur Publications'Star Ranger #2 (cover-dated April 1937). Through that year, he continued writing and drawing such short features in a variety of genres in some of the medium's first comics, including Centaur'sStar Comics,Funny Pages andFunny Picture Stories.[5]
He is among the contributors to the futureDC Comics' landmark titleAction Comics #1 (June 1938), the comic that introducedJerry Siegel andJoe Shuster's seminalsuperheroSuperman. There Guardineer wrote, drew andlettered the 12-page feature introducing hismagician-hero creationZatara, a character remaining in the DC stable as of the 21st century. Guardineer was also one of the artists on two features handled previously byCreig Flessel inMore Fun Comics: "Pep Morgan" (on which he sometimes used thepseudonymGene Baxter) and, inDetective Comics, "Speed Saunders, Ace Investigator".[5]
He married Ruth Ball in 1938 and bought a home inLong Island, New York the following year.[6]
Guardineer's other early work includes art forQuality Comics, where he created the characterBlue Tracer; andColumbia Comics, where he worked with former DC editorVin Sullivan, who had editedAction Comics.[5]
Guardineer followed Sullivan to the editor's next venture, the comic-book companyMagazine Enterprises, which Sullivan founded. There from 1949–1955, Guardineer drew writerGardner Fox'sOld West masked-crimefighter seriesThe Durango Kid. In the late 1940s, he also drew for suchLev Gleason Publications comics asBlack Diamond Western andCrime Does Not Pay.[5] In 1955, Guardineer retired from comics and worked 20 years with theU.S. Postal Service,[4][6] and during this time did wildlife illustrations for publications includingThe Long Island Fisherman.[6] He was a member of theOutdoor Writers Association of America.[6]
Popular-culture historianRon Goulart called Guardineer
...a true nonpareil, an artist whose style was unmistakably his own. ... His style was almost fully formed from the start. He seems always to have thought in terms of the entire page, never the individual panel. Each of his pages is a thoughtfully designed whole, giving the impression sometimes that Guardineer is arranging a series of similar snapshots into an attractive overall pattern, a personal design that will both tell the story clearly and be pleasing to the eye....[7]
Comics historianMark Evanier wrote that during Guardineer's years away from comics,Mad magazine writer and editorJerry DeFuccio located him "and became the first of many collectors to pay what Guardineer considered tidy sums to re-create some of his old covers."[8] Guardineer again lost contact with the comics community until 1998, when a comics fan found him in northernCalifornia and convinced him to attend that year'sComic-Con International inSan Diego, California. There, he was part of an Evanier-hosted panel "of every surviving person who'd had a hand in the creation of the historicAction Comics #1. [When presented with the convention's Inkpot Award,] Fred was confined to a wheelchair ... but with great effort, he insisted on standing as he made a brief but eloquent acceptance speech."[8] Guardineer later was a guest atWonderCon, inOakland, California.[8]
One source says Guardineer moved toSan Ramon,California, where he died in 2002,[4] though theSocial Security Death Index gives his last place of residence asBabylon,New York (ZIP Code 11702) inSuffolk County,Long Island.[3]
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