Just got word of the passing of an old friend:
Murphy Anderson’s deep voice and sweet Southern charm were as smooth as his beautiful brush line. Dependably excellent at everything he did, he was one of the first people to enter comics loving the medium. Carrying his portfolio to Fiction House in the war years, graduating to a definitive Buck Rogers run in peacetime, and then moving to DC Comics.
At DC he became one of the standard-setters: creating the visuals for CAPT COMET, which some have argued was the first super-hero of the Silver Age; contributing to almost 600 covers over a 40 year span, many as penciller and inker; creating visuals for characters from the Atomic Knights to Zatanna, and virtually every letter in between; helping change the whole field by leading the charge to shift to a smaller original art size in the 60s and better color separations in the 80s; and becoming one of the handful of people who defined the DC “look” for the Silver Age of comics. His powerful Wonder Woman was the image on MS. MAGAZINE #1, making a statement that forever aligned that character with the feminist cause.
Murphy did fewer comics in his years producing PS MAGAZINE, but never lost his love of his field, his eyes twinkling when he talked about Lou Fine’s art, or recalled working with Will Eisner on the Army publication. He looked for any opportunity to be part of the comics world, and each time he was, a part of him was again a kid, biking across the hills of the Carolinas to find the comics he loved.
The family requests donations to the Heroi Initiative in lieu of flowers.
