Newsday reports the death last week of veteran artist Frank Springer at age 79.
Springer was a gregarious and practical man who labored for hours a day in his backyard studio, said his son, Jon Springer of Brooklyn. “He’d be out there basically all day long, morning until dinnertime.”
The artist would listen to jazz and opera while he worked, and he never got too high-minded about his outstanding talent, his son said. “He was a normal, conservative kind of guy,” Jon Springer said.
Frank Springer drew for a wide variety of companies, including DC Comics and Marvel. He also illustrated an adult-themed satire, “The Adventures of Phoebe Zeit-Geist,” a comic that Springer considered one of his best works.
Springer worked on Nick Fury, the Dazzler, Batman, and may other characters of the Silver and Bronze Ages. He worked on comics strips and creator-owned comics and did it all with style and craftsmanship. For more on his work and life, there’s this fairly recent interview, the Mark Evanier obit, and Springer’s Wikipedia entry..
When I was a kid, I had a bunch of Springer illustrated Invaders issues. I loved those old torn up copies!
I enjoyed his Nat Lamp stuff. Good for him that he continued working as a senior and also got into painting! What a “go getter” spirit…
Springer was a major talent who contributed so much to our artform.
Oddly enough, some of my favorite work from him was the unenviable task following Steranko on Nick Fury.
And when he inked the other great Frank, Robbins, it was magic.
We miss you, Frank.
When I was a kid, I would never have bought a comics with Frank Brunner. For me, in France, Springer was the penciller of this silly Dazzler.
Now, 20 years later, and after having seen him, like Drew geraci said, inking for exemple Frank Robbins quite well (like on Human Fly), and seeing as how today a lot of modern artists really don’t know how to draw a beautiful woman whithout making her look like a slut, I can see how talented Frank Springer was.
Dazzler was silly for dure, but she was nice, she was a woman, not a plastic doll full of air.
Very sorry to hear this. While I never actually got to meet him, years ago I got to ink Frank’s art on Final Weapon, a back-up story in one of TSR’s comic books, 13 Assassin. His art was a lot of fun to work over.
Bummer.
Frank Springer was the husband of my high school drama teacher Mrs. Springer. I had the privilege of getting to know him during the PTA community shows I was involved in as a teenager. I remember discovering that he was a cartoonist and suddenly getting very shy around him. C’mon, he worked for Marvel Comics! It wasn’t until one rehearsal he saw me wearing a Punisher skull t-shirt (it was actually a Mike Zeck style skull shirt from the mini-series…nerd up!) that we talked comics. Mr. Springer commented “Ah, The Punisher! The man with the biggest chest in comics!” That was it for me. I became the fanboy kid following him around asking about friggin’ Dazzler whenever I saw him. He always indulged me with an anecdote about his career. I thought he was just the coolest guy.
Mr. Springer was a class act. He LOVED being in his wife’s theater productions. He was a talll athletic guy who sang and danced with great gusto. I remember him to be energetic, encouraging and fun to be around. The Springers were great people to have spent time with during my adolescences.
When the teenage malcontent with the Punisher shirt grew up a little and latched onto the subversive genius of Michael O’Donogue (“Mr. Mike” to you) I discovered that Mr. Mike’s legendary naked-lady comic Phoebe Zeitgeist was illustrated by none other than Mr. Springer. It blew my fucking mind wide-ass open. I knew about Mr. Springer’s superhero stuff and that he worked for Mad and National Lampoon but I couldn’t possibly imagine Mr. Springer collaborating with Mr. Mike…but there you go. Years later I tracked down a mint copy of the only Phoebe collection. It’s from the late 70s. Cost a few bucks, but it’s one of my prized books in my nerdass collection.
Rest in Peace, Mr. Springer. You were one hell of a cartoonist and guy I was very fond off. My sympathies go out to the Springer family.
Like Chris, I did shows in high school with the Springers. Frank’s wife was a huge influence on my life and the shows I did with both of them are some of the fondest memories I have. I didn’t find out until years later that Frank was a comic book artist. I originally intended to be an actress. Strange to think that years later, I now report on comics, and movies based on him. I wish I had known of his artistic talent back then. To me, he was just an incredibly wonderful man and they were an incredible couple.
Sympathy and love to the whole Springer family.
Chris, Jenna and I, as well and many other students and adults had the privelage of working with Mr. Springer in numerous Harborfields PTA Scholarship shows. He was always friendly and full of energy. He had a bright smile and got along with everybody. I can remember how tall and distinguished he always looked and the clear eloquent voice he had. He would design the posters we used to advertise our shows and even these simple drawings were works of art. I didn’t know at the time that he was such an accomplished artist. I still have some of the posters.
I teach Kindergarten as well as summer theatre camp and I often refer back to the lessons Mrs. Springer taught me and the experiences she made possible for me.
I know this is a huge loss for the family and my family’s love and sympathy go out to their family.
Knowing Frank and Barbara Springer during our years on LI was a delight. We enjoyed his storytelling and admired his amazing artistic talent. We send our deepest sympathies to Barbara and his loving family.
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