Dan De Carlo

Daniel S. DeCarlo (December 12, 1919 – December 18, 2001) was an American cartoonist best known for having developed the look of Archie Comics, Josie and the Pussycats (the title character of which was named for his wife), and Cheryl Blossom.

Early life and career

Dan DeCarlo was born in New Rochelle, New York, the son of a gardener.DeCarlo in He attended New Rochelle High School, followed by Manhattan's Art Students League from 1938 to 1941, when he was drafted into the U.S. Army. Stationed in Great Britain, he worked in the motor pool and as a draftsman, and painted company mascots on the noses of airplanes. He also drew a weekly military comic strip, ''418th Scandal Sheet''. He met his wife, French citizen Josie Dumont, on a blind date in Belgium not long after the Battle of the Bulge.

Atlas and Archie

DeCarlo was married, with a pregnant wife, and working as a laborer for his father when he began to pursue a professional art career. Circa 1947, answering an ad, he broke into the comic book industry at Timely Comics, the 1940s iteration of Marvel Comics. Under editor-in-chief Stan Lee, his first assignment was the teen-humor series ''Jeanie''. DeCarlo went uncredited, as was typical for most comic-book writers and artists of the era, and he recalled in 2001, "I went on with her maybe ten books. They used to call me 'The Jeanie Machine' because that was all Stan used to give me, was ''Jeanie''.... Then he took me off ''Jeanie'' and he gave me ''Millie the Model''. That was a big break for me. It wasn't doing too well and somehow when I got on it became quite successful."

He went on to an atypically long, 10-year run on that humor series, from issues #18–93 (June 1949 – Nov. 1959), most of them published by Marvel's 1950s predecessor, Atlas Comics.''Millie the Model''
at the Grand Comics Database DeCarlo and Lee also took over the ''My Friend Irma'' comic strip, spun off from the hit Marie Wilson radio comedy. For a decade, DeCarlo wrote and drew the slapsticky adventures of Millie Collins, her redheaded friendly nemesis Chili Storm and the rest of the cast. He also contributed the short-lived ''Sherry the Showgirl'' and ''Showgirls'' for Atlas. In 1960, he and Atlas editor-in-chief Stan Lee co-created the short-lived syndicated comic strip ''Willie Lumpkin'', about a suburban mail carrier, for the Chicago-based Publishers Syndicate. A version of the character later appeared as a long-running minor supporting character in Lee's later co-creation, the Marvel Comics series ''Fantastic Four''.

As well during this period, DeCarlo created and drew Standard Comics' futuristic teen-humor comic book ''Jetta of the 21st Century''. Running three issues, #5–7 (Dec. 1952 - April 1953), it featured red-haired Jetta Raye and her friends at Neutron High School.''Jetta of the 21st Century''
at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
Archived
from the original on October 8, 2016.

In addition to his comic-book work, DeCarlo drew freelance pieces for the magazines ''The Saturday Evening Post'' and '' Argosy'', as well as Timely/Atlas publisher Martin Goodman's Humorama line of pin-up girl cartoon digests.

DeCarlo first freelanced for Archie Comics

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