1. Alden Spurr McWilliams generally credited as Al McWilliams and A McWilliams, was an American comics artist who co-created the first African-American lead character of a comic strip.
11 Facts About Al McWilliams
1. 2.
Al McWilliams won the National Cartoonists Society's 1978 award for Comic Book: Story.
3.
Al McWilliams graduated from Greenwich High School in 1934, and that September began attending the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts, which later became the Parsons School for Design.
4.
Al McWilliams enlisted in the US Army on October 1,1942, fighting in such World War II battles as D-Day, for which he was awarded the Bronze Star and France's Croix de Guerre.
5.
Al McWilliams was discharged in 1945, and upon returning to the US in 1946 began drawing the detective feature "Steve Wood" in Quality's National Comics.
6.
From 1950 to 1952, Al McWilliams primarily drew romance comics and crime comics for Lev Gleason Publications.
7.
Al McWilliams worked as an assistant on John Prentice's Rip Kirby in 1964 and 1965; on Don Sherwood's US Marine strip Dan Flagg from 1965 to 1967; and on Leonard Starr's On Stage in 1969 and 1970, and Al Williamson's Secret Agent Corrigan in 1975.
8.
Al McWilliams drew no confirmed comic-book stories from 1952 through 1965, when he illustrated two tales in Warren Publishing's black-and-white horror comics magazine Creepy.
9.
Al McWilliams magnificently illustrated the first graphic novel version of Dracula, based very closely on Bram Stoker's book, for Russ Jones Productions.
10.
Al McWilliams inked roughly a half-dozen Marvel Comics stories in 1975 and illustrated the first issue of DC Comics's Justice Inc before returning to Gold Key, where he drew and lettered stories through 1982.
11.
In 1979 Al McWilliams won the National Cartoonists Society's 1978 award for Comic Book: Story.