Samuel Maxwell "Jerry" Iger (; August 22, 1903 – September 5, 1990) was an American

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and ...

and art-studio entrepreneur. With business partner

Will Eisner William Erwin Eisner (March 6, 1917 – January 3, 2005) was an American cartoonist, writer, and entrepreneur. He was one of the earliest cartoonists to work in the American comic book industry, and his series ''The Spirit'' (1940–1952) was no ...

, he co-founded

Eisner & Iger Eisner & Iger was a comic book "packager" that produced comics on demand for publishers entering the new medium during the late-1930s and 1940s period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books. Many of comic books' most significant c ...

, a

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

packager that produced comics on demand for new

publisher Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

s during the late-1930s and 1940s period known to fans and historians as the

Golden Age of Comic Books The Golden Age of Comic Books describes an era of American comic books from 1938 to 1956. During this time, modern comic books were first published and rapidly increased in popularity. The superhero archetype was created and many well-known char ...

. Iger, no relation to comic-book publisher

Fred Iger Frederick Hillel Iger (July 12, 1924 – April 10, 2015) was an American comic book publisher, associated for many years with the media figure Harry Donenfeld. (Iger's first marriage was to Donenfeld's daughter, and his second marriage was to Donen ...

, was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2009.

Biography

Early life and career

Jerry Iger was born in New York City, to

Austrian-Jewish The history of the Jews in Austria probably begins with the exodus of Jews from Judea under Roman occupation. Over the course of many centuries, the political status of the community rose and fell many times: during certain periods, the Jewis ...

parents Rosa and Jacob Iger. He was raised in

Idabel Idabel is a city in and county seat of McCurtain County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 7,010 at the 2010 census. It is located in the southeast corner of Oklahoma, a tourist area known as Choctaw Country. History Idabel was est ...

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...

, near the

Choctaw The Choctaw (in the Choctaw language, Chahta) are a Native American people originally based in the Southeastern Woodlands, in what is now Alabama and Mississippi. Their Choctaw language is a Western Muskogean language. Today, Choctaw people are ...

Indian reservation An Indian reservation is an area of land held and governed by a federally recognized Native American tribal nation whose government is accountable to the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs and not to the state government in which it ...

.Adelman, Bob. ''Will Eisner: A Spirited Life'' (M Press, Milwaukie, Oregon, 2005), , , p. 351 The youngest of four children of a peddler who had settled in what was then the pre-statehood

Indian Territory The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United St ...

, Iger contracted polio as a child and was cared for by his mother. Iger had two sisters,Adelman, p. 353 and a brother, Joe, whose son Arthur Iger (b. 1926) would become the father of

The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

Chairman and CEO

Bob Iger Robert Allen Iger (; born February 10, 1951) is an American businessman who is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of The Walt Disney Company. He previously served as the President of ABC Television between 1994 and 1995 and the President and Ch ...

. Arthur by the mid-1970s was vice president and publisher of the educational division of

Macmillan Publishing Macmillan Publishers (occasionally known as the Macmillan Group; formally Macmillan Publishers Ltd and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC) is a British publishing company traditionally considered to be one of the 'Big Five' English language publi ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

.Adelman, p. 354 In 1925, Iger, by then living in New York, and despite no formal art training, became a news cartoonist for the ''

New York American :''Includes coverage of New York Journal-American and its predecessors New York Journal, The Journal, New York American and New York Evening Journal'' The ''New York Journal-American'' was a daily newspaper published in New York City from 1937 t ...

''. He entered the fledgling comic-book field 10 years later, contributing such one-page

humor Humour (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humorism, humoral medicine of the ancient Gre ...

strips as "Bobby" (whose eponymous character was based on nephew Arthur), "Peewee" and "Happy Daze" to ''

Famous Funnies ''Famous Funnies'' is an American comic strip anthology series published from 1934 to 1955. Published by Eastern Color Printing, ''Famous Funnies'' is considered by popular culture historians as the first true American comic book, following sem ...

