ALEX SCHOMBURG: AN ICON
War propaganda was EVERYWHERE in the 40s, and
Schomburg was a major player on the front of comics
Alex Schomburg was a noted commercial artist, painter, and comic illustrator who happens to be one of my instant answers when one begs the question “who is your favorite artist?”
Born in Puerto Rico in 1905, he moved to New York City in the early 20s. From there, he began work as a commercial artist with three of his brothers. Around 1928, the partnership between the Schomburgs had ended— he then landed a gig with the National Screen Service designing lantern slides and working on movie trailers.
Throughout the 30s, he freelanced interior art for Better Publications— a big publisher of pulp magazines. Fast forward a decade, and the guy is producing work for Timely Comics (the precursor to Marvel) and it’s at this time that he begins cranking out covers for titles like Captain America, Sub-Mariner, & The Human Torch— each drawn with the utmost care and attention to detail.
But with all that aside, let's take a minute to drool all over this his work.
He was a true innovator that managed to combine both fine & commercial art, crafting one of the most original aesthetics that’s influenced hundreds of artists that came after him— he was a legendary dude.
Alex Schomburg ended up leaving the comic industry in the 50s and allotted the rest of his career on covers and interior illustrations for various publishers and science fiction magazines. In 1977, Schomburg joined a few fellow artists who started in the golden age to work on both the cover and a six-page story on Invaders Annual #1, featuring the human torch in his original style. there isn’t all too much recorded about his life, but he passed away in the pacific northwest in 1998 at the age of 92.
i’m in talks with a handful of people, toying with the idea of a documentary on his life— hopefully there’s more to come.
