Harry Frank Sahle (April 18, 1912 – September 22, 1950) was an American

comic book A comic book, comic-magazine, or simply comic is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and wri ...

artist who drew for such publishers as

Archie Comics Archie Comic Publications, Inc. (often referred to simply as Archie Comics) is an American comic book publisher headquartered in the village of Pelham, New York. The company's many titles feature the fictional teenagers Archie Andrews, Jug ...

—helping create the defined look of Archie Comics' breakout character,

Archie Andrews Archibald "Archie" Andrews, created in 1941 by publisher John L. Goldwater and artist Bob Montana in collaboration with writer Vic Bloom,

—

Quality Comics Quality Comics was an American comic book publishing Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, ...

and the

Marvel Comics Marvel Comics is a New York City–based comic book publishing, publisher, a property of the Walt Disney Company since December 31, 2009, and a subsidiary of Disney Publishing Worldwide since March 2023. Marvel was founded in 1939 by Martin G ...

precursor company

Timely Comics Timely Comics was the common name for the group of corporations that was the earliest comic book arm of American publisher Martin Goodman (publisher), Martin Goodman, and the entity that would evolve by the 1960s to become Marvel Comics. "Timely P ...

during the 1930s-1940s period historians and fans call the

Golden Age of Comic Books The Golden Age of Comic Books describes an era in the history of American comic books from 1938 to 1956. During this time, modern comic books were first published and rapidly increased in popularity. The superhero archetype was created and ma ...

. In 1940, with writer George Kapitan, Sahle co-created the Timely character the Black Widow, comics' first costumed, superpowered female protagonist. Sahle also created the long-running, early teen-humor character Candy, writing and drawing her comic misadventures for most of the character's 1944 to 1956 run in Quality Comics' ''

Police Comics ''Police Comics'' was a comic book anthology title published by Quality Comics (under its imprint "Comic Magazines") from 1941 until 1953. It featured short stories in the superhero, crime and humor genres. Publication history The first issue of ...

'' and in her own solo title, as well as in a newspaper

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...

Biography

Early career

Harry Sahle
was born in

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

to Edward Sahle and Sarah Jewell. His mother died when he was young and he grew up in Cleveland with his father and his father's parents, who were both born in Switzerland. Sahle drew gag cartoons for ''

Boys' Life ''Scout Life'' (formerly ''Boys' Life'') is the monthly magazine of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). Its target readers are children between the ages of 6 and 18. The magazine‘s headquarters are in Irving, Texas. ''Scout Life'' is published ...

'' magazine between 1938 and 1939, before entering the fledgling medium of comic books via the

Harry "A" Chesler Harry Chesler (January 12, 1897, or January 12, 1898 (sources differ)Harry Chesler
at ...

Studio and Funnies Inc., two

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

-based "packagers" that provided complete, outsourced comics for early publishers testing the medium.Harry Sahle
at the

Lambiek Comiclopedia Galerie Lambiek is a Dutch comic book store and art gallery in Amsterdam, founded on November 8, 1968 by Kees Kousemaker (, – Bussum, ). His son Boris Kousemaker has been the owner since 2007. From 1968 to 2015, it was located in the Ke ...

Among his earliest comics work is a cover for the only issue of Pelican Publications' ''Green Giant Comics'' (Jan. 1940). His earliest-known interior credit is inking the seven-page Fiery Mask superhero story "The Jelly of Doom", over George Kapitan's pencil art, in

' ''

Daring Mystery Comics ''Daring Mystery Comics'' is an American comic-book series published by Timely Comics, a predecessor of Marvel Comics, during the 1930–40s period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books. Primarily a superhero anthology, it ran ei ...

'' #5 (June 1940).Harry Sahle
at the

Grand Comics Database The Grand Comics Database (GCD) is an Internet-based project to build a database of comic book information through user contributions. The GCD project catalogues information on creator credits, story details, reprints, and other information use ...

With Kapitan writing and himself penciling and inking, Sahle co-created the Black Widow in ''

Mystic Comics ''Mystic Comics'' is the name of three comic book series published by the company that eventually became Marvel Comics. The first two series were superhero anthologies published by Marvel's 1930-1940s predecessor, Timely Comics, during what fans a ...

