Vernon Henkel (known at times as "Vern") began his comic book career in the 1930's in the days before Superheroes became the quintessence of comic book content. Working early on for Quality Comics, he wrote and drew strips such as Abdul The Arab, Comet Kelly, Chic Carter, and Gallant Knight, among others, featuring historical characters or tough guys working as detectives or reporters or the like, working in a style appearing to be heavily influenced by Quality Comics style-setter Will Eisner. He did journeyman work for DC/National, Magazine Enterprises and Harvey Comics throughout the 40's, and from the mid 1940's into the mid-1950's, he worked primarily for Stan Lee at Marvel/Atlas as well as doing some work on the Lev Gleason superhero book DAREDEVIL COMICS and their crime comic book CRIME DOES NOT PAY. At the pre-hero Marvel shop he worked on war comics, crime comics, teen comics, sports comics, in the same vein of multiple-personality whatever-sells-we-sell that typified Marvel at that time.
In the mid 1950's he began to sell gag cartoons for a variety of magazines, and went into partnership with comics artist Hal Lockwood, opening a studio, called Film Media and producing educational film strips, slides, and the occasional industrial animation. In the 1960's he began working heavily in advertising, and as late as the 1990's was producing coloring books with an illustration style that harkened back to his detailed work in the days of Quality.
Henkel was still alive at last observation, which proves that being hunched over a drawing table doesn't have to mean an early demise.
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