Arnold Drake

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Arnold Drake bigraphy, stories - Writer

Arnold Drake : biography

March 1, 1924 – March 12, 2007

Arnold Drake (March 1, 1924 – March 12, 2007)Evanier, Mark. , "P.O.V. Online" (column), March 12, 2007 was an American comic book writer and screenwriter best known for co-creating the DC Comics characters Deadman and the Doom Patrol, and the Marvel Comics characters the Guardians of the Galaxy, among others.

Drake was posthumously inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2008.

Non-comics work

Drake wrote the screenplay for the 1964 horror film The Flesh Eaters, which he also produced., Baseline via The New York Times He also wrote the screenplay for "Who Killed Teddy Bear," a 1966 release starring Sal Mineo and Juliet Prowse, as well as the title song for the 1970 film Ils sont nus / ‘"We Are All Naked., Baseline via The New York Times

Drake also wrote lyrics for musicals, co-writing the book for G&S: or, The Oils of Araby (1980), with his brother, songwriter-composer Ervin Drake. at FAQs.org (requires scroll down). .

Awards

Drake received several awards for his comics work, including the 1967 Alley Award for Best Full-Length Story ("Who’s Been Lying in My Grave?" in Strange Adventures #205 with Carmine Infantino), the 1967 Alley Award for Best New Strip ("Deadman" with Carmine Infantino in Strange Adventures), and a 1999 Inkpot Award.

In 2005, Drake received the first annual Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comics Writing. In 2008, he was posthumously inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.

Biography

Early life and career

Arnold Drake was the third child of Max Druckman, a Manhattan furniture dealer who died in June 1966 at his home in Forest Hills, Queens, New York City, New York,"Max Druckman Dies at 81; A Retired Furniture Dealer", The New York Times, June 10, 1966 and Pearl Cohen., brother of Arnold Drake, at NNDb His eldest brother, Ervin Drake, born Ervin Maurice Druckman, and the middle brother, Milton, both became notable songwriters.. .

At age 12, Drake contracted scarlet fever, confining him to bed for a year, a time he spent drawing his own comic-strip creations. Years later, turning to writing, he studied journalism at the University of Missouri and later at New York University.

Collaborating with co-writer Leslie Waller (together using the pseudonym Drake Waller) and artist Matt Baker, Drake wrote St. John Publications’ pioneering It Rhymes with Lust, a proto-graphic novel comics magazine sold on newsstands in 1950. At some unspecified point before or after this, he met a neighbor of one of his brothers: Bob Kane, the credited creator of Batman for one of DC Comics’ precursor companies. After collaborating with Drake on some projects, Kane introduced Drake to editors at DC.

Comic books during this time did not routinely list creator credits; historians have, however, pinpointed Drake’s first DC work as the first seven pages of the eight-page Batman story "The Return of Mister Future" in Batman #98 (March 1956). at the Grand Comics Database Soon, Drake was scripting stories across a variety of genres for DC, from adventure drama ("Fireman Farrell" in Showcase #1, April 1956) to humor (1960s stories for the company’s Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis comics) to mystery and supernatural fiction (the anthology series House of Mystery) to science fiction (the feature "Tommy Tomorrow" in World’s Finest Comics #102, June 1959, and elsewhere, and the feature "Space Ranger" in several issues of Tales of the Unexpected, to give a sampling). at the Grand Comics Database

DC Comics creations

In 1963, editor Murray Boltinoff asked Drake to develop a feature to run in the anthology series My Greatest Adventure. Given the assignment on a Friday with a script due that Tuesday, Drake conceived of what would become the superhero team the Doom Patrol, and turned to another DC writer, Bob Haney, to co-plot and co-script the first adventure.Guay, George. "The Life and Death of the Doom Patrol", Amazing Heroes #6, November 1981, p. 39 Artist Bruno Premiani designed the characters. Drake would subsequently script every Doom Patrol story, with Premiani drawing virtually all, from the team’s debut in My Greatest Adventure #80 (June 1963) through the series retitling to The Doom Patrol with issue #86 (March 1964), to the final issue of its initial run, #121 (Oct. 1968)."The Doom Patrol Index", Amazing Heroes #6, November 1981, pp. 50-54