'' #4 (Aug. 1940). Not to be confused with the superhero Black Widow introduced in the 1960s by Timely's descendant

, this character — comics' first costumed, superpowered female protagonist — was a

supernatural Supernatural phenomena or entities are those beyond the Scientific law, laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin 'above, beyond, outside of' + 'nature'. Although the corollary term "nature" has had multiple meanin ...

antihero An antihero (sometimes spelled as anti-hero or two words anti hero) or anti-heroine is a character in a narrative (in literature, film, TV, etc.) who may lack some conventional heroic qualities and attributes, such as idealism and morality. Al ...

who gathered deserving souls for

Satan Satan, also known as the Devil, is a devilish entity in Abrahamic religions who seduces humans into sin (or falsehood). In Judaism, Satan is seen as an agent subservient to God, typically regarded as a metaphor for the '' yetzer hara'', or ' ...

.The Black Widow (1940)
at

Don Markstein's Toonopedia Don Markstein's Toonopedia (subtitled A Vast Repository of Toonological Knowledge) is an online encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation, initiated February 13, 2001. Donald D. Markstein, the sole writer and editor of Toonopedi ...

Archived
from the original October 25, 2011. Other early work includes co-creating the winged superhero the Air Man in

Centaur Publications Centaur Publications (also known as Centaur Comics) was one of the earliest American comic book publishers. During their short existence, they created several colorful characters, including Bill Everett's Amazing-Man (Centaur Publications), Amazi ...

' ''Keen Detective Funnies'' #23 (Aug. 1940); and creating or co-creating the Timely superheroine the

Silver Scorpion S'Byll S'Byll (sometimes spelled S'byll) is a character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. S'Byll is a Skrull that was raised on the planet Satriani. She was responsible for curing Super-Skrull of his disease. Si ...

, in ''

'' #7 (April 1941), for which he signed his art with the

pen name A pen name or nom-de-plume is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen name may be used to make the author's na ...

Jewell, which comics historian Michael J. Vassallo believes marked a collaboration with another, unknown artist. Sahle also worked as an assistant to

Carl Burgos Carl Burgos ( ; born Max Finkelstein ; April 18, 1916 – March 1984 Note: Gives only month and year of death.) was an American comic book and advertising artist best known for creating the Human Torch (android), original Human Torch in ''Marvel ...

, creator-artist of Timely star the

Human Torch The Human Torch (Jonathan Lowell Spencer "Johnny" Storm) is a fictional superhero character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is a founding member of the Fantastic Four. He is writer Stan Lee's and ar ...

. Per fellow artist and Golden Age contemporary

Gil Kane Gil Kane (; born Eli Katz , ; April 6, 1926 – January 31, 2000) was a Latvian-born American comics artist whose career spanned the 1940s to the 1990s and virtually every major comics company and character. Kane co-created the modern-day vers ...

, Sahle was also occasionally a ghost artist on work credited to Burgos in issues of ''

Marvel Mystery Comics ''Marvel Mystery Comics'' (first issue titled simply ''Marvel Comics'') is an American comic book series published during the 1930s–1940s period known to fans and historians as the Golden Age of Comic Books. It was the first publication of Mar ...

'', ''

Captain America Comics ''Captain America Comics'' is a comic book series featuring the superhero character Captain America. The series was originally published by Timely Comics from 1941 to 1950, with a brief revival by Atlas Comics (1950s), Atlas Comics in 1954. Pub ...

'', and the eponymous character's own title, ''Human Torch''.

MLJ Comics

Artist

recalled that after the writers and artists

Charles Biro Charles Biro (; May 12, 1911 – March 4, 1972) was an American comic book creator and cartoonist. He created the comic book characters Airboy and Steel Sterling, and worked on ''Daredevil (Golden Age), Daredevil Comics'' and ''Crime Does Not Pa ...

, Bob Wood,

Bob Montana Robert William Montana (October 23, 1920 – January 4, 1975) was an American comic strip artist who created the original likenesses for characters published by Archie Comics and in the newspaper strip '' Archie''. Early life He was born in Stoc ...

and several others left

MLJ Comics Archie Comic Publications, Inc. (often referred to simply as Archie Comics) is an American comic book publisher headquartered in the village of Pelham, New York. The company's many titles feature the fictional teenagers Archie Andrews, Jugh ...

to move to

Lev Gleason Publications Lev Gleason Incorporated, formerly known as Lev Gleason Publishing, is a Canadian comic book company founded by Leverett Stone Gleason (1898–1971). They were the publisher of a number of popular comic books during the 1940s and early 1950s, incl ...

