Martin Nodell

Martin Nodell

Martin Nodell , pseudonym Mart Dellon (born November 15, 1915 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , † December 9, 2006 in Waukesha , Wisconsin ) was an American comic artist.

Life

Nodell grew up in Philadelphia in the US state of Pennsylvania. After studying at the Art Institute of Chicago , he moved to New York City in the 1930s. There he deepened his training at the Pratt Institute and began working as a full-time draftsman in 1938.

After initially working as a freelancer for a while, Nodell found a permanent position at the publisher All-American Comics . In 1940, Nodell created the original version of the superhero character Green Lantern for All American Comics, one of three publishers that would later merge to form DC Comics . According to his own statement, inspired by Richard Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen (magic ring motif) and the sight of an employee of the New York City Works, who carried a lantern, glowing alternately green and red, around in a subway shaft (lantern motif and figure name) , Nodell developed the plot of the science fiction series, which is still successful today. At the instigation of Nodell's superior editors, the author Bill Finger was later called in , who condensed Nodell's ideas and reworked them into workable scripts.

The first story about the new character created by Nodell and Finger finally appeared in July 1940 in the comic book All-American Comics # 16. After that, the Green Lantern range remained an uninterrupted feature of the range until 1947. Nodell oversaw the Green Lantern stories in the All-American Comics and in the All Star Comics series until 1941. After that, he took over the drawing job for the eponymous series Green Lantern , in which only stories about "his character" were published and which he up to Issue # 25 of May 1947 drew.

As his work as a comic artist was still embarrassing to him at the time - in an obituary in Newsday from 2006, Nodell was quoted as "culturally unaccapable" - Nodell hid himself behind the pseudonym Mart Dellon at that time.

In 1947 Nodell moved from All-American Comics to Timely Comics. There he drew stories for the series Captain America (or two issues long, # 74 and 75, under the title Captain America's Weird Tales ), Human Torch and Sub-Mariner over the next few years .

In the 1950s, Nodell began working as a draftsman for advertising agencies. In 1965 he created the character of “Pillsbury Dougboy” as art director for the Leo Burnett Agency, who was the advertising mascot of an American flour manufacturer for decades.

After Nodell retired in 1976, which he spent in New York City, Palm Beach and Detroit, he occasionally contributed comic strips to various series in the DC Comics program. Parts of the booklets Super Friends Special # 1 (1981) or Green Lantern # 19 (1991) drew .

Family and personal life

In December 1941, Nodell married Carrie? († 2004), whom he had met two months earlier on Coney Island. The marriage resulted in two sons, Spencer Nodell and Mitchell Nodell, who gave Nodell six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.