Happy Birthday: Mark Gruenwald
Born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in 1953, Mark E. Gruenwald is a rarity in the comc book industry in that he spent his entire professional career with one company.
After graduating with an art degree from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Gruenwald moved to New York and applied at both DC and Marvel, with no luck. He then switched his focus from art to writing (he had been a Literature minor in school). He self-published a fanzine called Omniverse, which caught the eye of new Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter. Shooter offered Gruenwald a job as an assistant editor in February 1978.
Two years later Shooter promoted Gruenwald to full editor. In the late ’80s he became executive editor there. Gruenwald also wrote for Marvel, and is probably best known for his ten years writing Captain America, and for his work on The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. He also wrote the Squadron Supreme 12-issue series, which many consider his finest work.
Sadly, Gruenwald suffered a fatal heart attack in August 1996. According to his wishes, he was cremated and his ashes were mixed into the ink used to print the Squadron Supreme trade paperback, thus ensuring that he and his greatest work would always be together.
Born in 1957, Hilary Barta began his comic book career in 1982 when he was hired at Marvel to help ink The Defenders #108. In 1984 he moved to First Comics to ink Warp, and slowly graduated to penciling as well. In 1988, after work for Eclipse, Marvel, and First, Barta launched both Marvel’s What The—?! and DC’s Plastic Man.
Born in 1930, Frank Thorne got his comic book start penciling romance comics for Standard Comics in 1948. He then went on to draw the Perry Mason newspaper strip for King Features and to work on several comic books for Dell, including Flash Gordon, Jungle Jim, and The Green Hornet.
Born on Governors Island, Manhattan, New York in 1941, Neal Adams attended High School Industrial Art in Manhattan and then went to work in the advertising industry. He had actually applied to work at DC Comics but didn’t get a job offer — Adams did do some freelance work drawing Bat Masterson and Archie Comics but was not credited for it. In 1962 he was hired as an assistant at the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA), and worked anonymously on several comic strips before being given his own strip, Ben Casey.
Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1955, Paul Kupperberg got his start in comic fandom. He and Paul Levitz produced the comics fanzine The Comic Reader from 1971 to 1973, and Etcetera from 1972 to 1973. In 1975 Kupperberg sold several short horror stories to Charlton Comics, and then a few months later sold a World of Krypton story to DC for their Superman Family comic. He has written for many other DC comics since then, including Superman, Doom Patrol, Green Lantern, Justice League of America. He created the series Arion: Lord of Atlantis, Checkmate, and Takion.
Born in 1929, Jon D’Agostino got his comic book start in the 1940s at Timely Comics. In the early 1950s he did work for several different publishers, including Story Comics, Master Publications, and Charlton Comics. D’Agostino continued to work for Charlton on a variety of titles throughout the ’50s and ’60s, though in 1963 he also did the lettering for the first three issues of Marvel Comics’ new title The Amazing Spider-Man.
Harvey Dent was young, charismatic, idealistic, and driven—at 26 he was the youngest District Attorney Gotham City had ever had, and the press dubbed him “Apollo” for his good lucks and his meteoric rise. 
Flying “Johnny” Cloud was a member of the Navajo tribe but little is known about his early life. He enlisted in the U.S. Air Force at the start of World War II and overcame racial prejudices with his superior skill as a pilot, quickly becoming known as “the Navajo Ace.”