, it fell largely to

Irv Novick Irving Novick (; April 11, 1916 – October 15, 2004) was an American comics artist who worked almost continuously from 1939 until the 1990s. Career A graduate of the National Academy of Design, Irv Novick got his start in the workshop of Harr ...

to steer MLJs stable of superhero characters. Shortly afterward, Sahle joined the company, working on characters including The Black Hood,

Steel Sterling The Shield is the name of several superheroes created by MLJ (now known as Archie Comics). Appearing months before Captain America, the Shield has the distinction of being the first superhero with a costume based upon United States patriotic icon ...

, and the

Shield A shield is a piece of personal armour held in the hand, which may or may not be strapped to the wrist or forearm. Shields are used to intercept specific attacks, whether from close-ranged weaponry like spears or long ranged projectiles suc ...

between 1942 and 1943, and soon thereafter working on the character that was to become MLJ's breakout success:

Archie Andrews Archibald "Archie" Andrews, created in 1941 by publisher John L. Goldwater and artist Bob Montana in collaboration with writer Vic Bloom,

. With the departure of Montana, Archie's signature early developer, Sahle drew "what became the new Archie character.... s work was based on Montana, but with adaptation and interpretation", Kane recalled. Sahle drew some of the earliest stories featuring what would become the company's namesake character, beginning by at least ''Archie Comics'' #3 (Summer 1943). Thanks to his work, "Sahle became the center point f MLJ/Archie and Novick went into the

Army An army, ground force or land force is an armed force that fights primarily on land. In the broadest sense, it is the land-based military branch, service branch or armed service of a nation or country. It may also include aviation assets by ...

", recalled Kane, who believes Sahle worked for MLJ for a year-and-a-half before joining the Army himself. At some point, Sahle was hired away from MLJ by "Busy" Arnold and his

"Candy"

Sahle went on to create the

teen-humor feature "Candy," starring typical small-town American girl Candace O'Connor of Hartwick, USA.Candy
at Don Markstein's Toonopedia

from the original October 25, 2011. Her supporting cast included her boyfriend, Ted Dawson; her rival, Cornelia Clyde; and gal-pals Tina and Trish. Debuting as a backup feature in ''

'' #37 (Dec. 1944), "Candy" appeared in the comic until issue #102 (Oct. 1950), when the regular line-up of characters (including Candy,

Will Eisner William Erwin Eisner ( ; March 6, 1917 – January 3, 2005) was an American cartoonist, writer, and entrepreneur. He was one of the earliest cartoonists to work in the American comic book industry, and his series '' The Spirit'' (1940–1952) wa ...

The Spirit The Spirit may refer to: * Holy Spirit The Holy Spirit, otherwise known as the Holy Ghost, is a concept within the Abrahamic religions. In Judaism, the Holy Spirit is understood as the divine quality or force of God manifesting in the world, p ...

, etc.) were dropped and the title became a "regular crime comic." Candy continued to star in her own title, ''Candy'', which ran 64 issues (Fall 1947 - July 1956). Six months after the title ceased publication, Quality Comics as a whole closed its doors. In addition to Candy's comic-book adventures, Sahle and writer Elmer Groggin produced a ''Candy''

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

syndicated by the

Chicago Times Syndicate The ''Chicago Daily Times'' was a daily newspaper in Chicago from 1929 to 1948, and the city's first tabloid newspaper. It was founded out of a reorganization of assets of the ''Chicago Daily Journal'' by the ''Journal''s last owner, Samuel Em ...

from October 2, 1944. Sometime during 1945, Sahle's strip was then taken over by Tom Dorr, who continued it for a further 25 years (mostly syndicated by the

Field Newspaper Syndicate The Field Newspaper Syndicate was a syndication service based in Chicago that operated independently from 1941 to 1984, for a good time under the name the Chicago Sun-Times Syndicate. The service was founded by Marshall Field III and was part of ...

