Reed Crandall

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Reed Crandall (February 22, 1917 – September 13, 1982) was an American illustrator and penciller of comic books and magazines. He was best known for the Quality Comics character Blackhawk and for stories in the critically acclaimed EC Comics of the 1950s.

[edit] Biography

Hit Comics #18 (Dec. 1941). Stormy Foster, by Crandall.

Reed Crandall was born in Winslow, Indiana. He graduated from Newton High School, Newton, Kansas in 1935 and enrolled in the Cleveland School of Art, graduating in 1939. He worked on comic books from 1939 until 1973 contributing to several classic titles, including Flash Gordon, Tales from the Crypt, Blackhawk, Gunsmoke, Ripley's Believe it or Not and Mad Magazine.

In comic books, he started out at Quality Comics, when he worked on The Ray, Doll Man, and most famously, Blackhawk. Next, for EC Comics, Crandall provided art for Tales from the Crypt, Piracy. Two Fisted Tales. and many other titles.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Crandall drew many horror stories for Warren Publishing's magazines Creepy and Eerie.

By 1974, Crandall's health and talent had degenerated due to alcoholism^{[citation needed]} and he was forced to work as a night watchman and janitor for a Pizza Hut restaurant.^{[citation needed]} After suffering a stroke, he spent his remaining life in nursing home and died of a heart attack.

Crandall is referenced in Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, in which the Joe Kavalier refers to Crandall as the "top" comic-book artist of his era.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Family

Reed Crandall had a few sons and daughters, one of which named Reed "Spike" Crandall (after his father) owned a small metal-working shop until his death in 2002 (possibly 2001).^{[citation needed]} Spike had a daughter and three grandchildren at the time of his death, as well as several nieces and nephews.^{[citation needed]}