Artist Edd Cartier Passes Away at Age 94
Edward Daniel Cartier passed away on Christmas Day.
According to pulp historian Anthony Tollin, “Edd was one of the all-time greatest pulp illustrators, legendary for his whimsical work on John W. Campbell’s Unknown and Astounding Science Fiction and 800 illustrations for The Shadow Magazine. He also drew stories for Street & Smith’s Red Dragon and Super-Magician Comics.
“The favorite artist of Astounding editor John W. Campbell and writer L. Ron Hubbard, Cartier also illustrated the beloved Hoka tales by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson, and stories by John D. MacDonald, Isaac Asimov, Henry Kuttner, L. Sprague de Camp, Clifford D. Simak, Walter B. Gibson, Lester Dent and many others.”
Born in 1914, he studied at the Pratt Institute in New York before beginning his professional illustration career in 1939.
He once said of his work: “I put a bit of humor into what I drew. I was even told at times that I put too much humor into drawing science fiction. It’s a serious thing. When I started out doing science fiction, it was all kind of a weird thing. I had started out in art school drawing the Shadow magazine. The art director from Street & Smith happened to like my work and he gave me some work to do on Western Stories and from there he asked me to do some work on The Shadow magazine as that artist was leaving. He insisted that I follow the previous artist’s type of work. Later on I expanded into my own type of work, my own technique.”
Goodbye, Edd! What an incredible artist! His work has been and continues to be an inspiration to me.
THose who only know Cartier from his whimsical aliens and supernatural characters would be amazed by some of his "Shadow" cover paintings – i remember on in which Lamont Cranston in full evening fress with a fat cigar casts the shadow of The Shadow, complete with gun…
Cartier did the "interiors" for "The Shadow"…the Rozen brothers did the covers during his tenure…he did; however, do covers for "Unknown"…I believe you are thinking of a George Rozen piece used on "The Shadow Annual" for 1942 (or perhaps my memory eludes me)…he was, nevertheless, EXTRAORDINARY!"…personally I like his return to "The Shadow" when it was published in digest format in 1948 (Aug./Sept. '48 "Jade Dragon")…and another earlier favorite, Nov. 15th 1937 "Teeth of the Dragon"…
What a fabulous artist. For years I marveled at his work in a copy of Unknown Worlds, and later found and proudly own a beautiful noirish Cartier illustration from a newspaper serial from the late 40s.
The "Shadow" cover i'm referring to was specifically identified as a Cartier painting in a bokk on the pulps i had years ago.OTOH, the book could easily be wrong – i remember a supposedly authoritative book on comics that discusses "The Spirit" at some length, rhaposdising over Eisner's composition and draftmanship and masterful technique in spotting blacks … and then reprinted a "Soirit" splash page to illustrate the article that was clearly done by someone else (quite possibly Jack Cole, if my memory is still good after thirty-plus years, but definitely *not* Eisner…).
My lengthy Cartier tribute is now up at Potrzebie: http://potrzebie.blogspot.comScroll down past "Origin of 'Fanboy'."Bhob