Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.100: Murphy Anderson

No.100: Murphy Anderson

Veteran artist Anderson grew up reading comic strips in the 1930s and 40s, developing his obsession with the medium due to science-fiction tales featuring Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. He was inspired to turn professional by the virtuoso and ambitious work of Lou Fine. Words: Andrew Colman…

By the mid ‘40s he had moved to New York and was working for Fiction House, his earliest pencilling efforts featuring in Wings and his regular strip, Star Pirate, in Planet Comics. After working at several other publishers in the late 40s, Anderson arrived at DC under the auspices of Editor Julius Schwartz, working primarily on their science fiction titles, Mystery in Space and Strange Adventures, where he worked extensively on Captain Comet.

By the early 60s Anderson was known as the go to inker at National, embellishing Gil Kane, Mike Sekowsky and the artist he became most associated with in this era, Carmine Infantino. His inks, especially on the Adam Strange series in Mystery in Space and The Flash, brought depth and focus to Infantino’s artwork. In 1963 he began illustrating the character he was perhaps most associated with, Hawkman. His polished yet slightly off-kilter line coupled with his heavy inks brought a slightly surreal edge that was suitable for the series, which featured some decidedly garish and often bizarre covers, but that was DC back in the ‘60s. After a brief gap, Anderson returned to DC in the early 70s to become part of the fondly remembered “Swanderson” duo with penciller Curt Swan on various Superman titles, the pair acting to an extent as house artists.

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