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White Swan Nursing Uniforms,White Swan Medical Scrubs Lab Coats |... whiteswanscrubs.com |
Douglas Curtis Swan (February 17, 1920, in Willmar, Minnesota - June 17, 1996)[1] was an American comic book artist. The artist most associated with Superman during the period fans and historians call the Silver Age of comic books, Swan produced hundreds of covers and stories from the 1950s through the 1980s.
[edit] Biography[edit] Early life and careerCurt Swan, whose Swedish grandmother had shortened the original family name of Swanson, was the youngest of five children. Father John Swan worked for the railroads; mother Leotine Hanson had worked in a local hospital.[2] As a boy, Swan's given name — Douglas — was shortened to "Doug," and, disliking the phonetic similarity to "Dog," Swan thereafter reversed the order of his given names and went by "Curtis Douglas," rather than "Douglas Curtis."[3] Drafted into the army in 1940, Swan spent World War II working on the G.I. magazine Stars and Stripes. During his period he also married the former Helene Brickley, who was stationed near him in Paris in 1944.[2] Shortly after returning to civilian life in 1945 he moved from Minnesota to New Jersey and began working for DC Comics.[2] Apart from a few months of night classes (at the Pratt Institute)[2] under the G.I. Bill, Swan was an entirely self-taught artist.[4] After a stint on Boy Commandos he began to just pencil pages, leaving the inking to others. [edit] Superman Initially, Swan drew many different features, including "Tommy Tomorrow" and "Gangbusters", but slowly he began gravitating towards the Superman line of books. His first job pencilling the iconic character was for Superman #51 (March-April 1948).[5] Many comics of the 1940s and 1950s lacked contributor credits, but research shows that Swan began pencilling the Superboy comic book with its fifth issue in 1949.[4] Swan always felt, however, that his breakthrough came when he was assigned the art duties on Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen, in 1954.[4] It wasn't all smooth sailing, as Swan at first didn't take to line editor Mort Weisinger's controlling style.[2] Swan discussed this period in an interview: "I was getting terrible migraine headaches and had these verbal battles with Mort. So it was emotional, physical. It just drained me and I thought I'd better get out of here before I go whacko." After leaving comics for the advertising world in 1951, Swan soon returned, for National's higher paychecks. And as biographer Zeno notes, "The headaches went away after [Swan] gained Weisinger's respect by standing up to him." There were other times when Swan got frustrated at DC, and years later Marvel Comics attempted to lure him to their company, but he stayed loyal to DC, as their benefits were good and the work was steady.[4] Around 1954, Swan unsuccessfully pitched an original comic strip for newspaper syndication. Called Yellow Hair, it was about a blond boy raised by Native Americans.[4] A couple of years later, starting with the episode of June 18, 1956, Swan drew the Superman daily newspaper comic strip, which he continued on until November 12, 1960.[4] Over the years, Swan was a remarkably consistent and prolific artist, often illustrating two or more titles per month. [edit] Later life and career After DC's 1985 12-issue limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths and with the impending 1986 revision of Superman by writer/artist John Byrne, Swan was released from his duties on the Superman comics. Critic Wallace Harrington summed up Swan's dismissal this way:
Swan's swan song on Superman was the non-canonical 1986 story "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?", written by Alan Moore. After this, Swan continued to do occasional minor projects for DC, including an Aquaman limited series and special in 1989, and various returns on illustrating Superman. Unfortunately, he had not planned well for retirement, and needed to keep working to survive. His marriage dissolved, in some ways due to a recurring drinking problem.[2] Swan's last published story was five pages published posthumously in the 1996 special Superman: The Wedding Album. Swan was living in Wilton, Connecticut, at the time of his death. He was survived by his former wife Helene, daughters Karen and Cecilia, and son Christopher.[2] [edit] Art styleSwan's artwork on Superman was a contrast to Wayne Boring, his Golden Age predecessor.[2] Critic Arlen Schumer praises Swan's ability to depict "the spectrum of human emotion, from agony to anger, mournful to mirthful."[4] As characterized by critic Paul Gravett, Swan's Superman made ". . . Krypton's last son in exile, the alien in our midst, into someone like us, who would think and feel as well as act, who was approachable, big-hearted, considerate, maybe physically superpowerful yet gentle, noble yet subtly tragic."[5] In a similar vein, Swan biographer Eddy Zeno calls Swan "the Norman Rockwell of . . . comics."[4] With his frequent inker Murphy Anderson from 1970–1974 (and then again from 1988–1989), the pair's collaborative artwork came to be called "Swanderson" by the fans.[5] (Despite his and Anderson's success together, however, Swan's favorite inker was Al Williamson, with whom he only worked a short time, from 1985–1986.)[4] [edit] LegacySwan's favorite story — one of the few he both pencilled and inked — was "I Flew With Superman" from Superman Annual #9 (1983), in which Swan himself appears and helps Superman solve a case.[4] In a story titled "Swan's Way," issue #92 of the Legion of Super-heroes (May 1997) memorialized Swan with a cameo appearance as an art teacher. In the Superman-based television show Smallville (TV Series), Christopher Reeve made a guest-appearance in two episodes as character Dr. Virgil Swann, who knows all about Kal-El and his origins. This was an allusion to Swan.[citation needed] [edit] QuotesWallace Harrington:
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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