Joe Gill

Joe Gill as a Navy member

Joseph "Joe" Gill ; Pseudonyms Tom Tuna , Jack Daniels , Johnny Walker (born July 13, 1919 in Scranton , Pennsylvania , † December 17, 2006 in Seymour , Connecticut ) was an American comic book author.

Life and work

Gill began working as a writer for New York comic publisher Timely Comics in the early 1940s. At the same time he wrote numerous stories for the studio Funnies Inc., which did not publish its stories itself, but sold them to other publishers.

After participating in the Second World War, which he experienced in the Pacific theater of war, Gill began working as a freelance writer with his brother Ray Gill and friend Mickey Spillane.

Since - as was common at the time - most of Gill's early works appeared without an indication of the author, the creation of a complete bibliography of his works is very difficult and has so far been pending. The earliest story, definitely from Gill's pen, is the Story Following Orders published in Target Comics # 11, January 1948 .

After primarily producing superhero stories in the early years of his career, Gill submitted work primarily for comic genres such as teen humor and westerns, mostly published by Timely, in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Thereafter, Charlton Comics, based in Derby, Connecticut, gradually became Gill's new main employer. As a draftsman, Gill scripted for Charlton over the next thirty years and produced several hundred comic stories. The focus of his work was initially love, western and horror comics, and later mainly superhero and science fiction comics. For Charlton, Gill created figures and series such as Zaza the Mystic, Judo Master, Peacemaker and Captain Atom (with illustrator Steve Ditko ), which he first presented in Space Adventures # 30 from March 1960. He also wrote stories for other, not created by himself, series such as Blue Beetle , Konga and Gorgo . A frequent partner during this time was the draftsman and ink pen Dick Giordano .

For DC Comics, Gill wrote, parallel to his work for Charlton, on the mediation of Giordano, now an editor at DC, magazines for series such as Sea Devils and Hot Wheels . Together with John Byrne he created the series Doomsday + 1 (1976–1977).

Gill died in a Seymour retirement home in 2006 after surviving his wife and son.

Awards

For his work as a writer, Gill received the 1974 Shazam Award in the "Best Author" category.