Dick Ayers

Dick Ayers
Dick Ayers at the April 2008 New York Comic Con.
Born	(1924-04-28)April 28, 1924 Ossining, New York
Died	May 4, 2014(2014-05-04) (aged 90) White Plains, New York
Nationality	United States
Area(s)	Penciller, Inker
Notable works	Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos 1950s Ghost Rider Jack Kirby inker
Awards	National Cartoonists Society Award, 1985 Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame, 2007 Inkwell Awards Joe Sinnott Hall of Fame (2013)

Richard Bache "Dick" Ayers (April 28, 1924 – May 4, 2014) was an American comic book artist and cartoonist best known for his work as one of Jack Kirby's inkers during the late-1950s and 1960s period known as the Silver Age of Comics, including on some of the earliest issues of Marvel Comics' The Fantastic Four. He is the signature penciler of Marvel's World War II comic Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, drawing it for a 10-year run, and he co-created Magazine Enterprises' 1950s Western-horror character the Ghost Rider, a version of which he would draw for Marvel in the 1960s.

Ayers was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2007.

Ayers was born April 28, 1924 in Ossining, New York, the son of John Bache Ayers and Gladys Minnerly Ayers. He was in the 13th generation, he said, of the Ayers family that had settled in Newbury, Massachusetts in 1635. He published his first comic strip, Radio Ray, in the military newspaper Radio Post in 1942 while serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II.

Ayers broke into comics with unpublished work done for Western Publishing's Dell Comics imprint. "I approached them," Ayers said in a 1996 interview. "I had a story written and drawn. They wanted to wrap a book around it.... I got into it, but Dell decided to scrap the project. ... It was an adventure thing, boy and girl; the boy wanted to be a trumpet player. The girl kept feeding the jukebox and he'd played along to Harry James or whatever sort of thing. ... It didn't make it, but it got me started where I wanted to be in the business."Ayers in