Gardner Fox | |
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Portrait of Gardner Fox by Gil Kane
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Born | Gardner Francis Cooper Fox May 20, 1911 Brooklyn, New York, United States |
Died | December 24, 1986 | (aged 75)
Nationality | American |
Area(s) | Writer |
Pseudonym(s) | Jefferson Cooper Bart Sommers Paul Dean Ray Gardner Lynna Cooper Rod Gray Larry Dean Robert Starr Don, Ed, Warner and Michael Blake Tex and Willis Blane Ed Carlisle Edgar Weston Tex Slade Eddie Duane |
Notable works
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Golden Age: Doctor Fate; Flash; Hawkman; Justice Society of America; Sandman; Starman. Silver Age: Atom; Batgirl; Hawkman; Justice League of America; Zatanna; |
Awards |
Alley Award
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Alley Award
Gardner Francis Cooper Fox (May 20, 1911 – December 24, 1986) was an American writer known best for creating numerous comic book characters for DC Comics. Comic book historians estimate that he wrote more than 4,000 comics stories, including 1,500 for DC Comics.
Fox is known as the co-creator of DC Comics heroes the Flash, Hawkman, Doctor Fate and the original Sandman, and was the writer who first teamed those and other heroes as the Justice Society of America. Fox introduced the concept of the Multiverse to DC Comics in the 1961 story "Flash of Two Worlds!"
Gardner F. Fox was born in Brooklyn, New York. Fox recalled being inspired at an early age by the great fantasy fiction writers. On or about his eleventh birthday, he been given The Gods of Mars and The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, books which "opened up a complete new world for me." He "read all of Burroughs, Harold Lamb, Talbot Mundy," maintaining copies "at home in my library" some 50 years later.
Fox received a law degree from St. John's College and was admitted to the New York bar in 1935. He practiced for about two years, but as the Great Depression continued he began writing for DC Comics editor Vin Sullivan. Debuting as a writer in the pages of Detective Comics, Fox "intermittently contributed tales to nearly every book in the DC lineup during the Golden Age." He was a frequent contributor of prose stories to the pulp science fiction magazines of the 1930s and 1940s.