'', one of those seminal

American comic books An American comic book is a thin periodical originating in the United States, on average 32 pages, containing comics. While the form originated in 1933, American comic books first gained popularity after the 1938 publication of ''Action Comics'', ...

that reprinted black-and-white newspaper strips in color. Iger became founding editor of another such early comic book, ''Wow, What a Magazine!'', which also included some new material. ''Wow'' lasted four issues (cover-dated July–Sept. & Nov. 1936) but brought Iger together with a 19-year-old Eisner — future creator of ''

The Spirit The Spirit is a fictional masked crimefighter created by cartoonist Will Eisner. He first appeared June 2, 1940, as the main feature of a 16-page, tabloid (paper size), tabloid-sized, newsprint comic book insert distributed in the Sunday editio ...

'' — who wrote and drew the ''Wow'' adventure strip "Scott Dalton", the

pirate Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...

strip "The Flame" and the

secret agent Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...

strip "Harry Karry".

Comics packager

After ''Wow'' folded, Eisner and Iger, anticipating that the well of available reprints would soon run dry, in late 1936 formed Eisner & Iger, one of the first comics "packagers" that produced outsourced comic-book material for publishers entering the new medium. Eisner & Iger was an immediate success, and the two soon had a stable of creators supplying work to

Fox Comics Fox Feature Syndicate (also known as Fox Comics, Fox Publications, and Bruns Publications, Inc.) was a comic book publisher from early in the period known to fans and historians as the Golden Age of Comic Books. Founded by entrepreneur Victor S. ...

Fiction House Fiction House was an American publisher of pulp magazines and comic books that existed from the 1920s to the 1950s. It was founded by John B. "Jack" Kelly and John W. Glenister.Saunders, David"JACK BYRNE (1902-1972),"Field Guide to Wild American ...

Quality Comics Quality Comics was an American comic book publishing company which operated from 1937 to 1956 and was a creative, influential force in what historians and fans call the Golden Age of Comic Books. Notable, long-running titles published by Qualit ...

, and others. Turning a profit of $1.50 a page, Eisner claimed that he "got very rich before I was 22", later detailing that in

Depression-era The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

1939 alone, he and Iger "had split $25,000 between us", a considerable amount for the time. After Eisner left the firm in 1940, Iger would continue to package comics as the S. M. Iger Studio. He also started the small Phoenix Features newspaper syndicate, which in the early 1950s distributed a comic strip of Mickey Spillane's ''

Mike Hammer Michael Hammer or Mike Hammer may refer to: *Michael Armand Hammer (1955–2022), American philanthropist and businessman *Michael Martin Hammer (1948–2008), engineer and author *Mike Hammer (character), a fictional hard boiled detective ** ''Mick ...

''.

Later career

Iger closed the comics studio in 1955 and served as an

art director Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film industry, film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and ...

for the comic-book publisher

Farrell Publications Farrell Publications is the name of a series of American comic book publishing companies founded and operated by Robert W. Farrell in the 1940s and 1950s, including Elliot Publishing Company, Farrell Comic Group, and Excellent Publications. Farrel ...

, a.k.a.

Ajax-Farrell Publications Farrell Publications is the name of a series of American comic book publishing companies founded and operated by Robert W. Farrell in the 1940s and 1950s, including Elliot Publishing Company, Farrell Comic Group, and Excellent Publications. Farre ...

, until 1957, whereupon he moved to commercial advertising artwork. He was a guest of honor at the 1974

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Comic Art Convention The Comic Art Convention was an American comic book fan convention held annually New York City, New York, over Independence Day weekend from 1968 through 1983, except for 1977, when it was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and 1978 to 1979, w ...

, where he told a panel audience of his plans for an art show to raise money for

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

research, saying his mother had died of the disease. By this time, he made his home in the Sunnyside neighborhood of

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

Blackthorne Publishing Blackthorne Publishing, Inc. was a comic book publisher that flourished from 1986–1989. They were notable for the ''Blackthorne 3-D Series'', their reprint titles of classic comic strips like Dick Tracy, and their licensed products. Blackthorne ...

has released three compilations of Iger-related comics: ''The Iger Comics Kingdom'' (1985); ''Jerry Iger's Classic

Jumbo Comics ''Jumbo Comics'' was an adventure anthology comic book published by Fiction House from 1938–1953. ''Jumbo Comics'' was Fiction House's first comics title; the publisher had previously specialized in pulp magazines. The lead feature for ''Jumbo C ...

''; and ''Jerry Iger's Classic National Comics''; as well as the six-issue series ''Jerry Iger's Golden Features'' (1986).

Awards

Iger was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2009.

Biography

Early life and career

Comics packager

Later career

Awards

References

Further reading