Irwin Hasen
Irwin Hasen (July 8, 1918 – March 13, 2015) was an American cartoonist best known as the creator (with Gus Edson) of the Dondi comic strip. He also had a significant run on DC Comics' original Green Lantern, Alan Scott, in the 1940s as well as creating Wildcat (who became a superhero after seeing a Green Lantern comic book) for the same publisher.
Irwin Hasen
Luigi Novi · CC BY 3.0
- Born
- 8 July 1918
- Birthplace
- Manhattan, New York, U.S.
- Died
- 13 March 2015
- Nationality
- United States
- Occupation
- cartoonist · comics artist
- Education
- DeWitt Clinton High School
- Honours
- Inkpot Award · Will Eisner Hall of Fame
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
Irwin Hasen (July 8, 1918 – March 13, 2015) was an American cartoonist best known as the creator (with Gus Edson) of the Dondi comic strip. He also had a significant run on DC Comics' original Green Lantern, Alan Scott, in the 1940s as well as creating Wildcat (who became a superhero after seeing a Green Lantern comic book) for the same publisher.
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Irwin Hasen. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q371325 · wikipedia · Irwin Hasen
In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Born — 8 July 1918 • Birthplace — Manhattan, New York, U.S. • Died — 13 March 2015 • Place of death — Manhattan, New York, U.S. • Area — Penciller, inker • Notable Works — Dondi, Green Lantern, Wildcat
Early life
Early life
Irwin Hasen was born in Manhattan and raised in Brooklyn to a Jewish family. His family later moved from Brooklyn to 110th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan. He attended DeWitt Clinton High School. In 1939, he began his art training on the block where he lived, as he recalled: Across the street was the National Academy of Design, a huge structure like a garage, an airplane hangar. One of the oldest art schools in America, one of the most prestigious. Classical art. I was always drawing. I was drawing... on the empty pages of books. So my mother, God bless her soul, took me across the street and enrolled me in a course of drawing... I was there for three years, every night during the week, drawing in charcoal all the statues of Michelangelo and all the Bernini and all the classics... During the day, I would hawk, sell, drawings of prizefighters down in New York. That was my first job—boxing cartoonist. I made a very small, very slight living. I was 19-20 years old. I sold my cartoons to the Madison Square Garden Corporation. They were printed all over New York in different newspapers. It was like public relations for the fights.
Career
Career
• Illustration — Irwin Hasen and Gus Edson's Dondi (April 15, 1962)
Comic strips
Comic strips
Before the creation of Dondi in 1954, Hasen drew a comic strip adaptation of The Goldbergs radio/TV series which ran in the New York Post in 1944 and 1945. Hasen, an active member of the National Cartoonists Society, met Gus Edson while on a tour of Korea and together they created the Dondi comic strip, with Edson writing and Hasen drawing.
Instruction
Instruction
From September 1976 until May 2007 Irwin was an instructor at the Kubert School in Dover, New Jersey. He also taught cartooning classes at The School of Visual Arts in New York City.
Personal life and death
Personal life and death
Hasen suffered a minor stroke on April 24, 2007. Hasen died March 13, 2015, at the age of 96.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1918
Irwin Hasen was born in 1918 at Manhattan.
2015
Irwin Hasen died in 2015 at New York City.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Manhattan.
Birth place
New York City.
Death place
Comic books
After study at National Academy of Design, Hasen went to the Art Students League and then entered the comic book field in 1940 with the Harry "A" Chesler shop, contributing to The Green Hornet, The Fox, Secret Agent Z-2, Bob Preston, Explorer, Cat-Man and The Flash. At this time, he created the feature Citizen Smith, Son of the Unknown Soldier. In 1941, he worked for Sheldon Mayer. His art during the 1940s also included Green Lantern and the creation of the National Comics/DC Comics character Wildcat. He also did occasional art work for Wonder Woman in 1943, particularly Sensation Comics #19. During World War II, Hasen was stationed at Fort Dix and managed the Fort Dix Post newspaper: "I edited it, I published it, I took it to the printers, I learned how to set up type, I did the comic strip, I wrote the whole goddam thing, and I interviewed all the celebrities coming in from New York. I worked my ass off, and I wound up in the hospital. But that was my proudest time, editing that newspaper for a year and a half." He returned to DC after he was discharged from the Army in 1946. In the post-war period, he drew Johnny Thunder, the Justice Society of America, The Flash and Green Lantern.
Primary material
Documents and archives
Institutional database
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q371325: Irwin Hasen
Scholarly · Wikimedia Foundation
reference work
- “Irwin Hasen”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
Awards
Hasen received the National Cartoonists Society's Story Comic Strip Award for Dondi in 1961 and 1962. He was awarded the Inkpot Award in 1999.
Comic book creator Irwin Hasen at the New York Comic Convention in Manhattan, April 20, 2008. This photo was created by Luigi Novi. It is not in the public domain, and use of this file outside of the licensing terms is a copyright violation. If you would like to use this image outside of the Wikimedia projects, you may do so, only if I am properly credited, either by linking the photograph to
Luigi Novi
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1."An interview with the great Jules Feiffer, talking about cartoonist Irwin Hasen"
- 2.Sacks, Ethan. DC Comic artist Irwin Hasen, creator of Dondi and the Wildcat, is dead at 96. Daily News. March 13, 2015.
- 3.Frankel, Valerie Estelle. Jewish Science Fiction and Fantasy Through 1945: Immigrants in the Golden Age. Rowman & Littlefield. 2021. 9781793637130.
- 4.Packer, Sharon. Superheroes and Superegos: Analyzing the Minds Behind the Masks. ABC-CLIO. 2010. 9780313355370.
- 5.Thomas, Roy (Spring 1999). "So I Took the Subway and There Was Shelly Mayer..." Alter Ego, vol. 3. no. 1.
- 6."Irwin Hasen". Lambiek Comiclopedia. Retrieved March 14, 2015.
- 7.The National Cartoonists Society Album, 1972 p. 66
- 8."Drawing on a Long Life, for a Short Guy", The New York Times, December 17, 2011
- 9.Isabella, Tony (May 4, 2007). "Tony's Online Tips". World Famous Comics.
- 10.Thompson, Maggie (May 2, 2007). "Irwin Hasen suffers minor stroke" . CBGXtra.com.
- 11.Inkpot Award
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
Institutional database
Wikidata, structured authority record Q371325: Irwin HasenWikimedia Foundation
Institutional witnessreference work
Secondary witness
Further particulars
Held on the record
Further particulars
Open the remaining particulars
Irwin Hasen is recorded as having received Inkpot Award and Will Eisner Hall of Fame.
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Comics and comic art
9,920 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- IrregularsSeries
- Irv NovickArtist
- Irving PhillipsArtist
- Irwin CaplanArtist
- Is Love the Answer?Series
- Is the Order a Rabbit?Series
- Isabel GreenbergArtist
- Isabel KreitzArtist
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Irwin Hasen?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.