Bob Oksner, 1916-2007

The comics artist Bob Oksner, an absolute rock of DC Comics during decades in which that company dominated American mainstream comic books, passed away Sunday evening from pneumonia. He was 90 years old.

A New Jersey native, Oksner entered comics at the cusp of the 1940s, working for the production house Funnies, Inc. He worked for various comics publisher directly, including Martin Goodman's Timely, in 1942. Oksner drew the newspaper comics strip Miss Cairo Jones from 1945 to 1947, for Bell Syndicate and Associated Newspapers. Cairo Jones was Oksner's creation, and was originally male before a syndicate editor suggested the switch. Oksner would later enjoy brief runs on a I Love Lucy strip in the 1950s (for King Features) and another strip of his own creation called Soozi in 1967 (for Publisher News Syndicate with writer Don Weldon); a much longer run as a collaborator on Dondi followed from 1969-1986.

It was upon the folding of Miss Cairo Jones that Oksner began the work for which he is best known, working for Editor Shelly Mayer at DC Comics on an avalanche of humor features, including a number of DC's licensed books from stars (Bob Hope) and popular television shows (Sgt. Bilko). Two of Oksner's straight-up humor comics that have a number of fans despite their limited number of appearances then and since are Angel and the Ape and Stanley and His Monster. He won divisional awards from the National Cartoonists Society for such work in 1960-1961. He moved from humor to romance to superheroes as DC's publishing slate restricted in the 1970s into the 1980s. Both Mark Evanier and Oksner's Lambiek.net entry note he was also an accomplished inker and cover artist in addition to his achievements as writer, creator, and pencil artist.
 
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