The Silver Age
Goldberg went freelance in 1958,[5] and also enrolled again in the School of Visual Arts, this time to study TV storyboarding[8] and where one instructor was influential Batman artist Jerry Robinson.[9] As Atlas segued into Marvel, Goldberg began freelance-coloring the company's comic books through the mid-1960s, working with such artists as Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby to create the color designs for such characters as Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk and others during what historians call the Silver Age of comic books.[5] Other Marvel colorists of that era — all of whom, like Goldberg, worked uncredited at that time — included George Roussos, Marie Severin, and, on his own work only, writer-artist Jim Steranko.
Goldberg recalled in the mid-2000s that "Stan [Lee, Marvel's editor-in-chief] was writing Fantastic Four, The Amazing Spider-Man and all those books. I was doing the initial coloring on all those books; I was creating the color schemes on all those characters."[7]
As a penciler and inker, Goldberg found his niche drawing in the house style established by Dan DeCarlo for the various Marvel humor titles starring teens and career girls. After starting with Kathy the Teenage Tornado, Goldberg moved on to the long-running, slapsticky Millie the Model.[7] Goldberg would also draw drew her in a more serious style during Millie's 1963-67 iteration as a romantic-adventure star, and likewise exhibited a less-cartoony style on the teen romantic comedy series Patsy Walker. He would eventually co-plot these humor stories with writer-editor Lee.[5]
Some Marvel humor stories with art credited to Sol Brodsky may have been Goldberg's work. As comics historian Mark Evanier notes: "...there were quite a few issues of Millie the Model and other teen comics signed by Sol Brodsky or 'Solly B.' Brodsky was the firm's production manager and an occasional inker, and he did ink a few of the Millie stories that bear his credit. But they were all at least pencilled by Stan Goldberg. At the time, Stan was doing occasional work for the Archie Comics people, and they didn't like to see their artists drawing in that style for other publishers. So when Stan drew teen comics for Marvel, they put Brodsky's name on them in the hope that the Archie editors wouldn't know it was him.[10]"
Archie Comics and afterward
Goldberg stopped freelancing for Marvel in 1969,[11] and for three years drew the DC Comics teen titles Date with Debbi, Swing with Scooter and Leave It to Binky.[6] Shortly afterward he began a decades-long association with Archie Comics, joining Dan DeCarlo, Henry Scarpelli and other artists in drawing the house-style misadventures of Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, Reggie and the rest of the Riverdale High teens. Goldberg's work has appeared across the line, including in the flagship series, Archie — for which Goldberg has been the primary artist from at least the mid-1990s through mid-2006 — as well as in issues of Archie and Me, Betty, Betty and Me, Everything's Archie, Life with Archie, Archie's Pals 'n' Gals, Archie at Riverdale High, Laugh, Pep Comics, Sabrina The Teenage Witch, the 1986 educational one-shot Archie's Ham Radio Adventure, and the 1990 TV movie tie-in To Riverdale and Back Again.[6]
