Doom Patrol and Deadman Creator Arnold Drake Passes Away

Posted: Monday, March 12, 2007
Posted By: Tobey Cook

Arnold Drake, creator of Deadman and the Doom Patrol as well as a stalwart writer for DC Comics during the 60s and 70s, passed away today. He was 83. Below is a bit of information on him, courtesy of Mark Evanier:

Arnold Drake, one of comics' most acclaimed writers, died this morning. We all knew he was sick. He collapsed a few days after attending the New York Comic Book Convention (Feb. 23-25) with, they said at the time, "a touch of pneumonia." Other complications were found and he never left the hospital.
During his career, he wrote all the major characters for DC Comics but distinguished himself especially with his co-creations, Deadman, The Doom Patrol and Stanley and His Monster. He was also known for long stints writing the comic book adventures of Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis, most of which were drawn by the also-recently-deceased Bob Oksner.
Drake was born on March 1, 1924. At age 12, a bout with scarlet fever kept him confined to his bed for a year. He spent much of the time drawing his own comics and, though he later did do some cartooning work, he found that his primary interest was not in drawing characters but in deciding what they'd say and do. That sent him off on a writing career and he studied Journalism at the University of Missouri and later at New York University.
Then he met Bob Kane, the official creator of Batman, who happened to be a neighbor of Arnold's brother. He worked with Kane on a few projects and the artist introduced him to the editors at DC. Before long, Drake was writing for DC books including House of Mystery, My Greatest Adventure, Mark Merlin, Space Ranger, Batman and Tommy Tomorrow. Most of his new creations in the sixties came about because an editor said to him, "This comic is in sales trouble and needs a new feature." My Greatest Adventure was down in sales so Drake, working with artist Bruno Premiani and fellow writer Bob Haney, invented The Doom Patrol, a band of misfit heroes very similar to Marvel's X-Men, which went on sale at almost the exact same time. Strange Adventures was in sales trouble so Drake, working with artist Carmine Infantino, came up with the acclaimed Deadman character. The Fox and the Crow was down in sales so Drake, teamed with Bob Oksner, fashioned Stanley and His Monster — a highly-imaginative kids' comic that preceded (but contained many of the elements of) the newspaper strip, Calvin and Hobbes.

More information about his career with DC can be found on Mark Evanier's blog.

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