Emmanuel "Mac" Raboy (April 9, 1914 – December 12, 1967) was an American comics artist best known for his

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 ...

work on

Fawcett Comics Fawcett Comics, a division of Fawcett Publications, was one of several successful comic book publishers during the Golden Age of Comic Books in the 1940s. Its most popular character was Captain Marvel (DC Comics), Captain Marvel, the alter ego of ...

Captain Marvel Jr. Captain Marvel Jr. (Frederick "Freddy" Freeman) is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. A member of the Marvel/Shazam Family team of superheroes associated with Captain Marvel/Shazam, he was created by Ed H ...

Brent Frankenhoff & Maggie Thompson ''The Greatest Comic Book Covers Of All Time''. Iola, WI : Krause Pub. ; F+W Media, Inc., 2012. (p. 26-7). and as the Sunday

comic-strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics ter ...

artist of ''

Flash Gordon Flash Gordon is the protagonist of a space adventure comic strip created and originally drawn by Alex Raymond. First published January 7, 1934, the strip was inspired by, and created to compete with, the already established ''Buck Rogers'' adve ...

'' for more than 20 years.Marguerite Cotto, "Flash Gordon", in Ray B Browne; Pat Browne,''The Guide to United States Popular Culture'' Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 2001. (p. 283) Cartoonist Drew Friedman has stated, "Raboy was an expert technician with pen and brush, and his lush covers are some of the most unusually beautiful ever to grace comic books".Drew Friedman, ''Heroes Of The Comics: Portraits of the Pioneering Legends of the Comic Books''. Seattle, Washington:

Fantagraphics Fantagraphics (previously Fantagraphics Books) is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, manga, magazines, graphic novels, and the erotic Eros Comix imprint. History Founding Fantagraphics was found ...

Books, 2014. (p.82)

Early life

Raboy was born in

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 ...

on April 9, 1914 to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family. (The April 9 date is taken from Roger Hill's biography ''Mac Raboy: Master of the Comics''. His birthdate has also been cited as April 17, 1914, in other sources.Social Security Death Index, SS# 075-14-1435 Hill's biography also gives his birth name as "Manuel", but Friedman's book ''Heroes Of The Comics'' lists it as "Emmanuel.") Raboy's father had emigrated from

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

; the family name's spelling was changed from "Raboi". His father worked in a hat factory before moving to

North Dakota North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the Native Americans in the United States, indigenous Dakota people, Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north a ...

for a time to work as a blacksmith and horse handler. He moved to

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

to work on the family dairy farm, and finally settled in

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

. He also wrote poetry, political essays, and several books, including ''The Jewish Cowboy,'' about his North Dakota experience.

Career

Raboy began his art career with the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

during the

Great Depression 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 ...

. In the 1940s he began working with the Harry A. Chesler studio of comics artists. Raboy began drawing comic books and gained fame as the illustrator for ''

Captain Marvel, Jr. Captain Marvel Jr. (Frederick "Freddy" Freeman) is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. A member of the Marvel/Shazam Family team of superheroes associated with Captain Marvel/Shazam, he was created by Ed H ...

'' and the ''

Green Lama The Green Lama is a fictional pulp magazine hero of the 1940s, created by American author Kendell Foster Crossen. He is commonly portrayed as a powerful Buddhist Lama, dressing in green robes with a red scarf and using his powerful skill set t ...

''. Raboy was a great admirer of

Alex Raymond Alexander Gillespie Raymond Jr. (October 2, 1909 – September 6, 1956) was an American cartoonist who was best known for creating the ''Flash Gordon'' comic strip for King Features Syndicate in 1934. The strip was subsequently adapted into many ...

, and "kept a portfolio of Alex Raymond's "Flash Gordon" comics by his side for inspiration and guidance as he worked". In the spring of 1946,

King Features King Features Syndicate, Inc. is a American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial c ...

hired Raboy to continue the Sunday page adventures of ''

'', which he continued to work on until his death.

Death

Raboy was diagnosed with cancer in 1967, and died that December. Hill's biography gives the date as December 22; other sources have listed it as December 12.

References

American comic strip cartoonists Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame inductees Federal Art Project artists Artists from New York City 1914 births 1967 deaths Jewish American artists {{US-cartoonist-stub