Sol Harrison (1917 – November 19, 1989) was an American comic book

colorist In comics, a colorist is responsible for adding color to black-and-white line art. For most of the 20th century this was done using brushes and dyes which were then used as guides to produce the printing plates. Since the late 20th century it is ...

, production manager, and executive whose career spanned nearly 50 years in the industry.

Career

Sol Harrison attended high school with Jack Adler and the two men often worked together doing

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design on a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ar ...

work. In 1933, Harrison did the color separations on ''

Famous Funnies ''Famous Funnies'' is an American comic strip anthology series published from 1934 to 1955 with two precursor One-shot (comics), one-shots appearing in 1933–1934. Published by Eastern Color Printing, ''Famous Funnies'' is considered by popular ...

'' for

Eastern Color Printing The Eastern Color Printing Company was a company that published comic books, beginning in 1933. At first, it was only newspaper comic strip reprints, but later on, original material was published. Eastern Color Printing was incorporated in 1928 ...

, one of the earliest modern American comic books. Writer

Martin Pasko Martin Joseph "Marty" Pasko (born Jean-Claude Rochefort; August 4, 1954– May 10, 2020) was a Canadian comic book writer and television screenwriter. Pasko worked for many comics publishers, but is best known for his superhero stories for DC Com ...

noted in 2008 that Harrison was the "guy who helped

Charlie Gaines Charlie H. "Devil" Gaines (August 8, 1900 – November 23, 1986Nicholson, Jim (November 26, 1986)Phila. Musician Charlie Gaines, Played Trumpet With Jazz Greats.''The Philadelphia Inquirer'') was an American jazz trumpeter and bandleader. As a te ...

figure out how to produce the modern comics format." Harrison became production manager for

All-American Publications All-American Publications, Inc.The name is spelled with a hyphen per its logo (pictured) and sources includinat Don Markstein's ToonopediaArchivedfrom the original on April 15, 2012. was one of two American comic book companies that merged to fo ...

in 1942. When All-American became part of National Comics (later known as

DC Comics DC Comics (originally DC Comics, Inc., and also known simply as DC) is an American comic book publisher owned by DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC is an initialism for "Detective Comics", an American comic book seri ...

), Harrison continued to work for the newly merged publisher. He was the colorist for the company's covers for 15 years. In 1972, he suggested publishing comics in an oversized format stating that "We could create a tabloid size comic that would stand out on the newsstand." This led to the launch of the '' Limited Collectors' Edition'' series later that year. He developed an internship program at DC which was later nicknamed the " Junior Woodchucks" by

Bob Rozakis Robert "Bob" Rozakis (; born April 4, 1951) is an American comic book writer and editor known mainly for his work in the 1970s and 1980s at DC Comics, as the writer of '' 'Mazing Man'' and in his capacity as DC's "Answer Man". Career Bob Rozakis ...

. In 1973, Harrison became DC's Vice-President in Charge of Operations and developed the idea of the DC Comicmobile, a van which sold comic books "like the ice cream man did". Harrison and Adler were featured on the cover of DC's self-produced fan magazine '' The Amazing World of DC Comics'' #10 (Jan. 1976). Harrison was promoted to president of the company in 1976 just as

Jenette Kahn Jenette Kahn (; born May 16, 1947) is an American comic book editor and executive. She joined DC Comics in 1976 as publisher, and five years later was promoted to president. In 1989, she stepped down as publisher and assumed the title of editor ...

became publisher. Kahn stated in a 2012 interview that "I can't really say that Sol and I had much of a working relationship. He, more than anybody, resented my being hired because he felt that the job was rightfully his." Harrison served as president of the

Comics Magazine Association of America The Association of Comics Magazine Publishers (ACMP) was an American industry trade group formed in the late 1940s to regulate the content of comic books in the face of public criticism during that time. It was a precursor to the Comics Magazine ...

from 1979 to 1980. He retired from DC Comics at the end of February 1981 and moved to Florida.

Awards

In 1985, Harrison was named as one of the honorees by DC Comics in the company's 50th anniversary publication '' Fifty Who Made DC Great''.

References

External links

* *
"DC Profiles #1: Sol Harrison"
at the Grand Comics Database *
Sol Harrison
at Mike's Amazing World of Comics * includes appearance by Sol Harrison {{DEFAULTSORT:Harrison, Sol 1917 births 1989 deaths 20th-century American businesspeople American business executives American comics artists American publishing chief executives Businesspeople from New York City American comic book editors Comics colorists DC Comics people Golden Age comics creators Silver Age comics creators