Martin Nodell

Martin Nodell studied at School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Pratt Institute. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is illustration and comic. Distinctions recorded are Inkpot Award and Will Eisner Hall of Fame.

• Born — 15 November 1915 • Died — 9 December 2006 • Birthplace — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. • Place of death — Muskego, Wisconsin, U.S. • Nationality — American • Pencil — y • Ink — y • Alias — Mart Dellon • Notable Works — Golden Age Green Lantern (Alan Scott)

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Nodell was the son of Jewish immigrants. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago. When he was 18 years old, he moved to New York City, where he attended Pratt Institute. Nodell worked as an actor in both Chicago and New York, and began his drawing career by selling caricatures for theatrical publicity work before turning full time to comic book art.

• Illustration — Marvel Tales #93 (Aug. 1949). Cover art by Nodell. Nodell left All-American in 1947 and joined Timely Comics, the 1930s–40s forerunner of Marvel Comics, where he drew postwar stories of Captain America, the Human Torch, and the Sub-Mariner. His work there was rarely signed, making identification difficult, though comics historians have confirmed that Nodell drew two well-known covers: the first issue of Marvel Tales, Timely's horror-comics revamp of the company's flagship series Marvel Mystery Comics; and the penultimate issue (#74) of Captain America's book, which for its last two issues became the horror-oriented Captain America's Weird Tales.

In 1950, Nodell left comics to work in advertising and later joined the Leo Burnett Agency in Chicago as an art director. In 1965, Nodell's design team developed the long-running flour-company mascot the Pillsbury Doughboy. His only known comics work in the interim are penciling the story "The Glistening Death" in the Avon Comics one-shot City of the Living Dead (1952), reprinted two decades later in the Skywald horror-comics magazine Psycho #1 (Jan. 1971); and "Master of the Dead" in Avon's Eerie (1951 series) #14, reprinted in Skywald's Nightmare #1 (Dec. 1970). • Illustration — Captain America's Weird Tales #74 (Oct. 1949). Cover art by Nodell. In the 1980s, Nodell submitted new work to DC, which led to his being rediscovered by comic fans. His first pieces included drawing the Golden Age Harlequin in Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #10 (Dec. 1985). His final two published pieces of Green Lantern art were a story starring Alan Scott and the Green Lantern Corps in the 50th-anniversary issue Green Lantern vol. 3, #19 (Dec. 1991) and a one-page illustration of Scott and Superman in the one-shot Superman: The Man of Steel Gallery #1 (Dec. 1995). At 80, Nodell penciled his final comic-book work, the whimsical, 10-page Harlan Ellison adaptation "Gnomebody", scripted by John Ostrander and Ellison and inked by Jedediah Hotchkiss, in Dark Horse Comics' Harlan Ellison's Dream Corridor Quarterly #1 (Aug. 1996).

Nodell met his future wife, Carrie, at Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York, in September 1940. They were married December 1, 1941, and afterward moved to Huntington, Long Island, to move in with Nodell's brother Simon, an engineer at Republic Aviation. They lived there for two years before moving back to Brooklyn, New York City. The couple was living in West Palm Beach, Florida, by 2000. Nodell died on December 9, 2006, in a nursing home in Muskego, Wisconsin, of natural causes at the age of 91. They had two sons: Spencer, who lived in Waukesha, Wisconsin at the time of his father's death, and Mitchell.