Tom Sutton

Tom Sutton (April 15, 1937, North Adams, Massachusetts - May 3, 2002, Amesbury, Massachusetts) was an American comic book artist who sometimes used the pseudonyms Sean Todd and Dementia. He is best known for his contributions to work Marvel Comics and Warren Publishing's line of black-and-white horror-comics magazines, particularly as the first story-artist<!--NOTE: as opposed to cover-artist, which was Frank Frazetta--> of the popular character Vampirella.

Biography

Early life and career

Sutton was raised in North Adams, Massachusetts, where father Harry was a plumbing, heating and air conditioning shopkeeper, and a machinist and gunsmith for General Electric and others. Influenced by the comic strip art of photorealist draftsman Milt Caniff and the illustrative Alex Raymond and Hal Foster, as well as by the EC line of 1950s horror comics, Sutton began drawing nudie schoolyard art for paying classmates.

He enlisted in the U.S. Air Force after graduating from high school in 1955, and worked on art projects while stationed at Fort Francis E. Warren, near Laramie, Wyoming. Later, stationed at Itami base in northern Japan, Sutton created the Caniff-style adventure strip F.E.A.F Dragon for a base publication. Sutton's first professional comics work, it led to a long-hoped-for placement on the military's Stars and Stripes newspaper.

At its Tokyo office of Stars and Stripes, he drew the comic strip Johnny Craig, a character name inspired by the EC artist Johnny Craig....
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