Sy Barry

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Sy Barry at the drawing table.

Seymour "Sy" Barry, born in 1928, was a comic strip artist. On Junior High School, a teacher advised him to give a shot at High School of Art and Design in New York. Among thousands of candidates, Sy was one of the hundred who got a place on the school in 1943.

When he was finished with his studies, Sy got to work as an assistant for his older brother, Dan Barry. Dan was responsible for the Flash Gordon comic strip, and Sy worked on the strip as an inker. After having this job for a while, he was even to allowed to pencil the strips from time to time, and he often did uncredited stand-in jobs for Dan.

[edit] The Phantom

The Phantom, drawn by Sy Barry.

Having worked on both Tarzan and Flash Gordon, he went on to draw the world's most successfull adventure comic strip, The Phantom for 33 years from 1962 to 1994, succeeding Ray Moore and Wilson McCoy. Sy is credited for giving the Phantom his modern look, which have not changed since he took over the steering wheel on the strip. Creator Lee Falk liked his drawing style so much that he quickly decided to modernize the entire comic strip, giving Bengalla a black President and the Jungle Patrol a black colonel.

Sy frequently used pencil artists on the strip, working primarily as an inker (although he often drew entire stories when time permit it), like George Olesen, Joe Giella, Bob Forgione, Andre LeBlanc, and Carmine Infantino.

At the height of their popularity, Lee Falk and Sy Barry's Phantom stories were read by over a 100 million people every day, in newspapers as well as comic books. His stories are still irregularly published in countries such as Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Australia, in comic books or hardcover collections.

[edit] Personal life

Tired with the stressing deadlines he constantly had to face, Barry retired from the newspaper strip in 1994. He now use most of his time to develop his painting skills, and likes to do landscape painting. He have also painted the Phantom several times, and some of his motives have been used as covers for Phantom comics around the world.

He currently resides in Long Island with his wife Simmy. The couple have three children together.

Among his recent appearances and meeting with fans, was his trip to Scandinavia in 2001, where he met Norwegian and Swedish fans at several comic book conventions, and an appearance at the 2005 San Diego Comic Con.