Happy Birthday: Al Gordon
Born in San Francisco in 1953, Alan “Al” Gordon is actually the second comic book artist by that name—the first, who is no relation, was active in the 1950s and worked for Atlas Comics, Lev Gleason Publications, Toby Comics, and Trojan Comics.
The second Alan Gordon started out in the mid-1970s, working as a penciler and inker for independent publisher Star Reach. He began inking for Marvel in 1978, first freelancing on Captain America and then becoming the regular inker on Spider-Woman. In 1982 Gordon left Marvel for DC and began working on Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew.
He worked for Eclipse Comics next before going back to Marvel and inking Fantastic Four and other books. In 1987 Gordon began working on Justice League of America with Kevin Maguire and Keith Giffen.
A few years later he followed Giffen to Legion of Super Heroes, and even wrote four issues of the series. In 1992 Gordon created WildStar for Image Comics—Jerry Ordway penciled it and Gordon wrote, inked, edited, and produced it.
More recently he worked with Alan Moore at America’s Best Comics. In 2000 Gordon won two Eisner Awards, one for Tom Strong #1 and one for Tom Strong #4-7.