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FOR LOVELY LOIS LANE Kurt Schaffenberger was born December 15, 1920 on a farm in the Thuringian Forest, Germany. As a boy, he tended geese, herded goats, and cultivated potatoes. Emigrating to America as a seven-year-old (first to Hartford, Connecticut, and then to New York City), he eventually won a scholarship to the Pratt Institute. After graduation, he joined Jack Binder's studio in 1941, where he worked on some key Fawcett titles. They included Captain Marvel, Bulletman, and Ibis. While working at Binder's, which was located in Englewood, New Jersey, Schaffenberger took over an apartment from the local high school football coach. That same coach would later achieve success in the National Football League - his name was Vince Lombardi. During this time, Schaffenberger's work was also published by Street & Smith, Prize, and Pines. He served in the U.S. military during World War II, including a stint with the Office of Strategic Services, leaving the military with the rank of Master Sergeant. Schaffenberger returned to the world of professional sequential art soon after war's end. He resumed his work for the Captain Marvel family of titles, and expanded his reach to an even more diverse group of publishing houses, including EC, Gilberton, Premier Magazines, American Comics Group, and Marvel Comics. At Gilberton, Schaffenberger provided the interior art for Classics Illustrated No. 119, Soldiers of Fortune (May 1954). In 1957 Otto Binder recruited Schaffenberger to DC to work on the Superman family. He stayed at DC for the next 30 years, making an especially large contribution to the development of Lois Lane. In that capacity, he was the lead artist on the book, Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane, for the entirety of its first decade. Indeed, Schaffenberger's rendition of Lane became cited by many as the "definitive" version of the character, and Schaffenberger was often asked by DC editor Mort Weisinger to redraw other artists' depictions of Lane in other DC titles where she appeared. 
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Dabbling in office legal affairs led to his temporary removal from DC in 1970, after he helped to organize other artists to protest unfair working conditions. However, after briefly freelancing and working for Marvel, Schaffenberger was already back at DC by 1972. Soon-after that, in the early '70s, DC acquired the rights to the Marvel Family formerly owned by Fawcett, and Schaffenberger soon became one of the key players in the revival of those Captain Marvel-related characters. In the late '70s he also contributed well outside the Superman family of titles, including short-lived runs on titles like Wonder Woman and The Super Friends. By 1980, Schaffenberger was again leading a Superman family title, The New Adventures of Superboy (the final, post-Legion title for the original Superboy). Somewhat metaphorically, the Superboy- and Supergirl-less DC universe that followed the events of the Crisis On Infinite Earths mini-series runs turned out to be a mostly Shaffenberger-less one as well. He was married with two children, and spent most of his adult life living in suburban New Jersey, mailing in his artwork to New York. He largely retired from comics, shortly after helping with the final pre-Crisis Superman tale "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" In retrospect, that was very good timing, in view of the mixed reactions by fans to the entire Crisis concept. Schaffenberger's work won him the 1984 National Cartoonists Society Award in the Comic Book division. He also received an Inkpot Award in 1996, when he was a featured special guest at the annual San Diego Comic Con. 
HERO GETS GIRL! The Life And Art Of Kurt Schaffenberger By Mark Voger (2003) (Click pic to enlarge.) |
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IMDb On Schaffenberger |
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