Martin Nodell

Martin Nodell (November 15, 1915 – December 9, 2006) was a cartoonist and commercial artist, best known as the creator of the Golden Age superhero Green Lantern. Some of his work appeared under the pen name "Mart Dellon."

Biography

Early life and career

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Nodell attended the Art Institute of Chicago. He moved to New York City in the 1930s, where he attended the Pratt Institute.

Nodell began his illustrating career in 1938, working first as a freelancer. In 1940 he provided some work for Sheldon Mayer, an editor at All-American Publications, one of three companies that ultimately merged to form the present-day DC Comics. Interested in gaining more steady employment, Nodell created designs for a new character that would become the Golden Age Green Lantern. The first adventure, drawn by Nodel (as Mart Dellon) and written by Bill Finger, appeared in All-American Comics #16 (July 1940).

According to his obituary in Newsday:

It was a subway ride in Manhattan that inspired Green Lantern. En route to his Brooklyn home in 1940, Nodell noticed a trainman waving a lantern along the darkened tracks. He coupled the imagery with a magic ring — akin to Wagner's 'Ring Cycle', which also inspired The Lord of the Rings — and the hero was born.

He met his future wife, Carrie, at Coney Island in October 1941. They were married two months later, and afterward moved to Huntington, Long Island, to move in with Nodell's brother Simon, an engineer at Republic Aviation.

Captain America and the Pillsbury Doughboy

Nodel left All-American in 1947 and joined Timely Comics, the 1930s-'40s forerunner of Marvel Comics), where he drew postwar stories of Captain America, the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner. In 1950, when work in comics began to dry up, Nodel left to work in advertising. Joinging the Leo Burnett Agency as art director. In 1965, his design team there developed the Pillsbury Doughboy. Nodell retired in 1976.

In 1987, he submitted some new work to DC, which led to his being rediscoverd by comic fans. His final work for DC appeared in Green Lantern #19 (Dec. 1991), in which he provided an illustration of the Golden Age Alan Scott Green Lantern for the last time.

Nodell resided in West Palm Beach, Florida until his death. His final art showing was in Detroit, Michigan in May 2006. Nodel died in Wisconsin after a brief illness, almost one month past his 91st birthday.

Personal

Wife Carrie Nodell died in early 2004, after 63 years of marriage. They had two sons: Spencer, who lived in Waukesha, Wisconsin at the time of his father's death, and Mitchell. The Nodells had six grandchildrean and three great-grandchildren.

References