Jack Keller (comics)

Jack Keller
Jack Keller c.1964
Born	Jack R. Keller June 16, 1922 Reading, Pennsylvania
Died	January 2, 2003 (aged 80) Reading, Pennsylvania
Nationality	American
Area(s)	Penciller, Inker
Notable works	Kid Colt

Jack R. Keller (June 16, 1922 – January 2, 2003) was an American comic book artist best known for his 1950s and 1960s work on the Marvel Comics Western character Kid Colt, and for his later hot rod and racecar series at Charlton Comics.

The self-taught Keller broke into comics in 1941, a year after graduating from West Reading High School, creating a single-appearance feature called "The Whistler" (no relation to the radio-show character) in Dell Comics' War Stories #5 (1942; no cover date). This led to work the following year with Quality Comics, where he worked in lesser or greater capacities on such comic-book series as Blackhawk and such features as "Man Hunter" and "Spin Shaw". As well, Keller drew backgrounds for Will Eisner's eight-page newspaper Sunday-supplement comic The Spirit, working with serviceman Eisner's World War II fill-in artist, Lou Fine, and such Fiction House features as "Suicide Smith" in the aviation-themed Wings Comics.

In 1950, Keller became a staff artist at Atlas, publisher Martin Goodman's 1950s predecessor to Marvel Comics. The dependable, unflashy Keller drew Western, horror and, working with writer Carl Wessler, crime stories.