Howie Post (1927-2010)

Though he was not a member of the National Cartoonists Society, I felt it would be most appropriate to conclude this week's series with a look at Howard Post who, sadly, passed away recently. Tom Sawyer provided some wonderful excerpts from his memoirs for us to enjoy this past week. Howie Post was one of the gang of cartoonists with whom Tom had worked and laughed in the early days of his career.


Tom wrote, "I don't know if you're familiar with [Howie's] work, but he was part of our circle in NY, and later, for me, in LA, when he came out here to take a shot at TV comedy-writing. Interesting guy. In fact it was through Howie that I met the people who gave me my start in TV."

Back in 2005 my friend and fellow contributor to Drawn!, Jay Stephens, wrote this wonderful appreciation of Howie Post's accomplishments. I must admit, I had not realized until I read Jay's article that Post was responsible for creating (among others) the iconic Harvey Comics characters Spooky...


... and "The Good Li'l Devil" Hot Stuff (who was a childhood favourite of mine and was the inspiration for my avatar, which you see in the top right corner of this page).

During the late '60s Post also created a short lived (but still much beloved) DC comic called "Anthro."




And perhaps most famously, Howie Post created a nationally syndicated comic strip called "The Dropouts" which ran from 1968 to 1982.


There's an obituary at North Jersey.com that includes a great photo of the artist at his drawing table...


... and Craig Yoe has a very nice appreciation of Howie Post (and shares one of his early comic book stories) on his blog.

* Many thanks to Tom Sawyer for sharing memories of Howie Post with us.

* Thanks also to Heritage Auctions for allowing me to present scans from their archives to illustrate this post.