Steve Lightle (born 19 November 1955, USA) is a comics creator who began his career at DC Comics as part of their “New Talent Showcase” program in the early 1980s. He also drew a few covers at Americomics (predecessor of AC Comics).

He was primarily at DC until about 1988. During that time, he drew for a variety of titles but is best known for his work with the ‘Legion of Super-Heroes’.

Lightle was the story and cover artist on “Legion of Super-Heroes” from 1984 and continued doing covers until 1989. He drew many of the Legion-related profiles in the various “Who’s Who” series from 1985 to 1991.

He drew covers for the 1986 reprint issues of “Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes” and for the “Cosmic Boy” mini-series (1987).

He co-created two Legionnaires, Tellus and Quislet, whose unusual appearances contrasted with the humanoid appearances of the other Legionnaires. He also drew the story in which the first Karate Kid character died.

From 1989, Lightle transitioned to mainly working for Marvel Comics, beginning as the cover artist on the reprint series “Classic X-Men”. He remained at Marvel during the 1990s.

He founded Lunatick Press in 2001 to publish his comics and his artwork. His current work is the science-fiction webcomic “Justin Zane”.

At Comiclopedia — https://www.lambiek.net/artists/l/lightle_steve.htm
At Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Lightle
In the GCD — https://tinyurl.com/y84j5puw

(Lightle created the cover art on “Doom Patrol” #1, DC: October 1987)

Rick McCollum (born 19 November 1954, USA) is a comics creator who was active in art-focused fanzines and small-press comics in the 1980s and 1990s.

He worked both solo and in collaboration, the latter usually as artist, at Jabberwocky Graphix, Pyramid, White Wolf, Crystal, FantaCo, and other publishers.

At the end of the 1990s, he published in a few titles at Eros Comix, a Fantagraphics imprint.

In the GCD — https://tinyurl.com/y8jhtssq

(McCollum created the cover art on “Dark Regions” #1, White Wolf Publishing: February 1987)

Karel Verschuere (19 November 1924 – 10 August 1980, Belgium) was a comics creator who was most active in the 1950s and 1960s.

He fought in World War II for the German occupation forces and after the war was imprisoned for four years for collaboration.

His comics career began in 1952, as an early employee at the Willy Vandersteen studio. The two men began the first of many collaborations, the western series ‘Bessy’, that very year.

At his suggestion, they began the famous medieval series “De Rode Ridder” (“The Red Knight”) in 1959. Adapted from stories written by Leopold Vermeiren in the mid-1940s, the series is still being created today.

He and Vandersteen parted ways in the mid-1960s, not on good terms, and he continued to work on a variety of features until leaving the field in the mid-1970s.

At Comiclopedia — https://www.lambiek.net/artists/v/verschuere.htm
In the GCD — https://tinyurl.com/ycp79u8x

(Willy Vandersteen created the cover art on “De Rode Ridder” #1 - Het gebroken zwaard, Standaard Uitgeverij: 1959)

Bob Smith (born 18 November 1951, USA) is a prolific comics creator who began his career in the early 1970s. He works mostly as an inker but sometimes pencils and occasionally writes.

After a few stories in “Star*Reach” and “Crazy”, he worked primarily at DC Comics from 1976 to about 2001. He worked on hundreds of comics there, including “Super Friends” (1977–1981), “The Night Force” (1982-1983), and “Batman: Gotham Adventures” (1999–2003).

During this period he also published at First, Kitchen Sink, Renegade Press, Apple Press, Dark Horse, and Malibu.

Since the late 1990s, he has worked at Archie Comics, across the core character titles. He has already worked on more comics there than he did at DC.

He also inked the daily and Sunday ‘Archie’ newspapers strips over pencils by Fernando Ruiz, continuing until new material for the strips ended in 2011.

In the new millennium, he has additionally appeared in Bongo comics, some humor and superhero comics for DC, and more recently at Charlton Neo.

At Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Smith_(comics)
In the GCD — https://tinyurl.com/ybvbsj4j

(Ramona Fradon and Smith created the cover art on “Super Friends” #7, DC: October 1977)

Alan Moore (born 18 November 1953, UK) is a prolific and influential comics creator. While he is a cartoonist, he works most often as a writer.

His career began in fanzines in the late 1970s and his early professional work was in “2000 AD”. He came to international prominence with his work in “Warrior” (Quality Communications, 1982–1985), including ‘V for Vendetta’, ‘Marvelman’, and ‘Warpsmith’.

In the USA, he revised the ongoing “Swamp Thing” (DC, 1984–1987), giving the feature a mood and background still in use. He introduced John Constantine there, who has featured in his own series, “Hellblazer” (DC then DC/Vertigo, 1988–2013).

DC reprinted “V for Vendetta”, which is still in print in a collected edition and enjoys a wide mainstream audience. Eclipse reprinted “Marvelman” and then Moore continued it there with new material.

He famously wrote ‘Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?’, an affectionate final story about the original Superman, published in 1986 just before the events of the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” series eliminated the character.

His “Watchmen” (DC, collected in 1987) is also popular with a broader audience than super-heroes usually enjoy. The theme is the effect on the real world of having real super-powered heroes and its non-linear structure is unusual for the genre.

He notoriously wrote “Batman: The Killing Joke” in 1987, a brutal story that left the ‘Batgirl’ character in a wheelchair.

He wrote the ongoing series “Supreme” (Image, 1996–2000) as an homage to the Silver Age Superman stories, defining a whole ‘universe’ with its own Golden Age and Silver Age history.

He did the same for an entire new set of characters for America’s Best Comics (1999–2008). Beginning as an imprint of WildStorm, it became an imprint of DC when they acquired WildStorm.

From 1991, he wrote and Melinda Gebbie drew “Lost Girls”, an erotic story featuring the lead characters from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, and “Peter and Wendy”. The story was collected in 2006 and remains in print.

Over the course of the project, the relationship of the creators culminated in marriage. In an interview on the occasion of the collected edition, Moore joked, “I’d recommend to anybody working on their relationship that they should try embarking on a 16-year elaborate pornography together.”

At Comiclopedia — https://www.lambiek.net/artists/m/moore.htm
At Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Moore
In the GCD — https://tinyurl.com/ybt9euak

(Mick Austin created the cover art on “Warrior” #7, Quality Communications: November 1982)

Sue Flaxman (born 17 November 1962, USA) is a novelist and short-story writer. Some of her fiction is published under the pen name ‘Zsuzannah BasReisa’.

She worked at Marvel Comics in the late 1980s. She edited “The Savage Sword of Conan” and “Conan Saga” magazines (1988–1989).

She also wrote stories published in “Marvel Comics Presents”, “Marvel Fanfare”, and “Marvel Super-Heroes” (1989–1991).

At Women in Comics — http://womenincomics.wikia.com/wiki/Sue_Flaxman
In the GCD — https://tinyurl.com/y8hvfp7k

(Kerry Gammill and José Marzán Jr. created the cover art on “Marvel Fanfare” #48, Marvel: Mid-December 1989, with a ‘She-Hulk’ story by Flaxman)

Alvin Schwartz (17 November 1916 – 28 October 2011, USA) was a comics writer, marketing researcher and consultant, and novelist.

In the 1940s and 1950s, he wrote for comic books and newspaper strips, primarily for National (which later became DC). He wrote ‘Batman’ and ‘Superman’ stories in both formats from 1942.

Other super-hero features he contributed to include ‘Aquaman’, ‘Wonder Woman’, and ‘Tomahawk’. He wrote for humor comics such as “A Date with Judy” and “Buzzy”.

He left DC in 1958 after trying to work with new Superman editor Mort Weisinger. Working in the field of marketing research, he became the director of the Institute for Motivational Research and was on the advisory board of the American Association of Advertising Agencies.

