Harry "A" Chesler
| Harry "A" Chesler | |
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Chesler in undated photo
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| Born | Harry Chesler January 12, 1897 or January 12, 1898 (sources differ) Kaunas, Lithuania or Jersey City, New Jersey, U.S. (sources differ) |
| Died | December , 1981 age 83 or 84 (sources differ) |
| Nationality | American |
| Area(s) | Editor, Publisher |
Harry Chesler (January 12, 1897, or January 12, 1898 (sources differ)– December 1981), often credited as Harry "A" Chesler, with the "A" an affectation rather than a true initial, was the entrepreneur behind the first comic book "packager" of the late-1930s to 1940s Golden Age of comic books, supplying comics features and complete comic books to publishers testing the waters of the emerging medium.
Chesler's studio, which began in either 1935 or 1936, provided early work to artists and writers including Jack Cole, Jack Binder, Otto Binder, Charles Biro, Mort Meskin, and many others.
Chesler was born either in Kaunas, Lithuania in January 12, 1897, or, as given by his United States Social Security data, on January 12, 1898, in Jersey City, New Jersey. One source gives his birth name as Aaron Czesler, nicknamed Ari, the phonetic equivalent of Harry. That source says his parents, who were Jewish, married in 1895 and had two other children, Lena (b. 1896) and Sadie (b. 1900); the family immigrated to the U.S. in 1903, changing their name to Chesler.
Most often credited as Harry "A" Chesler — the "A" was an affectation rather than a true initial, and Chesler sometimes quipped it stood for "anything" — Chesler was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, grew up in East Orange, where he graduated from East Orange High School in June 1915. He worked in his father's grocery and in the furniture business. He moved with his family to The Bronx, New York City in 1917. There is father bought a grocery wholesale firm at 1493 Zerega Avenue, with the family living nearby at 2903 Lyon Avenue. Harry Chesler registered for the draft on September 12, 1918, and served as a U.S. Army private during World War I.
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