, which succeeded the Chicago Times Syndicate). Much of Sahle's work was produced in the teen-humor genre, and during the 1940s he also drew another feature, "Ezra," for Quality's ''

Military Comics A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a di ...

'' and ''Modern Comics'' titles. Sahle died in New York City 1950, aged 38. Kane blamed his death on a "broken heart" at a young age.

Mike Hammer

Crime novelist

Mickey Spillane Frank Morrison Spillane (; March 9, 1918July 17, 2006), better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American crime novelist, called the "king of pulp fiction". His stories often feature his signature detective character, Mike Hammer. More than 225 ...

, who worked for

Lloyd Jacquet Lloyd Victor Jacquet (; March 7, 1899 – March 1970) Jacquet was living in the borough of Queens, New York when he died in March 1970 at c. age 71. His wife was named Grace. References Further reading * Hill, Roger. "A Report on the Discove ...

's Funnies Inc. packager during the 1930s and 1940s, teamed with Sahle on a number of occasions, including on the character "Mike Danger", which Spillane described as "the original concept of

Mike Hammer Michael Hammer or Mike Hammer may refer to: * Michael Hammer (politician) (born 1977), Austrian politician * Michael Armand Hammer (1955–2022), American philanthropist and businessman * Michael Martin Hammer (1948–2008), engineer and author * Mi ...

", the archetypal hardboiled detective of mid-20th century paperback novels. After Spillane's novels were successful, some "Mike Danger" stories saw print in issues of ''Crime Detector'' in 1954, and new stories featuring the character were published by

Big Entertainment Big or BIG may refer to: * Big, of great size or degree Film and television * ''Big'' (film), a 1988 fantasy-comedy film starring Tom Hanks * ''Big'', a 2023 Taiwanese children's film starring Van Fan and Chie Tanaka * ''Big!'', a Discovery ...

four decades later. Sahle and Spillance had earlier collaborated on the eponymous feature "Mike Lancer", starring a Mike Hammer prototype, Collins, Max Allan
''Green Hornet Comics'' #10 (Dec. 1942)
at the Grand Comics Database. published in

Harvey Comics Harvey Comics (also known as Harvey World Famous Comics, Harvey Publications, Harvey Comics Entertainment, Harvey Hits, Harvey Illustrated Humor, and Harvey Picture Magazines) was an American comic book publisher, founded in New York City by Alf ...

' ''

Green Hornet The Green Hornet is a superhero created in 1936 by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker, with input from radio director James Jewell. Since his 1930s radio debut, the character has appeared in numerous serialized dramas in a wide variety of me ...

Comics'' #10 (Dec. 1942).

Reprints

Several issues of Sahle's ''Candy'' were reprinted, in the late 1950s/early 1960s by

Israel Waldman Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

Super Comics Super may refer to: Computing * SUPER (computer program), or Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer, a video converter/player * Super (computer science), a keyword in object-oriented programming languages * Super key (keyboard button) ...

imprint, but her adventures have otherwise remained out of print. In the late 1980s,

Eclipse Comics Eclipse Comics was an American comic book publisher, one of several independent publishers during the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1978, it published the first graphic novel intended for the newly created comic book store, comic book specialty stor ...

reprinted Sahle's 1940s aviator feature "Bald Eagle" in ''Air Fighters Classics'' #1-2 (Nov. 1987 - Dec. 1988). Some Sahle work appears in the anthology ''

'' #1 (Dec. 1999). and the

hardcover A hardcover, hard cover, or hardback (also known as hardbound, and sometimes as casebound (At p. 247.)) book is one bookbinding, bound with rigid protective covers (typically of binder's board or heavy paperboard covered with buckram or other clo ...

collections '' Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Sub-Mariner, Vol. 1'' and ''Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age

, Vol. 1'' (both 2005).

References

External links

* Note: Item identifies "Mike Lancer" art as from ''Green Hornet Comics'' #9. However, the

lists no "Mike Lancer" feature in that issue, and the comic's cover-listing of features does not mention it. "Mike Lancer" does appear in issue #10. {{DEFAULTSORT:Sahle, Harry 1912 births 1950 deaths Golden Age comics creators American comics artists American comics writers American editorial cartoonists American comic strip cartoonists American people of Swiss descent Artists from Cleveland