Dan Spiegle

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American comics artist and cartoonist

title: "Dan Spiegle" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1920-births", "2017-deaths", "20th-century-american-artists", "21st-century-american-artists", "american-comics-artists", "chouinard-art-institute-alumni", "dc-comics-people", "disney-comics-artists", "golden-age-comics-creators", "inkpot-award-winners", "marvel-comics-people", "people-from-grays-harbor-county,-washington", "silver-age-comics-creators", "united-states-navy-personnel-of-world-war-ii"] description: "American comics artist and cartoonist" topic_path: "history" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Spiegle" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American comics artist and cartoonist ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox comics creator"]

Field	Value
birth_date
birth_place	Cosmopolis, Washington, U.S.
death_date
art	y
notable works	Hopalong Cassidy
Scooby-Doo
Nemesis
Blackhawk
Crossfire
Maverick
awards	Inkpot Award, 1983
::

Biography

Early life and career

Dan Spiegle was born in Cosmopolis, Washington, in 1920, and raised there and in Honolulu, Hawaii, and northern California. After high school, Spiegle "found myself in the Navy", where he worked on the base newspaper and on insignias for airplanes. Following his discharge in 1946, Spiegle enrolled at the Chouinard Art Institute of Los Angeles on the G.I. Bill.

Spiegle began his professional cartoonist career in 1949 drawing the comic strip Hopalong Cassidy for the Mirror Enterprises Syndicate. He continued to draw this strip after it was bought out by King Features in 1951, until it was cancelled in 1955.

Dell and Gold Key Comics

His earliest confirmed work in comic books is penciling and inking a one-page advertisement for Wheaties breakfast cereal, "Preacher Roe Sparks in Pitching Duel", in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #144 (cover-dated Sept. 1952). His first story in the medium was the 16-page Annie Oakley Western story "The Bushwacker", by an unknown writer, in Dell Comics' Annie Oakley and Tagg #7 (June 1956). Through the remainder of the decade he drew primarily Western stories for such Dell titles as Four Color, Rex Allen, Queen of the West Dale Evans, and others, as well as that publisher's Four Color feature "Spin and Marty", based on the segment from the Walt Disney TV program The Mickey Mouse Club. In 1959, he started drawing Four Color stories for such licensed TV series features Colt .45, Maverick, The Rifleman, Rawhide, and Lawman, later adding the Maverick and Lawman spinoff comic books, among others. He soon expanded to drawing Four Color features of TV series ranging from The Untouchables to Sea Hunt.

Spiegle began work on Maverick comics before any publicity photographs of series star James Garner were available, so he met the actor on the set and the resultant drawings of Garner in the subsequent comics are eerily exact. In 1972, Spiegle explained in an interview:

Spiegle continued on these titles as licensor Western Publishing Company moved away from its business partner Dell to publish comics itself under its Gold Key Comics imprint. Through the 1960s, Spiegle worked on Space Family Robinson, which made its debut three years before TV's Lost in Space, The Green Hornet, and The Invaders, as well as such titles as Korak, Son of Tarzan, Brothers of the Spear, and many of Gold Key's mystery/occult titles. Spiegle and writer Donald F. Glut co-created the Doctor Spektor character in Mystery Comics Digest #5 (July 1972). Spiegle drew the comic book adaptation of the 1979 Walt Disney Pictures feature film The Black Hole.

Later comics career

In addition to his naturalistic work adapting live-action television, Spiegle also handled more cartoony material such as Gold Key's Saturday-morning TV animation title, Hanna-Barbera Scooby-Doo... Where Are You!, starting with issue #16 (Feb. 1973). Five issues later marked his first teaming with writer Mark Evanier, with whom he continued to the final Gold Key issue, #30 (Feb. 1975). The two worked on the character again from 1977 to 1979 when Marvel Comics licensed the property, doing all nine issues of Scooby-Doo, and reprised their team-up in 1996 when Archie Comics acquired the Scooby-Doo license.

Spiegle later moved to DC Comics, and worked on many of their features, such as Unknown Soldier, Tomahawk, Jonah Hex, and Teen Titans Spotlight until the early 1990s. His most notable work was the "Nemesis" backup series in The Brave and the Bold with writer Cary Burkett, and on Blackhawk with Mark Evanier. He and writer Bob Rozakis created the character Mister E in Secrets of Haunted House #31 (Dec. 1980).

Although the character Crossfire was created by Mark Evanier and Will Meugniot in DNAgents published by Eclipse Comics, Spiegle penciled and inked every issue of the comic book Crossfire, as well as Crossfire and Rainbow, and Whodunnit?, which featured Crossfire. Evanier and Spiegle also did all five issues of Hollywood Superstars for Marvel's Epic Comics imprint.

Spiegle provided the art for Indiana Jones: Thunder in the Orient (1993–1994) and Indiana Jones and the Spear of Destiny (1995), published by Dark Horse Comics. In the mid-1990s, he drew the short-lived revival of Terry and the Pirates after Tim and Greg Hildebrandt left. Spiegle worked with the Bank Street College of Education as an illustrator of a number of "Bank Street Classic Tales" published in Boys' Life magazine, Bible stories for the American Bible Society, and in 2008, he teamed up with Evanier again for a new Crossfire story, drawing the character's portion of the cover of, and the eight-page story "Too Rich to Be Guilty" in About Comics' fancifully numbered Many Happy Returns #2008. With no cover date on it or on another work that year — pages 3 to 20 of "Ragin' Abe Simpson and the Flying Hellfish in: War is Smelly" in Bongo Comics Group's licensed TV title Simpsons Comics #144 — it is difficult to ascertain which was his last published comics work but it is likely the Graphic Classics adaptation of Clarence E. Mulford's "Hold Up", penned by Tim Lasiuta, published in March 2011.

Spiegle died on January 28, 2017, at the age of 96.

Awards

Spiegle received an Inkpot Award in 1983.

References

Coates, John. (June 10, 2005). "Dan Spiegle: A Life In Comic Art". [[TwoMorrows Publishing]].
(July 7, 2013). "Dan Spiegle". [[Lambiek.
(1990). "Arts and Entertainment Fads (Encyclopedia of Fads, Volume I)". [[Routledge]].
[http://www.comics.org/credit/name/Dan%20Spiegle/sort/chrono/ Dan Spiegle] at the [[Grand Comics Database]].
Gheno, Dan. (1972). "An Interview with Dan Spiegle". Graphic Story World via DanGheno.net.
Shaw, Scott. (April 2, 2003). "''Walt Disney Mickey Mouse (Super Secret Agent)''". Oddball Comics.
Markstein, Don. (2007). "Doctor Spektor". [[Don Markstein's Toonopedia]].
Arnold, Mark. (July 2016). "Adapting Disney's ''The Black Hole''". TwoMorrows Publishing.
Trumbull, John. (May 2013). "Nemesis Balancing the Scales". TwoMorrows Publishing.
Manning, Matthew K.. (2010). "DC Comics Year By Year A Visual Chronicle". [[Dorling Kindersley]].
Coates p. 60
"''Many Happy Returns'' #2008".
Wickline, Dan. (January 30, 2017). "Blackhawk And Crossfire Artist Dan Spiegle Passes Away At Age 96". [[Bleeding Cool]].
(February 2, 2017). "Dan Spiegle". CoastalView.com.
"Inkpot Award Winners". Hahn Library Comic Book Awards Almanac.

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