Carmine Infantino
Carmine Infantino (born May 24, 1925 in Brooklyn , New York City , † April 4, 2013 ) was an American comic book writer and editor.
Life and work
Infantino was born the son of the musician Pasquali Patrick Infantino, a member of the band of the composer Harry Warren , and an immigrant from Naples. After attending school in Brooklyn, Infantino attended the School of Industrial Art in Manhattan before finally working as a draftsman in Harry Chesler's studio.
After attending some drawing courses from the Art Students League, Infantino began working as a drawing assistant for the Quality Comics publishing house. After moving to Timely Comics in 1942, Infantino began working as a regular draftsman for ongoing comic series. His first work was a story about the character Jack Frost, which appeared in USA Comics # 3 in January 1942. In the further course of the 1940s followed work for the publishers Hillman Periodicals (Airboy and the Heap), Fawcett Comics, Holyke and DC Comics . For the latter, Infantino drew stories about characters such as The Flash , Black Canary , Green Lantern and the Justice Society of America in the 1940s .
In the 1950s Infantino initially worked for the Prize Comics publisher, founded by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby , for which he was in charge of the Charlie Chan series . After returning to DC, he worked on western, science fiction, and mystery comics throughout the 1950s.
On the instructions of the publishing director Julius Schwartz , infantino took over the drafting job for the newly launched superhero series The Flash in 1956. His partner was the writer Robert Kanigher, with whom Infantino not only designed the famous scarlet, streamlined full-body costume of the superhero, but also the scenes in the futuristic Central City and a large part of the recurring villains and Created minor characters in the series.
Shortly thereafter, as the successor to Mike Sekowsky , Infantino took over the sci-fi series Adam Strange , which was published in the series Mystery in Space , before he was commissioned together with the author John Broome in 1964 to overhaul the traditional Batman series. A long-lasting element of Infantino's revision was the oval-shaped yellow emblem that was to appear on the superhero's chest as a distinguishing mark from 1964 to 1999.
Infantino's other work in the 1960s was the Elongated Man humor series and The Space Museum . This was followed by countless cover works for almost all of the publisher's series and, from 1967, editorial duties as managing director of DC. Among the artists Infantino brought to DC in his capacity as director were Dennis O'Neil , Neal Adams and Dick Giordano . In 1971 Infantino finally took over the post of the publisher's official editor. One of Infantino's greatest successes as editor was the recruitment of Marvel's star cartoonist Jack Kirby to DC in the early 1970s.
In the late 1970s, Infantino worked on the script for the film Superman with writer Mario Puzo. After Warner Communications, the owner of DC, had Infantino replaced by the businesswoman Jenette Kahn as editor of DC, Infantino returned to his old job as a draftsman.
This was followed by work for Warren Publishing and Marvel, including Star Wars, Spider-Woman and Nova. A second run on The Flash followed in the 1980s before Infantino retired in the 1990s. Since then, he has presented his autobiography, The Amazing World of Carmine Infantino, published by Vanguard Productions, and occasional work as a guest artist.
Web links
- Carmine Infantino in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (English)
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Infantino, Carmine |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American comic book writer and editor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 24, 1925 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | New York City |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 4, 2013 |