William Overgard, was an American cartoonist and writer with a diverse opus, including novels, screenplays, animation, and the comic strips Steve Roper and Mike Nomad and Rudy.
13 Facts About William Overgard
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William Overgard freelanced in ghosted strips and animation, continuing to refine his artwork, and contributed to Boy Magazine and the satirical Whack.
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William Overgard invested much of his earnings over the years in renovating the house while indulging a love of antique cars and motorcycles.
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William Overgard did his cartooning and writing at night, except when he and his wife entertained in "artsy soirees" in their home and gardens.
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In 1971 William Overgard took on the scripting of Kerry Drake after Saunders quit, and as that strip ended, began a new one he both wrote and drew, Rudy, which debuted on January 3,1983.
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William Overgard had already expanded into screenplays and televised cartoons, now scripting episodes of ThunderCats.
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William Overgard had been writing adventure novels, and in 1988 published his last one, A Few Good Men, about the US Marines' 1931 intervention in the Sandinista war in Nicaragua.
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William Overgard continued his longtime interests in antique cars and music-making, especially the banjo.
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William Overgard died in Stony Point on May 25,1990, survived by wife Gloria, sons Tom and Matthew, daughter Jennifer Magnusson and granddaughter Maja Magnusson, and leaving an archive of his earlier Steve Roper work at Syracuse University.
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William Overgard's fiction includes the novels Moonlight Surveillance, Pieces of a Hero, Once More the Hero, Shanghai Tango, The Evil Chaser, The Divide, The Man from Raffles, and A Few Good Men.
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William Overgard's screenplays include The Last Dinosaur, The Bermuda Depths, Ivory Ape, Bushido Blade, and the animated cartoons Silver Hawks and 19 episodes of ThunderCats.
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William Overgard is more remembered for his 31 years on Steve Roper; "one of the best-drawn and stylish adventure strips", and he varied it with fast-sequence montages, close-ups, and views from different angles.
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William Overgard did the lettering after 1977, defining the strip's characters and aging them over the years.