George Wunder
| George Wunder | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
April 24, 1912 New York City |
| Died | December 13, 1987 (aged 75) New Milford, Connecticut |
| Nationality | American |
| Area(s) | Cartoonist, Writer, Artist, Inker |
|
Notable works
|
Terry and the Pirates |
| Awards |
United States Air Force Exceptional Service Award, 1963 National Cartoonists Society's Silver T-Square Award, 1970 |
George S. Wunder (April 24, 1912 – December 13, 1987) was a cartoonist best known for his 26 years illustrating the Terry and the Pirates comic strip.
Born in Manhattan, Wunder grew up in Kingston, New York. As a youth, he planned a career as a professional comics artist. Other than correspondence courses, including the International Correspondence School art course, he was a self-taught artist. At the age of 24, he began as a staff artist at the Associated Press, where he worked alongside illustrator Noel Sickles and sports cartoonist Tom Paprocki. At AP, Wunder illustrated fiction and various editorial cartoon features, such as "Can Hitler Beat the Russian Jinx?"
During World War II, he served in the Army from 1942 to 1946. Returning to the Associated Press after World War II, he drew the strip See for Yourself in 1946 for AP Newsfeatures.
In 1946, when Milton Caniff left Terry and the Pirates, there were about 100 artists who applied for the job, according to Caniff. Wunder submitted samples, and the Tribune-News Syndicate chose Wunder as Caniff's replacement (with former Caniff assistant Lee Elias a close runner-up). Wunder's first Terry and the Pirates appeared in newspapers on December 30, 1946, launching the story "Trouble in Tibet". Comics historian Don Markstein noted the transition:
Initially, Wunder drew the strip so it was similar to that of Caniff and Sickles, but he soon developed his own distinctive style. Hotshot Charlie, for example, was drawn in a more openly humorous manner than before. In 1953, Canada Dry offered a "premium giveaway" with a case of its ginger ale — one minibook in a trilogy series of Terry and the Pirates strips by Wunder, printed by Harvey Comics. Throughout the 1950s, the Sunday pages used color for psychological effect. One Wunder panel from that period has no blue or green shadows as one might expect; the panel was colored only with orange, red and yellow. In another, Terry is colored green in front, and his back is a yellow-orange. Wunder drew dramatic and highly detailed pictures, but comics historian Maurice Horn claimed it was difficult to tell one character from another and wrote that Wunder's stories lacked Caniff's essential humor. At the end of the 1950s, Hotshot Charlie was dropped from the strip, which was drawn and colored in a more sedate manner with careful attention to the airplanes flown by Terry Lee and his friends.
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