Author: Aaron Rosenberg

Born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in 1956, David Victor “Dave” Sim dropped out of high school to pursue a career in comic books.

In the 1970s he worked on a fanzine, The Now and Then Times (Now and Then Books was the comic book store Sim had worked at for his first job) and then another called Comic Art News and Reviews. He worked for several other fanzines, wrote a newspaper strip, and produced several small-press comics.

In 1977, Sim began self-publishing Cerebus, a black-and-white comic about a dark medieval world and a cynical and violent aardvark (originally parodied on Conan the Barbarian). In 2004 Sim completed his planned 300-issue run of Cerebus.

In 2006, he began an online comic biography of the Canadian actress Siu Ta. He is now working on two new projects, a Holocaust book called Judenhass and a women’s fashion comic book called glamorpuss.

Sim won an Eisner Award in 1994, a Harvey Award in 1992, a Kirby in 1985 and 1987, and several other accolades. He is considered by many to be the king of independent comics, having produced the longest-running independent comic of all time.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1915, Anthony Joseph “Tony” Strobl graduated from the Cleveland School of Art in 1937 (along with Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster—Strobl helped them fine-tune a character concept they were working on, which they called "Superman") and began working for Disney a year later.

His first project was doing “in-between” art (the frames between the ones the main animators drew) on Fantasia. Strobl also worked on Pinocchio and Dumbo before joining the Army during World War II.

After the war, he decided to switch from animation to comics, and in 1947 he went to work for Western Publishing. Western produced comics starring characters from Disney, Warner Brothers, and Walter Lantz, and Strobl did a lot of art on Disney’s “Duck” books.

After 1954, he was responsible for the monthly Donald Duck comic. In the mid-’60s Strobl began drawing Disney comics for the international market, and from 1986 to 1987 he drew a daily Donald Duck comic strip for them as well. Strobl died on December 29, 1991.

Born on May 11, 1962 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, Sandy Carruthers remembers watching the Batman television series when he was only a toddler. He began drawing soon after that, and hasn’t stopped since.

Carruthers attended Holland College from 1979 to 1981, training in its Commercial Design (now Graphic Design) program, then studied illustration at Sheridan College in Ontario. His first job in comics was at Malibu Graphics and included Captain Canuck and what is still his best-known work, the comic book series The Men in Black (later made into the films Men in Black and Men in Black 2).

In 2004, Carruthers began the web comic Canadiana, which took a break but resumed in 2007. He has also done several graphic novels for Graphic Universe, illustrated several books, done a cartoon strip for the Guardian newspaper, and teaches at his old alma mater, Holland College.

Vincent T. Hamlin was born in 1900 and grew up during tumultuous times—he enlisted in the Army at age 17 and served in France during World War I.

After returning home, he studied journalism and art at the University of Missouri, but was kicked out of art class because his teacher told him he was too fine an artist to waste his time as a cartoonist. After graduating Hamlin moved to Des Moines and became a reporter.

Next he went to Fort Worth, Texas, where he got occasional work as a reporter, a photographer, and a cartoonist. In 1927 he got a job creating maps and posters for the oil fields. It was during that time that Hamlin came up with the idea of a cartoon about a prehistoric caveman, and in 1929 he moved back to Iowa to work on the idea. It took him several years to get it right, but Alley Oop finally appeared a daily strip in 1932.

The strip became so popular that the first fan-based comics award, the Alleys, was named after it. Hamlin continued Alley Oop until his retirement in 1971, when he handed the reins over to his assistant, Dave Graue. Hamlin died in 1993.