<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=2>In a message dated 12/3/2001 7:09:57 AM Eastern Standard Time, SRoweCanoe@aol.com writes:<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">taken from an Usenet post by Mark Evanier:<BR>
<BR>
Chase Craig, who edited as many great comics as anyone who ever lived,<BR>
passed away last night at the age of 91. He was recuperating from an<BR>
operation to correct injuries he had suffered in a fall three weeks<BR>
earlier.<BR>
<BR>
Chase was born in Texas and moved to Los Angeles in the thirties to<BR>
get into the animation business. His fellow Texan, Tex Avery, gave<BR>
him a job in the story unit at Warner Brothers, where he worked for<BR>
some time without -- for some reason -- ever getting a screen credit.<BR>
After a few years, he decided to turn his attention to print<BR>
cartooning and left...only to be quickly tapped by Western Printing<BR>
and Lithography to write and draw stories for its first Bugs Bunny<BR>
comics. Chase produced over half of the first issue of LOONEY TUNES<BR>
AND MERRIE MELODIES comics, issued under the Dell label, including the<BR>
authorship of the MARY JANE & SNIFFLES strip. (Sniffles the Mouse had<BR>
been a character in the cartoons but Chase came up with the format for<BR>
this long-running strip, naming the character of Mary Jane after his<BR>
then-recent bride.)<BR>
<BR>
Western soon hired him as an editor and, through the mid-seventies, he<BR>
worked out of their Los Angeles office, editing (at one point) a comic<BR>
per day, at a time when it was not uncommon for one of their comics to<BR>
sell over a million copies. He was the editor who kept Carl Barks<BR>
producing DONALD DUCK and UNCLE SCROOGE stories, and Paul Murry doing<BR>
MICKEY MOUSE and so many others. He was one of the creators of<BR>
MAGNUS, ROBOT FIGHTER and worked over the years with an array of<BR>
talent that included not only the above but also Michael Maltese, Alex<BR>
Toth, Russ Manning, Dan Spiegle, Warren Tufts, Pete Alvarado, Mike<BR>
Royer, Gaylord DuBois, Don Glut, Tony Strobl, Phil DeLara and so many<BR>
more...<BR>
<BR>
...including me. I've always said I had two mentors in the comic book<BR>
business -- Chase Craig and Jack Kirby. Chase bought the first<BR>
scripts I ever had published in this country and he taught me an awful<BR>
lot about how to pace and structure a story. I wish I could remember<BR>
a tenth of it...<BR>
<BR>
A fuller obit/bio will be up on my website in a few days, and<BR>
appearing in COMICS BUYER'S GUIDE.<BR>
------------------------------<BR>
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Vegas, Hollywood, Stan Freberg and other stuff.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
</BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
<BR>
<BR>
Steven Rowe<BR>
SRoweCanoe@aol.com</FONT></HTML>