In 1968, he moved to Canada, where he worked for the National Film Board for nearly twenty years. In 1997, he published his autobiography, “An Unlikely Prophet”.

Schwartz and Harvey Kurtzman were given the Bill Finger Award for comics writing in 2006.

Not to be confused with USA children’s book author Alvin Schwartz (1927–1992).

At Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Schwartz_(comics)
In the GCD — https://tinyurl.com/ybuoqgwg

(Win Mortimer created the cover art on “World’s Finest Comics” #17, DC: July-August 1954, with the first story in the ‘Superman and Batman’ feature, written by Schwartz)

Don Lawrence (17 November 1928 – 29 December 2003, UK) was a popular comics creator who published in the UK and Dutch markets and was known for his detailed, realistic art style.

His career began in 1954 as an assistant to Mick Anglo, drawing “Marvelman” (1954–1958). From the late 1950s he published in “Sun”, “Lion”, and other Fleetway series, including a collaboration with Michael Moorcock on ‘Maroc the Mighty’ in “Lion”.

In 1965, he created the popular science-fiction feature ‘The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire’ in “Ranger”. Later continued in “Look and Learn”, he produced the strip through 1976.

When he discovered that “The Trigan Empire” was popular throughout Europe in multiple translations, while he received no compensation for the reprints, he left Fleetway (by then named IPC) and began publishing in the then-new Dutch weekly, “Eppo” (Oberon).

There, he created the post-apocalyptic, multiversal science-fiction feature ‘Storm’. Like “Trigan”, it is popular throughout Europe. He drew it until his retirement in 2002 and it is still being published with new creators.

Among other honors, Lawrence received the fan-voted Stripschapprijs for his body of work in 1994 and the Pantera di Lucca Career Award in 1998. He was named a Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in 2003.

At Comiclopedia — https://www.lambiek.net/artists/l/lawrence.htm
At Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lawrence
In the GCD — https://tinyurl.com/y7reaqcr

(Lawrence created the cover art on “Trigië” #1 - Strijd om Trigië [Battle for Trigan], Amsterdam Boek: 1973, a Dutch edition)

Jim Ottaviani (born 16 November, USA) is a nuclear engineer, a librarian, and a comics writer.

He writes non-fiction books about science and scientists. He founded G-T Labs in 1996 to publish these and other works.

“Two-Fisted Science” (G-T Labs, 1997), his first book, is an anthology of short stories. “Fallout” (G-T Labs, 2001) tells the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the development of the atomic bomb.

“Levitation” (G-T Labs, 2007) explores the science debunking the scam and “T-Minus” (Simon and Schuster, 2009) tells of the race to the moon.

“Suspended in Language” (G-T Labs, 2004) is a biography of Niels Bohr and “Primates” (First Second, 2013) is about the work of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birute Galdikas.

His biography of Alan Turing, “The Imitation Game” (Henry N. Abrams, 2016) is being released in paperback next year.

At Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Ottaviani
In the GCD — https://tinyurl.com/y99cydon

(Leland Purvis created the cover art on “The Imitation Game”, Henry N. Abrams: 2016)

Luciano Bottaro (16 November 1931 – 25 November 2006, Italy) was a prominent Disney comics artist, a peer of Romano Scarpa and Giovan Battista Carpi.

He published in “Lo Scolaro” from 1949, where he created the humor feature ‘Pon Pon’.

His first Disney work was a ‘Paperino’ story in “La Domenica del Corriere” in 1952. For more than 30 years, Bottaro illustrated stories of ‘Paperino’ and other Disney characters.

He was also present at publisher Alpe, where he created ‘Pepito’, and at Bianconi. For a time, he, Giorgio Rebuffi, and Carlo Chendi formed Studio Bierrechi.

At Comiclopedia — https://www.lambiek.net/artists/b/bottaro_luciano.htm
At Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luciano_Bottaro
In the GCD — https://tinyurl.com/ycrepzha

(Bottaro created the cover art on “Primo” #26/1971, Gevacur: 1971, a German edition)