Roy Crane
From Superhero Wiki Encyclopedia
 Home Books Clothing DVDs Posters Toys Video Games |
Boards Comic Book News Comic Conventions Search this Wiki |
Gallery Features Link to us Online Comic Books |
Resources Store Superhero Wiki Wallpaper |
Royston Campbell Crane (November 22, 1901 - July 7, 1977), who signed his work Roy Crane, was an American cartoonist and creator of the comic strip characters Wash Tubbs, Captain Easy, and Buz Sawyer. He created one of the earliest adventure comic strips, and influenced many of the subsequent cartoonists in that genre.
Crane was born in Abilene, Texas and grew up in nearby Sweetwater. When he was 14 years old, he took the C.N. Landon correspondence course in cartooning. He initially attended college at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene and later the University of Texas, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity. At 19, he studied for six months at the Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago. His early career was a checkered one, including pitching tents for a Chautauqua, a seaman's berth, and a stint riding the rails. In 1922, he began his newspaper cartooning career on the New York World, where he assisted H.T. Webster.
In 1924, Crane approached C.N. Landon, who was then an editor at the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA). Landon agreed to let him try his hand at a humorous strip titled Washington Tubbs II, soon shortened to Wash Tubbs, which debuted on April 21, 1924. After about four months, Crane tired of the gag-a-day format and sent his diminutive hero off on a treasure hunt. The strip evolved into a rollicking adventure yarn, all the more so after the introduction in 1929 of the raffish soldier of fortune, Captain Easy