Norman Saunders

Norman Blaine Saunders (January 1, 1907 – March 7, 1989) was a prolific commercial artist who produced paintings for pulp magazines, paperbacks, men's adventure magazines, comic books and trading cards. On occasion, he signed his work with his middle name, Blaine.

Saunders was born in Minot, North Dakota, but his earliest memories were from the family's homestead near Bemidji in northern Minnesota where he and his parents lived in a one-room cabin. He recalled moving north at age seven, to Roseau County on the Canada–US border, where his father was a game warden and a touring Presbyterian minister. "A tribe of the Chippewa Indians were there and by the time I was 12, was practically a blood brother."

Saunders' career was launched when his contributions to Captain Billy's Whiz Bang resulted in a job with Fawcett Publications, where he was employed from 1928 to 1934. He explained in 1983 the events that led to his arrival at Fawcett's offices in Robbinsdale, Minnesota:

I was hitchhiking, got into this Model-T Ford with a big trunk strapped up and these two guys in front. One of them had a gun, a rifle. He said, "Keep your eye peeled on the back, kid, see if there are any police or motorcycle cops or something." What the hell was this? These two guys had robbed somebody, or tried to, out in North Dakota, and they had stolen this car from some farmer and were trying to get away. As we got to the outskirts of Bemidji, I was getting awful nervous. There at the town they saw a sand pit with a big hole dug out of it, and they took this car over and got out and pushed it in. They went that way, and I went this way. That night I caught a freight train to Minneapolis. I took a streetcar ride to the end of the line, and there was a two-story bank there and a big sign: "Robbinsdale, the home of Fawcett Publications." I said, "By gosh and by gracious, we got us a real true publisher here!" There was where they were printing Captain Billy's Whiz Bang.

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