Sam Glanzman

Samuel Joseph Glanzman (December 5, 1924 – July 12, 2017) was an American comics artist and memoirist. Glanzman is best known for his Charlton Comics series Hercules, about the mythological Greek demigod; his autobiographical war stories about his service aboard the U.S.S. Stevens for DC Comics and Marvel Comics; and the Charlton Comics Fightin' Army feature "The Lonely War of Willy Schultz", a Vietnam War-era serial about a German-American U.S. Army captain during World War II. War comics editor-artist Joe Kubert of industry giant DC Comics brought Glanzman to work on Our Army at War, Star Spangled War Stories, Weird War Tales, and other combat titles including G.I. Combat, where for years he illustrated the feature "Haunted Tank". At DC, Glanzman began his series of autobiographical war stories about his service aboard the U.S.S. Stevens in Our Army at War #218 (April 1970). Glanzman would also occasionally draw stories for DC's supernatural-mystery anthologies. He was one of the contributors to the debut issues of Ghosts and Blitzkrieg. By late 1979, with most of DC's war titles either canceled or converted to character series with established teams, Glanzman remained solely on G.I. Combat and began freelancing again for Charlton. Following his last "Haunted Tank" story, in G.I. Combat #288 (March 1987), Glanzman drew two more stories for DC a year later, in Sgt. Rock #420–421 (Feb.–April 1988). He would return to ink penciler Tim Truman on the Western miniseries Jonah Hex: Two Gun Mojo (Sept.–Dec. 1993), Jonah Hex: Riders of the Worm and Such (March–July 1995), and Jonah Hex: Shadows West (Feb.–April 1999) all written by Joe R. Lansdale. A Sailor's Story / Marvel Graphic Novel #30 (March 1987). Cover art by Glanzman Glanzman also contributed a handful of war stories to Marvel Comics from 1986–1989, in the black-and-white adventure magazine Savage Tales, the Marine Corps series Semper Fi, an issue of The 'Nam, and most notably A Sailor's Story / Marvel Graphic Novel #30 (March 1987), a 60-page true account, which he both wrote and drew, of his time on the U.S.S. Stevens during World War II. Unusually for Marvel's graphic novel line, it was released in hardcover rather than as a trade paperback. A trade paperback edition followed, together with a sequel, A Sailor's Story, Book Two: Winds, Dreams, and Dragons, which continued the story up to the end of the war. Other work in the 1990s included inking some issues of Turok Dinosaur Hunter for Acclaim Comics and Zorro for Topps Comics, and writing and drawing a serialized feature in Flashback Comics' Fantastic Worlds #1. His later work includes stories in two anthologies: writing and drawing the 10-page, true-life story "On the Job: Cooks Tour," in the graphic-story trade paperback Streetwise (TwoMorrows Publishing, 2000, ISBN 1-893905-04-7), and the donated, four-page "There Were Tears in Her Eyes," in the squarebound benefit comic 9-11: The World's Finest Comic Book Writers & Artists Tell Stories to Remember, Volume Two (2002). From 1999–2001, the Avalon Communications imprint America's Comic Group / ACG (not to be confused with American Comics Group / AGC) reprinted large amounts of Glanzman's Charlton Comics work in a number of mostly one-shot titles, including Hercules, Flyboys, Nam Tales, Star Combat Tales, Total War, and ACG Comics Presents Fire and Steel. In 2003, Glanzman began working on webcomics, writing and drawing the 19th-century nautical adventure Apple Jack, and reteaming with his "Willy Schultz" writer, Will Franz, on the Roman centurion series The Eagle. In 2012 and 2013, new "U.S.S. Stevens" stories by Glanzman appeared in the Joe Kubert Presents six-issue anthology limited series.[20] In 2015, Glanzman's "U.S.S. Stevens" stories and the A Sailor's Story graphic novels were collected by Dover Publications. Glanzman died on July 12, 2017, in Maryland, New York, under hospice care after falling and undergoing surgery.