Don Newton

Donald "Don" L. Newton (born November 12, 1934 in St. Charles, Virginia , † August 19, 1984 in Phoenix , Arizona) was an American comic artist.

Life and work

Newton spent the first four years of his life in a mining town in Virginia. After the boy was diagnosed with asthmatic disease, Newton's family moved to Arizona when he was four.

In the mid-1960s, Newton came through his work as a drawing teacher at the Mountain View Elementary School in Phoenix in contact with the editor Gordon Love, who printed a drawing by Newton in the science fiction journal The Golden Age # 3. From 1968 Newton finally worked as a draftsman for the company SFCA, which had specialized in the publication of sci-fi journals and for which he remained active until 1973. During this time he mainly created covers for science fiction and comic fanzines, as well as the layouts for the series The Savage Earth published in fanzine . This work gradually drew the attention of those in charge of the larger American comic publishers who first commissioned Newton in the early 1970s.

In the course of the following decade, Newton gradually established himself as a full-time comic artist. In 1978 he was finally so widely recognized in his "second job" that he was able to give up his actual profession as a drawing teacher in order to be able to make a living from his work as a comic artist.

Publishers he worked for were mainly Charlton Comics, Marvel Comics and DC Comics . While he was working for Charlton on the series The Phantom (1975-1076), Newton produced for Marvel Comics - which he left a few times and then returned for a short time - initially covers for various romantic and horror comics and guest drawings for series such as Giant- Size Defenders, Avengers, Savage Sword of Conan, Ghost Rider or the black and white magazine Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction Annual # 1.

Newton first worked for DC in 1977 through Neal Adams , who gave him the drawing job for an Aquaman story in DC Special # 28. Further Aquaman stories followed by 1980, to which work for the series Adventure Comics , New Gods , Shazam! , Green Lantern , World's Finest , The Brave and the Bold , Batman and Detective Comics , as well as Star-Hunters, a new feature invented by David Michelinie that first appeared in DC Super-Stars # 16 from October 1977, were added. The most successful was Newton's work on the Batman figure, which - based on Dick Sprang, one of the earliest Batman cartoonists - was reflected in stately seventy-nine stories about the "midnight detective".

Newton died in 1984 at the Mesa Hospital in Phoenix when he suffered a heart attack as a result of cancer in the neck area, which caused him to fall into a coma from which he could not awaken after several days of unconsciousness. His last published work appeared posthumously in the comic book Infinity Inc # 13 in 1985 .

Particularly frequent artistic partners of Newton were the authors E. Nelson Bridwell , Gerry Conway and Len Wein , as well as the ink artists Alfredo Alcala , Joe Rubinstein and Dan Adkins .

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