Paul Leroy Norris was an American comic book artist best known as co-creator of the DC Comics superhero Aquaman, and for a 35-year run as artist of the newspaper comic strip Brick Bradford.
16 Facts About Paul Norris
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Paul Norris was born in Greenville, Ohio, the son of Lesta and Leroy Norris.
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Self-described as having been "drawing pictures from the first time I could hold a pencil," Norris became art director of The Warrior, the college yearbook, and performed in plays, served as president of the campus YMCA, and painted signs for businesses.
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Paul Norris had written a script for a comic strip and I was to draw it, which I did.
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Paul Norris worked on his grandmother's farm before obtaining a job at an electric-motor assembly plant in Dayton, Ohio.
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Paul Norris enrolled at the Dayton Art Institute School, where he met his wife of 61 years, Ann, whom he married in 1939.
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Paul Norris went on to become an illustrator and cartoonist for the Dayton Daily News.
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That same year, Paul Norris began drawing the adventure comic strip Vic Jordan for PM, one of the New York's daily afternoon papers.
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Paul Norris said in 2007 that he had inadvertently signed an exclusive contract with PM and not realized this for a year, after which he had to give up the "Aquaman" feature.
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In 1943, King Features Syndicate assigned Paul Norris to write and draw the existing strip Secret Agent X-9, on which he worked for three months before being drafted into the US Army.
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Paul Norris said that during his World War II military service as a tech sergeant, "I did a little [comic] strip for the ship newspaper" that came to the attention of Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr.
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Paul Norris was rehired by King Features Syndicate, and in 1948 began drawing the Sunday edition of Austin Briggs' comic strip Jungle Jim.
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In 1952, Paul Norris succeeded artist Clarence Gray on the science-fiction comic strip Brick Bradford, continuing to draw it for 35 years until his and the strip's retirement in 1987.
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Paul Norris's last comics work was a drawing of Aquaman in DC Comics' multi-artist, multi-character "History of the DC Universe" poster in 1987.
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Paul Norris was living in Oceanside, California at the time of his death.
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Paul Norris is buried in Glen Haven Memorial Gardens in New Carlisle, Ohio.