Tony DiPreta

Anthony Louis DiPreta[1] (July 9, 1921 – June 2, 2010)[2] was an American comic book and comic strip artist active from the 1940s Golden Age of comic books. He was the longtime successor artist of the comic strip Joe Palooka (1959–84) and drew the Rex Morgan, M.D. daily strip from 1983 until DiPreta's retirement in 2000.

Early life and career

Born July 9, 1921, in Stamford, Connecticut,[3] to a family that included brothers Joe and Leonard, Tony DiPreta grew up during the Great Depression, during which his father had little or no work and his mother sewed in a sweat shop for $7 a week. He decided while in junior high school that he would pursue an art career after reading in the local newspaper that cartoonist H. T. Webster made $50,000 a year. "I thought, 'Boy, that's a lot.' I went down and saw him, and he talked to me. Then I started drawing for my junior high school. It made me feel like I could really draw."

Golden Age of Comics

In 1941, DiPreta visited New York City's Timely Comics, the 1940s predecessor of Marvel Comics. Going on a Saturday, DiPreta recalled, he nonetheless met editor-in-chief Stan Lee, who had DiPreta ink a story for the humor feature "Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal". DiPreta recalled, "I was paid either seven bucks or eight bucks a page. The story was seven or eight pages long. However, it all worked out, I was going to get $57 for this job", which he delivered to Lee the following Saturday. "I thought, 'Hey, 25 bucks a week from Arnold is pretty good, but 57 bucks a week is better'. I decided to go freelance",[7] and did so beginning April 1, 1941.

Following that initial Timely story, DiPreta drew only sporadically for the company during the 1940s due to steady work from former Quality editor Cronin, who by then was at Hillman Periodicals. DiPreta drew such Hillman humor features as "Buttons the Rabbit", "Captain Codfish", "Earl the Rich Rabbit", "Fatsy McPig", "One Wing Spin", "Skinny McGinty" (in Air Fighters Comics) and "Stupid Manny" (in Clue Comics). DiPreta concurrently drew Quality humor features, including "Blimpy" (in Feature Comics), "Windy Breeze", and "Mayor Midge" for Quality.[8]

DiPreta did his first dramatic work, a war story, for editor Vin Sullivan's Columbia Comics. He also drew the lead feature, "Airboy", in at Air Fighters Comics #7-9 (April–June 1943). Also, DiPreta occasionally drew the superheroes "Boy King" and "Zippo" — no relation to the popular brand of cigarette lighter — for Hillman's Clue Comics and "Magno" for Ace Magazines' Super-Mystery Comics, as well as a small amount of comics work for Et-Es-Go Magazines, Lev Gleason Publications, and editor Leonard B. Cole at Holyoke Publishing. DiPreta also drew public service announcement one-pagers with Airboy and Iron Ace.[8]

Afflicted by a heart murmur since age 13, DiPreta was rejected for World War II military service as 4F. As the war progressed, DiPreta read a newspaper article saying anyone not doing war-related work would be drafted no matter their physical condition, and at least work stateside. DiPreta recalled he was re-designated 4C,[7] although 4C is the designation for an alien or dual national. In any event, DiPreta was never called into service.

Post-war career

Comic books

During the 1950s, DiPreta drew comic books primarily for Lev Gleason's "Little Wise Guys" kid-gang feature in that company's Daredevil (no relation to Marvel Comics'), and for anthological horror titles from Atlas Comics, Marvel's 1950s iteration. His Atlas work, the first known credit of which is also included a Western story in Texas Kid #5 (Sept. 1951), includes work in Journey into Mystery #1 (June 1952), and issues of Adventures into Terror, Adventures Into Weird Worlds, Astonishing, Marvel Tales, Menace, Mystery Tales, Strange Tales, Strange Tales of the Unusual, Uncanny Tales, and World of Fantasy. He also drew occasional stories for such Atlas crime fiction titles as Tales of Justice, war comics such as Battlefront, and, returning to humor, the sole two issues of the Casper the Friendly Ghost-like Adventures of Homer Ghost.[8]

DiPreta gained some recognition in comics during the 1970s, long after he'd left the field to concentrate on comic strips, when some of his Atlas work was reprinted in the Marvel comics Beware, Chamber of Chills, Creatures on the Loose, Vault of Evil, Weird Wonder Tales, Where Monsters Dwell, and even in an issue each of the superhero series Marvel Feature and the supernatural-hero series Giant-Size Werewolf. DiPreta's 1950s horror work was also considered mature enough to appear in Marvel's black-and-white, non-Comics Code horror-comics magazines Dracula Lives, Monsters Unleashed, Tales of the Zombie, and Vampire Tales. Most reprints were faithful, though DiPreta's "Escape From Nowhere", from World of Suspense #7 (April 1957), was reprinted in Amazing Adventures #28 (Jan. 1975) minus one of its original three pages.[8]

Comic strips

In 1945, DiPreta broke into the field of syndicated newspaper comic strip art as an assistant to cartoonist Frank E. "Lank" Leonard's popular strip about a suburban beat cop, Mickey Finn. DiPreta continued in that position, while concurrently drawing freelance for comic books, through 1955.

In 1959, DiPreta succeeded creator Ham Fisher and first successor artist Moe Leff on the long-running boxing strip Joe Palooka. He continued on that strip, written by Jim Lawrence, Bob Gustafson, Ken Fitch, Morris Weiss, and Ed Moore, through its end in 1984. In 1983, he became the latest successor, following artists Marvin Bradley, Frank Springer, and Fernando Da Silva, of Rex Morgan, M.D., working with writer-creator Nicholas P. Dallis, also known as Dal Curtis, and Dallis' assistant, writer Woody Wilson. The strip continued after DiPreta's 2000 retirement.[9] Fellow Stamford cartoonist Mort Walker said in 2010 that DiPreta did an unspecified amount of work at some point on Walker's strip Beetle Bailey.

birth name	Anthony Louis DiPreta
birth place	Stamford, Connecticut, US
death place	Greenwich, Connecticut, US
cartoonist	y
pencil	y
ink	y
notable works	Joe Palooka Rex Morgan, M.D.
birth date	July 9, 1921
death date	June 2, 2010

Early life and career

Golden Age of Comics

Post-war career

Comic books

Comic strips

Later career

Personal life

External links

References