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Hardin Burnley was born in 1911. During the 1930's he was an
accomplished sports cartoonist working under Damn Runyan when DC Comics,
looking for an artist to replace Joe Shuster in response to being at that time
embroiled in the first of 3 lawsuits brought by Siegel and Shuster for
copyright ownership of Superman, which had been created by the duo.
Jack had doen some minor filler pages for DC from 1935-1939,
but Burnley's first cover for DC was for World's Fair Comics 1940 edition and
would make Burnley the first artist to draw Superman who did not work at the
Shuster Studio. Within short order he was doing stories in Action Comics
starting with issue #28 through issue #32 when the legal issues were resolved
and the Shuster Studio again was producing art which appears again in Action
#33.
However, Burnley had by now begun illustrating Superman
stories in World's Finest Comics as well as Batman covers and stories when he
along with writer Gardner Fox created Starman for Adventure Comics beginning
with issue #61.
He would illustrate dozens of covers for DC and numerous
stories until finally leaving the comic industry in 1947 to pursue a career
with Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph and then the San Francisco News. Retiring in 1976
he and his wife settled in Charlottesville, Virginia. Jack passed away on
December 19, 2006 |
