Anthony Louis DiPreta was an American comic book and comic strip artist active from the 1940s Golden Age of comic books.
20 Facts About Tony DiPreta
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Tony DiPreta had worked for a local advertising agency while attending high school, and after a year doing that, he obtained a union job at McCalls Photo Engraving, in Stamford.
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Separately, Tony DiPreta freelanced as a fill-in letterer for Lyman Young's newspaper comic strip Tim Tyler's Luck.
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Tony DiPreta told Lyman Young that I wanted to be a cartoonist, and Young said, 'Well, bring him down.
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Under editor Ed Cronin and Cronin's assistant Gill Fox, Tony DiPreta was sent to Quality artist Lou Fine's Tudor City studio in Manhattan to observe and learn from Fine's highly regarded draftsmanship.
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Shortly afterward, Arnold was concerned over what he saw as Fine's undynamic storytelling, and had Fujitani and Tony DiPreta do pencil-breakdowns for a story each that Fine would finish penciling and inking; Tony DiPreta's starred the character Uncle Sam.
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In 1941, Tony DiPreta visited New York City's Timely Comics, the 1940s predecessor of Marvel Comics.
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Tony DiPreta did his first dramatic work, a war story, for editor Vin Sullivan's Columbia Comics.
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Tony DiPreta drew public service announcement one-pagers with Airboy and Iron Ace.
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Afflicted by a heart murmur since age 13, Tony DiPreta was rejected for World War II military service as 4F.
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Tony DiPreta recalled he was re-designated 4C, although 4C is the designation for an alien or dual national.
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Tony DiPreta drew occasional stories for such Atlas crime fiction titles as Tales of Justice, war comics such as Battlefront, and, returning to humor, the sole two issues of the Casper the Friendly Ghost-like Adventures of Homer Ghost.
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Tony DiPreta gained some recognition in comics during the 1970s, long after he'd left the field to concentrate on comic strips, when some of his Atlas work was reprinted in the Marvel comics Beware, Chamber of Chills, Creatures on the Loose, Vault of Evil, Weird Wonder Tales, Where Monsters Dwell, and even in an issue each of the superhero series Marvel Feature and the supernatural-hero series Giant-Size Werewolf.
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In 1945, DiPreta broke into the field of syndicated newspaper comic strip art as an assistant to cartoonist Frank E "Lank" Leonard's popular strip about a suburban beat cop, Mickey Finn.
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Tony DiPreta continued in that position, while concurrently drawing freelance for comic books, through 1955.
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In 1959, Tony DiPreta succeeded creator Ham Fisher and first successor artist Moe Leff on the long-running boxing strip Joe Palooka.
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Tony DiPreta continued on that strip, written by Jim Lawrence, Bob Gustafson, Ken Fitch, Morris Weiss, and Ed Moore, through its end in 1984.
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Fellow Stamford cartoonist Mort Walker said in 2010 that Tony DiPreta did an unspecified amount of work at some point on Walker's strip Beetle Bailey.
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In November 1960, Tony DiPreta married Frances, who died September 26,2009.
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Tony DiPreta died of respiratory and cardiac arrest in Greenwich, Connecticut, on June 2,2010, aged 88.