On History: Reed Crandall

I suspect that, like many folks, I don't know much about Reed Crandall. His most prominent work was through the 1940s and '50s, and he moved over to work on the oft-overlooked Treasure Chest in 1960, where he remained for just over a decade. Although he did work on some notable characters like Blackhawk and Doll Man, not having not actually created them means his contributions often get glossed over as well. Further, when he went over to EC, he was working in the shadow of guys like Wally Wood, Jack Davis, Will Elder, Frank Frazetta, Graham Ingels and Jack Kamen. That's a tough crowd to stand out in.

Which means that, not only do we not have a book-length biography of him to refer to, it doesn't seem as if there have been any substantial articles about him. The references I'm seeing in Alter Ego (the magazine when it comes to Golden Age creators and characters) seems to only talk about Crandall in relation to broader discussions of Quality Comics, who ran Blackhawk and Doll Man. The longest biography I can seem to find of him is his Wikipedia listing.

I'm vaguely familiar with his work, first seeing it cited in Ron Goulart's The Great Comic Book Artists back in 1986. But the era Crandall was in the industry, combined with his never really worked on anything I was especially interested in, meant that I know little more about him now than I did three decades ago. I've picked up a few reprints of his EC stuff, but that he worked on the pieces was incidental.

But, Ben Towle recently alerted me to some details of Crandall's final years. Here's the Wikipedia version...

Crandall, who had left New York City in the 1960s in order to care for his ailing mother in Wichita, Kansas, had developed alcoholism. Recovering by the time of his mother's death, he nonetheless suffered debilitated health and left art in 1974 to work as a night watchman and janitor for the Pizza Hut general headquarters in Wichita. After suffering a stroke that year, he spent his remaining life in a nursing home and died in 1982 of a heart attack.

Wow. Talk about tragic. Crandall did get some recognition of his contributions during his lifetime when he was a guest at the Multicon-70 convention in 1970, but any other accolades he received were posthumous ones.

There are biographies out there of Curt Swan, Mort Meskin, Matt Baker, Nick Cardy, and Jackie Ormes. All very, very talented individuals, but also ones whose names do not immediately strike one as commercially viable biography subjects. So how about Crandall? Who's up for writing a biography of him? He's definitely a creator we should know more about, if for no other reason than to make sure his final days aren't repeated by any other comic artist! Someone, get on this!

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