Early life and career
Born in Brooklyn, New York City, New York,[2] the son of Abraham and Dora Brodsky, Sol Brodsky was the eldest among siblings Leonard, Ted, and Faye. Determined early in life to pursue cartooning, he took a job sweeping floors at Archie Comics in order to break into the industry. A 1985 tribute feature in the Marvel promotional magazine Marvel Age (pictured above) cites his comic-art debut at age 17 in 1940 "in the comic V-Man" (sic; the comic was actually titled V •••—, using Morse Code, and in any event, the two issues of that Fox Comics title starring the superhero V-Man were cover-dated January and March 1942). Brodsky's earliest confirmed comics credit is inking a six-page Volton story in Holyoke Publishing's Cat-Man Comics vol. 3, #2, a.k.a. #12 (July 1942).[8]
That year Brodsky began his long, if initially intermittent, association with Marvel, writing and drawing four one-page "Inky Dinky" gag strips in Mystic Comics #10 (Aug. 1942) and an additional one in Comedy Comics #11 (Sept. 1952), for the company's 1940s predecessor, Timely Comics. His earliest known cover art is for Holyoke's Blue Beetle #17 (Dec. 1942).[8]
Brodsky served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War II, advancing to the rank of corporal. He was stationed on the USS Fairfax, but that destroyer was decommissioned to become the British Royal Navy ship HMS Richmond on November 26, 1940, more than a year before the US entered the war.[9]
Upon his return from military service, Brodsky created the feature "Red Cross" in Holyoke's aviation series Captain Aero Comics, where it ran as a backup from issues #21-25 (Dec. 1944 - Feb. 1946).[8]
Atlas Comics
Brodsky in late 1950 or early 1951 — the exact date uncertain due to his work often going unsigned, in the manner of the times — began penciling and inking for Marvel's 1950s forerunner, Atlas Comics. He is tentatively credited as cover artist of Marvel Boy #1-2 (Dec. 1950 - Feb.1951), and confirmably credited through the '50s for covers and occasional stories in issues of Atlas' horror/suspense titles Adventures into Weird Worlds, Strange Tales, and Uncanny Tales; the Westerns Kid Colt, Outlaw, Gunsmoke Western, Western Outlaws, and Wild Western; the satiric Crazy; and such miscellaneous genre titles as Sports Action and Spy Fighters.[8] He also drew the cover of Sub-Mariner Comics #34 (June 1954).
After an Atlas reorganization c. 1954,
Marvel Comics
Until leaving Cracked in 1964 to become Marvel's production manager, Brodsky was concurrently freelancing for Marvel, inking The Fantastic Four #3 (the issue that introduced the team's costumes and other mythos sui generis) and #4 (the return of the Golden Age antihero the Sub-Mariner), among other covers/interiors. As Marvel began to expand with the success of Fantastic Four, The Amazing Spider-Man and other titles, Brodsky's organizational skills and easygoing manner led Lee, by now a friend for several years, to offer him the newly created, formal position of production manager in 1964. When artist Bill Everett, on his return to Marvel after many years in commercial art, turned in Daredevil #1 (April 1964) extremely late, Brodsky and Spider-Man artist Steve Ditko inked "a lot of backgrounds and secondary figures on the fly [and] cobbled the cover and the splash page together from Kirby's original concept drawing."[10]
Roy Thomas described the Marvel offices in 1965 as "just three or four little rooms. Stan's office was as big as everything else put together, and Sol Brodsky, [secretary/receptionist] Flo Steinberg
Skywald Publications and return to Marvel
Brodsky spent some time away from Marvel in the early 1970s. In 1970, he and Israel Waldman co-founded Skywald Publications — the company name composed of truncated versions of their last names. Skywald lasted until late 1974; Brosky returned to Marvel sometime in the period 1972 to 1974.
Al Hewetson, who succeeded Brodsky as editor at Skywald, recalled that in 1972 Brodsky had told him, "Marvel has made me an offer to go back and develop their overseas syndication, and I'm going to do it. This is a big opportunity."[13] Brodsky's last credited issues as Skywald editor, and Hewetson's first, are cover-dated August 1972.[14]
One-time Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, however, recalled that after Skywald went defunct (in late 1974), "Sol needed a job, and approached Stan [ Lee ], but a new production manager had been hired in Sol’s absence — John Verpoorten. Stan convinced the [then-parent company] Cadence [Industries] board to create a new position for Sol, 'V.P. of Operations'. Essentially, he was Stan's right-hand man again."[15]
