Dan Heilman (1922 – December 17, 1966) was the first artist of the ''

Judge Parker ''Judge Parker'' is an American soap opera-style comic strip created by Nicholas P. Dallis that first appeared on November 24, 1952. The strip's look and content were influenced by the work of Allen Saunders and Ken Ernst on ''Mary Worth''. C ...

'' comic strip. He was born in 1922 (some sources say 1924) in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

. Having served in

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Heilman became an assistant to artist

Ken Ernst Kenneth Frederick Ernst (1918 – August 6, 1985) was a US comic book and comic strip artist. He is most notable for his work on the popular and long-running comic strip ''Mary Worth'' from 1942 to 1985.''Contemporary Graphic Artists'' By Gale Res ...

on the ''

Mary Worth ''Mary Worth'' is an American newspaper comic strip that has had an eight-decade run from 1938. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, this soap opera-style strip influenced several that followed. It was created by writer Allen Saunders and ar ...

'' comic strip, and to

Roy Crane Royston Campbell Crane (November 22, 1901 – July 7, 1977), who signed his work Roy Crane, was an American cartoonist who created the comic strip characters Wash Tubbs, Captain Easy and Buz Sawyer. He pioneered the adventure comic strip, estab ...

on ''

Buz Sawyer ''Buz Sawyer'' is a comic strip created by Roy Crane.Ron Goulart, ''The Funnies : 100 Years of American Comic Strips''. Holbrook, Mass. : Adams Pub, 1995. (pp. 149-50) Distributed by King Features Syndicate, it had a run from November 1, 1943 t ...

''. In 1949 he was the artist for a comic strip called ''The American Adventure''. In 1952 writer Dr. Nicholas Dallis hired Heilman for ''Judge Parker'', which made its debut on 24 November of that year. Heilman stayed with ''Judge Parker'' until 1965, when he left and was succeeded by his assistant

Harold LeDoux Harold Anthony LeDoux (November 7, 1926 – June 7, 2015) was an American artist best known for his work on the newspaper comic strip '' Judge Parker''. He worked in the realistic style associated with Stan Drake, Leonard Starr, et al. While i ...

. Heilman was working on a new outer-space-themed comic when he died in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Florida on December 17, 1966.

References

American comic strip cartoonists 1920s births 1966 deaths Place of birth missing American military personnel of World War II {{Comic-strip-creator-stub