Happy Birthday: Wayne Boring

Born in Minnesota in 1905, Wayne Boring attended the Minnesota School of Art and then the Chicago Art Institute. He started working in the comic book industry in 1937, ghost-drawing for Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s studio. When the studio created a Superman comic strip Boring was tapped to ghost-draw that, though later he was actually credited as the artist (often under his pseudonym, Jack Harmon). In 1942 National Comics hired him directly as a staff artist. In 1948 Siegel and Shuster left the company and new Superman editor Mort Weisinger handed the comic’s art duties to Boring. He handled most of the Superman penciling through the 1950s but dropped back to guest spots in the 60s and was let go from DC in 1967. Boring then ghosted for Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant comic strip, drew Sam Leff’s Davy Jones strip, and did some work on Marvel’s Captain Marvel before semi-retiring in the early 1970s. In 1986 Boring penciled a Golden Age Superman story for Secret Origins #1. He died of a heart attack the following year.